Malle Rally 500 - Scotland

Words and Photos By Darroch William

48 Hours, 500 Miles, one beautiful Scottish Rally adventure into the Highlands!

Old and new friends on the Malle Rally 500, the first of it’s kind From the Malle London team, through the stunning landscape of Scotland. Winding roads, epic mountains and heather covered hills, the ambitious rally schedule did not disappoint!

Friday evening, Drummond Castle. Built in 1490 and sister castle to Grimsthorpe where the Mile Mile Festival takes place. Tents go up in the fading light, and dinner follows with a whisky tasting. This is Malle’s first 500 Rally in Scotland, a small taster of what the bigger rallies offer. Rider’s complete registration and collect their logbooks and rally numbers. But the real business of the evening comes once the plates are cleared: the route announcement. We know we are going into the highlands but only Robert, Malle’s co-founder knows exactly where the next two days will take everyone.

6am. Alarms go off across the castle grounds, the early start pays off before anyone’s even packed a bag, sunrise breaking over Drummond Castle Gardens, the formal lawns and the treeline lit up with the golden morning light.

Breakfast at seven, tents down, gear packed onto the support vehicle, a lifesaver that carries the bulk of everyone’s bags for the two days, leaving riders with just a small day bag apiece. The Rally 500 is running on “Malle time,” which is to say the 8am start is more of a suggestion than a deadline. Riders are split into groups, sent off in three-minute intervals, fist bumps exchanged down the line before each group rolls out, each clutching a logbook that’ll collect a stamp at every checkpoint along the way, proof you actually rode it, not just that you turned up. 252 miles to cover today.

The route opens with the A82 through Glencoe, one of Scotland’s most photographed stretches of road for good reason, regarded by many as the heart of the Scottish Highlands. We head to checkpoint one for tea, coffee, a stamp in the logbook, and straight back out.

From there, checkpoint two: Eilean Donan Castle, perched on its own tidal islet where three lochs meet, and usually the last big landmark riders pass before crossing over to Skye. Rebuilt in the early twentieth century after centuries left in ruins. From here the road turns toward Applecross, spirits were high with the anticipation of the Bealach na Ba.

The Bealach is one of the UK’s great motorcycling roads on paper alone, a single-track climb of hairpins rising to 2,053 feet, but 252 miles into a day that started at Drummond Castle, it’s something else entirely. At the top, the group calls a stop: a line-up for a group photo, and the drone goes up for some aerials, the hairpins fold out below in a way no ground shot quite manages, the whole rally reduced to a thin grey ribbon cut into the hillside.

Checkpoint three is in Applecross, then it’s on to Torridon Estate for the night. Torridon greets everyone with a wall of midges after a long day in the saddle, tents go back up, though a handful who’d booked rooms at the manor were suddenly looking very pleased with that decision. The courtyard has a firepit and a couple of fans mounted on the walls purely to keep the midges moving, and that’s where the evening settles: whisky, live music from the hosts, and the particular kind of contentment that only comes after 250-odd miles of Highland roads. It’s here, as much as anywhere on the route, that the rally does its real work, strangers from the morning’s start line are trading stories like old friends by the fire, and more than a few of the friendships made around that firepit will clearly outlast the weekend. By midnight most riders have called it, day two is 224 miles, and the forecast isn’t kind.

Day two. Waterproofs on before the first mile. Checkpoint one is Cawdor Castle, just past Inverness, but getting there isn’t straightforward. Robert and I are last off the line, which means we’re also the ones who have to catch the entire pack before the finish. At the first fuel stop, in Kinlochewe, we find one group still parked up, a Triumph Bobber running on one cylinder. Robert’s on the phone to Leroy, the rally’s support mechanic, and in the time it takes to explain the problem, he’s already there. The Bobber gets pushed into a nearby shelter, and ten minutes later it’s running clean again, no drama, no delay beyond what it takes to fix it.

From there it’s a all out push through the rest of the route: Cawdor Castle for a fast coffee, checkpoint two at the Fife Arms in Braemar where most stopped for a quick lunch, checkpoint three in Pitlochry, and the final leg through Aberfeldy back to Drummond Castle. The weather had been much kinder than we expected with only the first couple of hours being in the wet. Robert and the support team already back at the courtyard, flag in hand, ready to wave each group in as they arrive.

By the time the last teams roll in, the bikes are already circled up in the courtyard, waiting for the closing ceremony. Two days. 476 miles. Another entry etched into the logbook, another one for the memory bank.

We did it, the Malle Rally 500 is complete, and what a high it was. Not the kind that fades by morning either. The kind that sticks around in your chest for weeks. It’s funny how a couple of days on two wheels can leave you richer than you started, new friends who feel like old ones, old friends who feel even closer, and yeah, maybe a little damp around the edges. But that’s the trade you make. Mud on your boots, stories in your pocket.

Worth every mile.

Godspeed.