Saved by the Stones.

Funny how things happen. There I was, driving home from Forres on Saturday after a day up there working, when I was approaching the Halfords roundabout in Elgin, listening to a little bit of the RRRRRRolling Stones when I heard the lyrics "somethingsomethingsomething...dah dah dah a 50amp fuse". Well bingo, I had forgotten I needed to get a new fuse for Cubbie - required, I might add, by 7am the following day! Thanks for reminding me Mr Jaggar. Pulled a quick swing roon the 'bout and picked up two packs of 15amp ones. Late night on Saturday, shouldn't have done that as the alarm going off early on Sunday morning wasn't very welcome! Still, when the Cairn O Mount calls, it sure does call. Can't say too much about the classic side of things as there will be a two page report in the mag soon, but I can bore you to death with Cubbie Tales.

Thick mist and fog outside when I was prepping Cubbie. Topped up the oil and put a can of petrol in, checked the lights and PING! New fuse gone. Odd, stupidly fitted another one and same thing happened. Brake light worked ok but as soon as I switched the headlight on it just blew. Not being one to want to ride in pea soup with no lights my next thought was the van. Sling it in the back and worry about the lights later. Small hitch there though, the van still had quite a lot of sandy ballast in from my concreting activities. Vic phoned then to say there was no fog further down the road so I should be ok....

Odd that 'cos by the time I'd ummed and ahhed and gone back outside, it had lifted completely. Getting on for half 8 by then so time to make a decision and get gone. Togged up in winter woollys despite the forecast for a 21degree scorcher of a day and fired the bike up. Hehe, this is fun! Off down the road, head for Fyvie, cut across to Rothie on the back road which would take me to the far side of Inverurie. Up the bypass - scary on a bike only doing 50mph in the FOG which had made a reappearance. Out on the Echt / Dunnecht road (can't remember which one comes first)and then Banchory for petrol. The twisty road to Strachan from there is quite nice and I even managed to catch up with some modern bikers (I'm sure they were just taking it easy) and arrived at the Feughside bang on time just after 9.30am.

T'was really good to meet up with people and have a chat, being there early meant I didn't have to do my normal thing of rushing around like a blue thingied-wotsit before the off at 11. Agreed to follow Vic on his Triamamamaha and Peter on his Leader, but Vic sped off and Peter was nowhere to be seen so I raced after Vic - sorry Peter! Doug was behind us to keep an eye on things (erm, what sort of things??) and said Cubbie was nipping along at 60mph at times - well we had to to keep up with Vic on his racy little number.

Had a great ride all around the hills and over to Stoney, then we (Vic) decided to go on a short cut to the lunch stop, but we got there after everyone else. Still some grub left though, and the one good thing was we did get there before Westie, Shorty and Martin the sheep runner-over. Sun was out good and proper by then, easily 20degrees, so it was a strip off time but still too hot and no one even bought me an ice cream. Boo hoo.

Short run back to the Feughside for the prize giving, I didn't even win Youngest Rider / Oldest Bike, how bad is that! I think I should have got a prize for depositing the most oil in the car park though.

Right, so that's 192.96 miles yesterday and all set for the Official Launch of Cubbies Counties NEXT SUNDAY 18th MAY!!!! Don't forget to come along to the Feughside for about 12pm, have a bit of lunch then wave us off. Would be great to see as many of you there as possible.

Ta ta for now, all blogged out and off to Edinburgh.