Loch Ness is a long way from the postcard idea of a quiet Highland lake. It is a slot in the earth, about thirty-six kilometres of dark water lying along the Great Glen fault, and it is deep enough, over two hundred metres at its worst, that it holds more water than every lake in England and Wales put together. Standing above it near Drumnadrochit, you feel the scale of it more than you see it: the far shore is steep, forested and close, and the water has the colour of strong tea because of the peat washed down from the hills.
The A82 along the north-west shore is the road you ride here, and it is better than its reputation among tourists in hire cars. It is wide for the Highlands, with decent sightlines, a few fast sweepers and a handful of tight spots where the loch hugs the tarmac. The trouble is traffic. In summer the coaches, caravans and monster-hunters crawl between Fort Augustus and Inverness, so go early in the morning or late in the evening, when the light along the water is lovely and the road is yours. Wind funnels down the glen, usually from the south-west, and can push a loaded bike around on the open stretches.
The history sits mostly a few minutes away at Urquhart Castle, a ruin on a promontory that was blown up in 1692 so the Jacobites could not use it. Older still is the story of Saint Columba, who in the sixth century is said to have faced down a water beast in the River Ness, recorded by his biographer Adomnán. The modern monster industry came much later, in the 1930s, but the loch has never quite shaken it off, and every second shop in Drumnadrochit sells a plush version. Nobody has found anything. The Caledonian Canal, stitched through the glen by Thomas Telford in the early nineteenth century, is the quieter marvel.
For practical matters, Drumnadrochit is a village of about a thousand people and has the basics, including somewhere to eat and a petrol station, but it is the sort of place that fills up fast in the season, so do not leave fuel to chance. Inverness, twenty-odd kilometres away, is the proper town for everything else. Midges are real here from late spring to early autumn, mostly at dusk and in still air, so a viewpoint stop is best done with the visor half down and the engine ready.