This morning is a day of celebrating rather a lot of years of marriage.  In our own celebratory style we put on our bike gear, selected a bike and headed out for a curry.  As my knee is improving we decided on one of our other bikes, a Yamaha Fazer FZ1-SA.

This bike has a family name of the Black Bitch, look up the history of this tale The Black Bitch here, it is all about a very loyal dog.

Having been out on the Cagiva Navigator for the past few trips it was a revelation.  Going from a tractor like bike with jerky fuelling due to an old school injection system (something we’re looking to address at a later date) and a seat big enough for 4 people (I love the bike) the Fazer within 400 meters confirmed it’s smoothness, and nimbleness in comparison.  The bend in my knees is tighter, the seat is much smaller but at no time do you feel that you are hanging on air over the back wheel.

As we had a lunch date we scooted onto the motorway to make sure we got to the Bombay Lounge in Dalkieth in time for the lunch time service.  Passing a guy with ape hanger bars, and a leather vest on, all I could think of is getting home with dead flies stuck in your oxter hair, yeuch.

As usual the food was great and there was no left overs.  Leaving here, as my knee was coping with the bike we headed out of town aiming roughly in the direction of the Borders.  Seeing a sign for Innerleithen we swung right and headed up a very quiet rural road.  Not quite a single track but care was needed in places for timing passing oncoming cars.  The road climbs and takes you over some hills, on a day as hot as it was today there was some respite with the temperature as we climbed higher.  To our right the view was straight across to the Pentland Hills.  They are only 2000 feet high but often are shrouded in cloud and rain, today they were covered in a heat haze.

As you drop down the other side to Innerleithen the road quality really started to deteriorate.  As is normal with a Scottish moor road the edges are not supported and they fall and collapse into the moor often leaving uneven and deep holes.  Ride in the middle as often is safe to do so.  As you get nearer some of the farms sheep are an issue, on the whole these types of sheep are bomb proof but take note if a mother and lamb are at different sides of the road, they will try and meet each other again.

I hadn’t realised that this area is used for families wild camping along the roadsides, camping up and playing in the small river. Attention must be given to dogs and especially children.

Heading through Peebles we then turned up a very small road taking us up into more hills, yet again we encountered camping but on a slightly bigger scale, there was even a roll back truck with a full amp system blasting music obviously ready for a big night.  This road was shorter but if you like little twisty rural roads then it’s worth your time.

Breaking back out onto main roads again is a bit of a shock when you’ve been tootling along, main roads had to be taken but without involving motorways. We rode up to Leadburn and along to just before Broughton taking the road to Carnwath then home.

Today has been a great day out, even got sunburn on the only wee bit of flesh visible through all my kit, my wee fat scrunched up cheeks.