Well that was cold !!
Auspicious start to the day.
The VFR wouldn't start.
Must be about a month since I've had it out, preferring the blade of late, and
the battery was flat enough to reset the clock.
Being a mechanical numpty, the first thing I did was phone Paul R (who was
just on his way out the door) and say 'the VFR battery's flat'. 'How's the 'blade'.
'Fine'. 'You could swap batteries'.
This was enough to kick start my brain.
Jump start the VFR.
All I had to do was find the batteries.
Can't be there, that's the engine. Or there, fuel tank, and that space is empty
so it must be in the middle under the seat. Lift the VFR seat - Bingo. Lift
the blade seat - errrrr - the front bit doesn't lift. Having had a good look
around I found a couple of screws by peeling back the corners of the seat. When
I undid them, half expecting something to fall off the bottom of the bike, the
seat did lift and the battery was there.
Bike batteries are not easy to attach jump leads to !
The VFR started almost immediately (though I have no idea how to reset the clock - it's been set to BST since I got the bike and will currently be showing something around 1 pm.)
The street was white with frost and made getting to the main road interesting.
As I live in the South West, when I head out of a winter morning on one of
these runs, I am heading into the low sun (and the same on the way home) but
as I was running late, I hit the 303 and got my head down. Visibility was a
bit dodgy, I could see outlines very clearly but no detail.
Somewhere round Andover there were some counsel types out looking at the central
reservation on the other carriageway, I could see the vans with their flashing
lights, and they had been replacing the armco in that area earlier in the week.
It wasn't until I was opposite them that I realized that the lights were blue
and on an ambulance and a bunch of police cars ! And a number of police men
were staring at me as blasted past on the opposite carriageway at what they
probably estimated was an illegal speed :)
On the Oxford by-pass I almost turned round to come home. There was fog and the temperature, which was low to start with, dropped noticeably.
When I filled up in Bicester, I reset the temperature gauge to air temperature (I was pretty sure the bike wouldn't overheat) to discover that it was 3 degrees - and this was back in the sun.
The temperature had got up to 4 degrees when I got to Milton Keynes.
Positively balmy.
Derek pulled into the car park just in front of me and Paul was already there. I'm sure that that the only reason Paul was there is that he has never missed a run and couldn't face the ribbing he'd get if he did. I'm also sure that that's why he's coming to Spain. The fact that I'm the only other person to never miss a run has nothing to do with these opinions.
Into the warmth of Carnells for hot coffee and boots.
Beside the cafe area there was a rather odd looking Aprilia.
Anyone seen one of these before ? http://dropbears.com/m/models/aprilia/moto65.htm
After an hour we kinda ran out of excuses to not go and play in the cold so we bravely donned the multiple layers and headed bikeward.
Paul had a new tyre that was causing his rear end to skate around and I really need to replace my front so the two BGSBs were being walked all over by the BMTB. [1]
With slippery roads and the relative heat wave of 6 degrees none of us were up for covering record breaking distances, that coupled with the fact that none of us knew the local roads, we picked a route at random from the map and went for a bimble here and there.
We recognized the road that had had the Volvo From Hell (tm) from a year earlier,
and after a second stop to look vaguely at the maps, decided to head for Harleys
Cafe, just south of Oxford.
We did find some roads that I would love to revisit in the dry but the road
muck and sun conspired to coat my visor in a thick gunk that I was utterly unable
to see through. After 15 miles with my visor up, my glasses were in a similar
state !
I had had enough and was ready for home, so after a bite in the re-named Cafe
we headed our separate ways.
I was very glad to reach home at around 7am.
The crap from the road had coated my bike with a mortar like crust. I tapped
the exhaust pipe with my boot and a large chunk fell off to reveal a shiny pipe
underneath !
I still had to hose it down and, yes, I again forgot that the rear light is
at a funny angle and I did get a face full of cold water.
A cold end to a cold day.
So when's the next one ?
[1]
BGSB Big Girly Sports Bike.
BMTB Big Manly Trail Bike