MZ Riders Club

South of Scotland Section

Page updated : 28/04/2007

Site designed by Mike

Applecross 2003

Another Numb Bum

(by Bill McDonald)

Some of you will have seen my son Martin's name in the last issue of MZ Rider magazine as the winner of the Endurance award for his trip to Dent, Cumbria in 2002 on his beloved Simson S51 (see Article on this trip elsewhere). Unfortunately for me he now has the bug. His latest goal was this year’s Applecross Rally on the Simson.

Panic set in on Thursday night, as I was down south working and Martin’s bike was in getting fixed. He had big problems with the electrics. Fortunately he was able to strip the spare bike and take all the parts to James at J.K. M/C’s. I talked the problem over with James and we felt the easy solution was to replace all the charging circuit in one go, due to the lack of time. This he did and Martin picked the bike up at 5.30pm on the Friday evening. I got home shortly after and we proceeded to get the bikes ready, which included a change to the ‘Sports Exhaust’ system.

We left early on Saturday morning. Me fully loaded on an ETZ 125 (Martins next bike - he’s 17 next month), Martin on the Simson, again fully loaded. Once past Callander we settled down to a steady 35-40 mph grind. The miles passed steadily, with both bikes working well. We reached Glencoe by 11am and stopped for a big fry up. We got on our way again and passed through Fort William, Spean Bridge, Glen Garry etc. At this point I should point out that Martin’s navigating is diabolical. Every time we reached a junction I needed to jump ahead to show him the way. At the turn off for Glengarry I didn’t get there in time and he gaily kept straight on. We needed to go a couple of miles before I found a place to do a ‘U’ turn. We stopped again at Loch Carron for a coffee and a sticky bun before the climb over the pass to Applecross.

Martin started on the pass and slowly worked down the gears until he was in 1^st at 10mph on the hairpins at the top of the pass. We got over without any problems and freewheeled down the other side into the camp site.

We reached the campsite at about 6pm, 10hrs after leaving home, and were met with an excellent reception. Martin’s picture was taken by several people alongside his bike. The tent went up in record time and we set off for the pub. It was an excellent night. Again, Martin won a trophy and we both won prizes in the raffle. My thanks go to Dave and Mike for organising an excellent night, and also to Malcolm for keeping my son’s tankard full of beer. The little beggar slept through the storm that descended on us later that night and I had to get up several times and repair 1 broken guy rope, 2 split poles, and replace loose pegs. I noticed plenty of torches waving about in the middle of the night, so I was not alone. In the morning we discovered that a couple of tents had been blown down by the overnight storm.

Sunday was not too bad. We had a couple of long walks and an excellent meal with Tony Searle in the Walled Garden Café (about ½ mile round the bay). The food was superb. When we got back we found that the owner of the campsite had decided to open the café until 8pm and then moaned that no one ate there – the guy needs some lessons on running a business. He had also stopped doing the full breakfast, which was a bummer. I had promised my son a couple of fully loaded breakfasts out of site of his mum (fry-ups are a big no-no in our house).

Sunday night was, again, stormy but not as bad as the previous evening, so we got some sleep or was that due to exhaustion. Who knows? Who cares?

We were up and packed by 9am on Monday and enjoyed a hearty breakfast with a few of the remaining MZ’ers. We decided to go back over the Pass. As we climbed the wind got stronger and stronger to the point where I was afraid that Martin would be blown of the road. He was at a 45 degree angle for most of the climb. I had to stop him and take his rucksack for him. In fact, a couple of times he was blown from one side of the road to another.

We were within a couple of hundred yards of the top (in the clouds and the horizontal rain) when the Simson decided that it had had enough. It wouldn’t rev, which is the normal sign of a blocked exhaust. What a miserable place to be stuck. So, more in hope that anything else, I suggested that he clean the spark plug. Which, to my relief, worked. We got underway again and managed to negotiate the rest of the pass and then freewheel to the bottom. Whereupon the bike did the same thing, but this time the revs eventually rose and we decided to keep going to Loch Carron, if we could. The Simson was only doing 30mph all the way to the village. I thought he was struggling. When we stopped for petrol I asked my son if he wanted to start the de-coke before we had a coffee, or wait until after. To which he replied, “Why?” During a rather heated few minutes I discovered that he had been going slowly in order to enjoy the scenery and that the moped was running well. I could have killed him.

The journey down to Fort William was uneventful, except that the rain started to fall, and heavily at that. I also made the unfortunate discovery that my Frank Thomas 100% waterproof boots were not!!  We had a quick coffee and got on the road again, the only thought in my mind was a hot bath and a nice mug of coffee.

The remainder of the journey was a drag, 5 hours in the rain, with only a stop for fuel. Crossing Rannoch Moor was the worst part. It’s a long drag at 35mph. I seriously doubted my sanity and reckoned, at my age, that I should know better.

Just be before Tyndrum Martin pulled up sharply. My stomach sank. I thought he had broken down. Not so. In the infinite wisdom of youth he had decided we needed a rest. My response was, “A REST!!!”  I was cold, wet, miserable, pissed-off and needing a good hot bath and a mug of tea, and no amount of REST in the pissing rain was going to make me feel better. His reply was, “Shall I go on then?” My response was something like, “***%%””  ** %%$  ££””  !!!”””::~~~”, or words to that effect.

We were passed by the couple from Brittany at Balquidder and got a cheery wave. Sorry my response was not as enthusiastic (that hot bath was filling my consciousness). We stopped once more for petrol in Callander. It was then just a short run to home.

Boy, was I glad to turn into my driveway and switch off.

Some details for the anoraks out there. We used 25 litres of fuel each, giving both bikes about 90mpg. We covered just under 500 miles (including the diversions caused by Martin not remembering where he was going) over the weekend. We had one breakdown due to a fouled plug. We were averaging about 35mph road time in the worst biking conditions I‘ve experienced for a few years.

The little ETZ 125 I was riding has really impressed me. It was smooth, comfortable and economical. It was a pleasure to ride. So much so that I have decided to keep the bike after Martin passes his test and use it myself for pottering around, or maybe I could do a few more rallies on it and make Martin wait on me.   Mmmmmmm!!!!!!!

Still Dent is next on the agenda, this time on the 125 and 250. What luxury!