north coast 500 2018

August bank holiday 2018 gave the opportunity to ride the Scottish North Coast 500 route.
Aberdeen Lambretta Club have put this riding event on a few times in the past, the last time being August bank holiday 2016. Although wanting to take part in 2016 I was unable to due to competing in that years LCGB best supporting member championship, this meant I had to attend the Isle of white national rally instead.
The idea of spending three days riding in spectacular scenery on challenging roads appeals to me much more than spending a weekend at a destination that has far out lived its appeal.
The track below is the actual route taken over the weekend. It starts in Inverness to Ullapool via the Applecross Pass on day one, then Ullapool to Thurso on day two and Thurso back to Inverness on day three.
We actually covered 530 miles on the route in all and the experience far outlived the expectation. Most of the roads are single track roads with many well thought out passing places. There are also many miles of flowing twisty undulating well surfaced two-way roads.
Fuel stops were not a problem because Craig from Aberdeen Lambretta Club had prepared a file to download which had the route listed town by town showing mileage between each town and whether fuel was available in each town or not.


The North Coast 500 Guide Book 2017 (Charles Tait Guide Books) by Tait, Charles, 9781909036604 | eBay


Around 50 scooters took part this year which were mostly Lambrettas. The event is a geared scooter event which meant any make of scooter is welcome as long as it’s geared.
Although this years event was the last time Aberdeen Lambretta Club plan to put the event on I would encourage anyone on two wheels who likes a challenge to make the effort to ride this route before hanging up there riding gear.
I have ridden the Alps and Pyrenees twice each along with many other spectacular bike routes over the years but nothing quite has what the North coast 500 route has, especially ridden on a scooter. The roads are perfect for scooters because you can, if you wish, ride hard on them and not be even close to pushing the speed limitations of scooters, in the videos below you can see that big bikes can’t travel any faster than a well set up scooter on most of the route.

Having said that though, the route is dangerous in many places so you need to be competent and on the ball the whole time, for me though, that is what I enjoyed.
Of the 50 that took part this year most had a tail or two each night of near misses and quite a few did crash to one degree or another, from just running off the road with over enthusiasm to sadly one person being knocked off by a car on the last day and being seriously injured. We all wish the rider a speedy recovery. Names omitted by request.

North Coast 500 Route Map | eBay

Videos play list of the trip.


 

Tracks since 2017 to present

I have decided to move all the tracking info from one of my other websites over to this website, this means that when I am ridding the tracker will now upload the tracks to this site so I can display them in pages here.

New garmin Zumo motorcycle Satnav | eBay

This page shows all the routes I rode since 2017 since the tracker was installed, please give the tracks a little time to load.
The tracker is always on but I often forget to enable the upload to server setting, I will endeavour to enable it every time in future.

I have used many different types of Satnav while exploring on my Lambrettas, most recently I have use the Garmin Zumo. Using the cradle it can be mounted in various positions and has BlueTooth connectivity which means you can either use BlueTooth ear buds or an intercome system such as the various Sena units available if you have one installed into your helmet.

The tracking system that the Lambretta Images Archive uses is linked to the sites server so that it can upload speed and position along with many other variables which the website can then access and display tracks both in real time or retrospectively like the tracks above on this page. The trackers in the Lambrettas are also a great security measure should one of them go missing.

Touring & Rally Adventures

Over the years we have done countless miles attending various rallys around the UK and Europe, each year we also try to do at least one long tour. The tours are usually taking a long route to where ever the annual Lambretta jamboree is taking place, but not always, now and again we pick a place and just ride there. personally I also do many miles each year clocking up miles testing, or rather trying to break, various products which are in development.

This section of the website is where the images, video’s and experiences of these adventures are shared, I have lots of adventures to add from previous years and will endeavour to update this section with upcoming adventures as and when time allows. If you subscribe you will be notified when new content is added to the website.

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GT Intercontinental Engine Case

    • Granturismo Lambretta engine case.
  •  Reverse compatible to standard 200 casings and all internals including crank
  •  Original look with finning and jack points
  •  Utilises original mag flange
  •  Utilises original side case
  •  Crank on original centre line to utilise all current exhaust systems
  •  Utilises any currently available ignition system
  •  Thicker sections for strength and increased gasket face area
  •  Properly positioned rear brake shoe pins
  •  Enlarge rear axle bearing boss to accommodate bigger bearings
  •  Pads for case mounted reed and boosts
  •  Large gasket area for big capacity cylinders
  •  Large crank case for CR250 72mm stroke crank
  •  Big capacity, low cost, water cooled cylinder 300cc
  •  Big capacity iron lined Inter-Continental air cooled cylinder 330cc
  •  100% Made in England

£810 each

including seal plate and end plate.

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Or use this form to contact us regarding purchasing.

I built an engine into the very first production Granturismo Lambretta case numbered GT200*0001. the process involved stripping down a working engine and transferring all the parts into the new case to make sure that everything would fit.

The engine went together very well.

Below is video footage of its first few miles. 09/06/16

images of the build: