Lockdown is finally sufficiently eased that I could go for a proper ride again, with an actual destination, rather than the scenic loops I’ve been doing for battery health. Apart from keeping the bike running, they’ve chiefly been good for developing an iron butt. Which was just as well, given that I haven’t done any non-stop rides over 100 miles for months. First it was winter, and then it was pandemic lockdown.
It was amazing to have to take a lock with me, and plan to park up and have a cup of coffee in the sun, which I didn’t make myself.
The lighter traffic has encouraged the agencies that be to do all their upgrades and repairs all at the same time, so the lack of vehicles hasn’t really made the roads any clearer, but it still feels freer than usual. People are still in a mentally more relaxed space, prepared to enjoy the ability to travel again, and therefore are happy to chill and make space for bikes to filter past, and wave as they go by.
The sense of freedom to go back to riding for pure pleasure, to wherever, with a vague destination and plan in mind, without having to have a reason acceptable to authority, is a welcome one, which I never appreciated in the past.
