Work is rotten right now, and the diary today is rottener still. Which is why I'm so thankful for the bike. Glorious ride in today, quite fast, smooth, through the traffic, not too hot, not too cold, dry. Got to work, sparked up a smoke and had a long conversation with the bike about how glorious it was. I realise that this helps keep me sane, really. Litre+ bikes should be available on prescription, save the NHS millions in Prozac.
But....but....
I live in a part of England which gets pretty cold in the winter, consistently amid the coldest places in the country in fact. It's also very, very rural, and we're in the middle of trying to buy a house way up in one of the highest bits.
I have this terrible fear that, come Dec/Jan, the little, muddy, broken, windy roads from the house to the main road (quite a few miles) are going to be an ice rink.
I ride all year round, or always have, but that was easy in the city. Short of driving snow it was generally fine thanks to the volume of traffic and gritters. Out here...not so sure.
I have a horrible fear that it's going to be impossible - or at least only possible to crawl in at 10mph, terrified and twitching and almost certainly with a couple of offs. I can't afford to bang the bike. I can't afford a "winter bike".
It's a terrifying prospect, coming into this place in a car or on the train. I could go mad.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Monday, 26 October 2009
The Joy Of Kit
Rode back from a mate's house to home tonight: cold, windy and the Heavens opened about 14 miles from my door on a fast A-road.
Had a wonderful Zen moment though, cruising at about 80mph, v-twin thumping away below, as I wiped rain from my visor. Isn't it perfect when kit just...works?
I was prepared, it has to be said. Gortex textiles, inners with the gloves, Balaclava, but as I thumped along warm, dry, comfy, I found myself welcoming the downpours, almost willing them to get worse.
There's something uniquely male about celebrating this stuff, I think. The delight in kit doing what you hoped it would do. It's not the fact of being dry and warm as opposed to wet and cold (although that helps), it's the unspoken bond between a man and his stuff. I don't think women have the same emotional bond with inanimate objects.
Campers will know what I mean - it's like bedding down in a tent and listening to the wind howl around it and the rain blat down on it, and being cosseted from it all by that thing you've been carrying on your back all day, with your comforts around you.
I suppose it's partly a valediction of your kit-buying choices, but I hope it's more than that, it's a faintly primeval satisfaction with getting one over on the elements.
So, what I'm saying here is that because my jacket didn't leak I feel a bit like I've hewn a city from rock. Which is nice.
Had a wonderful Zen moment though, cruising at about 80mph, v-twin thumping away below, as I wiped rain from my visor. Isn't it perfect when kit just...works?
I was prepared, it has to be said. Gortex textiles, inners with the gloves, Balaclava, but as I thumped along warm, dry, comfy, I found myself welcoming the downpours, almost willing them to get worse.
There's something uniquely male about celebrating this stuff, I think. The delight in kit doing what you hoped it would do. It's not the fact of being dry and warm as opposed to wet and cold (although that helps), it's the unspoken bond between a man and his stuff. I don't think women have the same emotional bond with inanimate objects.
Campers will know what I mean - it's like bedding down in a tent and listening to the wind howl around it and the rain blat down on it, and being cosseted from it all by that thing you've been carrying on your back all day, with your comforts around you.
I suppose it's partly a valediction of your kit-buying choices, but I hope it's more than that, it's a faintly primeval satisfaction with getting one over on the elements.
So, what I'm saying here is that because my jacket didn't leak I feel a bit like I've hewn a city from rock. Which is nice.
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