Norton Owners Club Solstice 2 Rally

 The Norton National Rally was held at the Rob Roy Hotel at Aberfoyle this weekend, a great turnout with over 140 people in attendance. To be honest I had been getting a bit jaded with the NOC events probably before covid but this weekend reignited the spark, it was a great weekend and really good to see everyone.

I suppose the usual moans around we are all getting older was a negative but you are only as old as you want to be, it's easy to sit back and complain but if you just get on with life you find that life is great fun (in amongst the not so fun bits)  

Let's face it great weather and good company and motorbikes whats not to like? Slider were playing on Saturday night and I apologised to them beforehand for the predicted exodus as soon as the band done their soundcheck but as the night went on some of the crowd came back into the hall from what we called "the retirement home" next door in the lounge and all of us in the hall had a great night as did the band! I went next door for a drink at 11pm and it was empty but everybody to their own, if they enjoyed listening to the band from their rooms then good stuff, I await the reports in the magazine to see if anyone was unhappy .

We had to leave on the Sunday so missed the concours judging and the quiz at night but I'm sure it was great, hopefully everybody gets home ok with no issues.

Looks like Spain in June for the International next year which I'm looking forward to already!

I took loads of photos and I wont comment on them all but enjoy anyway!

Ready to go and its sunny and warm!

Fiona telling me to get a move on

Parked up

David looking worried

Bill doing some kind of deal with David, dodgy geezers

Bill and Campbell from Aberdeen

Soundcheck, Ian still has his specs on, he takes them off when its rock and roll for real

Drink being taken

Millie from Holland enjoying herself

Jack and Victor, sorry Alex and Bill

Laurenne and Agnes

David and Anne

Bert having a turn....

Our one German contingent with Phil and the Londoners

Hopefully it gives you a feel for the weekend

Guzzi Lunch

 We had a Guzzi lunch meeting at Dunkeld yesterday, of course the roads out of Perth (and in Perth) are a disaster due to constant roadworks none of which will improve anything in future in my opinion but I digress. We took the Glenalmond to Sma Glen road and over Glen Quaich to Kenmore before heading South into Dunkeld. A pleasant lunch with a few nice Guzzi's in attendance, I didn't take many photos as it was raining to start with and although it was OK over the Quaich road it was not perfect for taking Photos but anyway you got enough last week! We had a taffic jam just out of Methven as some sheep were moving home, maybe 10 minutes but I would rather watch sheep flitting than being stuck on the A9 with the human sheep!

The Bull wasn't happy at his audience

Sheep Jam

Really nice Eldorado

Nick got rid of a modern Triumph to go down the Classic Guzzi route, clever man

Jake's yellow peril

Eric Holding court

A wee Sunday run

 Trying to get some miles on the V85's so we can get them serviced before our September trip so there may be more Modern Guzzi pics on here for a while but thats not a bad thing. The Norton's are ready for the Aberfoyle meeting in a fortnight and we have a Guzzi Dinner on Sunday which I was intended to use my Mk1 LeMans but the dual brakes seemed dodgy when I was out last week so I stripped the Master cylinder and then realised I had ordered the wrong rebuild kit (Not totally my fault) so now it'll be 3 weeks before it arrives!! For those that don't know the older Guzzi's have a linked braking system which I like, the front brake lever operated the front Right Disk and the footbrake operates the front Left disk and rear brake via a compensator valve effectively giving you a 70% front and 30% rear brake simultaneously. Like I say I like it, the V85 has modern brakes which are brembos , the front is great, the rear not so much, I am not a big user of rear brakes but on the rough stuff you need to control the rear and unfortunately the rear brake is not any better than an average 60's british bike! anyhow one of my few moans about the bike.

Onto photography, my other hobby and luckily the two go hand in hand, I have seen that recently Photoshop (a photo manipulation programme) has an Artificial Intelligence tool which allows you to manipulate your photos at a click of a mouse. Before photos could be manipulated in the earlier days by the development process and now in the digital process by programmes like Photoshop, but now even an idiot can produce the most amazing photographs without ever having been there, so the ultimate thing is that you don't have to go anywhere to take photo's, just make it up in your mind, click on the mouse and there's a picture of your bike anywhere you want , even the moon!

I for one will not be going down this route so you can be assured the mediocre photos on here were taken by Fiona or me using a camera and having ridden our bikes there to take it. I consider photos to be the most important part of social history (I love old photos) and will continue to document our motorcycling in the old fashioned way 

Get out there, ride your bike and make sure you take photos! We did yesterday over Glenquaich!

Loving this view 

Braw day

Happy Fiona

Heading into Kenmore

Perfect

And the bikes aren't bad either

And the company neither!

Sidecar meeting video

 A short video of the sidecar meeting and the ride to and from there, posted here in case you missed it on youtube!