The Motorcyclist's Guide to Scotland book - J.G. Fergusson

Wapping thanks ever so much for taking the time to put all the routes on here, I have them now to compliment the book, Cheers
 
'One throw away tip I found useful - never, ever, ever update your device with new maps or software the day before you travel'.

Yes, I can not even begin to emphasize just how much anguish this once caused me! :rob
 
Bought the book...going for a short trip of 5 days in 2 weeks and have a week booked for June 2021
Thank you Wapping for the effort in creating the gpx files
I will let you know how I get on in a few weeks :thumb
 
This is a great book and I have found it invaluable in planning at NC500 route, especially the route up to Inverness from Moffat where we are staying the night before. That said, I may change that booking and get the M74 out of the way and stay nearer Glasgow. In any event, the idea of skipping Loch Lomond and taking the road to Faslane sounds great.
 
This is a great book and I have found it invaluable in planning at NC500 route, especially the route up to Inverness from Moffat where we are staying the night before. That said, I may change that booking and get the M74 out of the way and stay nearer Glasgow. In any event, the idea of skipping Loch Lomond and taking the road to Faslane sounds great.
If you’re doing Moffat to Inverness I’d recommend going up via the Cairngorms. Absolutely brilliant roads and only about two miles of motorway and dual carriageway the route I took
 
I should get around to doing what someone in the thread has done, transferring the routes into MyRoute.
 
Last edited:
If you’re doing Moffat to Inverness I’d recommend going up via the Cairngorms. Absolutely brilliant roads and only about two miles of motorway and dual carriageway the route I took

We are coming back that way. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
 
Thank you for sharing the routes. Much appreciated.
 
No problem.

Creating them in BaseCamp was not so difficult once I got into the swing of churning through them and avoided getting distracted by the internet, when looking bits up. I did share the GPX files with the author, suggesting that a second publication of the book could include them.
 
The Motorcyclist's Guide to Scotland book - J.G. Ferguson

As it seems a popular idea, here is the first route, The Solway and Carrick Coasts, at 250 miles.

The route is basically a triangle: Dumfries > Stranraer > Ayr > Dumfries. I asked BaseCamp to give me that route, which it did in seconds. I then dragged (elastic band'ed) the magenta line to take the roads the book's route took. I then deleted Ayr as the route does not go into the city itself, whereupon the magenta line corrected itself perfectly. I had to force BaseCamp to take one of the smaller roads and / or switched the map into routable Open Street Map. I have added the two suggested excursions (the little green add on) and the hotels and eateries. Several of these I had to create manually. The route creation is quite quick, it's adding in the bits that take the time but once done, it's done.

d3e6e3659665ca4ea25a170bde592ff3.jpg


As with Ireland, I might well recommend that bods do load the UK OSM map into their Garmin device, though (subject to individuals' preference settings) the route should run OK without.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2507r0yfntlb9cr/The Solway and Carrick coasts.GPX?dl=0

Whilst creating the route and looking at the map, there are some little roads that I might take instead of the way the author goes. But, that is not the point of the book, which is to give bods some ideas (and pretty good routes) to try for themselves. There will always be "You have missed the best...." type observations but so what.

Great book isn't it?
Riding with friends from the bike club, staying in Crieff one day we took JG's route 14 taking in Rannoch Station - Crannog Ctr @ Kenmore - Cultybraggan and although we chickened on the gated section, we had a brilliant run in gorgeous scenery on largely empty roads and 'made good progress'. Sadly the tearoom on Rannoch Station was closed that day but the local preservation group run a history room there with basic snacks, and we gladly dropped shekels into the honesty box...

I use MRA as 'John Morgan' and most of my routes are available there...
Crieff-Rannoch-Cultybraggan-Crieff 2024-09.jpg
Rannoch Station IMG_1292.jpeg
 
If anyone really, really wants a copy of this book I’m happy to sell my copy.

List price plus postage (which is significant nowadays).

I enjoyed it, complete with personal note at the time, but I live in the middle of Scotland and have enjoyed most of these roads routinely. So I don't “need” the book.

And will continue to do so. Hopefully.

Send a PM if you’re interested.

IMG_1763.jpeg
 


Back
Top Bottom