Don’t worry about your helmet, no one ever checks.
We (wife and I) have been to Scotland – once by car and once by moto.
We stayed at The Scholar… a hotel that is on the UofEdinburgh campus. It was cheap, clean and full of interesting academics from all over the world.
Other than the main tourist attractions, we didn’t do much else in Edinburgh. We sure toured the daylights out of the rest of the place, though… for four weeks.
fwiw, April could possibly be too early to ride there… Scotland is very far north… and it rains a LOT!
On the bike we took a Beach’s tour (highly recommended, best in the business, but they only go to the UK rarely) did a large part of the NW500, and a lot of non-urban riding.
Regarding a gear bag, Beach’s gave me this gear bag for the tour:
This bag has rugged handle and wheels, a couple of dividers (gear on bottom, clothes + helmet on top) and side pockets, and is distinctive. Be sure the gear you put in it weighs no more than 50 pounds.
ymmv, but when we went nearly 10 years ago there were no places to rent a motorcycle there.
Ian
All three of these roads were epic. We rode out from Inverness on 838, turned nth, then south to Ullapool.
