Big, Part 2.

Now, this confusion about my birthday. I didn't say anything, did I? All of a sudden, you just seem to think it's that time of the year - it's all your fault Bantam Cub! Stirring it up! But hey, like I say, you can send the pressies now and I promise I won't open them until....the big day....in June....


I've been in touch with Glyn, the guy who owned Cubbie before Nick, who owned it before me. Quite an interesting picture building up. Hoping to get my paws on a couple of pics from either of them, just to complete the set. Nick sent me the disc with the video of him riding off into the sunset on Cubbie, but I can't seem to get the video from disc to computer - I'll have a better crack at it when I get back from Skye. Heck, there's so much I'm putting on my "when I get back from Skye" list....contact the VMCC sections and catch up with them.....tick off the last 4 counties....write the book....finish the short CC video to post on YouTube....fit the Rooster Booster to Cubbie....start work on the MZ.....build the shed (Mrs BC found the bolts!)....


So Cubbies Counties started in May 2008 - I was bored with hearing about film stars gadding around the world on brand new all terrain bikes with a film crew and back up and medics and fixers and plenty of money and staying in hotels, so I came up with this great idea that I would ride my "as good as unrestored" 1962 Triumph Tiger Cub around all of the 33 Scottish Counties. Easy. So I set about doing so, the first one was Skye, an epic 500 mile adventure and my first very long Cub journey - all without incident. Then after ticking off Inverness-shire on the same weekend, it was a short local journey for me to conquer Aberdeenshire with a visit to Fraserburgh, before a busy busy BUSY weekend in June that saw me catching an overnight ferry to Shetland and then heading south to Ayrshire! While I was in the area, I thought I might as well pay a visit to Dumfries-shire, Kircudbright and Wigtownshire. I forget how many miles I did in a Cubbie day to achieve that, but it was easily into three figures. There are some who say that putting the bike in the van at Aberdeen and driving down to Ayr was cheating. Well I say - and I hate to go about this, but just to clear the air - it's my game, and if I had all the time in the world, no job, no farm and no committments to get back for, plus unlimited funds, I would happily ride Cubbie around Scotland three times or more non-stop. Anyway, I had to be at the Ayr show at a certain time to present the trophies. With 8 counties under my belt in less than a month things were looking good - easy, like I said! Had an invitation from my friend Andy to visit the RAF base at Kinloss - his boss had cleared it for little old GBC to fly the Nimrod simulator - whooooeeee!!! Had a rather rainy ride up there mind you, but flying the Nim Sim out to Gibraltar and under the Forth Rail Bride more than made up for it. With plenty to do around the farm in the summer months, Cubbie had a bit of a breather until the end of July, when we took part in some filming for a programme with comedy actor Richard Wilson - Britain's Best Drives, you may have seen it on BBC4 recently, and if you didn't, it's going to be on BBC2 this month some time, so look out for Cubbie's starring role - and all those local-ish guys I think were from the Stirling Castle VMCC section, plus Slim from the Grampian classic club (and he's in the NE Scottish VMCC), who helped me get Cubbie to location, and er, lent me his ******* when I, er, lost mine. In between filming, I whizzed over to the Isle of Bute, and ticked off Stirlingshire, Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire on the way - I guess that's another couple of hundred miles. Man that was hot, baking sun all the way. And me in my winter gear of course - well it was only July. No mishaps so far, apart from the lost ***** which turned up in my ******.