Tally Ho!

It was a fantastic day at the Harris Tweed Ride in Glasgow, I have just written a blogpost so will just copy and paste it here. . . unless you'd rather read about it here (there are loads more photographs too). .

If the idea of riding around the city of Glasgow in a group of around 150 well dressed, finely groomed, Harris Tweed wearing eccentrics fuelled on fine food and even finer beverages, then read on. . .

It was around 12pm when we set off from the Blythswood Hotel, only after registering to receive our fine Harris Tweed badges and route map. We began the festivities with some beautiful shortbread and delicious freshly ground coffee as we then made our way on the street for the introduction to the day. Once waved off following the lead of the large gentleman on the penny farthing we were all downhill to George Square, where we had some bloody mary's and a little yorkshire pudding treat.

It was a short ride then over to Cafe Gandolfi in the merchant city for some fantastic fish & chips, we hung around and had a chat with some of the other riders and managed to take some photographs. It turns out that it was a good mate of mine from high school that made the previous video for last year's Tweed Ride, and he is also doing this one too. .

After Gandolfi, we travelled through the wonderful green space of Glasgow Green to have some of the great beer on tap at the WEST Brewery. This was a great stop and we all relaxed as we sipped our delicious beer in the Autumn sunshine. It was leaving Glasgow Green that we rode around the roundabout, again and again for some of the photographs. All good fun!

Next up was the trip down along the River Clyde on the cycleway to the SECC where we entered the tunnel taking us over into the westend of Glasgow to sample some oysters at The Crabshakk and then for some drams over at The Finneston. This turned out to be one of the longer stop, and I was delighted as they were serving Old Pulteney by the glass.

It was over to Byres Road and into the new Hanoi Bike Shop for some vietnamese noodles, into The Hillhead Book Club for some mojitos in the splendid surroundings of this great restaurant / pub. Quickly moving on, we made our (now merry) way down to The Big Slope, this was to be a dinner stop and we had some rolls in shredded pork and Joni and I had a few drinks and a wee Laphroaig as we chatted and laughed with two young African gents before moving on to catch the rest of the crew back at the Blythswood where it all started. . .

After some short speeches and some music from a local swing band, there was some dancing and romancing. I managed to win a delicious bottle of Talisker (wrapped in a beautiful Harris Tweed sheath) and a lovely little Harris Tweed Bag. I should also mention that I was shortlisted as one of the best dressed men, was in the top 3 but never won, can't win 'em all.

All in all it was a fantastic day out on the bikes, we had great fun and would definitely do it next year!

Tally Ho!