The air was cold, not as cold as a few weeks ago with the snow and biting wind, but still cold enough to add a bite to my lungs, especially after the warm air from the central heating, I had been using the tube to get to work in Kings Cross but I hate the tube and most of the people who use it.
I manoeuvred the bike backwards out if the front drive and started to warm her up, her being my ratted out ZZR1100, 20 years old and nearly 50k on the clock but still going well, she needs a new exhaust at present as there is a little hole in the collector... well when I say little, its about 2 inches across, so, a tad noisy then, but sounds great!
Feeling like I had half my wardrobe wrapped around my body, I climbed on and eased out the clutch, by the time I had gone half a mile I was cold, but feeling good, for the first time in ages the roads were clear and dry, ok some big potholes had appeared after all that snow and freezing, thawing and freezing again, but I could deal with that, or so I thought.
I started getting a move on once the tyres had warmed up, I have some mid-ranged priced tyres that were a bargain from FWR in South London (plug plug), and warming them up before you gun it is pretty essential, after a few miles the tyres were working and I was enjoying a bit of bend swinging and extreme filtering, getting up to Streatham I reached the bend by the church and found the road empty, I have never seen it this empty, so gunned the bike in second and held it as I passed the apex of the bend, I was quite a way over on the bike when the front suddenly went light, as I watched the front started to come up higher and higher and this while leaned over at about 45 degrees, the throttle just would not close, then it did, much quicker than I wanted and threw the front back at the ground, I blipped the throttle whilst slipping the clutch, to try and get control without losing traction or power at the back wheel. As the front end dropped back onto the road I saw with horror a pothole about 3-4 inches deep, right where the front wheel was heading for, there was nothing I could do, the crunch as it hit jerked my whole body, the front wheel bounced into the air again as I tried to wrestle back control, without the front wheel on the ground I was using my body weight to control the crazily bucking bike. As I threw my weight over to lift the back of the bike, the back wheel hit the pothole and tried to go in the opposite direction, I got a glimpse of people standing at the bus stop as I careered towards them, I think they thought they were going to die, I leaned forward hard and the front tyre bit into the road, then started a tank slapper that threatened to rip out my arms, I blipped the throttle to get the wheel off the ground again so I could straighten the bars without fighting against the weight of the bike. This worked, I eased off on the throttle and dabbed the back brake which brought the front end back down under my control and the bike settled down again.
I pulled over and found I had been holding my breath, I let in out in long drawn out sigh, then as I composed myself, a Jamaican with phenomenal dreads wandered over and said "Mon, you's going to need new underwear now!" before walking away with a big grin, and do you know, he was right!
Showing posts with label jake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jake. Show all posts
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
End of year thoughts 1
What a year this has been, up, downs and even the occasional sideways/off at a tangent thing.
Life for me in 2009 has been exciting, boring, surprising, disappointing and brilliant in fairly equal measure, but the good always outweighs the bad, the last half of this year was beginning to look like the end of a long line of disasters, that would never stop, then, with a bit of persistence and a determined nature, things suddenly changed around. I’m not out the woods yet, but can see a clear path.
Next year is starting to look really exciting, for Ruth and me, we have big plans to travel around the world, we want to see places that interest us, before we get to old to enjoy it.
I have travelled quite a lot when I was a bit younger, I loved it, seeing new places, meeting new people, trying new foods. The world is getting smaller all the time, soon anyone with a bit of cash will be able to invade the most remote places, I want to be able to see some of them, before people start throwing their rubbish on the floor.
We are not getting any younger, almost every month now I hear of someone who has died without doing anything with their life, this morning was no different, an old acquaintance from school, not a friend as such, died over the weekend, he had lived most of his life in Battersea South London, as far as I am aware he never left England in his 56 years, always went to Devon for his holidays, fair enough if he was happy with that, but I’m not,
I want to experience the scenery in New Zealand, which is as far as I can go from where I live now, and still be on this planet. I want to see where the Indian and South Atlantic oceans meet, I want to ride the train across Canada, I want to ride a motorbike across Europe again and see how the ride would have changed in 20 years.
I want to watch the sun set on foreign lands, I want to see it rise again elsewhere, I want to understand this planet that we live on, I want to feel it.
Hopefully next year we will do this.
I hope you all will be able to follow your dreams too.
We love you all!
Merry Christmas
Jake and Ruth.
Life for me in 2009 has been exciting, boring, surprising, disappointing and brilliant in fairly equal measure, but the good always outweighs the bad, the last half of this year was beginning to look like the end of a long line of disasters, that would never stop, then, with a bit of persistence and a determined nature, things suddenly changed around. I’m not out the woods yet, but can see a clear path.
Next year is starting to look really exciting, for Ruth and me, we have big plans to travel around the world, we want to see places that interest us, before we get to old to enjoy it.
I have travelled quite a lot when I was a bit younger, I loved it, seeing new places, meeting new people, trying new foods. The world is getting smaller all the time, soon anyone with a bit of cash will be able to invade the most remote places, I want to be able to see some of them, before people start throwing their rubbish on the floor.
We are not getting any younger, almost every month now I hear of someone who has died without doing anything with their life, this morning was no different, an old acquaintance from school, not a friend as such, died over the weekend, he had lived most of his life in Battersea South London, as far as I am aware he never left England in his 56 years, always went to Devon for his holidays, fair enough if he was happy with that, but I’m not,
I want to experience the scenery in New Zealand, which is as far as I can go from where I live now, and still be on this planet. I want to see where the Indian and South Atlantic oceans meet, I want to ride the train across Canada, I want to ride a motorbike across Europe again and see how the ride would have changed in 20 years.
I want to watch the sun set on foreign lands, I want to see it rise again elsewhere, I want to understand this planet that we live on, I want to feel it.
Hopefully next year we will do this.
I hope you all will be able to follow your dreams too.
We love you all!
Merry Christmas
Jake and Ruth.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Balance.
Do you believe in Karma? That there has to be 'balance'?
Why?
It is fairly self evident that there is no such thing, we look for little things that indicate that there may be 'balance' or Karma in this world, we do a good deed and something nice happens, but are we looking for that something nice because we feel we have earned it? When bad things happen we look at the culprit and wish 'Karma' upon them, but it is just wishful thinking.
How often do we hear of someone getting their just desserts? Not that often, we want it to happen because deep down we want revenge, pure and simple, wishing Karma existed is really just another way of wishing for retribution upon a, in our eyes, wrongdoer.
We like Karma when its good, we want to believe that if we help someone we will be rewarded in some small way, but this rarely happens, the best bit is feeling good about yourself when you do the good deed, why should a 'reward' be necessary?
Doing a good deed should be reward enough, wanting Karma for it is selfish, but how many times can you say you have done something good and not expected a bit of karma back? Or even more.
There is no balance, things happen and then other things happen, there is no rhyme or reason for it, other than cause and effect. Some families have loads of bad luck, some have good luck, most just cruise along in an average way, the good and the bad are purely ends of a spectrum that must exist to show the mean.
If there was such a thing as Karma, I think someone would have proved the concept and bottled it by now.
Jake
Why?
It is fairly self evident that there is no such thing, we look for little things that indicate that there may be 'balance' or Karma in this world, we do a good deed and something nice happens, but are we looking for that something nice because we feel we have earned it? When bad things happen we look at the culprit and wish 'Karma' upon them, but it is just wishful thinking.
How often do we hear of someone getting their just desserts? Not that often, we want it to happen because deep down we want revenge, pure and simple, wishing Karma existed is really just another way of wishing for retribution upon a, in our eyes, wrongdoer.
We like Karma when its good, we want to believe that if we help someone we will be rewarded in some small way, but this rarely happens, the best bit is feeling good about yourself when you do the good deed, why should a 'reward' be necessary?
Doing a good deed should be reward enough, wanting Karma for it is selfish, but how many times can you say you have done something good and not expected a bit of karma back? Or even more.
There is no balance, things happen and then other things happen, there is no rhyme or reason for it, other than cause and effect. Some families have loads of bad luck, some have good luck, most just cruise along in an average way, the good and the bad are purely ends of a spectrum that must exist to show the mean.
If there was such a thing as Karma, I think someone would have proved the concept and bottled it by now.
Jake
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