SCOTLAND



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This route - 78 miles, 125 kilometres

For most people travel is about getting to a new place. Bikers often travel just for the experience – the journey is the destination. The desired outcome might be either the excitement of successfully tackling demanding roads, speed, the joy of being alone in your own space or the sense of sharing undefinable feelings with kindred bikers.

This run, from Canonbie to Bonchester Bridge, and on through Hawick and Selkirk to Moffat offers everything except the sheer speed of a racetrack or autobahn. You won’t be able to stop yourself feeling smug at the end of it. And you will be entitled because you will have demonstrated and applied your biking skills on roads which needed 100% concentration and repaid you with a bellyful of satisfaction and, probably, a list of things to learn to do better: plan further ahead going into twisties; get further to the left approaching a right hander; more smoothly manage the switch from right to left lean through a double corner; have the speed just right at the start of a corner etc.

Canonbie is a village just on the right a few hundred yards (metres) after crossing the England Scotland border when travelling north on the A7. The road approaching the village is a taster of things to come – smooth tarmac, sweeping and tighter curves. It’s a treat after the relative monotony of the main road.

Drive into the village and pick up the B6357 along Liddesdale. You are now travelling more or less parallel to the border.

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An internet reference to this route said that is used by the Motorcycling Section of the Glasgow Branch of the Institute of Advanced Motorists to demonstrate, learn and practice cornering skills.

Your target is Bonchester Bridge on the A6088. Once there, ride through towards Hawick, passing the village of Kirkton and take the A7 north to Selkirk. Now look for the road to Moffat, the A708, and weave your way through Yarrow and Coppercleuch(pronounce it yourself) to pass the Grey Mare’s Tail along Moffat Water, to journey’s end – a bronze sheep set atop a plinth in on the main street outside Moffat Town Hall. There are plenty of pubs, restaurants, chippies, B&Bs and hotels and lots of room to park around the sheep.

The 363 words above describe a route that will affect you in ways that millions of words could never express. If you did the run by yourself, you will probably sit and rerun it in your head over and over again and try to experience again the thrills and excitement of slicing through corners, easing from left hander into right hander and back again. And you will especially remember those times when you got it just right, when the pleasure was not interrupted by a momentary panic or by a grabbing of brake or throttle. There will be the rueful moments when you recall the times you didn’t get it just right and you’ll be glad none of your mates were there to see it.

If you did the run with friends, you’ll be looking for signs that they are as smug as you feel and you’ll compete to describe the very best part of what you will all acknowledge was a brilliant ride. You’ll try but fail to convey the sheer exhilaration of the run. You’ll try to pick out a few corners or sequences of corners where you felt you were in another space as you rode through them.

No matter what time you started this run you will arrive in Moffat at 9.34 which is the time the clock on the local church is stuck at. Hang around for 24 hours and it will be exactly right twice! At the other end of the village is another church, spire included, in the process of being transformed into apartments; sic transit gloria ….