My No.2

Judging My Behind

Ka opened her presents with well-fained surprise; there was a pair of Baffalo over trousers, a 3-season jacket and the HJC IS16 helmet - in pink. It was a little grim not being well enough to take her out for a spin but I knew a long trip to Oxford was coming up and her time would come.

The family drove to Oxford and I rode up with Nikki. Her aged GPz600 "lost power" mysteriously at the M27 / M3 junction and I lost Nikki. She caught up again at Eastleigh and later laughed how, where I'd slowed down for her to sort her self out all the traffic had slowed down for the "Policie" looking fella on the big white ST!

Honestly, it was infuriating how BMWs and other 4x4 rubbish would peel up toward the gaggle of traffic surrounding me at 90mph then brake down to 70mph on clocking me before dipping into the inside lane in front of me at 60mph just to match my speed. I rapidly became aware my hi-viz jacket and Baboon's rear end were causing a regular traffic snarl up. Nikki had trouble getting through but giggled uncontrollably at how ridiculous the situation had become. I rued Ka and Nikki for making me take the "Medic" label off the jacket - at least with it in place drivers knew earlier I wasn't a road rozzer.

Justification though, "Shadowfax is more visible than the cars are", claimed Nikki, to whom I had flogged on the hi-viz jacket from IseeU-UseeMe.com as Matt has donated one that fits. To be honest it was a great reassurance to me but also to see Nikki in a full hi-viz jacket in my mirrors - without it she'd have melted into the halogen lights behind her. A big difference. Next she needs heated grips - bless her!

We'd left just after the Lanny with the kids in it and had expected Fareham's traffic to slow Ka down enough for us to catch up easily. We rode at a fairly steady 80mph in keeping with the general traffic and arrived about 5-minutes behind the main party.

It's a fair point to make that we can drive much more comfortably and much more quickly by car than we can by motorcycle and the advantage in close traffic is only a few minutes. I can't help think it was more of an adventure though. 80-miles in one ride through the cold evening isn't all roses but I far preferred it to sitting in the tin can.