SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[Loonette]

Hey Richard!

I'm always so behind in reading your blog, but I just recently printed up this page #19 to get caught up (ends up being 13 pages of printed text - man, can you blog!). I didn't get very far, however. I just had to stop and comment on this passage...

I still remember the teacher standing over me yelling at the top of his lungs, while I yelled 'Horatius' back at him with my fingers stuck in my ears giving it as much welly as he could wish for. There was nothing fairy-like about my performance that afternoon. It was my first big act of rebellion...I suppose it was a pretty geeky kind of rebellion...I did stop eventually when his temper finally got the better of him and he belted me round the head for the second time...

Geeky?! Well kind of. I think you are about the most "punk" person I've ever come to know. I wonder how many kids you inspired that day. I wonder if your teacher "got it" - the message you were sending. I was never quick or brave enough to stand up to the various jagoff teachers I had as a child. Years later I can only dream of putting on such a performance as you did. You not only questioned authority, but you put it in its place. Too cool!!

My kids certainly enjoy a different type of educational experience than you or I did, but as we have explained to them the ways of old, they will get a huge kick out of your story when I read it to them later today (especially my son who is nearly eleven years old and who finds great humor in these sorts of tales). Thank you - you've made my day!! Now, back to reading your blog...

Cheers,
Loonette

[sv-wolf]

I think you are about the most "punk" person I've ever come to know.
Loonette

A 'punk' Local Government Officer! I like the idea. A bureaucrat with a wry grin, maybe.

Cheers Loonette. My vanity is genuinely flattered.

Always good to hear from you.

Regards

Dick

[sv-wolf]

OK, since I'm in a poetic mode and my mind is more on my wife than it is on bikes for the moment, here is one I wrote for Di (my foxy lady) in July this year, a couple of months after she died.

Flying Fox

I never could look past your skin
Or see in its contours anything
But a fresh and airy landscape:
Acres of Surrey Downland,
Light and shade
Changeable in your changing weather.
Your body's curves displayed such eloquence
I could not see they held a space
To hide a form of terror in.
Your clarity filled up every sense I had.
And so, in all those days, I never understood
Except, at times, with tears
Some simple truths
My fractious stranger.

My heart was driftwood.
One winter's afternoon, at Watersmeet,
Casting aside your fragile mood
With a cry,
You ran headlong along the shore
And plucked it, floating, from the stream
And, smiling, held it out to me,
Not knowing what it was you found.
But you were sure
(As always, sure, and I uncertain)
That Love was at work
In the finding,
Sure too, that love lay all around
In the stony earth,
In the chaliced sunlight and rippling waters,
There too, in the chattering air.

Mutely, accepting your gift of faith
In ignorance of how to cherish it;
Mutely,
Among the clacking pollard trees,
I gave my foundling heart
Back, into your keeping.

And when, years later,
Lost in the mists of Wales,
We reached the top
Of that high and windy hill,
Cold rain stinging our whitened faces,
We sat alone and close, side by shivering side,
Your rainy hand slipped into mine,
And watched the moiling clouds
Dispute the land's severity.
I loved you then
And made my home with you
Both there and everywhere,
In every movement of the hurrying air,
At peace, at last, with all the years to come.

That was a first beginning.
And though, in later years, you taught me how to walk
The quarry path and pick my way
Unerringly among your tumbled stones,
Even by starlight;
And though you showed me
How to recognize, at last, the hidden
Geographies of love and sacrifice
Where you had staked
Your greater home,
I never guessed,
Still never guessed, until the very last,
What heavy seams,
What faults and fractures
Lay beneath your fragile skin,
Never understood
How sad and unrelenting
Were the ways you trod,
Or sensed, that underfoot,
Unseen, those burning fields of shale
Glowed steadily.

Then suddenly, there was no more time...
In the early winter of our nineteenth year
High white clouds appeared
And with them came a fall of snow
That blanketed the ground
And silence fell.
And in that unknown place
I never dared to think about
The chemical decay began,
Leaving its formidable trace
On arms and face,
On lined and sagging skin.

But though the contours of the land would change,
the house face dereliction and decay,
Fresh seasons came
Bringing with them cargoes of memory,
Hedgerow harvests,
The sweet wormed apples
And the swallow's cry.
That year, larks sang shrilly over the Downlands
And old winds blew.

And when, confined at last
Out of the changing weather,
Your tongue fell silent,
And the sharp discovery
Of pain deformed your strength,
Your eyes stayed true.
Even then, between the rose bowl and the mask
The soft machinery of love
Wound safely on.

From your narrowing defile
Of clear and shrunken flesh
You waited,
Smiled and waited.
For hours your eyes held two,
You waiting
And I waiting,
But were content, at last, with drifting motes
Resolving nothing,
Content, at last, with nothing.
Beyond the glittering panes some blackbirds sang,
A squirrel chittered recklessly,
And love and sunlight filled the room.

[sv-wolf]

Saturday 7 October 2006

Tomorrow, Sunday 8th October, 2006, is going to be a testing time in my life. Circumstances will demand that, come tomorrow morning, I must make a huge personal sacrifice. There is nothing unexpected about this. I’ve seen it coming for weeks. In the wee hours of the night I’ve ruminated on it fretfully. But there is no getting away from it, tomorrow I will have to give up my Sunday rideout - in the interests of a higher good.

Never mind that part of the ‘higher good’ is to save me a great deal of personal embarrassment and frustration; the question is - am I up to the challenge?

It’s like this. I’ve noticed for a long time that since the trauma of Di’s illness and death, I’ve not had the same amount of physical stamina or the same level of physical resilience that I used to have. (These things are returning to normal slowly - but only very slowly.) During the last year, long Sunday rideouts with the club have left me tired and tense, and in the following days, I've rarely been at my best. This coming Tuesday, I’m giving my performance of ‘Reynard’. It's two-and-a-half hours long and I have to be at full belt for all that time. It’s a real marathon. I need my voice to stand up to it. I need a huge reserve of emotional and physical energy to get through it (If you have ever done anything like this you will know just how exhausting it is). And I will need my wits about me at all times.

There is only one thing which I know of that comes close to demanding the same level of concentration and attention. Imagine riding a sportsbike on some very narrow, very twisty B roads with all the usual B-road hazards of gravel, mud, blind corners, split or bumpy surfaces, careless cagers, adverse cambers, changeable weather conditions, etc, etc, and imagine that you are riding these roads at high speed and at the very limit of your ability, pushing ahead of your comfort zone, and imagine, too, that you are doing this for two-and-a-half hours without a break. Consider the mental energy required. It’s a bit like that.

In fact, I would say riding the bike is easier, as there are moments of relaxation when riding any road. In the performance, the text is coming at you every second. It’s remorseless. In every moment, you have to make choices about delivery: rhythm; phrasing; gesture; emphasis. You have to continually use your projected thoughts to imagine as vividly as you can what you are saying, otherwise it doesn’t come alive. You have to gauge the audience constantly and respond to their mood. And you cannot drift or lose your concentration, even for a second, because if you do, you find yourself floundering and racked with anxiety and embarrassment.

If you get it right, it is incredibly rewarding. If you don’t, you’re in deep dodo – or at least, you feel as if you are. And once things start to go wrong, they are likely to continue until they fall apart completely.

Maybe it is a British thing, but I would rather have physical pain than that overwhelming sense of embarrassment. I've been there. It's soul destroying. Of all the emotions, I think embarrassment is the most uncomfortable. Maybe not the most serious, but certainly the most uncomfortable. At 54, I’ve found plenty of ways to manage it, but it is still mortifyingly unpleasant.

So, the decision is made: no rideout for me tomorrow.

In a resigned mood, I nip down to the cellar to check the club website to see where the guys are going: Harrold Odell Park! Very nice! And a lovely route out through some of the most attractive Bedfordshire countryside.

Of course, it would do me good to get out just for a short run, and get just a bit of fresh air. And, you know, Harrold Odell Park is not that far - just a quick morning's ride. (As the days draw in, the club runs become shorter.) And if the club did decide to go on further, I could turn around at that point and come home. Couldn’t I?

Come on, Dick! Pull yourself together!!! You know what the consequences might be.

All right! The logic to this is impeccabile. I definitely need to lie in tomorrow morning to catch up on some much-needed sleep (I've had short nights all this week.) And tomorrow, I will need to make some last minute preparations for the performance. Yes, and as I've got myself hooked into blogging late into the night, tonight, and will get to bed later than is truly sensible, the sleep-in tomorrow will be doubly important.

Phew! That was a close call. Thank f**k that common sense has won the day.

At ten past nine o’clock the following morning I blink at the sunlight, stretch sleepily and gradually wake up to my surroundings. I then swing off the bike, switch off the engine and look around to see how many guys have turned up to the bike meet outside BikeStop in Stevenage High Street. (OK. So I'm cr*p at being sensible. So shoot me!) It was all an accident anyway. I was so sleepy when I went to bed last night that somehow I managed to set the alarm for 8.00 instead of 10.00. And once I'd been woken up I just couldn't put the idea of a ride with the lads out of my head. It was pure chance; pure coincidence! Anway, as I said, it's only going to be a short run. It will be good for me.

There were a load of us. I didn’t count exactly but there must have been about fifteen bikes. And three women riders. That was nice. We nearly always have a couple of women pillions, but we’ve been a bit short of women riders recently. One of the three is a very experienced motorcyclist, police trained. She rides 'The System'. I like following her. I learn a lot. She's a great laught, too. Another had been riding for a while. And then there was Sarah on her new Buell. I’m not familiar with Buells and I can’t make out much about the machine except that it looks like it might be a 400cc or something like that. It has ‘Scared Sh1tless’ painted in an elegant cursive hand on the yellow fairing. Sarah has only just recently passed her test and graduated from pillion to rider. She’s pleased. Everyone is pleased for her, especially her husband.

So what have we got? A couple of Aprilias (a Mille and a Tuono – I love the look of Milles). There are two R1s, Two VFRs (a bike I am beginning to get quite interested in since a couple of friends have both purchased one recently - including Drumwrecker who posts here on TMW.) There's Sarah and her husband on their Buells, 'Squeaky' on his CBR600F, Dave on his Triumph Trophy, an assorted collection of nakeds and me on the SV Thou.

As anticipated, the ride to Harrold Odell Park is lovely. It is a beautiful time of year to ride out. The low, wooded Bedfordshire hillsides are beginning to glow now with a thousand autumnal colours. The mature and stately trees lining the roads add a sense of richness and fullness to the countryside. Somehow, that fullness supports me and sustains my mood. The woodlands on either side crowd up to the very edges of the road and magnify the sense of speed.

We ride out through miles of rolling countryside, through small towns and sandstone villages. I have a ‘moment’ as we pass through Turvey. Di went for a short retreat at Turvey Abbey in the early stages of her illness and was looked after by the nuns there. I get that sudden twang on the heartstrings, a sudden yearning that, for a moment, takes me over totally and throws me into a whole other dimension of feeling. These moments are very familiar now. I can’t predict them - a stray thought, the sight of a significant object and, wham! they just come at me like the R1 that nearly blew me away on a blind corner some months back.

I have a friend, Chris, who stays at the Abbey occasionally when he needs time out. He says the nuns are wonderfully friendly and undogmatic. They support themselves by taking in guests and by painting religious icons. He tells me their work is quite famous in religious circles.

The roads are surprisingly free of traffic (for England). We take it easy. That’s partly for Sarah’s benefit, but also partly because of the mood we’re in. We've got some extremely good, fast riders with us, including two ex-racers but everyone seems quite content to stay in line and go with the pace. I’m riding very well this morning. My lines and cornering have improved recently and I’m really enjoying the bike. Although I’m a little tired, having had only six hours sleep, I’m relaxed and very much at one with the SV. Good decision to come, I think. I follow just behind the leaders all the way to the park in a strange, dreamy but focused mood.

By the time we get deep into Bedfordshire, I’m pretty blissed out. The SV is purring sexily beneath me. I love it when she sounds like that, so smooth, so throaty. I don't describe her noise or response as a vibration any more. I've put aside my irritation and come to accept it, and with acceptance has come appreciation.

We’re passing now through lush grass pastureland; over long, narrow sandstone bridges; over slowly sliding rivers, their banks thickened with clumps of rush and overhung with magnificent willow trees; past thatched cottages securly tucked into the clay banks; past picture-perfect villages. Wonderful!

At Harrold Odell Park there is a great little tearoom. It is located in a large wooden hut on stilts, above the lake. The hut is partly given over to a Field Centre which has exhibits displaying some of the wildlife features of the park. We stow our gear away there, in a corner. No-one seems to mind. The tearoom itself is small but pleasant and friendly. The manageress welcomes ‘Squeaky’ and another club member with cries of recognition and a hug. As I said – the place is very friendly. But then, ‘Squeak’ gets that kind of reception wherever he goes. He gets it from having more warm-hearted cheek than anyone else I have ever known. He gets his name because he is extremely particular about the condition of his bike (and everything else) He likes it to be 'Squeaky clean.' 'Squeaky' now appears on the bottom of his registration plate.

After a ‘Full English’ breakfast of baconandeggsandchipsandbakedbeansandmushroomsandtomatoes and an endless supply of buttered toast and tea – the club settles back to a general discussion of life, the universe and everything. I ask if anyone has a video cam I can borrow (Blues – take note) for Tuesday. The idea of videoing the performance still makes me nervous. I’m still very uncertain about it, but several people have been encouraging me to do it. Geoff says he has and I can. Hell! That’s done it!

I tell Dave and ‘Squeak’ and the other guyhs that I will leave them there and make my way back home by myself. I tell them why. They give me a peculiar look as though I had suddenly started talking in tongues! I wait. At any instant I expect someone at the table to open his mouth and make an extremely withering (and funny) remark. A worried feeling begins to well up inside of me. A fair number of the club are coming along to ‘Reynard’ on Tuesday. I don’t expect them to behave themselves on the night (a forlorn hope!) but I’ve harboured a slight hope they will tone their impromptu participation down just a bit, so that I can get through the evening without corpsing. I continue to wait. But the remark doesn’t come. Instead, an amused and knowing look passes unmistakably round the table.

We get to discuss what we are going to do now. Actually, everyone knows what they are going to do now, because Dave has already made a suggestion on the web and no-one else has the energy or the motivation to think of anything else. Dave’s idea is that we should go to Wellingborough to visit a dealer/showroom belonging to the ‘Manufacturer of the World’s best Motorcycles’ – Dave’s words, not mine. There can be no doubt about what that means. We are going to visit ‘Pure Triumph.’ Again! They are a small minority, but the club's Triumph Mafia win the day again and again! What makes them so zealous about their favourite marque?

Well, I start to think to myself, it isn’t very far to Wellingborough from Harrold Park, and a lot of the morning is still before us, and it is a really nice day and I’m feeling very relaxed and mellow - not getting any strain on my wrists at all - and I’m enjoying the company, and I really need to be diverted for a while. And then it occurs to me that if I went home now, I’d only overdo the rehearsing and get myself stressed when I should be relaxing. I'm pretty pleased with this train of thought. (I’ve always prided myself on my analytical thinking.) There is no doubt that continuing to Wellingborough is the wisest and best course of action I could take. I announce to the club that I will be going the rest of the way with them. No-one makes the slightest comment.

The ride to Wellingborough is faster, a lot less easy-going, much more focused. The roads are good. Everyone appears to want to hot up the pace. I am still on good form: relaxed, confident, enjoying the experience of being tested on the corners and feeling up to it. Those of us in the leading five or six bikes start having fun with one another. I can’t remember how long it has been since I’ve enjoyed myself on a bike like this. I'm fully focused on the riding. I have a fleeting impression of some of the towns as we pass through when we slow to 30 or 40 mph but I remember little of the countryside surrounding the derestricted roads beyond.

Close to the outskirts of Wellingborough though, I have a sudden attack of nerves. It comes over me from time to time – it's low blood sugar, I expect. It usually happens if my carbohydrate intake is down. I’m skinny but have to eat like a horse to keep energy up. If I don’t get a regular injection of good quality carbs my blood sugar will plummet suddenly and unexpectedly. I’ve had a high protein breakfast - no carbs at all.

Suddenly, I’m not riding so well. With a tight corner coming up, my imagination pumps up my anxiety levels and I take fright. I brake early and quickly and one of the other riders behind me nearly clips me. He overtakes. I slow down a little and stay well clear of the others. I’m still enjoying the ride, but am less confident now.

At Wellingborough, we take a look at the Triumph showrooms. I enjoy sitting on a Bonneville and making (silent) brmmming noises. Beautiful bike. One of the best-lookers ever. I then go and gaze impressionably at the big Daytonas. Mmmm! More fantasy moments. Dave (a tireless publicist for the Triumph cause) comes over to me and points out that the Daytonas are being discontinued and now would be a good time to buy. Has this man no idea how little self-restraint I actually possess when it comes to purchasing things? Perhaps he does…

We take a slightly roundabout route home from Wellingborough, via the Kimbolton road. Now this is a lovely road, full of wide open corners with good sight lines, and relatively little traffic. A joy to ride! I get most of my confidence back and really enjoy myself here with the others. This is a favourite road with bikers. On a warm summer day, the bikes come down this road like swarms of bees. That can sometimes make it a bit hair raising. You have to watch out for the overenthusiastic Gixxer guys on the other side of the road (theoretically). They will sometimes overcook it on the corners and give you a bit of a fright.

We stop just outside Kimbolton and wait for the Buells to catch up. Sarah, in particular, has been struggling. She had a hairy moment earlier in the afternoon on a corner and nearly had an entanglement with a hedge. Dave has stayed back marker for her for much of the trip. She is still finding her confidence on rides like this.

We stop off for about an hour at a café by a lake. Everyone had has such a good time and is feeling so mellow that we just hang around there, happily chatting. Unusually, no-one is fretting to be off. Those that want to get back quickly set off for a direct ride back to North Herts down the A1 while the rest of us follow ‘Squeaks’ on what turns out to be a very roundabout route back home – far more roundabout than I would have liked. On the way back, My wrists and legs start to get stressed. I gravitate to the back of the pack. I begin to need a pee desparately but don't want to stop. And as I’ve had such a good day with the club I want to finish it with them. I don't want to drop back and get left behind.

Despite my starting to feel wound up, I thoroughly enjoy the way home. We find a wonderful little back road home through the village of Ireland. I’ve not been this way for maybe 25 years. It winds idyllically through some lovely countryside: little clumps of oakwood are dotted about here and there in rich, rolling pastureland. Again that sense of fullness fills my thoughts. The land here feels very secure in its own being. As a child, the whole world had felt like that. Now, forty years on and with a much more developed sense of the world’s fragility, that feeling of fullness and security comes much more rarely.

Eventually, we find our way back onto the Barton Road, where the ‘Live and Let Live’ pub beckons us and we make yet another stop. One of our female R1 riders livens up the rather twee pub and its somnolent barman with some fairly raunchy comments, and everyone feels well pleased with themselves.

I peel off from the main group when we reach Hitchin and made my way to my home.

Well. I did get home somewhat tired and stressed in the way I had hoped to avoid, but I had a bloody good day. One of the best riding days ever. So I guess I can’t complain about that. Mmmmmmm nice!

[sv-wolf]

Sunday 15 October 2006

I promise you that in what follows, I will not bore you to death with an account of my allergies. I’ve bored myself with them for thirty years, so I have a very compassionate understanding of your need to know as little about my health problems as possible.

Let’s just say that, having an excessively reactive biochemistry, most of the rx drugs I have ever been treated with (almost all before the age of 25) have given me hypersensitivity reactions and left me in a far worse state than before. In the last 30 years the only drugs I have allowed on my side of my skin are the occasional dental anaesthetic and one Asprin. So when I’m unwell, I have to deal with my problems in other ways. As I have no love for the rx industry, that is fine by me.

And so it was that, after leaving my office in Stevenage last Thursday afternoon, I found myself haring past Ware and up the A10 on my bike to see Peter Jackson-Maine in Cambridge. Peter is a brilliant herbalist and iridologist whom I have relied upon for years to help me out when my health goes wonky and the symptoms haven’t gone away, no-matter how hard I have tried to ignore them.

You now understand where I was going and why, but those of you who have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hertfordshire geography will be wondering why the hell someone travelling from Stevenage to Cambridge, should be riding past Ware, or even anywhere near Ware. Well, you know, funnily enough, at that moment, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Here is a lesson in life for all bikers: never, ever take directions from a car driver. I’d asked people at work, all cagers, of course, what they thought was the quickest route. At this time of day, the more direct route through Baldock would be heavy with traffic, they thought. So I should go south to Ware and then back north up the A10. As the bike rumbled along and all the extra miles rolled passed me, I began to think: cars can’t filter, can they? And then I thought: but I can! (Memo to me: ‘Cars can’t filter, can they? But I can!’) I had clearly not been at my intellectual best that afternoon when deciding my route.

Going by Ware must have put half-an-hour on my journey, and I was already late because I’d had to attend a very boring meeting which had over-run. The meeting had plodded its way through issues I knew nothing about and didn’t concern me until, at the very end, I was required to explain something to senior managers who should have known anyway. I sat in the meeting-room gazing out of the window at the drunks staggering out of Weatherspoon’s, opposite and wondering when I was going to clean my bike. I then remembered the young triangle player I once spent a whole evening feeling very sorry for during a truly terrible performance of Elgar’s Second Symphony in Hitchin Town Hall. He was a sad-looking teenager sitting at the back of the orchestra, yawning through half-an-hour of throbbing, heaving Elgarian chaos, scratching various bits of his anatomy and waiting to perform a single ‘ting’ on his triangle at the final climax of the work. A great flush of human sympathy came over me just at that moment. I knew exactly how he felt.

I was already late for my appointment and getting later. I throttled it up the A10, making what, I must admit, were some very dodgy overtakes. ‘Cool it!’ I kept telling myself, ‘this is not the way to lead a long life or to help preserve the rest of the species either.’ I was in a panic and my nerves were shot and I wasn’t making my best judgements. The SV, being a total torque monster, was getting me through the overtakes safely, but I wasn't allowing much margin for error.

Two days previously I’d performed ‘Reynard the Fox’ solo to, it has to be said, a very receptive audience. It all went very well but it was very stressful nonetheless. The performance took three-and-a-quarter hours altogether, non-stop. I’d been working on it hard for weeks after work, and now that it was over I was totally wrung out. My body had gone into an enforced furry-happy mode. Which was fine as long as I was collapsed in front of some mindless film on DVD, but not on the A10. On the A10 you don't need a passivly tuned-out mind.

I slogged my way through the Cambridge rush hour traffic, found somewhere to park (a miracle!) and got to Peter’s twenty minutes late.

He took a photo of my irises, asked some quick questions and diagnosed a shot adrenal glad and a general endocrine malfunction. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years and he knew nothing of Di’s death or anything else that has been happening. He prescribed some… (now let me get this right, this was a new one on me – I’m too lazy to go upstairs right now and read the label) …Ashwaganza… (I’m sure that’s not quite right, I’ll edit later). It’s an adaptogenic herb which is used to balance the endocrine system and sort out my sleep patterns. He also prescribed a concoction which would be sent to me in the post. I said good-bye, forgot to pay him (he forgot too – he’s as absent-minded as I am), and rode home, much more calmly and happily, back down the A10. Half way home I cut across through Newton and Whittlesford to the A505 (because I felt like it) and came home past the aeronautical museum at Duxford. A pleasant enough ride with enough (careful) overtakes to keep it interesting.

I’ve always thought that the herbalist’s term, ‘adaptogenic’ was really a clever way of saying ‘Mickey Finn.’ That night, I stirred the fine white powder into a cup of hot water before going to bed, drank it down, swayed upstairs, and presumably went to bed. I have no recollection of anything after that…

I woke fifteen hours later.

Same thing happened the following night.

On Saturday night I didn’t take it. The next day was rideout day and I didn’t want to be having a sleepy-happy time on the bike on the way up to… where were we going? No, I hadn’t forgotten this time. No-one had yet decided. I wasn’t going with the club on this occasion. They were riding down to the Ace Café for the afternoon. I like the Ace but I felt like a longer ride. I was meeting with Keith, Neil and Drumwrecker at ‘The Silver Ball’ just north of Royston on the A10 (again!) ‘The Silver Ball’ used to be a great biker’s café but about a year ago it was taken over by a new owner who has been giving a perfect demonstration of how not to run a business or to deal with bikers. He’s sullen, charmless, slow, humourless and seems to think that everything you ask him is a bit of a pain in the arse. The bikes that used to pack the large parking area every Sunday have dwindled down to a handful. How he manages to keep the business going is anyone’s guess. But ‘The Ball’ is a convenient meeting place for the four of us, and the food is still good basic nosh. Drumwrecker was already there when I arrived, so we sat, ate breakfast and waited for Keith and Neil to appear on their KTMs.

Neil arrived with Louis, his pre-teenage son, on the back of his bike. Keith arrived with… well, Keith arrived with a towel stuck under the front of his helmet and his forehead covered in congealed blood - a massive red patch of it. His knuckles were all scratched too. So everyone’s first thought was that he had been in a fight. That was not unlikely. Keith likes a drink and has an impulsive and sometimes a ‘propulsive’ nature. But, no. Apparently this wasn’t a fight, this was road rash. Ouch! And no, he hadn’t come off a bike… We all looked up curiously. He’d come off a scooter. Some degree of confusion followed. The idea of Keith a scooter, is like the idea of John Wayne on a camel. But no, that wasn’t it either. This wasn’t a motorised scooter, this was a kid’s scooter, one of those little things with a platform on two tiny wheels, which you push along with your free foot. Whoops! As I said, Keith like a drink or two in the evenings and, he’d met his boy and there was this steep hill and…

OK, we decided to head out towards Grafham Water, via Shepreth and the villages. I knew the way up to Barton so would lead for the first half, and after that it was up to Drumwrecker to navigate us to Grafham. The villages up to Cambridge are lovely. The roads are twisty and fast by turns, the landscape very varied. I’ve blogged about a lot of them before. At Barton two of us fuelled up and we set off in the general direction of… Where was it again? The roads were narrow and interesting. Nobody was that bothered.

I was feeling very wound up, not having slept well the previous night. After riding very well on the twisties for most of the last couple of weeks, I felt a bit disappointed that I’d lost my nerve again and was taking it a bit carefully. I think the wound-up-ness was a reaction to coming down from the Mickey Finn. It didn’t feel like ordinary tension.

I've been playing with using the upper rev range more recently on the SV. With so much big V-twin torque available lower down, I've hardly had much need to go above 6K except for a quick dash or overtake. But if you've got it, try it. Trouble is when you get the bike up to the redline at 11K (The SV is heavily overcalibrated and it is more like an actual 10K at redline) it vibrates more. Still, over 6.5k on the clock there is a big additional dollop of lb-ft, which is quite... exciting, in the right mood.

We took a few unexpected routes. I can’t call them ‘wrong turns’ because, to make a wrong turn you have to have some idea of where you are intending to go and what the right turn might be. We were going in the general direction of Kimbolton and Grafham Water - as the drunken seagull flies. Or so we thought. We eventually stopped in Godmanchester. I know it was Godmanchester because Keith asked a passer by where we were. Godmanchester is a lovely old town. We had pulled up beside a big sweeping bend in the Great Ouse (river), overhung with huge mature willows and lined with well groomed firs. Swans were floating aimlessly up and down eyeing the ducks. Boats were puttering slowly round the river bend.

There was a general taking of photographs - of the bikes and the river, of us and the river, of Neil throwing Louis into the river, and several of Keith’s head with the river in the background - just for the record.

I knew the way to a good café at nearby Hartford lock, just the other side of Huntingdon, so led us there. And there we sat, at an outside picnic table for several hours watching the ducks and the boats. The sun came out and we chatted and drank and ate. Several bikers came and talked briefly about their bikes, their wives and the day’s MotoGP racing, and then disappeared back onto the road. Food eventually arrived and was eaten.

Neil, Louis and Keith went home together and left Drumwrecker and I to talk for another hour or so. We eventually went home too, straight down the A1(M), dull but quick. I waved goodby to Drumwrecker as he continued South and I peeled off onto the B1641 to make my way back to Hitchin along my favourite short road.

On my way home I started thinking about the last few days. I've had two more idiots nearly hit me. Do you think I have bad karma? Maybe I have accidentally stepped on too many snails or killed some woodlice or something. But c'mon, I've been really nice to Judith this month and I've been raising all this money for charity. Is there a specific kind of motorcycle karma, maybe? Have I said too many unkind things about Harleys or BMWs?

One guy just pulled over into my lane without looking. And I had to accelerate away from him. Then, on the way to work last Friday, a guy in a beaten-up looking Vauxhaul came off a roundabout that I was just approaching on the other side of the road and swept into an immediate U-turn directly in front of me, then slammed to a halt. (It was the kind of speed manouver that you only do to impress someone - usually yourself)

I assumed he'd come off the roundabout at the wrong turn, done the U-turn and was intending to move back onto the roundabout when it was clear to go. I waited behind him, expecting him to drive off. But, instead, he sat there and put on his parking lights. OK, he was parking there. Stupid place, but perfectly legal! I started to walk the bike back so that I could manouver round him (He'd cut in so close in front of me when he did the U-turn, that I'd ended up just inches from his backside.) when suddenly he slams the car into reverse (another hormone-fuelled manouver). He just wasn't looking. I jab the horn and he comes to a halt on my front tyre. Gnarrrrgh! We have quiet words.

With these pleasant recollections going round my head, I reached home and parked the bike on the side of the road outside my front door. A decent parking space! Good! Parking is getting harder to find around here lately. I live near the rail station. Hitchin is a communter town, so the station is well used. Railtrack, the company that owns the station land charges a huge fee for parking. No-one wants to pay it so they park down all the nearby roads, like mine. But that's usually during the week and during office hours. Evenings and weekends when only local people park here, there are usually plenty of free places. But not recently. So why is that? Beats me!

[sv-wolf]

Saturday 21 October 2006

There was some weird weather as I walked home from the market, laden with groceries, today - dry autumn leaves blowing over the streets and the sun beating down like it was a sunny May afternoon; hawthorn bushes confused, coming into blossom while still covered in fruit; kites beginning to nest in the trees. And wow! fifteen old, vintage Triumphs with even older riders (all baggy in baggy leathers) thumping up the road on the way to Letchworth. Must be a meet somewhere.

It would have been a lovely day for a ride, today but, unfortunately, I had too much to do. Tomorrow, rideout day, is forecast to be wet and windy - of course. The club is planning to take a trip up 'The Italian Road'. That will be fun in the wet ( ). The Italian Road is a long, straight road up in Cambridgeshire, made by Italian prisoners of war during WWII. You have to hand it to those guys, they knew how to get their revenge. The Italian road, by reputation, is the bumpiest road in the UK - and that is saying a lot!! I'll probably ride with them tomorrow. I'm as curious as anyone to sample its delights from the saddle - don't ask my why. Just one of those things.

I've been thinking a lot about the last time I dropped my bike recently. It happened in circumstances that were a bit out of the ordinary. Even though it was a couple of years ago now, the memory of it keeps coming back to me. You will see why, if you read on. I posted the sorry tale on the TMW boards at the time but those pages were lost when the site was hacked so I'll tell it again here.

It was at the end of my daily commute into work. I had swept into the courtyard at the back of my office, through the gap in the barrier, and turned sharp left into the motorcycle bay next to the bicycle stands. It was a bitterly cold winter day, but I was in a happy mood. I'd had a great ride in. I aimed the bike for my spot and, with consummate skill and verve, brought her sharply to a halt in the narrow space between the bicycles on one side and a white contractor's van on the other. I kicked down the side stand with a flourish and leaned her over. Ping! went the side stand as it returned instantly and decisively to its sprung back position. Down went the bike. OMG. Her downward rush came to a sudden halt as she hit the bike racks and stuck there, listing at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The first thing I remember doing, as soon as I realised what had happened, was looking up quickly at the CCTV to see if it was pointing in my direction .

A quick survey, showed me that there was no obvious damage to the bike or to any of the bicycles to my left. Very lucky, I thought. I relaxed a little.

Still sitting on the saddle, I tried to haul her up. It wasn't easy from that angle but I did manage to raise her a bit (about 15 degrees). The problem was that I couldn't get her up any further as my foot was planted about nine inches from the line of her wheels, and I couldn't lift my foot to get it closer without losing my leverage and dropping her back down again onto the bicycle racks. Don't you just hate the laws of mechanics, sometimes?

OK, so I had to get off her and pull her up from behind.

Only, that wasn't possible either. I was stuck. My foot was wedged in tightly between a bicycle, the bike rack and the SV. I couldn't pull it out at all. Hmmmmm! I tried several more times to lever the bike up. I tried to walk my foot in closer to the bike once I had her up a bit, but the moment I released even the tiniest bit of leverage against the ground she went straight down again. Pointless. I had another quick look at the CCTV camera which was directed firmly at the Chief Exec's Rover (the privilege of power). Good! It could stay like that.

It appeared to me at that moment that I had a situation on my hands. I turned things over and decided that there was no other way of dealing with this. One way or another, I had to get my foot out and get off the bike. To free my foot, it was clear that I would have to take off my boot. OK, a good practical plan. Or so it seemed! On my first try I realised that the gap my boot was wedged into was so narrow that I couldn't get my hand and arm far enough down beside the boot to undo the velcro and zips.

If this was going to work I would have to make my arm thinner by taking off my jacket. You'll remember I mentioned that it was a bitterly cold morning. Worse still, there was a bitterly cold wind whistling through the widely laced grille in the wall between me and the street. I was already very cold, but there didn't seem to be any choice. Off came the jacket. Still not enough. Off came my top... Oh Grief...! Off came my shirt.

Just as I was undoing the last buttons on my shirt, the CCTV started whirring overhead. Oh hell! I thought, and flung myself down on the bike and hoped the van on my right-hand side would obscure my stiptease from the curious eyes of the CCTV operative in reception. I knew the regular receptionist was off sick, so there was a temp on who probably wouldn't recognise me. Receptionists were under instruction to call the police if they saw anything at all suspicious. For about a minute I lay there with my chest across the freezing cold tank, and the rest of my body turning into an icicle while the CCTV roved about before returning dutifully back towards the boss's car. Off came the shirt and there I was, sitting on my bike stark naked from the midriff up in all that freezing weather.

But at least I could now get my arm down the gap to undo my boot. It was a bloody tight squeeze and a sharp piece of metal on the bike rack took a layer of skin off me in the process. But I did it.

The next problem was getting all that velcro open and the zips undone. I have great winter boots, Daytona Roadstars, very warm, very waterproof, very comfortable on and off the bike but held together with two velcroed straps and two zips up the front, one on each side. Ripping open the top velcro strap was tricky and so was ripping open the bottom velcro strap but that wasn't the problem: in the process of ripping open the bottom velcro strap, the top velcro strap fastened itself back up again. And when I went back to it and tried to get it undone again, the bottom velcro strap fastened itself back too.

A light but sharp rain was beginning to blow in through the grille on the wind. The drops felt like hot needles as they hit me before trickling over my head and back like Chinese water torture.

It bore in upon me at this point that getting my boot off was not going to be easy.

Just then two young women passed by on the pavement on the other side of the grille. They gave me a very suspicious look and hurried on round the corner of the building without saying anything. I knew them vagely, they worked in accounts. I was not in accounts' good books right at that moment. I looked up and gave them a sheepish grin. As I did so, I noticed that the CCTV camera on the entrance to the courtroom on the other side of the road was trained directly on me. Oh well!

I carried on working at the boot straps while my hand (and the rest of me) got number and number. By the time I got past the velcro I could hardly feel the toggles on the zips. It took a full fifteen minutes to get the boot off. And it then cost me several more layers of skin to get my arm back up out of the gap. After that, I had to sit quietly on the bike for several minutes longer, 'cos having been leaned over awkwardly for all that time my back had gone into spasm and needed to loosen up. My jacket and other clothes had slipped off the back of the bike where I couldn't reach them so I had to sit there for a little longer, in the pink - and going pinker.

My foot was now free to move but, as the bike was well keeled over towards it and my other leg was off the ground, it wasn't going to be a simple job getting off. That took another three or four minutes to work out and execute. Finally, as I got my leg up to the top of the gap, I gave a final jerk to free it, overbalanced and slid down the other side of the bike, landing on my back in the narrow gap between the bike and the van, bashing my head on the van's door handle in the process, and jabbing my hip on the bike rearset.

I flailed around like a upturned beetle for a while and finally scrambled to my feet. I put my jacket on very slowly and stiffly, still soaking wet, and stuffed the rest of my clothes into my rucksack, then stood around for several minutes gazing at the bike in a frozen stupor until I heard the inner door opening at the back of the courtyard. At that, I grabbed the grabrail, yanked her up and slipped down the sidestand, then walked towards the door saying, hello, to Josh as though nothing had happened.

I was off work with flu at the beginning of the following week and had plenty of time to contemplate the dangers and uncertainties of riding a bike.

[blues2cruise]

I have a very funny picture in my head now.....

[sv-wolf]

Sunday 22 October 2006 - Birthday Rideout

It’s a damn good job I’ve got a spare riding suit and a spare lid (or two) and a spare pair of gloves (or three), otherwise I would have had to ride into work this morning in soaking wet gear. Wet leathers are not my favourite kind of perversion. Here’s the details.

Yesterday, Sunday, was rideout day of course, but it was also something else. Yesterday was my birthday. So it was happy birthday to me! Tum-ti-tumm! And what better way to spend a birthday than to go for a day-long rideout with some mates - and then relax in the evening with a Chinese meal in the company of a few more. I wasn't looking forward to my birthday this year, solo, without Di for the first time. But as it turned out, I had a great day!

And BTW October 22 is a rather special day on which to have a birthday. At the end of the eighteenth century, Bishop Usher, that worthy gentleman and scholar of the church, ransacked his Authorised Version of the Bible and concluded from his examination of scriptural evidence that the world was created on October 22nd, 4004 B.C. Now that is quite something, wouldn’t you think? Not a lot of people can say that they share their birthday with the known universe, can they? Hmmmm? For some reason – and I can’t imagine why - people are never very impressed when I tell them this. But that is probably a good thing. At least, their indifference will save me from becoming a Creationist.

There weren’t many of us on the club rideout today, just David (as always) on his Triumph Trophy; Ian on his red Triumph Daytona painted over with Union Jacks and Lions and other patriotic things; Geoff on his big mean-looking black Suzuki GSX1400 (Geoff is pretty big and mean-looking himself); Mark on his Tuono; Drumwrecker on his newly acquired (and newly polished) white 1991 VFR; Keith on his KTM and me on the SV. Squeaky wasn’t coming out to play today. His CBR600F, his pride and joy, had acquired a nasty engine rattle last week - a big job it sounded like - and he’d put it in to a dealer to get the work done. He’s already had trouble with the cam chain tensioner this year. Not a happy man, I hear.

We were taking a trip up into the wilds of the Lincolnshire Fens (marsh, bog, swamp, bloody wet stuff, full of drainage ditches - that's the fens). We haven’t been out this way much recently, so it felt like a welcome change. And with the clocks going back next week it would probably be the last long ride of the year. The roads up to the fens are good and varied. We set off for a short way up the A1(M) and as boring as the A1 generally is, it made a change of route out of the immediate area. We headed off to Huntingdon, then up into East Anglia through the twisties and along some pretty good minor A-roads.

The breakfast stop was the Red Lodge transport café on the B1085 where, over plates of bacon and egg and sausage, Drumwrecker and I had a disagreement about the virtues (or otherwise) of Mr Brunstrom, Chief Constable of the North Wales police and the country’s No 1 bike-hating policeman - if the motorcycle press is to be believed. It is not hard to be a bike-hating policeman in the UK at present. There appear to be a lot of them.

Mr Brunstrom is now doing a ‘blog’ on the internet, which looks less like a blog and more like a huge publicity stunt to improve his image. He’s trying to present himself as a sensible sort of chap and is trying very hard not to rant on about stupid suicidal bikers, but from his latest efforts he doesn't appear to be succeeding very well.

We finished up our (excellent) breakfasts and set off again deeper into fen country. The huge East Anglian skies showed generally grey and dismal above us but the weather remained dry and reasonably pleasant. For the first time this year, though, I wished I’d worn my neck-tube. Autumn was finally, and very suddenly, all around us.

At Chippenham we stopped for a while on the side of the road to watch riders staggering round the course of an off-road riding school. I’ve been thinking about doing a day’s off-roading at somewhere like that. I’ve never done anything but road riding (except occasionally, by accident, in my younger riding days). It looks like a lot of fun and would be good experience for the IndiaEnduro. Given everything I’ve heard about the condition of Indian roads, there isn’t much difference between road riding and off-roading on the sub-continent. And besides, the Enduro organisers like to make things a bit dangerous and challenging for their riders, so it might just be a very good idea. Some guys who do the Enduro have hardly ever ridden a bike before in their lives. They take the test a few months before flying out to India and have only a couple of hundred miles riding under their belt before they go. Is this sheer madness or a daring spirit of adventure? One way or another, you’ve got to hand it to them!!!

That reminds me, I must get my Indian Visa and International Driving Permit sorted out soon.

Soon after Chippenham we hit ‘The Italian Road’, which I blogged about a couple of days ago. By reputation ‘The Italian Road’ is the bumpiest road in Britain. It isn’t as bad as I had imagined, but it sure is bumpy. I just couldn’t stop laughing in my lid all the way along it. The proper name for ‘The Italian Road’, is even better. It is called Prickwillow Road, as it leads to the village of Prickwillow. I love these East Anglian Names.

Beyond Prickwillow we entered Ely, passing by the amazing Romanesque cathedral – a huge pre-gothic building, over 1,000 years old, with a very unusual octagonal tower. Sitting on its low rise (the only bit of elevated land for miles around in this very flat landscape) the cathedral dominates the skyline and is known as ‘The Ship of the Fens’. We pressed on northwards, up to the lowlying lands around the huge double estuary of The Wash, over endless draininge ditches and through bleak-looking villages which appear not really to belong here. They all look as though they have been set gently down on this totally flat landscape and could blow away at any minute. They have strange names like ‘Upwell’ and ‘Outwell’ and ‘Three Holes’ and ‘Four Gotes’ and ‘Whaplode Drove’.

Many of the roads have deep drainage ditches immediately on either side of them. Boy racers are always killing themselves round here, haring down these roads at night, pissed out of their heads and rolling their cars into the ditches, where they drown unceremoniously in the murky depths. I have some sympathy for them. If I were a teenager living round here I think I’d go mad from frustration too and do stupid things.

The A1073, through Cowbit, was posted with a sign which said '51 fatalities this year'. ( ) And this is a road that is only about five miles long. It is a narrow, twisty road raised up on levees above the flood plain which stretches into the distance on either side. I can imagine gangs of frustrated teenagers playing the Fenland version of Russian Roulette along here in their stolen cars on cloudy, moonless nights.

This is a strange part of Britain. There is almost no defined 'coast' at all. As you approach the sea, the soil just gets muddier and wetter and then, if you continue walking, you notice that the wet mud has gradually turned into muddy water, and before you know it you are paddling in the murky fringes of the North Sea. (Have I blogged about the Fenlands before? I can't remember.)

Flooding must be common around here these days. The land has been drained and pumped for centuries, but with the rise of the sea levels out in the North Sea the pumps can no longer handle it. I understand that the government intends to abandon the coastal defences for good when the sea starts to come in. The local farmers are not best pleased. Do the government know what they are taking on? I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of an East Anglian farmer. The Gods round here demand regular blood sacrifice - so the rumour goes. From time to time, Susan, a friend and neighbour, fixes me with her beady, twinking eye and says darkly that all the tales they tell of folk in these parts and of strange goings-on are ALL TRUE. She's from Norwich originally, so who am I to disbelieve her?

You know those posts painted with black-and-white bands and marked eight feet, nine feet, ten feet, etc - the ones you see sticking up out of the rivers to indicate the depth of the water. Out here in the fens, you see them at the side of the road as well. Next time I come out this way I will tie a small dinghy to the back of the bike.

We stopped off at the ‘Hunter' resturaunt between Holbeach and Wisbeach for tea and cakes. Oh hell! I hate it when we stop here. From the outside this place looks just like an ordinary, greasy-spoon transport café, but inside, it is a wonderland of home-made cakes and pies and puddings. I’m cursed with a raging sweet tooth on the one hand and a bundle of allergies that make it impossible for me to eat this stuff on the other. It’s just sheer torture being here. I had to get up and leave the table as the custard tarts and layer cakes and apple pies swimming in cream started to arrive in front of the others.

As we left the café, I caught Keith looking appraisingly at my tyres in the carpark outside. I’m always a bit worried when he does that. One Sunday, about a month ago Keith, Drumwrecker and I rode out to Fox’s café just south-east of Oxford. We took a ride back home along a new route we’d not tried before. One of the B-roads was extremely bumpy. One particularly large and unexpected bump lofted the bike an inch or so above the road and lofted me several inches above the bike. The bike came down onto the tarmac. I came down too - onto the front end of the tank. Allow me to define this moment for you: “Ohhhhhhhh Aggggkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkksh Nggggggaaaaaaaaaargh! #@@#&&&%$$$!!!!!!!!!! ”

Bloody Keith’s KTM went sailing over the bumps (“What bumps” he was later heard to remark in response to an enquiry of Drumwrecker’s. I hate KTM riders.) My SV was all over the place. I must take some time to notch up that suspension one day, I thought, for the umpteenth time as I bounced along. Later the wind got up. We had some strong blustery crosswinds and again the SV had several moments of skidding about.

It was only when I got onto the A505 Offley by-pass that I realised that something else was amiss, something that had nothing to do with bumpy roads or crosswinds. The bike started sliding everywhere. Oh-ho! This was beginning to feel serious. I was close to home now, so I rode the last mile or so carefully up to my front door and had a look at the back tyre. Sure enough, there was the head of what must have been a bloody big nail embedded into the rubber.

Even then, I wouldn’t have felt such a great loon for not realising, if it hadn’t been for something Keith had said earlier when we stopped for a drink at a pub in that big estate village beginning with ‘W’ whose name I can never remember. The village was just about half-way home from Fox’s. We were sitting outside at some tables when he looked over at my bike and casually remarked, “You’ve got a puncture.” We, all three, looked more carefully and decided that, no it wasn’t a puncture it was just the way the shadows were gathered around the base of the tyre. Just to make sure though, I got up and gave the tyre a scientifically aimed kick. Nope, that was pretty sound, I thought, and we all went back to the conversation. Ho Hum!

So, now I always get worried when Keith starts looking at my tyres.

After I got got the bike home and sussed the problem, I left it outside the house for half-an-hour. In that time the tyres cooled and when I returned to have another look, the back one was as flat as a pancake. Lucky! I’d ridden all the way home from W… possibly even from Oxford on it. Talk about living on borrowed time!

I managed to arrange for A&M Motorcyles to change the tyre for me a couple of days later. That morning, I crossed my fingers, pumped the tyre up and rode the bike to the garage, five miles away in the next town of Letchworth, carrying the foot pump in my rucksack. The tyre stayed up for the whole journey – just. I also took a bit of advice from ‘Toby,’ (Mr Suzuki 'Bandit') my next door neighbour, and squeezed some SuperGlue around the head of the nail half-an-hour before I set off. Whether it helped or not, I don’t know. Toby's other pet method of dealing with holes in tyres is to remove the nail or whatever and screw a screw with a countersunk head into the hole. The SuperGlue idea struck me as being potentially more reliable.

While they were at it, I asked A&M Motorcycles to do a full service (there were 28,000+ miles on the clock just then) and check the shims. They found that two shims needed replacing. They did a good job, and they charged a ‘good’ price for doing it – that’s ‘good’ from their point of view. It cost me £538.00 the lot. Ouch! I know changing the shims is a time-consuming and expensive job but that’s a lot of dosh. Next year… Next year, I’m going to do that NVQ course in Motorcycle Maintenace at Bedford College. I can’t go on being a mechanophobe if it is going to cost me that much.

Our penultimate stop on yesterday’s rideout was a large dealership in Eye, just north of Peterborough. It sold mostly Yamahas and Triumphs, but there were loads of other bikes on show as well. I saw a second-hand ’03 SV1000S, exactly the same as mine, on sale in the shop. The asking price on the tag was more than the price I paid for mine when it was new. There was also a very nice looking Bonnie T100 in orange and cream for sale at a very good price – lovely. I was mildly tempted. But only mildly,

A light rain had begun before we got to the dealership, so we were happy to spend a while looking at the bikes and accessories. It had more or less dried up by the time we came out, but began once again as soon as we got on the bikes. The rideout finished with a deluge. Those grey skies that had been hanging around all day, finally decided to do some proper business. The clouds were low - a single uniform grey mass from horizon to wide horizon. You couldn’t work out where the clouds ended and the rain began. As we hit the A1 for a quick ride home the wet stuff began to bucket down all around us, spray was everywhere, visibiliy declined to nothing and the world went all twinkly.

No doubt I’ve said this before, but I like riding in the wet. I like doing almost anything in the wet. As we rode home down the A1 visibility improved and riding became a sheer pleasure. I had a great time. We rode home at a good speed for most of the way. At the MacDonalds just north of Biggleswade we went our spearate ways. I got home soaked to the skin. So, as I said, it’s a good thing I had some spare gear for going to work the following day.

POSTSCRIPT [Edit] After posting this on Monday evening I got my gear back on and set out for the Robin Hood pub in Walkern. Monday night is club night and each Mondy we meet at a local pub. The Robin Hood is a bit grotty, very smoky and much too small for a club the size of the S&DMCC, but it is a frequent and traditional winter venue. It's not too far from where most of us live (about nine miles in my case) so it does attract people out in the cold winter months when the "Stevenage and District Motorcyle Club" transforms itself into the "Stevenage and District Light Van and Car Club" and the endlessly repeated in-joke goes. (I'm sure I've repeated it here several times before.)

The road from Stevenage to Walkern is actually just a narrow, twisty lane with several sharp, greater-than-ninety-degree bends which come at you suddenly as you ride along between tall banks and hedges. It snakes along all up-hill and down-dale, so you have to take care when riding it, especially on winter nights when the sky is dark and the roads are icy. Tonight was the coldest night of the year so far. The sky above was starry and cloudless and there was a hint of frost in the air.

There was a reasonable turnout at the pub. Half the guys had come on bikes, half on four wheels. The conversation was good and lively, though I heard something which I wish I hadn't. Murray (a man with 'Triumph' tatooed upon his heart) was telling everyone that 'Lings', a dealership down in Watton-at-Stone, had four brand spanking new 955i Daytonas on sale at £4,600 a throw. That sounded like a deal and a half! I felt my juices rising. I love Daytonas. Oh God! Now, I'm going to have a crisis of conscience. I'm really not sure how to handle this. I'm tempted. More than mildly tempted this time. What do I do?

As I came out of the pub with Gail and Murray, the skies, which had been busy clouding over all the time I was grappling with my inner confilcts in the pub, started to chuck it down. Down it came harder and harder. I was wearing my second helmet, an HJC. The lining in my Arai, the lid I normally wear, was still wet from the day before and sitting in the airing cupboard at home. The HJC has no anti-fogging device fitted, so the moment I put it on in all this dampness, it steamed up. Nothing I could do would make any difference. I couldn't see a bleeding thing. I love the wet weather, but I do like to know whether I am aimed down the road or into the hedge. I just fastened my eyes on Murray and Gail's tail-light ahead and hoped Murray could see better than I could.

Within two minutes my leathers were soaked through, again. The skies had been so clear earlier in the evening that I'd left my waterproofs at home. How many years have I lived on this bloody island??????

[Edit 2] For nerdy grammatical purposes.

[KarateChick]

A belated

Well, I suppose wet soaked gear is better than sitting on your bike 1/2 naked with it toppled and a camera on you....

[sv-wolf]

A belated

Well, I suppose wet soaked gear is better than sitting on your bike 1/2 naked with it toppled and a camera on you....

I think I'd probably agree with your assessment, KC.

And thanks for the birthday wish.

Cheers

Dick