SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[sv-wolf]

Several years ago I started a blog on 'blogger'. 'A Rock To Stand On,' I called it. I was going through an inner crisis, not sure any more what I believed in or wanted to do with my life. It was going to be my personal diary about all the things that obsess me: motorcycles; motorcycle travel; mountains; camping; walking; politics; poetry; rockabilly; classical music; complementary medicine; evolutionary theory; history; economics; philosophy; science fiction; words, words, words... I'm mercurial; butterfly brained, into everything but sticking at nothing - not even blog writing.

I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted to tell everyone about my new blog or no-one. In the end I told no-one except one very old friend with a quirky sense if humour and a unique take on the world. He liked it. And that was enough. I made no effort to tell or please anyone else. I only ever made a couple of entries, and they were almost exclusively about motorcycle journeys I had made; a little bit of text and a lot of pictures. then the thoughtful mood passed, and so, from that time to this, 'A rock to stand on' has persisted in the unregarded silence of cyberspace, neither read nor caring to be read.

I have no idea why, but for the first time in several years, I visited it again tonight. It brought back a lot of old thoughts and memories. Maybe the mood has returned. Maybe I'll take it up again. Here's a link if anyone is interested.

http://arocktostandon.blogspot.co.uk/

[sv-wolf]

My current favourite long-distance motorcycle hero is Ed March. This guy does it differently, so differently I just have to share it with everyone. He rides a Honda C90 with an advanced luggage system comprised of a battered supermarket basket fixed to the front of his machine. He makes vids of all his trips. Here are some short extracts. One of his recent trips was from Malaya back home to England, via India.

Half way through this is one of the most extraordinary sequences I've ever seen recorded on a motorcycle travel vid. It sums up the macho character of Indian drivers perfectly. Watch it and prepare to be gobsmacked! (But be prepared to forgive an exquisite example of British toilet humour - if you are not a Brit.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPne-q4ynts

This is one of Ed's more sober videos. Normally, they are rather more 'deranged'.

Here's a more typical example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6f5yA2N_-8

And this one's for Gummi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_IKEdptq0

[blues2cruise]

Where the heck have you been?

[blues2cruise]

He's quite the adventurer. I watched the first and third video. The second would not work here.

After watching his video, I can now officially say I have no desire to go to India.

[Gummiente]

And this one's for Gummi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_IKEdptq0

Respect.

[sv-wolf]

Maybe you can open it on his home page.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189 ... by-ed-marc

Whatever you do, don't miss the 'Hitler' video at the bottom of the page. It's hysterical.

Been in a pretty horrible place for a while, blues, but starting to feel sunny-side-up again.

Cheers

[blues2cruise]

The Hitler piece was very funny.

I'm glad to hear you are on the mend again.

[blues2cruise]

Need something to do in September?


http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/museum ... C9CC130C2A

[sv-wolf]

Hi blues. That would be a 700-mile round trip by road for me, probably more than I'd want to do for a short weekend event. So, I'll probably decline. But thanks for the thought. (A longer trip combined with a visit to Edinburgh sounds like I might be good though.)

[sv-wolf]

It’s been a great riding day today, and almost none of it was planned.

My aim was to reward myself for all the hard work I put in yesterday clearing out the house. I've been trying to talk myself into doing it for nearly three years now, and even then it was some strategic nagging by a couple of friends that eventually managed to overcome all my resistances. They came over to lend a hand. I a hired Transit van and we spent 10 hours turning out piles and piles of accumulated ‘stuff’ from the attic, the cellar, the garden, the kitchen and the front bedroom, (which I've used as a storage space for my bike kit and camping gear for the last four years). I bagged up stuff I never thought I would be able to part with and stuff I didn’t even know I had. We loaded it onto the van, took it down to the council dump and hurled it into the crushers. All of it. And I only had two pangs of regret. One was for a painting Di had always liked (and I didn’t) and the other was for my bright yellow smashed-up helmet which I’d kept to remind me always to wear my gear when I ride. But I guess I don’t need reminding any more.

While down in the cellar I found my cot blanket and the first (very cool) jacket my parents had allowed me to choose myself. I found one of Di’s jumpers, some family photographs, a university exam paper it appears I did rather well in, a bag of sushi mats from my Japanese cooking days and one of the headlights from my SV650 which I picked up at the crash site as a memento.

That evening, buoyed up with an unusual sense of lightness, I took the friends who had helped out for a meal at the Offley Oriental, the best Chinese restaurant west of the Yangtze River, and then rode home feeling more relaxed than I’ve been in months. I went to bed, tired and happy.

There was a plan: the next morning I was to meet Viv and several other of my regular riding partners for a late breakfast at the Harrold Odell country park some twenty miles north-west of Hitchin, and then take a long looping ride through Beds and Bucks on some of the best twisties these counties have to offer, stopping off at couple of bike dealers in Woburn and Wellingborough on the way. The first part went exactly to plan except for one small detail. I got to the park about an hour after everyone else had left. (So, who wants to get out of a comfortable bed early on a Sunday morning? I reserve the right to define ‘early.’ It’s my bed, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s my Sunday.)

I found a route up to Wellingborough and headed for the dealer's there in the hope of catching up with the others, but either they had already gone on or had changed their plans. The day was entirely mine. I plotted a route which would take me down the B645 through Kimbolton one of the best motorcycling roads in the South-East of England, and found another couple of B-roads that I didn’t know. Finding the first of these, the B571 to Irthlingborough was a frustrating business as it wasn't signposted from the main road. As it turned out, it happened to be called 'Irthlingborough Road' which was a bit of a giveaway, but thanks to some summer foliage even the street sign couldn't be seen until you had made the turn. Once made, however, everything started going right. The roads were twisty, traffic was light, and the rural autumn landscapes were gorgeous. I was riding on a wave, as relaxed as I had been the previous night and twice as happy. The entire 16-mile length of the B645 I took without a single traffic holdup and with only two overtakes that didn’t slow me even for a moment. In the south-east of the UK that is almost unknown. Corners and curves flowed into one another seamlessly. When I finally stopped in St Neots for petrol my entire nervous system was singing anthems.

The back doubles, from St Neots to Cambridge were almost as good. And by the time I got off the bike in town I was in that special zone of alert happiness that only comes from a good, fast ride on a motorcycle. It was still early enough to pay a visit to Phil, who is one of my oldest and least predictable friends. Back in the 1970s we fried our brains together studying Philosophy at college and neither of us has ever quite recovered. We speak the same overcooked language, and share the same surreal sense of humour. He lives up in Leicestershire, but has a stall in Cambridge market every Sunday. Phil's partner is a silversmith and between them they make original jewellery and ornaments for sale. Phil had almost finished packing up when I arrived. Sitting on the wall of the dried-up Victorian fountain in the centre of the market place, we began a rambling unselfconscious conversation, covering everything from carrier pigeons, the deranged Daily Mail newspaper, the Dali Lama, One percenter motorcyclists and the ways nineteenth-century farm labourers avoided getting arrested for being drunk and disorderly. (They kicked the local bobbies in the shins.) We then got on to the subject of motorcycles and the experience of riding them.

A fellow market trader and friend of Phil’s joined in the conversation, a retired motorcyclist himself (retired by his wife, that is) and a particularly pleasant conversationalist. Completely by chance we discovered he was a friend of Viv’s. Small world! He gave me a lift back to the bike which I'd left half a mile out of town. (Parking is a nightmare in Cambridge.)

In high revs the Daytona has been sounding a magical note of late, one that closely matched my good mood as I rode back from Cambridge to Hitchin. This road is as familiar to me as any other in the country. I’ve ridden it hundreds of times and know every twist and turn, bump, through and traffic island, but today there was something different about it: that same sense of easy uninterrupted flow I’d experienced earlier that seem to change the whole experience. I'll remember today. It will get me through next week at work. Motorcycling, as they say, is the most fun you can have with your trousers on.