HOGSURFING

Recently, there have been a lot of rainy days, and windy days. Whether you call it climate change or not, there’s been some seriously foul weather, at least for riding. So naturally, on the first dry day, I took the bike for a spin.
Well, surf.
Well, aquaplane. Blindly.

The roads were still soaked, and while the sun was shining, it was shining on water, so the glare was intense. And while most of the diesel had been washed off the road by the ongoing downpours, there’s always new diesel being spilled. The end result is that rather than riding, tires gripping the asphalt, one ends up surfing, tires sliding and gliding over the pretty rainbows of the sun/diesel/water mixture, while one squints frantically through the glare to find and follow any dry (or dryer) ribbon one can.

The trick, of course, is to ease off the throttle a bit and follow, as far as possible, the section of road best dried by the heat of passing traffic. This cuts down filtering options, but all road paint is slippery as oil when wet anyway, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing for one’s health.

The autumnal hillsides are beautiful, though, all green and red and gold and vermillion in the clear light. Having to slow down a touch to safely surf the roads has its advantages.