Today I should most definitely have been working – too much to do, too little time, yada yada... But by 11 o'clock the temperature was about 23° and not a cloud in the sky. I also tripped over my Arai on the way to make a coffee, which was an omen not to be ignored, so the concept of 'early lunch break' had its definition rather stretched. Besides, I wanted to test out a new toy – a little Sony GPS that records everywhere you've been – the downloaded results then being used to tag the photos you've taken along the way, before mapping them in Google Maps or Google Earth. And where should I go to test this but a second (and third) pass at a road I discovered last weekend – the A821 from Kilmahog (I kid you not) to Aberfoyle, via the Duke's pass. That's the Duke of Montrose, not the Duke of Bologna, which would have been so much more appropriate. This road is something else – it starts with a couple of fast sweepers that throw in a decreasing radius 120° corner at the last moment, then into a switchback straight which has self and machine airborne at anything over about 70mph – even with the new suspension. A large number of sump gouges and suspicious stains along this stretch tell their own tale. The road is a mixture of old and broken surface (with the occasional pothole and patch of loose gravel) and brand new shiny tarmac – overall, not too bad by Belgian standards, and less than brilliant by anyone else's.
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