The Met Office has issued warnings again this week for heavy rain and high winds. It’s been freezing or foul every free day I’ve had since
Christmas, and I’m starting to get a very itchy throttle hand.
The cold has induced further battery issues, so now my baby
is sipping from a trickle charger while I try to decipher what the various
blinking lights mean and whether I need to pack my jump-starter power-pack just
in case. (Damn, I love technology. These things are great ideas). I watch the
calendar and count off the days since my last ride and try to reassure
myself that it’ll be okay and I’ll be able to ride the next
time my schedule and halfway decent weather coincide.
I miss the feeling of riding, the sense of that I’m only
responsible for my own ride; nothing more.
It’s an unfettered freedom that an open road and a full tank
invoke in me. It’s a world full of possibility and potential to discover some
new gem (a road, a pub, whatever) just around the next corner.
It’s a sense sadly lacking in a day-to-day of deadlines and
hierarchies and squeezing meetings into hectic diaries, and having the facts
and patience to answer all questions (which mostly, you’ve answered before).
Granted, this wonderful feeling of freedom is somewhat
diminished by layers upon layers of Gore-tex and thermals and wool. It’s hard
to move when you’re bundled up like the Michelin man, and in the temperatures
we’ve been having, I would have to be.
So I nibble on my fingernails and obsessively check the
forecast and daydream about mountain passes with sinuous curves and long days
spent in the saddle.
