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Tuesday 5 July

Well, I can't believe it. At 12.00 am today I got the call. The garage rang to say the SV was ready. I left work early and caught the train to Cambridge. At Cambridge station I got a taxi up to the dealers on the Histon Road. Are all Cambridge taxi drivers bikers? This guy saw my helmet and immediately launched into a string of bikers tales, mostly involving dramatic crashes. The one that stayed in my mind was his story of laying down his bike at 60mph and sitting on it till it ground to a halt. I leave this to your own imagination.

I'd not ridden the SV for so long that I was surprised again at the weight of it, and the massive amount of torque it has. I was also scared of it for the first fifteen minutes. That's unusual. I've always been very comfortable on this bike. I'm very tired and a bit stuck in my head at present with everything that is going on: not in touch with myself physically at all. That probably has something to do with it. But I do get a spate of nerves from time to time. As a small kid I was terrified of falling. I got over it, as kids do, but just occasionally I get a sort of flashback, and for a short while I become very anxious about hitting the floor. That's not useful on a bike, but it doesn't happen very often or for very long.

The best news is that there is no rattle. The mechanic told me that the problem with the clutch hydraulics could not explain the rattle. All I know is that everytime it is sorted the rattle stops. The bike is still a bit vibey, but not nearly as bad as it was a month ago when I went to the New Forest. I'm wondering if the remaining vibeyness has anything to do with the 42 tooth sprocket that my local dealer used when he changed the chain (the standard is 40). The torque on the bike is now amazing. It is fun to use occasionally, but generally it feels too much and no doubt it affects the engine characteristics. I must get it changed back.

I rang the Northampton workshop yesterday. They don't do courtesey bikes for a SV. That's a pain, but maybe I'll just get someone to come with me in a car and drive me back. The next service is the 16,000 which is the biggie and I want to be sure someone competent is doing it.

Friday 8th July

I have to go down to London tomorrow to pick up some medication for my wife. I'm tired, and I was going to go down by train, but after yesterday's bombings I'll definitely be going on the bike and avoid public transport. My London rail terminal is Kings Cross where one of the bombs went off. It reminds me of the IRA bombings back in the late 70s. I was living in London then and saw (and felt) the Picadilly Circus Post Box bomb explode outside Swan and Edgars. Fortunately, I was on the other side of the square at the time, just coming round the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue.

The recent explosions seem to have all the hallmarks of Al Qaida: no warnings, no claims of responsibility, a primary bomb in the tube and a sedcondary one outside to hit people a little later as they come streaming out. It might also be that the Gleneagles G8 summit was taking too much attention away from the Middle East issue and this was a reminder. Who knows?

The simple cold fact is that terrorism works. The whole of London came to a halt yesterday. I can't even begin to imagine the loss of business revenue that would have caused. The bombs were all placed in the City or West End. It's a practical strategy: hit them where it hurts. I don't believe the guys who do this are just innate psychopaths. That's too simple, too convenient. It's too self-serving. So what brings them to be willing to murder in such a calculated way? There are rumours of suicide bombers in the tunnels. What makes them lay down their lives for a cause? I have no idea how, individually, they think. But I do know, right down in my gut, that you can't assess people's motives and actions by pretending they do not live in a complex world of international relations.

The politicians want us to believe that these terrorists are little sealed bubbles of pure hatred and all that is necessary to make a wonderful world is to eliminate them - even it if means killing thousands of innocent people in the process. Trouble is, when the whole body is diseased it's no use just lopping off a few tumours. Are the politicians going to tell us that? Like hell!

(Escalating Rant Warning...) I listened to Blair and Bush spouting their cant over the TV and radio after this morning's massacres: all calculated rhetoric, totally insincere, dripping with lies and hypocricy. These guys make me sick to the stomach. I had to switch off. All those moronically simple platitudes, yakkety yak: 'WE're the good guys, our motives are pure, THEY are the terrorists, driven by hatred of our goodness'. What utter crap! Has nobody told these monsters that life is never like that. There wasn't even a gesture towards genuine empathy for the victims or an acknowledgement that they, the politicians, and the interests they represent have contributed deeply to a world in which horrors like this become possible - and more to the point that they are currently engaged in perpetrating far worse crimes themselves.

Who knows how politicians think either. I suspect Bush and Cheney and possibly Blair are genuinely evil men, no less evil than some of those that perpetrate acts of violence directly in New York, in London, Madrid, Indonesia or in Baghdad. It's just that, unlike the terrorists these guys stand behind their security cordons in their business suits and inflict suffering on others by directive and dictat. But I also suspect that most politicians, like most terrorists, are deeply self-deluding. Blair is weak and mentally slippery, truly unable to spot a moral imperative if you hung it in front of him. I think he's lost touch with any shred of genuine feeling under a welter of a fear and defensiveness and a habit of manipulation. But then, I suspect evil often begins like that.

Half way through the afternoon, I realised that I couldn't get in touch with any feelings for the victims, either. That may be because my own personal circumstances of the moment have exhausted me, or it may be that I've burnt out with all this stuff. Feelings of frustration and powerlessness do that to you. That's not good. Simple feelings of compassion are the only trustworthy guide in all this. But they become obscured or distorted by political cant and the simple-minded self-righteousness it produces, my own included. But when all the dust has settled and the human realities can emerge, if they ever do, there remains, in my view, one simple fact: this is a world in which no-one is innocent.

Rant over. Now I'll go back to bikes and sprockets and exhaust valves. It seems a lot safer, really.

Wish me luck in London, tomorrow.

Friday 8th July

What struck me at Kings Cross (London) today was how normal everything seemed. Apart from the shuttered entrances to the tube stations, I would not have known anything unusual had happened yesterday. The busses are running pretty much as normal, people are going about their business, the offices and shops and coffee bars are full. I didn't see too many relaxed or smiling faces - but that is pretty normal for Londoners.

I did notice a difference as I was riding back out of the city in the rush hour traffic. Even with some steady filtering it took me an hour to get out of the metropolitan area. Many communters had clearly taken to their cars and were avoiding public transport. But even so, the traffic conditions were not that bad. I've known them worse. The hold ups were just slightly bigger than usual queues at traffic lights and junctions. There was no actual grid lock.

Another thing that hadn't changed: London drivers were just as crazy as usual.

Getting on the gas up the A1 on the way home, the vibes kicked in again with a vengeance and there was also a hint of the rattle. I was cursing. They seem to be related to speed and duration. The higher the speed, the more likely they are to come on, and the longer I ride at those speeds the worse they seem to get. Once they have started they don't go away unless I stop riding the bike for several days. As the bike is my only means of transport (I'm not counting the 125), that's not often feasible. If this is a consistent pattern then long journeys on the SV are not going to be that comfortable in future.

Friday 15th July

It's that time again. All kinds of companies have been sending me mail offering cheap insurance deals on the bike (how did they know my insurance is coming up for renewal?) and recently I got my road tax reminder from DVLA. It's nearly a year since I bought the SV and now everyone is wanting my money.

A year ago I was really uncertain about whether I could handle a 1000 cc motorcycle. I'd never owned a 1000 cc bike before and although I'd begged the occasional ride on larger machines, I had no real experience of anything bigger than a 650. Not only that, I'd been riding the Comet 125 and the SV650 for only six months and, before that, hadn't ridden a bike for twenty-odd years (nearer thirty, if I am honest).

On the other hand, it seemed like an ideal time to upgrade to the SV1000: it wasn't a full on sportsbike so I reckoned I might just avoid wrapping myself round a tree on it; I was going to get a good payout on my crashed SV650 and, just at that time, Suzuki were doing a huge discount on SV1000Ss. What could I lose?

Well, as I found out later I was going to lose out on a whacking great insurance premium. I've never had a full car driving licence (cars do nothing at all for me) and the copy of my motorcycle licence had long since vanished. DVLA could find no record of my ever having had one, so there was no arguing the point: I had to take the test all over again. That meant, as far as the insurance companies were concerned, that I was riding a 1000cc motorcycle on a licence that was under a year old. On top of that, I'd just crashed my 650. £720, fully comp, was the best deal I could get. With a bit of luck that will come down steeply this year.

Even if I had sussed in advance how much insurance I was going to get stung for, I would probably still have bought the SV1000S. Apart from all the sensible, adult reasons I was giving myself, the truth is I had just fallen in love with everything about it. Last year, I posted twice on the site about how I came to buy it. I've just found 'Word' copies of those posts. As they were wiped from the site when it got hacked, I've copied them in here (in condensed form, I hasten to add - I tend to ramble on a bit, as some of you may have noticed).

first posted Thursday August 5th 2004

I want to tell you about Watford


If you are English, you will probably crack up at the very name of Watford. For those of you unfamiliar with this sprawling mess of a town, Watford lies just north of London and inside the grimy embrace of the M25, the world’s longest, most congested and most unloved ring road. Watford is not an interesting town. Nor is it an attractive, exciting, mysterious, beautiful, prosperous, or historical town. Watford is... well, a joke. There are lots of less-than-seemly tales about Watford, not one of which would you want to tell your grandmother.

So what took me there? Well, it was the chance to test-ride a SV1000S. My local dealer had one of these beauties sitting in his showroom just a couple of miles from where I live. I’d been ogling it for weeks. There it stood among the other bikes in all its gleaming silver glory, quiet and composed but visibly charged with all the power I thought I could ever want - enough, at least, to get my hormones pumping just from looking at it. For a small deposit and a decent settlement from my insurance company (I’d recently written off my SV650) she could be mine. I spoke to the dealer and pretended to be unsure about it. They could perhaps cut me a deal, they said. I went all weak at the knees.

But no, they added, I couldn’t test ride it. However, they did have another SV1000S, which they used as a courtesy vehicle. I could test ride that. But, it was usually kept at their showroom in Watford. They could get it up here for me in a couple of weeks, or I could go down to Watford, tomorrow.

I couldn’t wait. I said I’d go. Just like that, without hesitation and before my mind had realised what I had said. I was going to Watford.

The following morning I thrashed my little Hyosung Comet 125 down the M1 Motorway at 68 miles an hour (with the aid of a following wind and the long, long slope down into London), dodging the convoys of lorries and other large commercial vehicles that drive nose-to-tail like lines of sullen armadillos. Every morning it’s the same: the world rumbles out onto the M1: enormous trucks swaying down the white lines; bleary-eyed commuters, still stupid from lack of sleep; crazy, white van man, pasty faced and with his cab knee-deep in crisp packets, cigarette butts and coca-cola cans; wagons with bits and pieces of wood and metal hopping around inside their overfull flatbeds. I weaved around between them, my mind full of a single thought: the excitement of getting my leg over the SV1000S and riding her away. I’d never owned a 1000 cc machine before. This was going to be a rite of passage. My legs were feeling weaker all the time.

But then I hit Watford. There is a saying in the locality: you can never enter Watford the same way twice. I tried to enter it three times that morning and each time was spat out again in a different direction by the vicious one-way system. Several times I tried asking for directions, but was greeted only with frowns and shrugging shoulders. Occasionally, someone offered me a pained or consoling look. Once, a taxi driver broke into what I took to be a gale of laughter. Watford is the town of your nightmares. It is where road users come to experience exquisite forms of torture so hideous that could only have been dreamed up by bureaucratic minds mouldering in local government highway departments.

It took me an hour and a half to cross the town centre (if that is the best description for this strangulated and ugly knot of roads), a distance of about half a mile. After a further series of misadventures I located the dealer’s showroom on the other side of town. The morning was passing quickly. There wasn’t a lot of time left. I was beginning to break sweat.

‘Hi,’ I said, cheerily as I entered the shop, ‘I’ve come to test ride the SV Thousand.’
Blank looks.
‘The Letchworth shop rang up yesterday to confirm it,’ I persisted.
More blank looks and a shuffling of feet.
‘I haven’t got a lot of time. I have to be back at work this afternoon.’
‘Never mind,’ said one of the sales staff, suddenly recovering his composure, ‘I’m sure we can sort this out.’
‘Fine,’ I said.
This was my man.
He disappeared behind a desk covered in dog-eared papers and spent the next half hour making a series of increasingly self-conscious telephone calls. ‘Just hang on a minute,’ were the only words I could get out of him whenever I made an enquiry. The problem however, became rapidly very clear.
‘Errr… We’ve lost it,’ he finally confessed.
‘Lost it? Lost a bike? How can you lose a bike?’
‘It doesn’t seem to be at any of our showrooms.’
‘Let me get this straight. You’ve lost the SV1000S I’ve come down here to test ride on my morning off.’
‘Ummm… yes… Apparently so.’

And that was that!

So it was that on this day, the pangs of unrequited desire were visited upon a poor, lost soul travelling in the Valley of the Shadow of Watford.

POSTSCRIPT
When I got back to work in the afternoon, the local showroom – the one where MY SV sits, making sparkles in my eyes – rang me.
The voice at the other end seemed to be trying hard not to sound embarrassed.
‘You know that SV1000 you went down to Watford to test-ride, today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh right!’ the voice said, as though it expecting me to have forgotten. ‘Well, actually we’ve found it.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, ummm… it was here all the time.’

I laughed. What else could I do.

So, I get to ride my SV tomorrow at four-thirty pm, exactly.

And maybe, if she likes me too…

dodo yes!

Monday 25th July 2005



Oringinally posted: Friday 6th August 2004

It was five to four and I was sitting at my work desk in a sweltering office pretending to interpret tables of teenage pregnancy. But all I’d been able to think about since this morning was my upcoming test ride on a SV1000S. I’d never owned a 1000cc bike before and I was excited - not just excited: I hadn’t had a feeling like this in thirty years. It’s still nice to know that at 53 the juices are still running.

At three minutes to four I logged off my PC and headed for the shower room to change into my leathers, then hurried out of the building by the back stairs. I went out the back way because I didn’t want to meet anyone who would make me late for the ride – they were only giving me one hour on the bike - and I didn’t want to meet anyone who would see that my legs had gone all soft and I was having difficulty walking.

Half an hour later I walked into the bike showroom, still in a state of high excitement, and worried now that my voice was going to crack, like an over-revved teenager. ‘Hi,’ I said, and cringed immediately. My voice hadn’t cracked but it was coming out far too loud, like I was speaking through a loud hailer.

I signed the rather paltry insurance agreement, which hardly insured me at all (third party only with the rider liable for an excess of £500 in the event of an accident). This was getting scarier by the minute. The salesman took me out onto the forecourt and showed me the bike. He then went through the standard Japanese controls: ‘this is the starter switch; this is the digital speedo; this is the fuel light; this…’ Was this an endurance test? I wondered. Is this guy enjoying this? I consoled myself with the reflection that it was the same bloke who had lost my bike, the day previously.

Finally, I was handed the key and got to slide it into the ignition. I squeezed the starter and the silver beauty burst into life. Two very meaty cans blasted their note across the forecourt. I stood listening for a moment, impressed, then swung into the saddle and… The pain! The pain was excruciating. With the salesman looking on I managed to blink the water out of my eyes and rearrange myself as best I could without being too obvious about it. The SV is notorious for having a very oddly shaped and uncomfortable saddle, but I hadn’t imagined the riding position was going to cause a problem like this. [Ed: as it turned out, this was a one off. I’ve never had the same trouble again].

I just knew something was going to go wrong. The throttle was going to be twitchy down low. The wall opposite looked worringly close. An image flashed through my head of me dropping the SV at the first crossroads. I heard a screech of brakes, a grinding sound, a mother’s cry… I started to wonder why such a reputedly well-mannered bike was fitted with a steering damper (After all, it was nursing the head-shaking TL1000’s engine in its frame.)

Mercifully, the salesman disappeared back into the showroom and left me to get on with it. I dropped into first gear, hesitated one further moment, gave one tiny twist of the wrist and gingerly opened the clutch. The bike rolled forward with massive, rumbling assurance. The instant torque of the engine was tremendous. Power delivery was smooth (ish) - for a Suzuki. I leaned, and the bike turned willingly towards the road. Anxiety drifted away like smoke. As I hit the road, only one thought went through my head: ‘ooooohhhhhhhh’. And with a head full of spangles, I went to shift her into second gear, missed the lever and nearly fell of the bike. But it didn’t matter any more: the spell was broken: this was my bike. She was holding me in the palm of her hand – well, you know what I mean.

Four-thirty on a Friday afternoon is not the best time to go for a test ride in Hertfordshire. Herts is the county of the car, and four forty-five is the beginning of the rush-hour when a million grid-locked drivers go into frustrated attack mode. Passing through my head was the realisation that I had to get this done fast. In twenty minutes the A roads would be jammed and the petrol-laden air thick with human frustration. Traffic was about to slow to 40…30…20…10 miles an hour. It occurred to me then that, although cars are designed using all the evolved analytical powers of the human cerebrum, they are often driven using only the most primitive parts of the brain. And that's never more true than at this time of day.

I wanted to find out what this beauty could do, so I headed out to the A1(M) motorway as quickly as I could. Several precious minutes were wasted jammed in between lines of traffic that were so narrow and crowded, filtering was next to impossible. By the time I reached the motorway, everthing was already slowing down in all the lanes. Too late. There was going to be no chance of cracking her open here. I did manage to get her up to 70 on the clock, and yes, she gave everything I’d hoped for. She had the massive torque I’d read about. But I also noticed something else. It was all just a bit disappointing. On the SV650 70mph was beginning to feel like fun. On the thousand, it was just routine.

I came off the motorway at Stevenage North and straight onto the B197. This, despite its B status, is a great little bit of road. Before the A1(M) was built the B197 formed part of the A1, the ‘Great North Road’ which joins two of the island’s capitals, London and Edinburgh. This unremarkable, switchback stretch of tarmac, no more than two miles long, has a secret and romantic history. In the days when there was much less powered traffic, the Stevenage-based Vincent Motorcycle Company tested their crazy looking prototypes here. Local legend has it that more than one Vincent test rider bought it along this stretch of road. Right now, it seemed that little had changed since the 1930s: the B197 was as quiet as a mouse. Time to see what she could do.

Well, what can I say. I’d never experienced anything as smooth and gutsy as that ride. And the bike was so easy and forgiving with it. The real torque only kicks in the upper rev range, but even down here at about 6.5 she ripped the pants off me. I had to lug her harder round the corners than I was used to, of course, but I soon got used to that and she gave me no hassle. I’d expected to feel nervous on this bike, but all I felt was an increasing confidence.

A lot of my remaining one-hour test ride was spent stuck in traffic, but by now I didn’t care. I’d made up my mind: this was going to be my next bike. And besides, I’d saved the best till last. For my final ten minutes I turned the SV round and headed off for a little back road I had known since I was a kid. On the SV650 hitting the speed limit (you know – roughly speaking) on this road had always been a real hoot. This is big-grin country.

So, I'm heading for a narrow lane that rolls through green fields and where one gloriously sweeping bend follows another. But before I get there, there is a ritual to observe: I ride through the village at a steady 30, then up the hill, round the corner and slow right down almost to a stop. There she is. Then its, change up, glance quickly over my shoulder and crack open the throttle. No brakes now. Down into the greenery, eyes on the vanishing point – and the world goes into a spin.

It's amazing. Coming out of the first bend, I get onto the throttle and take a look at the speedo: 105 mph and rising (Hell!): “Sorry officer, new bike. I had no idea.” And the beautiful thing is, it’s true - I had no idea. My nerves were as steady as a rock. Not a single firecracker was going off in my brain, not even a squib, and it was all down to the bike.

Now, all you supersports riders may scoff, but this was all gthe bike I needed right then, and as much bliss as I could cope with on this earth right now. Someone on the SV1000 site said I’d come out of the test ride like a teenager after his first lay. I’d smiled to myself when I read that and thought, he doesn’t realise I’m probably old enough to be his grandfather. Well, I have to admit, the lad was right. So, right then I would have walked back into the showroom and paid any amount they had asked. But I didn't have to. I’d already done the deal with them. I’d talked them down £800 off the price they were asking and got a free set of lowers thrown in. I was getting this beauty for the same price as a SV650. What could they do, when they were still so embarrassed about their Watford stick-up the day before. Now all I had to do was say yes.

Thank you, Watford. I shall never see you in the same light again. Well, that’s maybe saying too much - but you know what I mean.

Friday 29 July 2005

Got more details today of Sam's death. He was wiped out on his bike about six months ago. A car hit him from the side. For four months he lay in a coma. Without any warning he came out of it and appeared perfectly healthy. A friend showed me a picture of him sitting up in bed and laughing. Five days later, and again with no warning, he died. I haven't heard the results of the post mortem. Sam loved Moto-Guzzis. He'd ridden a string of bikes for over thirty years without a single accident, until this. He was a small guy, of Turkish origin. For years he taught Motorcycle Mecanics at a local college. There's just no knowing in this world.

Saturday 6th August 2005

I've always defended the reputation of women drivers. From an occasional car passanger's point of view, most of the best drivers I know are women. But I have to say that it's getting to seem rather too coincidental that every single person who has cut me up since I bought the SV (twelve incidents in twelve months) is a woman. Pure coincidence it could be, but this simple fact now sits broodingly in my mind.

I feel pretty satisfied with myself at the moment. I've just managed to halve my insurance bill for the coming year on the SV. Last year it was astronomical £720 fully comp with UK and European rescue, legal costs and personal accident cover. That was the very best I could get. This year, I'm paying £380 for the same. The quotes I had from the brokers I rang varied by as much as £200. The highest and lowest and several quotes in between were all from the same company. Who said the market place was rational!!!! They've obviously cut very different deals with all these different brokers. There's no accident to consider this year and I now have one year no claims bonus. It makes that much difference.

Every year the brokers seem to aske more and more detailed questions. This year, one of them asked how many times I had taken my test before I passed. I've never been asked that before.

I live in a terraced block of three houses. There is no direct access to the back of my house from the road except via an alleyway two doors up and a right of way which runs across the back gardens of the two neighbouring houses. My next door neighbour is a biker and the one next to him is a totally chilled out dutch guy called Rudi. We've taken down some fo the fencing between the three back gardens and paved the area at the back of my neighbours houses, so that we can get the bikes in and out. Toby, my next door neighbourt has two bikes, an old beaten up XJ900 and a brand spanking new 600 Bandit. I have the SV and the Hyosong Comet. They all line up on the paved area overnight. Motorcycle City! I hope the insurance companies are right in assessing this as a low risk area for thefts. Any bike thieves poking around our back gartdens would think it was Christmas.

It's a good arrangement but it's still dodgy getting the bikes off the premises in the morning and getting them back on at night. I've been dead lucky that I haven't dropped either of them yet, but I've come close a couple of times. My part of the back garden area isn't properly paved like the other two. Partly this is because I'm a lazy bastrd and partly because it would involve a big row with my wife who prefers it as it is. It's part crazy paving, part brick path, part cobblestone, part tile. It's also very narrow. After I wheel the Hyosung down onto a tiny bit of lawn to make space, I have to do a nine point turn with the SV on these varied surfaces to get the bike facing in the right direction. On a wet day this can dead scary. The bricks are slippy and the cobbles can be treacherous. I then have to get it to the alleyway. This involves a right angle turn with little space for manouvering. It takes another seven point turn to achieve this. The alley is narrow with brick walls on either side, so there are ample opportunities for scraping the mirrors on the way down. Once on the street I have to look for a parking space which is not easy these days. All in all it's a time consuming business.

I've worked out that the time it takes me to get into my gear in the mornings, get the bike out onto the road, ride to work, garage the bike, and get out of my gear is slightly greater than the time it takes me to make the journey by bicycle. The fact that I still prefer to go on the SV shows commitment, I suppose.

sv-wolf wrote: ...it's still dodgy getting the bikes off the premises in the morning and getting them back on at night. I've been dead lucky that I haven't dropped either of them yet, but I've come close a couple of times.

Ha! Someone was listening. I was in a hurry to get off to work yesterday morning. I pushed the Hyosung onto the edge of the lawn so that I could turn the SV round in my six square centimetres of space, then rode off, forgetting to push the Hyosung back on to the hard standing.

No prizes for guessing what happened. When I got home the Hyosung was lying on its side in a flowerbed. A divot of earth was lying beside it where the sidestand had sunk in and dug out. I didn't see any damage at first: levers, indicator lights, bars all fine. Then I noticed a big gash in the pillion seat. There were several large rose thorns sticking out of it. Damn! I never did like roses. The tank was scuffed as well, but I think that will come out with a little T Cut and a bit of work.

Memo to me: always use a puck under the sidestand. You're a forgetful bastrd, Dick!

I told my wife. She looked suitably horrified, then asked, 'Is the little apple tree all right?' Two different worlds.

Tuesday 16 August (late)

I had my fill of wildlife last night. I was coming home from a club social at a pub in Abingdon Piggots at about 11.00pm. I'd decided to take a country route back through the villages. The roads are narrow and twisty - single carriageway in some places. I was just coming out of Abingdon when I narrowly missed a jet black cat crouched in the middle of the road. I reckon it saved one of its nine lives by no more than three millimetres by bolting at the last moment. All I remember clearly was its eyes looking at me for that split second as it crouched in the road.

Later on I had to brake hard four more times, once for a rabbit, twice for foxes and once for a lumbering great badger who refused to give up the middle of the road. That's scary. Usually badgers get out of the way when you approach them. Maybe Hertfordshire badgers are beginning to learn a trick or two from their Northamptonshire cousins who are apparently attacking bikes with loud cans. (No, it's the bikes that have the loud cans, not the badgers - you know what I mean! Whatever!) I can't imagine that is very good for the bikes or the badgers. One of the foxes gave me a real scare, but it was a beautiful animal, a big, very sleek dog fox. Memo: must do some emergency stop practice.

Apart from that it was a great ride. I've always liked solo riding by night, and last night was a bit special. Sometimes you hit a time when everything comes together, and your riding is dead smooth and confident and withoutn effort. It happened last night. That's a great feeling - it doesn't happen very often, for me at least. but it's pretty mind blowing when it does.

This afternoon I saw the aftermah of an accident involving a quad bike - right in the middle of the town. A middle aged guy (the quad rider) was lying unconsious in the middle of a T-junction being attended by paramedics. His machine was lying on its side beside him. Nearby a young woman was standing by a BMW car with a dented nearside wing being interviewed by the police. It looked like a case of, 'sorry constable, didn't see him.' She'd obviously started turning off the main road into the side street and hit him just as he was passing by on the other side of the main road. I started to describe this to a young guy cutting my hair in the barbers half an hour later. He immediately assumed it was the quad rider's fault. People do that.

I've never ridden a quad but someone tells me they handle very poorly and are unstable. I don't know about that, but they are getting damned popular - I keep seeing them everywhere these days. I've never been a fan though, two of the wheels on quads are clearly superfluous as far as I'm concerned.

The vibes and rattle on my bike are as bad as ever. I'm going to take it back to the local dealer again Thursday week and ask them to take it out. Someone has got to notice it. I need to get it acknowledged before the two year warranty runs out. That's another year to go, but given the way things are going it will take that long to get this sorted.

I'm beginning to suspect I've got an unusual, late-onset version of the classic SV/V Strom 'knock.' It seems to affect 2003 models in particular. Suzuki have persistently refused to recognise that there is a problem. Several guys have had their crank bearings changed and say it has sorted it. Others say it hasn't made any difference. The trouble is I cannot see that there can be a straightforward mechanical problem with something that is as intermittent as this. Inferior bearing don't just suddenly improve. The consensus on the SV1000 site is that it is a clutch problem and not at all significant. I don't believe that either. I think I've got a fight on my hands. It has really taken some of the enjoyment out of my riding recently.

One thing I have noticed. It could be pure co-incidence, but the vibes seem to kick in when I'm cranked over to the left on some occasions. Maybe there is an oil pump problem? ?? I have so many theories now, I losing track.

Wednesday 17 August

I went up town and bought a book today called, 'Gap years for adults'. I'm getting really serious now about the Baltic trip. It's beginning slowly to emerge out of the vague mists of fantasy into something more concrete. I've been looking up info on visas and insurance and stuff.

It really cuts me to say this, but when Di dies, in maybe four, five months time (who knows - that's her reckoning) I'm going to be alone in the house, and I suspect that is going to be "procreating" HARD. I'm not good at living alone and I don't do loss very well at all. - too much in my head for that. I'm also doing a job that often bores me stupid and does no-one any good.

Once I have got over the worst of the shock of losing Di - maybe nine months or a year down the line - I think I may just need to get up and away for a good long time. I could give up my job, sell the house, buy a touring bike (the sprint ST I've been trusting after, maybe), some good camping equipment and just go. I've always wanted to do something like that . so what the "fudge". I'm feeling very bitter today, but I guess it might just be the best thing I could do.

The only big obstacle would be finding someone to look after Loki. He drives mu nuts at times, but I wouldn't want to lose him permanently. He's a bit wild and willful and does his own thing. I like that, even if it means chasing round town after him and hoping he doesn't get mashed or cause an accident.

I'm just reading about riding in Norway. It sounds fantastic - and it keeps my mind off other things.