Planes, Trains & Automobiles

I'm a biker. I like to ride. But sometimes, you just can’t get the time off. This was the case for me this year, and riding down to Jerez de la Frontera for the HOG Europe Rally wasn’t an option. So I made a deal for a hotel room, and booked flights instead.

Jerez is a small airport that pretty much, from a UK perspective, operates in summer. This means I have limited options in terms of airports and flight times. Still, it’s doable.

Then I had to figure out how to get from London to Stansted by 5am on a Friday.

I looked into taxis, and freaked at the price. I looked at the Stansted Express, and it had potential.

Then, of course, I had to figure out how to get to Liverpool Street Station in time to catch the 4.10am train. From where I live, at that hour, that means Night Buses.Yes, plural.

I would have to wake up at 2.30am. That is never a pleasant thought. I looked into taxis, and freaked at the price. I looked again, and found a voucher that meant I could sleep until 3.30.

So, of course, the train was delayed (over-running engineering works) and I got to Stansted eventually at 5.20am, and attempted to race through Security, with its myriad restrictions and delays and idiots. (Everyone knows the 100ml rule, right? Wrong).

I say attempted because Stansted was packed and the queues wound around and around and around the terminal and came out by a section partially closed for refurbishment.

I found the one free sliver of bench and sat, thanking online check-in and cabin baggage. I waited.

The plane took off late, but landed early.  The man behind me had long legs that kept  bumping me. Possibly also because he had a double Jack and Coke around 7am, once we were air borne.

Then there was another train (one per hour, and I missed it by 5 mins, so had to wait on a platform in 36 degree heat in jeans and boots). Then there was another taxi (this time in Spanish) to get to the hotel.

For all the time it takes, and the frustrations of weather and parking and petrol stations, I prefer to ride. 

I prefer the simplicity of a single mode of transport. 

I prefer to get up at stupid if I’m going to be on my own two wheels. Maybe that’s nuts, or maybe I’m just a biker.

Patches

Yesterday was another nice Sunday, which as usual = Riding. 

We headed west, out on the A40, just to do the curvy forested section between Stokenchurch and Postcombe. This involved getting caught up in the Surrey HOG Chapter run (don’t they have enough pretty roads in Surrey?) all the way from High to West Wycombe before we could pull free. I enjoyed checking out all their bikes, but I have to wonder what the comments were when they stopped – we broke all the Chapter Run riding rules - we overtook, we filtered past... we did everything that you don't do during a run, because it breaks the run up.

The reason they might have been confused by our presence is that half of them weren’t wearing their Chapter vests. On an official ride, you generally wear your vest – which is decorated with badges and patches from rallies and meets, all of which create potential conversations in a group of bikers, but which, crucially, has the HOG emblem patch and Chapter banner patch on the back. It helps on the road to know who is and isn’t with your ride, and therefore who you are and aren’t supposed to be following/ allowed to overtake with impunity.

Of course, today I got into work and saw the news of a sometime problem with patches – the fight between two bike gangs in Waco, which left 9 dead. Don’t cars and legislators pose enough of a threat to bikers without us gunning for each other?

Sunday Best

On any dry Sunday, I like to go riding. I am not alone in this pursuit – there’s something about nice weather and the lack of deadlines and pressure that makes the concept of the motorised equivalent of a Sunday stroll very attractive.

Lynn generally agrees, so 2 weeks ago, we headed to Brighton, chrome all a-sparkling and a-blinding in the sun. (I did finally get around to cleaning the bike).

This being the first nice clear Sunday in a while, many a classic vehicle had crept out of the garage for a spin, which is always nice to see: a seriously vintage yellow Rolls Royce heading up a queue of cars around a series of S-bends, a Diahatsu Copen which entertained me while I tried to decipher whether it was Copen or Caper (I think Caper would have been a better choice, but what do I know?) driven by a woman channelling Grace Kelly, fashion-wise, a few Morgans  enjoying the looks they get, and when I got back to London, a classic American split-screen convertible blocking the bus stop.

The Sound of Your Own Wheels

The disadvantage of Bank Holiday weekends is the predictably miserable weather. The advantage of Bank Holiday weekends is the lack of time pressure. After a month of 6-day working weeks, with my throttle hand itching and my sanity slipping, the idea of a 3 day weekend with the opportunity to go riding and no need to check my work email or be on call had me purring like a cat in the sun. Or like my bike, which stopped growling at my neglect in fairly short order and proceeded to purr happily along the diversion around the closure of the A29 at Ockley.
Monday, you see, had dawned dry and hinting at sunny. A pub lunch at the Parrot called.
This time, we had no satnav, and I was leading, crossing my toes (you can't cross your fingers on a bike) that I remembered the diversion route from the pub website, which I'd last seen weeks ago.
You go right around the roundabout at Clark's Green and take the first left. Which isn't what the diversion signs say, but I swallowed and put my trust in a pub's desire for customers to find it in the first place.
I did quite well, with only 2 sudden stops. The first when I got distracted by a 'freshly brewed coffee' sign outside a farm shop, and the second when the turn to Forest Green was vastly sooner than expected. Luckily, only Lynn was behind me, and she knows to give me my space. I've never liked the feeling of someone reading over my shoulder, and on a bike that sense of personal space expands exponentially.
The B2126 is an underrated road, which runs though beautiful bluebell woods, which I pointed out repeatedly - because it's not that common to have a road running between blue-carpeted glades for miles, whatever the literature says.
I proudly pulled into the Parrot, where there is a new coffee roastery attached to the farm shop. This was also a fascinating discovery, especially after my limited sleep the previous night. I like coffee shops with free sample espressos and chocolates to go with them.

Destination Unknown

I love bank holiday weekends, especially when they’re dry. Easter is particularly pleasant because it has 2 extra days which might be dry. This year, Monday turned out nice, and I very predictably went riding.

We meandered down into Surrey, inched past Chessington with our elbows and pegs tucked in, picked up speed past Leatherhead and down through Headley, avoiding the inevitable cyclists who think since the Olympics they own every single road in the Box Hill area.  Then we debated lunch venues, and Lynn remembered a pub off the A29 with good coffee (always a concern), so we circled around onto the A25 towards Dorking. Meandering further down the A24, I was watching for the diversion at Beare Green, where the A29 is shut off at the moment.  The pub’s website said to go down the marked diversion to the circle at Clark’s Green, do a U-turn there and then take the first left, labelled Ockley.

I, however, do not have a satnav, didn’t know the pub, and therefore was not leading. So we looped the Beare Green roundabout twice, before following the diversion to Clark’s Green roundabout and from there continued blithely on the A24. 

Well, I continued less than blithely, cursing the lack of bike-to-bike at the moment.  Eventually, at Kingsfold, I managed to signal a halt in order to ask why we were going the ridiculous way round and what the hell was the satnav thinking?

It seemed pointless to turn around or change plans – the only pub nearby is overpriced and has precisely nothing on the menu I can eat – so we continued on. Marches Road and picked up the A29 far lower down than necessary. But Marches Rd is pretty and in farily smooth condition, and the A398 has always been a fun road if you bear your speed in mind (in spring and summer, the leaves obscure the cameras).

We rejoined the B2126 (the Ockley Rd we could have taken if we’d followed the original directions from Clark’s Green) and got the Parrot Inn at Forest Green at 2pm. Luckily they aren’t very strict about what constitutes lunch-time, and while they don’t bother to label the veggie options on their menu, those options are very much present. And very tasty.

As the afternoon was pleasantly mild and sunny, we wandered further up the B2126 (nicely twisty and woody, but a few more potholes than strictly required) to rejoin the A25 at Abinger Hammer, opposite the (amnesiac) tea rooms, to complete the loop back to the roads we know so well.

100 Miles Home

The weather has been strangely spring-like lately, and I've managed to ride ever weekend for 3 consecutive weeks. They just haven't been long enough runs to feel like proper rides. So I played hooky from kung fu, and went riding on Saturday. I took the bike home Friday and went on a long (and much needed) run on Saturday - out on the A20, then swinging west again on the world's longest parking lot, which was actually flowing for a change - the much-maligned M25 (quite justly maligned, I'll admit), then off to the A25, which is much prettier, the A23 (a mistake. It's prettier than the M23, but in dire need of resurfacing), the A264 (famously fun to ride, although I wasn't on the nicely curvy bit) and back up the A24. It's been a while since I just headed out with no particular place to go. I had a vague notion to head to Brighton, but I knew I probably wouldn't get there, because the wind is a chill significant factor in March, even when it isn't gusting hard enough to push me across the road. It was trying its best to buffet me around like a child's balloon on Saturday. (I was in full Gore-tex. This makes me look like the Michelin man, so a balloon feels like an apt analogy). I had filled up round the corner from home and was just playing - and damn, it felt good. There's a simplicity to riding that's hard to express. After all, it's a complicated activity, what with all the controls and the traffic and the 101 things you need to see/ do/ remember at any one point. But like driving, the mechanics of handling becomes muscle memory, and the brain is left to concentrate on the traffic, the road and the ride. I feel a little like a bridge player: in the moment, I can tell you plenty about what's going on around me, but afterwards, the details elude me unless they were remarkable or amusing (the cyclist carrying golf clubs springs to mind). I eventually acknowledged my craving for coffee around Dorking & stopped at The Star in Leatherhead, which hands out little mint chocolates with its coffee. I find this very civilised.When I got home, half a day and 100 miles later, I dug out the map book to see where I'd been. 

SOMETHING NEW

You learn something new every day, or so the saying goes. Some days, you learn lots of new things. This weekend, I learned that TFL needs to upload a decent map of London to its journey planner. (It told me it would take an hour to get from one end of Kings Rd to the other, via public transport. It doesn’t even take that long to walk).

I learned that I need a few extra tools in my bike tool kit, because a socket wrench doesn’t have enough torque or leverage all by itself to loosen the socket under the battery case.

I learned how to change my bike battery, which I’m sure will come in handy in future (but not in the near future, please).

I learned that my phone has a torch function. I’ve never had a reason to use it before, but in an underground parking lot, looking for a tiny screw, it’s very useful. What did we do before smartphones?

I learned that drivers of luxury cars are just as inconsiderate when off the road as on it (washing your car in the air pump area of a filling station instead of the car wash section is plain selfish).

I also learned that I missed riding far more than I thought I did. It’s been way too long, and my sense memory doesn’t come close to the reality of the experience. It’s the way, despite the traffic and the idiots and the roadworks, all my stress melts away and my concentration narrows to the road and the ride, and for once my brain is not attempting to multi-task.

This was my first ride on my own bike this year – weather and battery issues had conspired against my every previous attempt – and it feels so incredibly good to be back.

Roll on summer, and roll on every possible Sunday.