SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[sv-wolf]

My big yellow beauty, the Daytona, is still sitting pretty in my kitchen, unridden, but not unloved (brmmm brmmm). The SV is still languishing outside the back door under covers and the Hyosung is feeling severely neglected out on the lawn. But what can I do? I still can't ride with my bruised shoulder and sore (possibly cracked) ribs. And for the last five days I've been knocked senseless by the biggest, most aggressive bug I've ever had. I couldn't stand up for three days, though that didn't actually matter because I didn't want to.

When the fever first set in I started catastrophising. Oh God! I thought, I've got malaria. (I did get bitten a couple of times despite all my precautions.) No, I thought, it's more like Typhoid - symptoms, incubation period, they all checked out. (I knew I shouldn't have eaten the sliced pineapple from that roadside stall - served on a bit of old newspaper.)

But the fever didn't spike, and then it subsided, and my thoughts settled into a more reasonable groove - so, panic over! Not Malaria, then, not Typhoid - just a homely British influenza bug having a field day with my low immune system. On the advice of my G.P. I'm going to the hospital this week to have some tests, but that's just for the sake of form.

The headaches haven't gone away though, so I'm beginning to suspect I got whiplashed when I came off my bike. I'm seeing Richard my osteopath tomorrow. He's an amazing practitioner. I've known him for years as a colleague and friend. He can find his way into a structural problem in seconds. His palpatory skills are the best I've ever encountered. I'd trust his judgement over an X-ray any day!

Being ill like this I'm beginning to learn what living on my own really means. It's a long time since I've had to cope with difficulties of this kind without anyone else on hand to help with some of the basics. It works the other way too. It took me a long while to work it out. Without someone else to look after life is just less... well, meaningful, really.

So sorry guys, no India blog yet, but I'll get down to it very soon - as soon as this infection lifts sufficiently for me to think straight. I've got the photos uploaded now onto my PC (I had a 2 Gb memory card in the camera and took over 1,000.)

But I'll tell you what! After riding the Bullet for several weeks in India, the first thing that struck me when I got back home was what a big bastrd the Daytona is. I couldn't believe the way that mean-looking hunk of metal filled up my kitchen, or that I'd been riding it without a second thought for months. What a beast! Oh dear! I'm getting an urgent, uncontrollable need to get back on it again despite ribs and shoulder.

The second thing that struck me was how nice it was to eat a meal that wasn't curried (especially for breakfast). I like curry (it is now practically Britain's national dish after fish and chips) but you can have too much of a good thing, methinks.

[thelighterthief]

glad to see you back on your blog. Over the past months it has been your enlightened and inspiring writing that has encouraged me through my mind numbing council job, and my exporatory attempts into the world of motorcycling.

I hope that you get well soon, and can share what must have been a truly unusual and exciting trip trip with those of us not fortunate enough to have done it ourselves...yet.

[Apollofrost]

India eh? I remember the first time I got sick in Mexico, bought a carrot+orange juice from a local vendor and spent the next few days hallucinating my a** off from dehydration and a fever.

An interesting thing to remember when you travel: the sodas and the bottled water are going to be clean and safe, but the ice they serve with them might not be.

[Kal]

My big yellow beauty, the Daytona, is still sitting pretty in my kitchen, unridden, but not unloved (brmmm brmmm). The SV is still languishing outside the back door under covers and the Hyosung is feeling severely neglected out on the lawn. But what can I do?

Need someone to come down and run the Daytona for you?

[sv-wolf]

Need someone to come down and run the Daytona for you?

That's a kind offer, Kal. I do appreciate the thought. But I really wouldn't put you to the trouble of coming all the way down from the Mids just to keep my bike in good shape.

And actually, to be frank, I don't think she would let you. No offence to you, mate. It's just the way she is. She's a bit exclusive, you see. After all, she is a Triumph.

And by the way, I'm not delusional. It's just that ever since I was a young teenager, I've just had this ability to talk to motorcycles - small girls have conversations with cats: I have them with motorcycles. Just a natural talent, I guess.

(My mate, Chris, though, thinks I've just been listening to too many Ross Noble gigs. Funny chap, Chris! Somewhere along the line, I suspect he has had a bump on the head.)

[sv-wolf]

glad to see you back on your blog. Over the past months it has been your enlightened and inspiring writing that has encouraged me through my mind numbing council job, and my exporatory attempts into the world of motorcycling.

I hope that you get well soon, and can share what must have been a truly unusual and exciting trip trip with those of us not fortunate enough to have done it ourselves...yet.

Hi TLT

Glad to have you emerge onto the boards, at last.

And I extend to you the perfect liberty, on my blog, to use the terms 'council' and 'mind-numbing' in the same sentence! I suspect that if you looked back far enough, you would find the two words have the same origin. Though the history is probably shrouded in several hundred tons of printed government guidance.

And good luck with the biking. I note that '...yet' at the end. It comes across like a drum roll. I recommend you keep it sounding loud and clear.

[sv-wolf]

When I was a little, weeny kid in the 1950s, there was only one television channel: the BBC. The BBC, in all its infinite wisdom and compassion, believed that the amount of concentration required to watch a half-hour TV programme was immense and would leave its audience exhausted and in need of some sort of recuperation. (I kid you not, it really believed this.) It therefore thoughtfully provided ten-minute 'intervals' between programme slots.

During these 'intervals' it didn't go off the air. Instead, it broadcast a restful moving image over a soundtrack of soothing music. I remember some of the interval images: two kittens playing with a ball of wool, fish swimming in an aquarium, a potter turning a wheel.

I don't have a lot to say at the moment 'cos I'm still not riding or doing much or even thinking about anything in particular, so here is an image of my new Triumph Daytona snuggled up just inside my kitchen. Consider the image as a kind of 'interval' to sooth your fevered brow in readiness for the excitement to come.



And, talking of excitement, here's a pic of 'my' incomparable 350cc Bullet (sadly now a third of a world away) on our ascent into the Southern Ghat mountains of India with the immense volcanic plain of The Deccan stretching back into the misty distance. The various 'accessories' mask the clean, classical lines of the bike, I'm sorry to say. But I wouldn't have been able to maintain a proper anatomical function without them.



By the way, the BBC would repeat one of its 'restful' interval images every hour or half-hour for months at a time until you wanted to throttle the kittens or smash the aquarium or jam the pot down over the potter's head.

I take it that when you have admired the bikes, you at least have the simple option of clicking the screen and going somewhere else. (But don't forget to take some of the beauty with you.)

And yes, I know the Daytona is dirty! but I only have one useful arm and can't get the bugger out of the house. That's my excuse anyway.

Cheers
Richard

Oh! and here is something else to impress on you the sadness and impermanence of life. This is a pic of my late, lamented SV650 waiting to be picked up from the local dealers by the insurance company back in 2004. Until two minutes ago, I thought I had lost this pic forever. It's amazing what turns up in remote files when you don't have anything much to do.

[sv-wolf]

The weather is kinda unpredictable, hail one day, tolerably pleasant sunshine the next (or later the same afternoon), but there is nothing to stop a bike from pushing off down the road. My arm is healing fast. My ribs are less sore. I have more mobility every day. The 'real' world is swimming back into view after the fever. And the plaintive cries of the Daytona are growing louder every moment - "RIDE ME"

"Stop! Stop! I can't bear it!".

I'm starting to feel like a small boy who thinks his daddy can fix anything: "Oh, please, please, let me be fit enough to ride by next week!!!!!!" I'm almost begining to forget what riding the Daytona/SV feels like.

My new job is a laugh. No extra cash for twice the work and a demand for commitment. Commitment!!!? I do my job because it pays the bills and keeps me occupied.

Actually, I do my job because it pays the bills.

I have no shortage of ways to keep myself occupied.

I spent this morning in a meeting. For a good quarter of an hour I sat listening to other managers pouring scorn and derision on the council's Lifelong Learning programme. What they didn't realise (and I didn't tell them) was that I was one of the team responsible for setting the Lifelong Learning Programme up.

The Lifelong Learning programme is one of those soft options that supports staff but which also pays off institutional benefits to the employer which don't show up on the monthly Performance Indicators but which are nevertheless very real. (Mind you, I didn't get involved because I wanted to further the organisation's interests. I was involved because it was useful to the staff.)

Everything is being sacrificed to improving the organisation's ratings at the next government inspection. Has anyone told these bozos that if they are going to raise standards and tick the appropriate boxes they will need to rely on their staff, who are currently very demotivated because it is blinding clear that their interests are no longer on the agenda.

Unless I can make my own little niche in the Brave New Culture, I'm going to find it very difficult to survive. Principally, I'm going to find it very difficult to keep my mouth shut. I'm not very good at doing that if something gets up my nose. I need to step up my search for a new job. Before this one I always worked for charities and organisations with at least some sense of real social purpose. I think I need to revert to type.

Normally, I'd be riding into work on the bike every morning and riding home on it every evening. That short ride twice a day puts me in a good mood. It forms a protective bubble around my hours of slavery in the office, and prevents my real life from becoming too contaminated by 'the working day'. Riding my bike is definitely health giving (well, except when I fall off it) and I'm sure there is an argument to be made that my petrol ought to be paid for by the National Health Service. (Whimsicality is just another survival instinct.)

Going to work on the train just doesn't do it for me. It lets the working day leak down the line and into my proper world. I start to feel like doing this job is somehow 'normal' and all the idiocy that goes with it has some real purpose.

Not good.

You may have noticed I am in an increasingly b-a-d mood as far as my work is concerned. I think going to India might have had something to do with that.

By the way, anyone been listening to Willy Mason? It's been years since I've bought a record that I just want to keep playing over and over again.

[Apollofrost]

Sorry about the s*** that's going on at your job, wouldn't it be nice if management would actually do what's best for everyone instead of just themselves?


Nice Huxley reference, btw

[dr_bar]

Huge shortage of workers in western Canada... Trained or not...