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. 

Weather Warning

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.

Freemasons

On the train back, there were 5 other HOGs, all returning from the rally as well. I've said before that there's a freemasonry to bikers, and it is seldom more evident than on the Eurotunnel. You have 30 minutes of standing around next to your bike, so of course you get chatting. About bikes, destinations, roads, laws, rallies, whatever. And when you get off, especially on the UK side, you tend to wave each other off and look for each other and ride as a group, making space for each other. It's a very warm and friendly feeling, to know that other people are looking out for you on the road, given how vulnerable bikers really are. 

Jiggity-jog

On Sunday morning, I got up early and got going, largely because I've known it take 4 hours to get from Bruges to Calais, regardless of what Google tells me. I was also doing this the old-fashioned way: map books and road signs, because I do nat have, nor do I want, a satnav. I have enough problems without adding more technology with associated chargers and cables to my baggage. 

Also, I wanted some pretties, without caning it all the way up the autobahn. 

I'd booked my train back for 2050, and I left Assmanshausen at 0900, so I reckoned I had plenty time for what Google insisted was a 6.5 hour journey. 

I took almost the route I'd planned (she says smugly. Road signs have their uses. I only looked at the map once, when I followed a sign from Koblenz towards Koln and realised I wasn't the road I'd expected. But since the road I was on was even quieter and prettier and twistier than the one I'd planned, I wasn't complaining for as long as it went in the right general direction. 

So of course, as I'd allowed plenty time, the sun shone all day and the traffic decided travel wasn't in its plans, and I got to the Calais terminal at 1530. 

The nice gent at the ticket office smiled at me when I said I'd booked but was a bit early. He offered me a place on the 1750, for a princely €3, or a free place on the 1820. I paid the fee (I can live with that fee). 

Wine Country

The Rhine Valley, or the section of it containing Rudesheim, is Riesling country. This may explain Rudesheim's myriad bars, come to think of it. 

When I was in Paris, I saw a wine bottle in the Baccarat museum, called Johannisberg. I, being a Jozi girl, took a picture of it despite the spelling. Near Rudesheim, I saw a kloster and vineyard called Johannisberg, which is probably the proper explanation for the 1878 wine bottle. However, still being a Jozi girl, I took a picture.