Last cake run of 2009 for me....

The temperature was hovering around 0 degC yesterday morning at 10am - I was getting the bike out to go for the final "cake run" of 2009 with young Derek. Mindful of the useful information on Troubadour's blog about windchill factors, I had thermal longjohns under my trousers, the heated vest under my jacket and a natty little balaclava under my helmet. Feeling rather like the Michelin man I turned up the heated grips to #2 and set off meet Derek, whose only concession to the weather was to wear 2 tee-shirts under his jacket.

As we rode further west alongside the river Dee the temperature dropped; the scenery was pretty amazing, everything white and frozen and still. A plus point for me was being able to keep up with the R1, in fact it was probably the slowest I've seen the boy ride since he passed his test. In fact the roads weren't as slippery as I'd imagined, although they did get worse the further inland we rode.

A welcome stop at a cafe for a hot soup and chocolate cake (got to keep that calorific intake up in this cold weather) brought the most suprising reaction of the day - from the other patrons of the cafe. No-one could believe we were on bikes in such weather, we were feted, carried around the cafe high on shoulders, pretty women wanted us to have their babies......well obviously I made that last bit up, but we were amazed by the reaction, the weather didn't seem bad enough to treat us like heroes. So we luxuriated in all the attention, then swaggered out of the cafe like a couple of old-time gunslingers with somewhere important to go.

Ah, now it all made sense, the temperature had dropped to -7 degC and there was a nice thick freezing fog spreading up from the river. So we spent a cold miserable hour trying to peer through the murk on the way home while trying to clean the crap off the visors with one hand(why can't they fit screen wipers to a helmet?).

But despite all that, it was a brilliant day out - any time spent on the bike makes me feel good inside; and as I said at the beginning, it was the last "cake run" of the year for me. I've decided to take a little break from reality, well, my reality of constantly working, living alone and feeling suicidal except when on the bike so I'm off next week to....well I don't actually know where; as most of my plans turn to shit I've decided not to make any.

So I'll just wish you all a merry Christmas, hope everyone gets bike-related presents and say "Hasta luego".

conflicting emotions.

Conflicting emotions - I flew up to Aberdeen today from a long weekend in London, as I looked out of the aircraft window, there below us was the magnificent sight of the Grampian mountains covered in snow, so picturesque it made me smile. Then came the conflict - yikes! thats where I live. Sure enough, the last few miles to the cottage saw snow drifting across the road and a white-out. The mudslide (drive) had a nice layer of soft snow so I managed to get up to the house, but as I look out of the window now it's still snowing, so maybe I won't be able to get out tomorrow. Which wouldn't be so bad normally, I mean, any excuse not to go to work, right? But tomorrow I should be moving to a new house in town. The romantic notion of wilderness living that I have treasured for some time has foundered on the rock of reality (thats my attempt to lift the literary level of this blog); whatever, I figured if I move into town I'll probably get to use the bike more, and thats what keeps me going.

Especially after the shit weekend I had. I flew down to London to see if me and the soon-to-be ex-Mrs El D could patch things up, but it was not to be. So I visited my son, who's living with a FHM swimsuit model and a lovely pair they are; saw my daughter who's just split up with her boyfriend of many years and is now apparently attempting to sleep with the whole male population of west London; visited my 87 yr old mother who is definitely healthier than me, then rounded it all up with a 24 hour technicolour dream.. I wish. No, sorry, 24 hours of arguments. I tell you, that's the first time I've been happy to get to Terminal 5.

Drifted off the subject there...oh yeah, so tomorrow I get to find out how the GS performs on snow. Can't wait. Cheerio.

Don't beat me up, I'll do it myself.

Well this is written as an apology for the last couple of boring posts - I mean who wants to read about someone going for a ride when that's what we all do, right?

So I'm going to offer up a couple of excuses. The first is of course that I'm pretty boring anyway, what do you expect from a reformed alcoholic living alone in a remote cottage in the Scottish highlands making wildlife videos for fun?

The second excuse is......shit, I've already used that one.

So what happened was that a few months ago I developed a problem with my left eye, which the pretty young doctor lady told me was due to my age. It kept me off the bike for a few weeks only, although it hasn't got much better I've just put up with it. Then last week the other eye developed the same problem. Now I don't know about you, but it seems to me that once is an accident, but twice is more than a coincidence. This time the PYDL (AMAZING...I've only had a German bike for a few weeks and I've started to think in acronyms) mentioned the age thing again, then added in stuff like extreme short-sight and detached retinas.

That's when I panicked. I don't know about you, but I like reading and writing and looking at stuff, especially if it means I can earn a living as well, so I'm not too comfortable with the idea of giving up looking, especially if it means not riding the bike. So (here it comes...) the reason why the last post was so boring was because I was wobbling along at 40mph trying to judge corners and not fall off and so didn't have time to take in anything interesting. Yeah I know that sounds even lamer than the first excuse, oh and please don't say I shouldn't have been riding because some boring bastard in my office keeps going on about it as well.

Highwaylass has been summing it up recently in her posts - riding makes you feel alive. I know I still have a grin every time I get on the bike, even if I can't really see where I'm going.

Better than staying in...

True to my word (see below) I've been using the bike no matter what the weather gods have thrown at us. Yesterday we had gale-force winds and torrential rain, but I still met a couple of the lads for a ride. Mind you, when we got to Ballater and saw the snow above the town we did turn around and beat a hasty retreat.

I'm pretty pleased with the GS, I'm using it in weather that I wouldn't have ventured out in on the Bandit, so thats a bonus. And it looks better all covered in mud as well. I also discovered that wet grass doesn't seem to offer much grip, even for knobbly tyres, so I'll have to stick to the mudslide, as I affectionately call my driveway, for access to the house.

Trapped

We had quite a heavy frost Saturday night, it looked like it had been snowing. Laying on top of the already iced-up dirt track down to the road, it was enough to make me decide not to go out for the Sunday morning ride - and anyway, Derek had just fitted new tyres to the fireblade so he wasn't going anywhere.

Looking on the bright side, that gave me time to fit some of the new goodies I'd bought for the bike. First on were the Tobinators (thanks for the tip, Nikos) which I'd hoped would be really complicated and trick-looking given their name, but turned out to be a couple of bits of metal with a slot in, but they fitted to the screen easily so that was a bonus. Next up was the carbon-fibre rear hugger which evidently weighs 1 oz, or maybe 10 oz, whatever, it was extremely light and sexy-looking and fitted well.

In fact it all went so well, including fitting the uprated bulbs, that I was soon faced with a whole day in front of me with nothing else to do. So..I cleaned the cottage!!! How sad is that. I even ironed a couple of shirts, made my dinner and watched X-factor on the TV. Oh and by the way what a twat that Simon is, he had a chance to get rid of Jedward and he bottled it.

So next week I'm going out on the bike even if I have to carry it down the track on my back.

a little light relief

How many Scotsmen does it take to change a lightbulb?

"Och, it's nae that dark!"

Not like in my day....

My goodness we've been having some awful weather up here - it's rained everyday for the last 3 weeks. So I thought it the perfect time to buy a new bike.

Having given up on my cunning plan to convert my bandit streetfighter to a touring bike, the penny finally dropped - that's it El D, buy a touring bike. So I bought this second-hand BMW 1200GS. And believe it or not, today dawned bright and dry so me and the bandit slid down the dirt track and off to the dealers to do the swop.

All proud, I took the afternoon off work to go for a nice long ride; pulled into a little petrol station up in the Highlands and the elderly attendant asked " Off touring then?" When I started to tell some story about where I was going, he stated "rubbish these modern bikes, too big, too tall, engines too big. In my day if you had a 500 you were top of the heap - best bike I had was a Norton Dominator, nice and low, threw a leather pannier on it and went of and toured switzerland and belgium...." shook his head in disgust and wandered away.

Exit one embarrassed El D.

The good news is we despatched the dirt track up to the cottage with ease, and I felt strangely happy to see mud splattered all over the bike. Bit noisy with the screen though, I suppose I'll get used to it.