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I was so glad to get out of work this evening. I'd had a bad day. 'Bad' in the sense that I felt like cr*p all afternoon and could hardly motivate myself to do anything at all. I struggled on through several pointless, socially irrelevant tasks, escaping occasionally from the stuffy, overheated atmosphere of my hermetically-sealed office onto the stairwell to breathe some real, non-synthetic air. At twenty past four I decided I couldn't stand it any longer, and left. (I work flexi-hours, thank god. I can do that.)

Outside it was a pleasant, mild evening. The roads were a bit busy but I felt good just getting out in the (moderately) fresh air. What a relief to be back in the real world - or at least the nearest approximation to the real world there is in Stevenage!

I must find another job.

I just gotta get out of this madhouse. I cannot believe so many of my colleagues take their work seriously. I've got to the stage where I cannot even look at a stuffy, jargon-laden, government report without finding my eyes closing. The language has had evey drop of living juice squeezed out of it. I could perhaps cope with it if the writers had even the slightest notion of grammar, or how to write in clear syntactical prose. But they don't. I swear the paper they print it on is impregnated with centuries of boredom, sweated out of the brains of deskbound Whitehall clerks. They are a race apart. They must be. In my head I have this vision of a herd of pale pinstripe-suited creatures, reared in specially maintained government pens. I imagine they are all four foot six inches tall and bred for docility. Their wide, round faces are aglow with a look of benign stupidity.

It's been a bad day!

As the Daytona and I queued up at the first roundabout (behind rows of other consenting adults) I had the pleasant thought that no-one had tried to kill me on the road for quite some time, now. That was quite a refreshing idea, and it began to put me in a better mood. Out here in the fresh air, with the Daytona whirring expectantly beneath me, I felt all right with the world. It was just all the rest of the cr*p.

But on the way out of town, in the short stretch of road between the second and third roundabouts, my improving mood vanished. A driver in a blue Vauxhaul, pulling out of a short slip road onto the main carriageway, either didn't see me, or saw me and decided he didn't care. He was sitting at a dead stop in the filter lane to my left as I approached. Then, just as I drew level, he signalled quickly and accelerated straight out into my lane. I swerved away from him as far as I could, but there was another car to my right, so I slammed on the brakes. In the few seconds that followed, my arms and vocal chords got more exercise than they had previously had all day.

I gunned the throttle to get ahead of the maniac and rode on.

Breathe deeply, Hud! Settle your thoughts!

My thoughts settled back down quietly and I focused back on the road, but my nervous system kept firing, all the way to Corey's Mill, at the edge of town.

At Corey's Mill there were two long stationary lines of traffic waiting for the lights to change on the big A1(M) roundabout. The lanes here are wide and filtering is a breeze. I ran up between the lines of stationary traffic with another biker behind me until I was just a few cars away from the the front of the queue. The lights changed. I slowed, to squeeze back into line. All the vehicles moved forward in an orderly way - except for one. A white van (what else!) chose that moment to drift heavily sideways straight into me - he wasn't even attempting to change lanes, he just drifted in. For a moment I thought I was going to end up as the ham in a ham sandwich. I braked, the biker behind me braked harder and we narrowly avoided an intimate four way encounter.

Beyond the A1(M) roundabout is a fast stretch of dual carriageway. I rode it in a... shall we say, 'excited' manner, and had still not recovered my equanimity five minutes later as I arrived back in Hitchin. I was wound up enough, and distracted enough to take a wrong turning a couple of hundred yards from my house. (It used to be the right turning until they made mine into a one-way street. I now have to go in the opposite direction and enter my road at the other end). It was a case of old habits taking over while my mind was elsewhere. It meant I had to go down to the Woolpack roundabout, go round it, and double back.

But you know, the fact that a bike's indicator light is signalling that its rider intends to continue round a roundabout, is clearly not sufficient for some people. This guy in a Corsa had seen me enter the roundabout and had decided that despite my signal I couldn't possibly be intending to go all the way round. So he sailed merrily out straight in front of me, till we both came rapidly to a halt, eyeball glued to eyeball. Whereupon he smiled and politely indicated that I should continue. I politely indicated back my opinion of his good manners (We Brits have ways of doing this) and carried on home with my eyes cast firmly up into the top of my head.

Bugger! Was I was glad to get into the house and put the kettle on! I was very relived to see that the 'DB' was out. (That's K. You remember him from a couple of posts back? He's staying with me again - yes, he's hit yet another temporary homeless episode in his eventful young life. Di and I nicknamed him 'The DB'. It stands for 'The Dear Boy.' We also refer to the central heating timer as the DB, because it is just as chaotic and chancey as K himself.) I don't think I could have coped at that moment with listening to him obsessing over the details of his personal life. I needed some personal time myself to deal with the events of the day.

I am not generally accident prone - I have never broken a bone in my life. Nor am I prone to paranoia. And I'm not superstitious either, but in my shaken-up state I did begin to wonder if Fate or Nemesis, or something of the kind might not be taking a hand in this.

And so I might, because as I stuffed my gloves into my lid and pushed my lid onto the corner shelf, the telephone rang.

I picked up the receiver.

"Where's Skid?" a shrill young, female voice demanded.
"Who?" I said.
"Skid. Who the fu*k are you?"
"Well, who are you for that matter?" I asked.
"Don't p1ss about with me, you f*cking, prickhead," said the voice. And the receiver at the other end slammed down.

Now, I know the universe is having a big joke.

Hmmmm... Skid, with all the quick stops you made today, it just might make a good new nickname... lol.

First, an update. The crazy loon in the blue Vauxhaul did it again yesterday! There he was sitting in the filter lane waiting to come out into the traffic. Exactly as before, he turned on the indicator and started to pull out just as I came up to pass him by. This time, though, he saw me at the last minute and pulled back. Someone needs to take this guy aside and give him an eye test (a polite version of my actual thought!)

Last weekend was a crazy, confusing time. Saturday night was the bike club annual dinner and dance. Sunday I set off down to The Lizard in Cornwall on the Daytona - 300 miles. And on Monday, I rode her back, got home by seven pm and then went to the club social at The Three Tuns pub in Arlesey. I got to bed at 3.45 am.

The crazy, confusing bit came mostly courtesy of the weather.

I was in no mood for the Dinner and Dance on Saturday evening, but I had paid my £20 and I told myself I ought to make an effort. I felt like sludge. My brain was glacial. I got myself into this thing called a suit. I loathe dressing up (curse! spit! - I have worn a tie three or four times since I left school thirty-six years ago - under great duress on each occasion.) I tried to feel enthusiastic.

Victor had suggested we share a taxi. I left the details up to him and by the time I realised he had got the time wrong we were already late for the evening. Besides that, we had to get the taxi to go back to his house because he had forgotten the stabilisers.

Every year the club awards a set of stabiliser wheels (the kind that go on kiddy's bicycles) to the person who has had the most problem in keeping his bike upright in the previous 12 months. Victor had won them handsomely in 2006 by chucking two separate motorcycles down the road (smashing one of them to smithereens on a speed hump) and now needed to get them to the Dinner for presentation to this year's winner. That turned out to be Dave who had dropped his bike while performing the role of club safety officer. It was a popular award. The irony was much appreciated. And the club expressed its appreciation in the polite and respectful manner of bikers everywhere.

As the evening wore on, I tried willing myself into a sociable mood but only succeeded in giving myself indigestion. I felt like a total grouch. There was no menu choice this year and I couldn't eat most of the food. Then came the 'Loyal Toast'. (The club was formed in the 1950s and has retained many traditional rituals. These include raising a glass to the Queen every year at the Dinner and Dance - something of an anachronistic gesture in 21st Century Britain). I couldn't do this thing without feeling like a total hypocrite (most of you must know something of my politics by now). And I couldn't not do it without feeling like a total pratt (it was a convivial occasion and I didn't want to start making political points in the middle of it). If I'd been in a better mood I would have made light of it but, right then, I didn't have the humour to carry it off. I just froze there thinking that I hadn't joined a bike club to dress in a suit and make patriotic noises.

I sat through the toast staring into space hoping that Squeaky wouldn't notice. Squeaky did. Squeaky never misses any opportunity for some fun. But his loud comments actually picked me up a bit. His humour is always very good natured. He's a great bloke.

I tried to dance, but it wasn't my kind of music and every time I looked at the dance floor I kept imagining Di bopping away in front of me. I tried to put her out of my mind and keep my thoughts on the present, but that felt like a kind of betrayal. I couldn't do it. She used to love to dance. It was the one thing we always did together. I felt even more like a grouch when the club chairman formally gave me £100 out of club funds towards the Enduro India charities. The club operates on a shoestring budget so that is a lot of money for them. Soon after that I left.

Somehow, I thought, I had to shake myself out of this mood. I don't like feeling this way. So, I decided to walk home to give myself a bit of physical therapy. It's about two-and-a-half miles. It was after twelve o'clock and it was a bitterly cold, frosty night. But it did the job. I got home so energised that I couldn't sleep and didn't go to bed till after 3.00 am.

.........................................................................................................

'You've chosen a good day for it,' someone said, when I told them that I was planning to go down to The Lizard on Sunday. 'The forecast is good,' they assured me.
'Lousy weather predicted for the weekend,' said someone else.
Where do people get their weather information from? The Web forecast for the South-West was hedging its bets. I decided it was going to be cold. I put on triple layers of everything, including gloves - particularly gloves!

I was, of course, late setting off (it was after noon, in fact). I had planned to take the SV but at the last minute couldn't resist wheeling out the Daytona. I wanted to see how she would perform on a long journey like this. I'd just finished running her in and it would be the first opportunity I'd had to put her through her paces on a long journey. I was getting quite a buzz of anticipation from the thought. I had opened her up very briefly in the last couple of days and been totally blown away by her.

Many reviewers now regard the big Daytona as a bit tame. But for me she is pure adrenalin. She is the first thoroughbred sportsbike I've ever owned. And she feels pretty amazing to me. She's a heavy bike by today's standards (200kg dry weight) but she handles beautifully: the steering is much sharper than on the SV.

The trip down to The Lizard was to be the last leg of my aborted 'Four Corners' sponsored ride to the extreme north, south, east and west points of Britain. I'd had to call the trip off when I'd hurt my back on the way down from Scotland in early November. By that time I had already visted three of the four points. There was a fair bit of sponsorship money still riding on my completing the journey. I'd also promised Annie, the daughter of a friend, that I would bring her a stone from all four corners of the island and I wanted to do that before I went away to India. It wasn't the best of weekends weatherwise, and I was still feeling very rough when I set off, but it would be the last opportunity to complete the journey before I fly out to Goa on the 18th.

Having started out late, I was in a hurry to get as far as I could down to the Western tip of Cornwall before nightfall. But that didn't take much mental effort as the Daytona is always in a hurry, anyway. Riding her down the A1(M) was a sheer joy. I love this bike.

If you give a twist of the wrist on the SV, it looks up at you and says, ' So you wanna go fast, eh! Let's burn some rubber!' It sticks down its head, and torques off down the road with a roar from the Beowulf cans. The Daytona is different. You tweak the throttle and she responds casually in a calm, teasing voice, 'You want some speed? Hmmmm. I think we can manage that.'

'OMG! do you see what speed we are doing!!!!' - That's me, ten seconds later, suddenly aware of the little numbers on the dials.

'Speed?' she says. 'Oh! I didn't notice. I was just admiring the scenery.'

Just south of the Hatfield tunnel, I had to bring her to a sudden halt (Brilliant front brakes). There were about twelve cars standing at a dead stop in the middle of the road. A flock of domestic white geese had landed on the motorway and were damned if they were going to be intimidated by the several drivers who had got out of their cars and were trying to shoo them over the fence. Complete chaos took over the road for several minutes. I took the time to enjoy the air. The weather seemed good. It was cool, but the sun was giving its winter best.

The M25 was behaving itself for once, and flow was good despite the density of traffic. I had real difficulty keeping the Daytona from just powering away from me. And that proved to be a particular strain in the variable speed zone round Heathrow airport. By the time I got to the M3, the traffic had thinned out and I let her roll. But by that time the mist had started to form.

To be contined.....

Back from India today. Wow! Had an amazing time. I just can't even begin to tell you just how amazing it was. it exceeded all my expectations, really taught me how to ride and challenged a hell of a lot of assumptions. I'll have a go at blogging it from my diary in a couple of days when I have caught up on some sleep and recovered from jetlag.

I came back with two tropies. One, an engraved glass thing provided by the EnduroIndia organisers, to stick on my mantlepiece and prove I've stayed the course; the other, a lot of black- and raspberry-coloured bruising on my left shoulder where I came off the Enfield on my last day of riding. No serious damage though, no broken bones, no internal injuries, just a lot of discomfort and something to talk about for as long as I wish to remember it.

The Enfield is a brilliant bike. I've had more fun riding its 350cc, 17 bhp round the endlessly hairpinned Indian mountain roads in the last couple of weeks than I've ever had out of my 1000cc sportsters. It handles brilliantly, it's amazingly well planted, it has oodles of low down torque and it treats the giant Indian potholes and street rubble as though they didn't exist.

Terrific!

Ta for now.

Welcome back!!! Definitely get that story-blog up and running! Glad to hear everything went so well, except of course for the last-day off... And those little ones can be great! That's for sure!
Wrider

Welcome home....

Been wondering how your ride was going, glad to hear that you
enjoyed it... Can't wait for the blog

sv-wolf wrote:The Enfield is a brilliant bike. I've had more fun riding its 350cc, 17 bhp round the endlessly hairpinned Indian mountain roads in the last couple of weeks than I've ever had out of my 1000cc sportsters. It handles brilliantly, it's amazingly well planted, it has oodles of low down torque and it treats the giant Indian potholes and street rubble as though they didn't exist.

I suspected as much.... that design didn't stay in production for 50 years for no reason!!

Welcome back. I'm looking forward to your blog!

Welcome back! I look forward to your entries.