WeeMac2012 Review and pictures

I had been looking forward to this weekend for ages and when we all enjoyed that glorious weather a short while ago and temperatures hit record levels in Scotland I could barely contain my excitement. I have not ridden in Scotland since way back in 1987, when I toured on my lumbering Suzuki GS550E. However as the date for the WeeMac drew closer the weather forecasts got progressively worse as rain and even hail pounded down here in Worcestershire. I seriously considered not coming at all and as I climbed aboard my Thundercat early on Friday morning there was a layer ice on the roofs of the cars parked nearby. It was biting cold but the cat was purring smoothly away under me, seemingly revelling in being back on the road, and I felt good at being back aboard my trusted old friend.


Frosty start in Worcestershire

A dull ride up to Chesterfield was despatched without drama where I met up with YZFJohn, Robertcains and Ellie. They greeted me a warming cuppa and most stale rich tea biscuits I have ever tasted!


Forming up at Nick and Ellies

We fuelled up and quickly blasted up to Thirsk to meet up with Greencat. Ellie had some of the widest throw-over panniers I have ever seen and as she weaved confidently through the traffic she was literally mm’s from clipping the door mirrors of several cars. One driver was so transfixed by her precision that he completely forgot to brake and ran into the back of the car in front! More drama came when the covers she had fitted to panniers to protect her kit from the rain that seemed inevitable decided to start coming off. After a couple of attempts to secure them we gave in and pressed onto to Thirsk. The others all had heated grips and sophisticated thermal clothing; I had my £4 woollies Villa gloves as a liner and a freebie micro-fleece under my normal biking jacket. You are all softies!! Who needs all this high tech kit?? Or am I just a cheapskate?? Answers on a postcard....

We met up Greencat and were somewhat shocked to note his normally glistening 848 was actually a bit grubby! After a brief halt for dinner where I would have enjoyed my customary salad but for the waitress getting my order wrong (I was forced to eat sausages and mash...), Greencat led us ever further north. He knows some great back roads so rather than trundle up the A1 we cut across country along some more challenging roads taking in Barnards Castle and enjoyed a rest halt atop the beautiful Hartside summit. The road up was great fun and the road away off the moors looked even better. So I was a bit disappointed when we didn’t actually continue along that road....one for another day


The approach to Hartside


Hartside's inviting moorland roads


Stunning spot for a cuppa!

We continued to slice our way across country at a decent, but not ludicrous pace and it was good to see how much Ellie was enjoying her recently acquired Triumph 650 Daytona. She is noticeably quicker and more confident than when I rode with her last year. We had to stop a couple of times to allow Greencat to re-fix his French luggage kit to his Italian bike...a combination asking for trouble if ever there was one! Ellie's panniers continued to cause fun and games and even a low loader with a digger on it had to go wide to get past her as we waited for Greencat to re-assemble his luggage system again!


Greencat putting his bike back together again

We eventually rolled into the highly imposing Broadmeadows having enjoyed a superb ride up. A big thanks to Greencat for picking such an excellent route. I was stopping down the road in the somewhat less impressive, but still charming Old Schoolhouse along with YZFJohn, Eddie990, Littlecat and Millie riding Dave. We dubbed it the leper colony! Meanwhile Terry Lees and his crew were ensconced in a couple of B&Bs in nearby Selkirk.


Not bad, not bad at all....Broadmeadows

After dropping our kit off at the leper colony we joined the main party back up Broadmeadows to eat and socialise for the night.
Rosco and Robcat had raided a local supermarket for supplies and the whole group mucked in to unload and then prep up a stream of pizzas for everybody. The drink soon began to flow and new friends and old got on well as the group gelled through that traditional biker medium...taking the piss! For me it was the first time I had met many such Panzerbuilder, Furball, Eddie990, MervsyD etc. Bikers, whatever their backgrounds are generally great people and the Thundercat forum is blessed with some of the best, it really is. We all joined to wish Littlecat a happy birthday too and Ellie had hand crafted an elaborate cake for her... The evening raced by and before I knew it was the wee small hours. Rosco had showed a few of us how to play his favourite card game...Arseholes (don’t ask). In fact he taught me so well that I won three games on the trot before we gave up and focussed on downing some delicious single malt whiskey...forgetting in my case that I actually don’t like whiskey!! In the meantime Littlecat in a bid to return to the leper colony in the dark, had made such a comprehensive hash of walking down a driveway and turning right that the local plod had come to her aid...a numpty point nomination I think!!


MevsyD and Rosco enjoys Ellies home baked pizza...


Washing the pizza down


Robertcains and Panzerbuilder


Littlecat enjoys the cake Ellie baked for her birthday


Some rowdies outside lowering the tone


Rosco, smiling before he got thrashed at his favourite card game


Break out the whiskies!


Rosco in a traditional pose

Up at 8am the next morning, the bikes all gathered up at Broadmeadows for the off...and 24 bikes made for an impressive sight as we headed out keen to enjoy the delights of the Scottish border country. OK this is a Thundercat forum, but many have moved onto pastures new, so while the underrated 600 was the most common bike on show we had a good variety of machines from sports bikes to big adventure bikes. I thought it was great to see so many different machines all being enjoyed to the full. Eight were Thundercats, 8.5 if you consider that Rosco’s mount for the weekend was a bit of hybrid of his and Dirtbike Dave’s machines!


Forming up at Broadmeadows


Some people were ahsamed of their bikes, but he came out to play in the end

It was straight into the action on the A708 a fantastic if somewhat bumpy road in places, that twists and turns alongside the hauntingly beautiful Loch St.Mary. The surrounding backdrop was equally stunning and despite still being pretty cold it felt almost a privilege to ride such roads in such a setting. The first stop for fuel at Moffat came up all too soon and I was amused by the level of chaos we caused, 24 bikes caused some stress for the poor lass on the till.
From here we picked up the slightly more open and sweeping A701 which overlooked the A74(M) for a while, which provided a neat contrast. We were soon enjoying the glorious Delveen Pass and I was please when Rosco pulled up the line near a waterfall so we could take it in properly and snap of a few photos to freeze it all in our memories. I had been really enjoying myself in group of 5 or 6 bikes including YZFJohn and GSXR mounted Julian amongst others. We were all having fun without things getting too pressured or threatening. We were not even halfway through the day yet and the memories were coming thick and fast. We should look back and savour times like these.


Bikes everywhere at the first fuel stop in Moffat




This why we are here...the The Devleen Pass

Our lunch halt came up all too quickly with about 130 miles or so covered and weather had held off pretty well up to now. New Galloway was a little overwhelmed by the group, but we still had an enjoyable lunch in an idyllic spot. I even got over the shock of being served an ACTUAL salad! Good call Rosco (again...)


The idiylic (until we showed up...) lunch halt



Rosco took an interesting route out of the car park...

After lunch the fun continued as we sped across country to the next fuel halt at Strathaven. The roads were challenging and very bumpy, but for me this section provided one the biggest highlights of a memorable weekend. A group of maybe 12 or 15 bikes kept a neat high speed formation, peeling off into bend after bend one after another. The view ahead a line of fast moving bikes, the view in my mirrors the same: It was like piloting a Spitfire a tree top height in company with the rest of your squadron on a daring cross channel raid...what a buzz!!
On a more sensible level the marking system was working immaculately, but Ellie and I had fun marking a junction at an unknown town whilst variously moonwalking, flashing and generally mucking about much to the bemusement of the locals and two bikers who had nothing to do with us!
At Strathhaven Tomcom joined us and we did the compulsory Thundercat line up and group shots, roping in a somewhat stunned trolley boy from the local Sainsburys to take some of the shots. BillyW had already turned for home by this point so the Thundercat line up was one short. Tomcom was relieved though, as Billys bike is yellow...


The traditional line up shot...

From here the fun continued as Tomcom joined in on his first group rideout and even a full on snowstorm failed to dampen spirits as we headed for Rosco’s place in Shotts. He had generously opened up his lovely home to us all and I am quite sure that this quiet sub-urban cul-de-sac had not seen the like of this before as we all rolled in en-masse. We then proceeded to demolish the healthy supply of choccy biccies and home made cakes that Mrs.Rosco had laid on for us. It reminded of the legendary tea stop back on BC1.


Julian braves the snow on his GSXR enroute to Rosco's


Rosco's pad is only slightly smaller than Broadmeadows...


I hope he has good neighbours, everybody needs them, they become good friends you know...


Rosco looks pretty busy, 24 teas and coffees please!



You are way too good at this pose...

The final leg of an increasingly memorable day was yet another challenging section, again bumpy in places, but the countryside remained as stunning as ever. Temperatures were dropping again by now and we even got splattered a couple of times by gritting trucks coming the other way. The line of bikes was stringing out by now and by the time Furball and I marked one of the last junctions we had a long wait until Eddie990 came past back marking Littlecat and her R6. He celebrated by pulling a big fat wheelie along an inviting straight...
The final few miles back to Broadmeadows were despatched without drama with Furball joining me in passing the stragglers. All the bikes rolled back into Broadmeadows after 230 miles of some of the most memorable riding That I have enjoyed on my trusty Thundercat. No accidents, no breakdowns, nobody got lost, only that unfortunate salad incident marred an otherwise perfect day!


Towards the end of the day and the Thundercat is looking pretty travel stained, but just check out that view...so typical of the day


No wonder Eddie990 couldn't resist a little wheelie here...

WeeMac 2012 was wrapped up with another evening of fun at Broadmeadows as we enjoyed a Spag Bog cooked superbly by Greencat. He had even wounded himself in the process...you can’t do enough for a good forum! Littlecat made another bid for numpty point fame by disc locking my bike rather than her own R6 but at least didn’t require any police assistance this evening! Once again the chat and laughs flowed as easily as the beer wine and Julian’s potent fruit punch, that tasted like Five alive and had a bigger kick than neat aviation fuel!
The snow had come down and settled overnight and I was hopeful that I would be stuck up there for another day or so, but it soon cleared in the morning.


Greencat smiling before slicing his thumb in two!


Essential supplies


Tucking in


Beer, food and bike racing on the telly!


Panzerbuilding tucking in


Snow capped Thundercat



Still snow on the ground as I sadly turned for home

So I was a little sad the next morning to split form the group at Selkirk and head the 277 miles home. I enjoyed a brisk solo run across the A7 before trundling down 38(!) junctions of the M6. I got home on my travel stained Thunercat, another 850 trouble free miles added to the clock. What a superb bike!


Back home after well over 800 miles the old girl deserved a clean...

All in it was a brilliant, memorable weekend on so many levels, roll on BC4!

A few mentions and thank yous:
Rosco and the organisational team
Mrs Rosco for the biccies and cakes
To my flat mates in leper colony for tolerating my snoring
To Robertcains for the whiskey
The four patient backmarkers, Greencat, MevsyD, Furball and Eddie990
To Littlecat for locking MY bike up during her one women numpty point quest
Rob and Lindsay for supporting the event despite not being able to join the ride outs...8.9 months pregnant...any excuse!
To everybody who came along...it was brilliant!

Very well said Radar, I concur most wholeheartedly.

Glad you enjoyed it Tony...

And thanks for another cracking write up...

Haste ye back (It means hurry up and come back)

Davie

Well done Tony, great write up. I appologise to the car drivers involved in a collision watching me and I appologise for the crappy rich tea biscuits that had been in the drawer a year or two lol. Funny how the choccy biscuits & Jaffa cakes never last that long!!

Great write up.

Btw, terrible coincidence that you hit the worst of the weather when you came through my home village.



(I turned it off again once you'd all gone. )
p.s. Got around to sorting out the suspension tonight. The front pre-load was showing three rings (hard) and the rear compression damper was set to 2 (damn hard), no wonder I had to hang on for dear life.
(I must have been messing around with it at the tail end of last year and never got around to finishing off what I was doing)

Superb write-up Radar!

The ride-outs organised throughout the year are a big part of the site and the reason many members have stayed, or come back, here despite changing their bike. Radar has captured the craic perfectly. If you haven't joined us for one of these yet - then this is what you're missing. There are several more planned this year. So why not join one?

Great pics and write up. I am most jealous :down:

Will make an effort to meet up with you dudes on a run soon hopefully.

love it..

Great write up Tony. It's like I was there.
Looking forward to the next one.

Cheers
Rosco

Superb, thanks Tony, thanks everyone who was there

fantastic write up as always tony wish ied gone

If anyone would like this review in Word format, for printing etc, then (subject to Radar's approval) if you PM me I can send it to you.

Chris

Nice one Tony, another great write up.

Fantastic write up as usual, they're getting that good that I may just stay at home all warm and just read about them.

Fantastic write up Tony , as we've all come to love . . . .

Might MCM or even MCN have an interest in such a write up ?

Tony, you didn't add that you did the whole weekend on about 8 hours sleep lol

This is great! I actually snorted me tea through my nose at some of the pic captions Really hope to be able to join in on one of these, sounds like brilliant fun