The Weight of the Wind
Across the high plateaus of the Scottish Highlands, one rider discovers that silence is the loudest sound of all.
Imogen Wright · May 18, 2025 · 8 min read
There is a particular hour on the A87, somewhere west of Loch Cluanie, when the road empties of everyone but you. The tour buses have stopped at Eilean Donan; the campervans are still hours behind. What remains is the wind, the long sweep of asphalt, and the modest engine of a midweight twin doing exactly what it was built to do.
I had not planned to ride this far alone. The original itinerary, drawn up over a kitchen table in Bristol, involved two friends, a support car, and a strict schedule of overnight stops. By the time I reached Glasgow the friends had cancelled, the car had been sold to a stranger, and the schedule had become a single, unfussy sentence: get to Skye, then turn around.
What I learned, in the days that followed, is that confidence is not the absence of doubt. It is doubt held lightly, in gloved hands, on a bike that knows you better with every mile.
