The Joy of Solos
Jul. 7th, 2003 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenI did a Bad Thing.
It was a pleasant day, and even![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flickgc was encouraging me to go out. When Flick recommends doing something outdoors, you know you need to get out more.
So I went down to Box Hill.
But I did it on what is, in a theoretical sense,kjersti's bike: a Honda H100SII.
Now, firstly, with all the exotic tackle on display at Box Hill of a bright Sunday afternoon in June, an elderly and rusty 100cc stroker is... unimpressive. (Although I suppose that I must confess that on the basis of bike-as-phallic-substitute, I rather like the subliminal message it conveys.) And given the typical Plod presence down there, I really ought to have put a current tax disc on it, as opposed to its current 1997 one. Oops. No-one there to notice. And who'd look at an H100 anyway? I've got one, honest, I just forgot. This happens a lot to me.
But I am really Not Meant to ride solos any more. If I come off, it will be very bad. I like having 2 legs and 2 arms - I bl00dy nearly don't - and if I ever drop a bike again, I won't any more.
And I'm very rusty. [Har har. Yes, we know. Don't bother, I've already heard it. Repeatedly.] A bend at 60mph on a solo to me now feels like Mach 1.
A 6'2" 16st biker on a tiny little motorbike does attract some attention. Some kids walking past me, when stopped at the end of Peartree Lane in Wapping last year¹, said "Nice bike, mate". "No it isn't," I replied. I got a fistful of popcorn thrown at me for that.
But a bloody great biker on a miniscule cycle wearing a huge sh1t-eating grin seems to get away with it. Funny, that.
(And it's not, by any reasonable measure, a nice bike - it's old and battered and rusty, but it goes - again - and it is stupidly good fun to ride when all I normally do is 3-wheelers.)
It was terrific fun.
Last year, I pootled merrily around London on it on a semi-regular basis - just to keep it running, you understand. I didn't enjoy it at all, oh no.
But I've never taken it outside town before. That was good fun. Most of the A24 is a 30 or 40 limit anyway, with a few bits of 50 down near BH itself, then a final few derestricted bits. Redlined in top! Yes! Nearly 65mph! Wow! :¬)
I know that Bessie the Trike will do twice that in 3rd, but it feels very different on 2 wheels...
I am a recovering (kinda sortof) addict and I am falling off the wagon...
As long as it's not the bike, I'm all right.
I think.
¹ Yeah, yeah. You guessed right.
It was a pleasant day, and even
flickgc was encouraging me to go out. When Flick recommends doing something outdoors, you know you need to get out more.So I went down to Box Hill.
But I did it on what is, in a theoretical sense,
kjersti's bike: a Honda H100SII. Now, firstly, with all the exotic tackle on display at Box Hill of a bright Sunday afternoon in June, an elderly and rusty 100cc stroker is... unimpressive. (Although I suppose that I must confess that on the basis of bike-as-phallic-substitute, I rather like the subliminal message it conveys.) And given the typical Plod presence down there, I really ought to have put a current tax disc on it, as opposed to its current 1997 one. Oops. No-one there to notice. And who'd look at an H100 anyway? I've got one, honest, I just forgot. This happens a lot to me.
But I am really Not Meant to ride solos any more. If I come off, it will be very bad. I like having 2 legs and 2 arms - I bl00dy nearly don't - and if I ever drop a bike again, I won't any more.
And I'm very rusty. [Har har. Yes, we know. Don't bother, I've already heard it. Repeatedly.] A bend at 60mph on a solo to me now feels like Mach 1.
A 6'2" 16st biker on a tiny little motorbike does attract some attention. Some kids walking past me, when stopped at the end of Peartree Lane in Wapping last year¹, said "Nice bike, mate". "No it isn't," I replied. I got a fistful of popcorn thrown at me for that.
But a bloody great biker on a miniscule cycle wearing a huge sh1t-eating grin seems to get away with it. Funny, that.
(And it's not, by any reasonable measure, a nice bike - it's old and battered and rusty, but it goes - again - and it is stupidly good fun to ride when all I normally do is 3-wheelers.)
It was terrific fun.
Last year, I pootled merrily around London on it on a semi-regular basis - just to keep it running, you understand. I didn't enjoy it at all, oh no.
But I've never taken it outside town before. That was good fun. Most of the A24 is a 30 or 40 limit anyway, with a few bits of 50 down near BH itself, then a final few derestricted bits. Redlined in top! Yes! Nearly 65mph! Wow! :¬)
I know that Bessie the Trike will do twice that in 3rd, but it feels very different on 2 wheels...
I am a recovering (kinda sortof) addict and I am falling off the wagon...
As long as it's not the bike, I'm all right.
I think.
¹ Yeah, yeah. You guessed right.
