Posts

The Dark Stallion

Image
First night-time commute home Refreshing your mind of the problem I've had with the battery and head lamp causing the bike to stall and the STILL missing one of two rear bulbs and you may have some appreciation why I wasn't really looking forward to the first dark commute. Add to this the poor riding experience (and even poorer style) I have and you may appreciate further why I SHOULDN'T have looked forward the the first dark commute! Anyway, I was slightly encouraged by the practice ride out to Droxford the other night and I had a good mental image, an artist's impression if you like, of what the A32 would look like. I've recreated this for you below: Artist impression of the road at night by Pat The reason I had a night journey at all was to watch a truck hitch up to a trailer at work where a building has been commenced threatening to land-lock the trailer like a bloke building a kit-car in his kitchen and then realising he can't get it out through the door ...

Roads that are "Squirrelly"

Image
Linking Squirrels There are a few American reviews of ST1300s that remark how accomplished they are when the road gets "squirrelly". What's "squirrelly"? I took this originally to mean the road threw in bends that mimick the squirrels' erratic and unpredictable footwork as they zig-zag along branches and fence tops in a way possibly designed to put off stalking predators*; or perhaps that curve, wave-like; as do their backs and tails as they arch along at a run. But no. This morning the A32 got squirrelly by Corehampton when the little fur-ball bastards threw beech nut grenades at us. It caught me off-guard to begin with and we swerved to avoid this "shape" launched at my swede but the you could see the well-timed incoming missiles on lobbed tradjectories: these were no natural wind falls. So now I know. A squirrel lobbing his nut around

Scoots

I F&%$ing hate scoots Slow traffic through Peel Common and on toward Collingwood. Two scoots buzzing annoyingly behind me. One overtakes. Now, I didn't overtake as the Pan is easy to get going along a line of traffic but a pig to get back in if there's no room and the bend was blind - this kid just gunned all of his 48cc 2-stroke mosquito imitator and went for it. Good luck to him. What got my shit was the kid who pulled up on my left-hand-side and rode along with me. I didn't know if I should kick him off his ride or phone for his Mum! In the end I simply gestured with my hand - civil like - not to take my space again else I'd put him in the ditch. Amazing. It worked. Freaks. Obviously there are going to be some moped riders you might still respect in the morning!

Red Lion: "Is he quick?"

Image
Monday Night Pub Night Ka told me our near neighbour who passed his bike test just a couple of weeks before I did and bought a Yamaha Diversion wished me well and asked when I would put in an appearance at the Red Lion in Stubbington. The Orange BIkers (Paragon Training) instructors promote the weekly meet but it's not on the scale of the Fox Cafe in Oxfordshire or Loomies at the A32 / A272 junction in Meon. On arrival I remembered my first visit with Dilbert when no one else turned up as the weather was poor (bunch of fair-weather bikers!) and I ballsed up the parking. This time I looked more carefully for a spot I could either reverse out of or in to, and sacked it; practically abandoning it in the middle of the car park. Fair game though, this is exactly how I used to park my first cars. That landed me in trouble with a Ford Capri though when I dropped it down off a curb I was too lazy to park against right onto some poor bugger's Cortina tow hitch. I had to wait some time...

Night Rider Vibe

Image
Light Test It was dark, which qualified the evening as night. I've ridden in the night but only through street-lit town and for the quickest of blasts down one junction of the M27 and with evenings rapidly qualifying as night I guessed I had better get some time in before mornings do likewise. I set off with the rain-proof beneath the jacket. It didn't feel cold. By reaching the A32 outreaches of Fareham I saw the air-temperature to be reading 12'C. I always see chilly as starting around 15'C (local warm early-spring day) and cold at anything below 10'C; so this was borderline with added wind chill. Chilly. I was brave but the memories of a snotty-nose and steamed visor came flooding back as my nose dripped and visor; well, it steamed. About the lights The dipped beam was very dipped; it's like everything in the twin-H4-bulbed lighting was concentrated on a wide beam about 15m in front of us, which is great at dawdling speeds of 30 to 40mph, but critically deb...

Has Nige Guffed?

Image
Road Pilot 2s ??! "Um", said Nige with his wry manner over the phone, "your tyres have arrived but they didn't have the Bridgestone BT020s and sent the Michelins instead." "And they're okay?" I asked naively. Yeah, they're the new ones; Michelin's answer to Dunlop and Bridgestone; there's nothing wrong with them." Nige: reassuringly. "Okay, it's not like there's much choice really", I mused, thinking back to the baldness of Shadowfax's rear rubbers, "Yeah. Fit those please, Nige". Now I've been "brought up" on the BT020s, Honda's favoured tyres for the ST1300 along with Dunlop's alternative OEM (original equipment manufacturer) recommendation. I know that the ST1300 2002 "Police-killer" wobble had something to do with soft walls and the Michelin was slammed in something I read for it's being too soft and out of breath after only 4000-miles if it hadn't slipped ...

Dripping about the Rain

Dry Wit It has to be blogged - today it rained a lot; not in a single downpour but in a soaking wet persistent kind of way. I popped in to Gosport to swap over the crap watch bought on Saturday, mosied around for a parking spot, and stopped. It began raining. Half way to work I was in the clear but the left-over spray was thick - doubtless from this week's fresh badger and other assorted road-kills. I arrived at work in fair spittle with a minte brown polka-dot splatter across the fairing and tank. Otherwise, reasonably dry. On return I checked out Google Map's My Maps weather page where the European (thus UK) rain radar is displayed as a layer over Google Map. There was a thin space of no rain between large swathes of iminent wet. I had missed the gap! It rained - more wet stuff - but today I just didn't get wet. The helmet had been soaked all the way home in rain and spray but the bib was only damp; the rest was fine. I got home and didn't have to dry a thing. ...