Exciting times ahead!!

It's SPRING!!! (well, nearly)
Time to get some serious biking done. It all starts this week-end for me with a trip down to the Ace Cafe on Sunday to meet fellow Biking enthusiasts Steve & Paul to carry out the ancient old English Spring pagan rite of passing many coins over a winnowed & warped antiquated Melamine alter to the high priestesses of the Gaggia tribe to placate the espresso God and his mates Cappuccino & Latte.
(There may be a 'burger in there somewhere as well?!)
Once we've paid our dues to the above, then good fortune will befall... someone, who, I don't know, but it's looking like Ex Banking bosses at the moment, & for sure is unlikely to be me.

Moving on...

Now the coldness has all but retreated back to Siberia and is about to be replaced by the warmer temperate monsoons from Southerly regions, far more in keeping with the British psyche, It's time to hone the finely tempered skills of sliding down the road to road test your kit, getting off the bike without putting the stand down and trying to balance it vertically, sharpening ones wit on sleepy non bike drivers (as described in Highwaylass's blog), Drinking vast quantities of Tea/Coffee and, of course, eating lots of healthy food such as Cheese Burgers, Bacon/Sausage sarnies supplied by the huge network of British roadside cafes, most of which are accredited with at least 1 Dunlop Comet (the reference to the Comet may become very apparent 20 miles down the road!! and anyway Michelin Stars are for unadventurous wimps who want to live 'till their over 50.)

I will be treating the bike to lots of 'Road time' during the next few weeks in preparation for this years endeavours, which include the following (Feel free to join in with some of these should you feel the need)

• The Round Britain Rally. (and all the 'add-ons' incorporated within it.)
• The East Coast Challenge. A rather genteel affair and a nice day out.
• The Welsh National Rally. A good use of Wales?!
• The English National Rally. Proper biking, lots of miles!
• The British National Parks Ride. The grimrider (Biking God) had a nasty accident to get time off work to set this up, or was it boredom, hmm... can't remember.
• RBLR 1000. Jury's out on this one at the moment.
• End to End. Lands End to John O'Groats. I do this every year so why should this one be different?
  
• Other stuff, yet to be decided, found or if time (& Funds) is available.

I'll also have you know, I am now a member the Camping & Caravan Clubs
'Association of Lightweight Campers'
(Lightweight refers to the size of my tent, not my total incompetence at 'getting it up' -the tent that is?!)
This will obviously make me far better at camping than your average biker -and £5 lighter as well- useful when touring (not the £5 bit)

So I start with a good, positive outlook for the rest of the year, so it's all downhill from here......hmm, did that come out right?

Blimey It's cold out there!!

I decided that full use of the Bike was required this year 2009, so by way of practice and a desperate need to get out on the bike after 6 weeks of staring at it in the garage, I elected to nip out and join the other member of the Round Britain Rally 'twins', Steve, for a soiree with the Royal British Legion Riders branch and visit a couple of 'Poppy Homes' to meet some of the people we owe so much too. This event is to take place on the 29th December 2008.

So, we are visiting the houses in Broadstairs and Bexhill requiring a round trip of 370 miles for me and the weather is -3c, I leave home at 0630 as we're all meeting at 0830 at the Clacket lane service area on the M25 - interestingly I have only been there once before going in the other direction, more interestingly is that it is the exact reversal of the route I took earlier in the year which resulted in the bike looking like this at this service station!By the time I got to Clacket lane things were not alot different for my previous visit -just no snow this time, my appendages were not at all pleased about having to go through this all over again! and it had come to my attention that I had left my nice warm sweatshirt on the back of the chair at home and not on my back - Bugger!

Still not to worry I was on a fully faired bike wearing my new Halversson kit which seemed to be doing a fair job in view of the -3c (still) temperatures. unlike some hardy souls that had come up from Southampton on fully unfaired bikes in jeans (I noticed they looked quite cold! I'm very perceptive you know)

So after all had thawed out we left for Broadstairs to cool down again. We were received warmly, which was just as well as terminal frostbike was lurking in the wings again, and after a chat, cup of tea (only the one, we all know what effect Tea+cold has on the physiology) and a bit of cake, we launched ourselves of to Bexhill-on-the-Sea, here we had the same warm welcome, tea ect



It was getting late now and at 3:30pm was time to leg-it for home, the temperature was back on it's way down from a positively balmy 0c too -3c again. So off we went, Steve, Pete (that's his Goldwing) and me, up to the M25 where we peeled of and went our own ways.

The trip on the M25 in the cold was made more miserable by having to pass a succession of Gritting wagons in full Gritting mode, Grit hurts at 70mph, and having to breath salt dust for 90 minutes ain't much fun either.
I had to stop when I eventually turned off the M1 at J9, as I'd lost contact with my feet, fingers and, as it turns out, my knees, this I discovered when I went to put my foot down to stop and my leg didn't work, refusing to come off the peg, this required some rather fancy stunt riding around a hotel carpark (much to the bemusement of some onlookers) to remain in a vertical attitude until such time as my leg, knee and foot got there act together and complied with my instructions (it took the threat of me landing the bike on top of the aforementioned miscreants to get them to comply!)
After a thaw break (and some serious discussion with various body parts) I left for the final 18 miles too home, where it took over a day to get warm again (I'm getting old, apparently) and the salt dust (which had took up residence in my nasal cavities) stayed with me for 4 days making life just that little bit more miserable whilst staring at the bike in the garage, only this time it was plastered in bike eating salt and it's to cold to wash it off - Bugger!!
Heated clothing is the way to go here! this occurred to me at about 0632 when I got about 400 yards from home!