The first 900 miles of my journey from California to Turkey saw me driving to Vancouver International Airport Cargo terminal. The plan was to leave the bike, a 2005 R1200GS, with Swissport to be shipped via AirTransat to Glasgow, Scotland.

This was a little more eventful than I would have liked, as SwissPort could not find my booking. Fortunately a call to my shipping agent, Mike Mandell from Motorcycle Express, sorted out the issue. He got on the line to the AirTransat Operations Director who handled it personally. I smiled and joked with the cargo staff, as getting stressed would have been pointless.

The drive from Boulder Creek, California to Vancouver was pretty uneventful. The Givi windshield mounting bolts broke, but zip ties in my tool kit are providing a temporary fix. I may replace the Givi with a factory windshield if I can pick one up en route.

The bike speedo is also misbehaving - fluctuating wildly, but not all the time. This is an ongoing issue. I think there is a kink in the wiring loom, but the dealer has been unable to find it despite weeks of trying. It seems worse when coming off the throttle. My solution is to put my secondary GPS in front of the speedo so I can’t see it!

Other than that, I stayed at three non descript AirBnBs in Medford, OR, Ferndale, WA and Vancouver, BC. Oh, and the traffic through Seattle is REALLY horrible. Especially as WA doesn’t allow lane splitting.

I wandered around Vancouver after leaving the bike. Great weather and fantastic scenery. I walked a long way, which I thought would loosen me up after 18 hours in the saddle.

I fly out tomorrow. Fingers crossed, the bike will be waiting in Scotland for me….

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That's a good start to the ride and welcome to the UK. Any specific route planned around Scotland? I am down south of England. Any help required , do give a shout out.

Ride safe and enjoy!

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I have a day in Glasgow to recover from jetlag, 3 days in Edinburgh, leaving 3-4 days to explore Scotland. I wish it was more. Suggestions would be great!

Welcome to the UK I'm sure that you will enjoy yourself. I cant speak for the rest of Scotland but with only 3 - 4 days maybe try the area around Loch Lomond. Its a very beautiful part of the country.

The GS was delayed in shipping and lacked the required UK temporary import permit. This meant a couple of hours of frantic emails and calls to the very helpful UK Customs service and to a local import agency. None the less, the bike will not be joining me here in Glasgow for three days.

After praising Motorcycle Express, the missing C110 import permit lies at their door. This seems to be a very obvious ommission. AirTransat’s lack of organization is at fault for the bike not arriving in Glasgow (by truck from Manchester) on time. The personal involvment of their Operations Director, while helpful in problem solving, indicates a lack of process. I think the lesson learned is to use Air Canada, which I would have done if their flight schedule had been published earlier.

All that said, spending two more days than planned here is probably a blessing in disguise. First, it is a great city to wander around taking pictures. The architecture in particular is fantastic, in a brooding way. Second, it allowed me to recover from jetlag - aided by local beer and haggis. Finally, my journey should not be all plain sailing and deadlines. My time in the highlands will be cut short unfortunately, and I will need to buy an additional change of clothes as a lot of my gear is with the bike.

For bikers intending to stay here, budget $60-90 for a hotel. AirBnBs were in the $40 range, but there weren’t any in the city center. Beer is about $5 per pint. A big fried breakfast is around $7. Almost all coffee shops have free wifi. I picked up a SIM card from the O2 store for my old dual SIM Android phone. My credit cards work everywhere, and a PIN was only required once so far.

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After passing an additional random customs inspections, my bike is finally on the road in Scotland. I headed from the WFS cargo facility at Glasgow airport to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. It was cold and wet, and there was even snow on the hills, but it was great to be riding at last.

This kind of weather also makes it a special pleasure to stop for food. I can definitely recommend the Falls of Dochart Inn, where I had a great steak sandwich, home made soup, and tea. With salad and fries it came to about $15, for a very large plate. We are talking US large ...

One initial observation is that there are a lot of two lane roads with slow drivers who do not pull over for faster traffic. This includes caravans and the white vans that The Missenden Flyer is always going on about on YouTube. It makes covering distance hard, even on a bike.

Gas is about 30 % more expensive than California, at around $5.50 a gallon. Gas stations operate on a trust level. Pump then pay.

On a detail note, the Garmin GPS loaded with free open source maps is working perfectly. No speed limits are displayed, but that is about the only limitation so far.

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[QUOTE=selecw;600046]After passing an additional random customs inspections, my bike is finally on the road in Scotland. I headed from the WFS cargo facility at Glasgow airport to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. It was cold and wet, and there was even snow on the hills, but it was great to be riding at last.

This kind of weather also makes it a special pleasure to stop for food. I can definitely recommend the Falls of Dochart Inn, where I had a great steak sandwich, home made soup, and tea. With salad and fries it came to about $15, for a very large plate. We are talking US large ...

One initial observation is that there are a lot of two lane roads with slow drivers who do not pull over for faster traffic. This includes caravans and the white vans that The Missenden Flyer is always going on about on YouTube. It makes covering distance hard, even on a bike.

Gas is about 30 % more expensive than California, at around $5.50 a gallon. Gas stations operate on a trust level. Pump then pay.

On a detail note, the Garmin GPS loaded with free open source maps is working perfectly. No speed limits are displayed, but that is about the only limitation so far.[/QUOTE

Welcome to Europe

The average speed in the UK is very slow - it gets a lot worse when you leave Scotland and enter England and even worse when you get to the South East.

There is a great ride report on the ABR forum from 2 Americans - called Left To Live - on a ride round UK and Ireland.

Your average speed will increase on the continent. I guess it’s something you’ll adapt to.

Enjoy

Interesting notes from an American perspective. Ride safe, enjoy and keep us updated. If you around Scotland still, drop into a distillery , anyone will do for a start

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The highlights of my time in Edinburgh were two European Championship games watched in the pub with a rowdy crowd of locals. Yes, Edinburgh Castle, the Old Town and the Royal Mile were impressive - but watching Liverpool and Tottenham defy the odds to knock out Barcelona and Ajax and reach the finals was magical. Great food and great heightened the occasion.

I stayed in Appin House, a nice AirBnB, 20 minutes walk outside the center. They served a great full cooked breakfast, had a hidden driveway which helped keep the bike secure and had lots of tips on where to go. Although my room was small, I had a huge bathroom with a free standing tub. I really needed the tub to ease the riding aches and pains and to warm up as Edinburgh was cold and wet.

I can recommend picking up a go anywhere day bus pass for 4 pounds. For free wifi, try the city galleries and museums, which are free to enter. It breaks up the coffee shop routine.

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I arrived in Manchester after a 4 hour ride through the Scottish borders. The scenery of green rolling hills and forests was good and I love the local brick homes and farms. I should have allocated more time to the ride. The roads were all two lane meaning a low average speed. It was somewhat chilly, but no rain.

In Manchester, it was time to pick up my wife, Jill, from the airport. She is joining me for a couple of weeks on the road in England and France. With Jill and her luggage, the GS is now super heavy. It definitely took some getting used to - particularly working out how to get her on and off without putting the bike in danger of tipping over. The solution I have come up with is for me to get on first to stabilize the bike and then have her climb on board. Having the sidestand down as a safety measure works, although the suspension is so compressed, it can be hard getting the sidestand up again. Once underway, the GS handles well and the weight is well balanced and not very noticable.

I took in Manchester United’s last game of a disappointing season - an unsurprising 2-0 defeat to already relegated Cardiff City. I was lucky to borrow a season ticket from a local. Chips with salt and vinegar before the game were great. I used the local tram system to get to the game - it was fast and very affordable.

I also walked along the canals around Sale, where we visited relatives. The narrow boats were particularly interesting. The weather was great. Sunny and warm!

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I thought you might be interested to see a picture of the gear that I have packed for 4 months on the road, so here is a pic.

The grey BMW bag liner has my clothes.

The canvas bag has my camera gear (Sony A6000 with 4 lenses), my phones (iphone SE and Huawei Mate with various SIM cards), my iPad, a universal charger amd my documents.

The SWmotech City tank bag has spare gloves, glasses, note pad and pen, and wallet.

The small green pouch has tools that work alongside the tools I have under the bike seat as well as spare keys and my disc lock.

I also have a small blue backpack that I mainly use to store my laundry!

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En route to friends in London, we took a leisurely ride from Manchester, beginning with a lunch stop with my sister in Mansfield, followed by the Malvern Hills and Cotswolds.

A continuing theme of the journey is to wander somewhat off the beaten tourist track - which was how we stayed in an excellent AirBnB in Ledbury. My host was a total “petrol head” with a collection of Porsches and race cars. Topping even this, the owner of the Y fish and chip shop in Ledbury is an ex Chelsea player.

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Try to keep that "joked with the staff because stress was useless" attitude. People respond better to a smile and a joke than they do to some stranger being a bitch.

While in London, we stayed with a friend in Lewisham. This proved an excellent base for exploring - and Lewisham itself was an interesting, culturally diverse area.

So I parked up the bike, used the train, and walked a lot. This included trips to Blackheath, Greenwich and London’s South bank and Soho.

The closer we got to known tourist attractions, the worse the crowds became. The area around Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square was appalling. I managed a quick browse of the National Gallery, but after that stuck to back streets to avoid the hordes. God only knows what it is like in July….

One point on bike parking - permits are not required in Lewisham if you park perpendicular to the kerb. Maybe this applies to other boroughs too? I saw some dedicated bike parking areas around the city, but not as many as I had hoped.

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Nice pics.

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