Tartan Rally

The Tartan Rally took place on the weekend of 5,6,& 7th, its home for the last few years has been in the small town of Killin in North Perthshire. The weather to start with was unseasonably warm and bright but as we made our way up through Crieff the clouds appeared. It has to be mentioned that at this point we were heading West and as always that means rain. The rain started just at the top of Glen Ogle so the planned stop at the famous biker meeting place at the burger van at the top of Glen Ogle didn’t happen. For the first time I stopped at the Falls of Dochart Hotel. The drizzle had turned to rain and the temperature had taken a turn for the worse. We entered the hotel by the front door which is normal and arrived in the bar almost by accident, the bar is in the shape of a large hall and we were was relieved to see a large open fire burning merrily away in the grate but Fiona who had the heated jacket on and posh new winter jacket on probably required the heat a bit less... We ordered dinner from the thick barmaid and luckily got a seat right at the fireside. An hour ago it was like summer, now here I am in a pub huddled by the fire looking out at the dull vista outside thinking it feels like winter. The barmaid lived up to my expectations by forgetting to complete our order and after an hour I had to remind her, 20 minutes after that my Scampi arrived, they had enough time to catch them fresh! 10 / 10 for the pleasant but sparse surroundings 3 / 10 for the barmaid (and she only gets 3 because she was female) and 7 / 10 for the late Scampi Fiona decided to eat her dinner on her lap, quite literally by throwing her baguette and salad all over herself, luckily she recovered the situation. The rain went off and we made our way to the campsite and went through the tent putting up ritual, no issues there and before long I was watching Gill putting up her new tent with the greatest of difficulty, Fiona who is a grade A tent putter upper ended up helping her and got increasingly crabbit with the increasingly thick Gill. A word of advice to all potential campers, first if you are going to make a habit of camping get a good tent, second., never arrive without first having tried to erect a new tent. Gill failed on both counts and the result was a bit of a disaster, she was lucky it didn’t rain the rest of the weekend. The rest of the day / evening / night was filled with the usual rally activities of eating and drinking, Bob and Kate had a good start on the rest of us as did Janie who had come over from Germany with her husband Uli. Alex went AWOL and Bob and I mounted a failed rescue mission later in the evening to find him. He did appear in the hall later and his demeanor suggested he had managed to find a bar or two along the way. I won best “modified” bike for the JPN whatever that means and Janie & Uli won the longest distance male and female respectively. I’d like to thank Fiona for taking what is possibly the worst photo ever of me looking drunk. I went to bed eventually when a sudden extreme tiredness overcame me, I was so tired I could hardly speak. Sunday was a superb day, bright sunshine and fresh air. We had a visit from Dave Palmer and Ralph White from the Edinburgh NOC on their Silver Commando’s. Dave has owned his since new in 1978 which is quite impressive. A Norton forum took place (in other words we talked shite for an hour and a half about these magnificent machines and their lack of shortcomings!)

Eventually the smell of whisky on my breath had reached acceptably low levels and we all said our goodbyes and threaded our respective ways home. Excellent

A Sticky Tale

A word of warning Lasr night was maintenance night in the garage, I was servicing one of the commando's and as usual when working with old British bikes it didn't all go to plan. Fitting the new reusable silicon rubber gaskets on the rocker covers I noticed that because they are much thicker, only a few threads were visible for the nut to go on. The predictable result was that I stripped the top stud on the right hand side of the motor. After a long search my stud extractor was found and after several attempts I removed and replaced the stud. Time was marching on and I still hadn't eaten so I was working as fast as I could, I got to the putting the tank back on stage so had to lower the bench, a loud bang and suddenly there was stuff spraying all over the bike the bench and my tools, as I rushed round t the other side I got sprayed in the face and eyes. My language was choice at this point and especially when I found out I had lowered the bench onto a box full of aerosol cans and that the tallest and therefore the one that was covering everything was contact adhesive! The bike looked like it had been in a light brown Snowstorm!. It took me almost an hour to get the worst of it off the bike, I haven't started on the bench yet! Moral of the story, keep your workshop tidy and don't rush it or you'll end up in a sticky situation!

Christmas Party

The Clachan Inn Hotel at Lochearnhead is now booked for the 24^th of November and I’m pleased to say its looking like a very healthy turnout. £40 per person on the day. There is still room if you want to come along.

National Rally 2008

Of course it’s the biggest Norton event of the year, to be held at Stirling Rugby club on the 25^th – 28^th of July. We need your help on this one and we need to start thinking about routes for run’s , places to visit, Trophies, marshals, events for the weekend etc etc, any suggestions gratefully received.

Do you know how far your bike goes on reserve?

I personally have run out of petrol 3 times this year, twice on Nortons and once on a Guzzi. All of these occasions happened because I hadn’t paid attention to the rolling mileage and the reserve capacity has turned out to be poor. Dave Templeman heard about my plight and has decided to do a bit of running out of Petrol also, It does save on gym membership but being seen pushing your Norton around isn’t cool and isn’t clever. You would think we’d have learned by now!

The Small Print

The views and opinions contained within this publication are not necessarily those of the NOC or of the branch but are probably mine as I wrote it.

No one accepts any responsibility for anything, if you have a good time don't say I didn't warn you.

Gino Rondelli

October 2007