With these chilly, wet and dark mornings, getting motivated to get out of bed and get on the bike and head into work is far from easy. Each morning I’m layering up (the Lidl thermals from last year still holding up well) and downing my muesli, but by far the most important item each morning is a nice coffee.
Cue the Rancilio Silvia espresso machine. With a perfect espresso, I’m ready to hit the road and deal with all the shit drivers out there. Highly recommended!
In today’s video you can see me attempted to filter carefully between some traffic that has just pulled up to a halt. However can you guess what little surprise lies in wait?
The more eagle eyed bikers out there would have noticed the island in the middle of the road to my right and thus anticipate what can happen at these points in the road. In this instance it’s quite obscured, but as you gain familiarity with your daily route you soon learn these features of the road and know exactly what to look out for. It is precisely for this reason it is not a good idea to filter like crazy on unfamiliar roads, it’s so easy to get caught out by stuff you miss or is hidden by the traffic.
Not really had a great deal to update on the site lately. With the Xmas break, it was time to park up and relax with family. The weather has been pretty naff, wet, windy and not particularly enticing for a ride out.
I have enjoyed the quieter roads on my commute into work in the days prior to Xmas and last week. However I suspect tomorrow they will be back to their usual busy and congested state tomorrow. The end of December was also tax time, however the Fazer wasn’t too bad at just £58 for 12 months. Interestingly, this will be my last paper tax disc, as the Government plans to rely just on their electronic database from August this year.
In other news, I have tickets booked for the MCN Show down at Excel in February. Happened to coincide with a teacher training day at my kids school, so we’ll be making a family day out of it on the 14th. What better way to spend Valentines? 🙂
I’ve also blagged myself a place on a Biker Down course. Run by fire crew in Marlow (and down in Kent), they give training and advice on how to handle a downed biker incident, covering basic first aid and incident management. Definitely looking forward to this, have heard many good things about it and should be very useful stuff to know.