After the third Sunday in a row where I intentionally cut my sleep very short, I was able to get a seriously good sleep last night. This meant I was up and out early and at work for 07:50. The bonus to this is I was out early too.
I'd been on the bike for only a matter of minutes when I spotted the all too familiar sight of a biker broken down on the side of the road. With enough time and space to stop, I duly did, and had a chat with the rider. He thought his regulator rectifier had gone and was on the phone to his insurance company, which I found strange. According to him, they would only collect the bike without cost if it was 20 miles from home. Further away and the costs start to rise. He didn't have AA, RAC or any kind of third party recovery. 
I offered to stay with him, but he declined my offer and after he got the bike to a safer place, he wandered off to the local supermarket to wait out the hour it was going to take for help to arrive and I continued on my journey. I've been there several times. Broken bike and a long way from home. It sucks.
On the remainder of the ride home, thoughts crossed my mind about the kind of things, we as bikers, can do to minimise the disruptive effect these kind of events can have. This isn't just about breakdowns either, this is about accidents and thefts.
When it comes to accidents and what to do at the scene, we have Bikerdown courses, like those I work on in Dorset. For breakdowns, there are recovery services who, with a suitable plan, don't charge you through the nose to come and get you. Lastly, there's theft. I've been the unfortunate victim of bike theft and I still remember how helpless I felt being up in the Midlands, not knowing where my bike was. (S279 RUX where are you now) I wandered around the local roads and empty open spaces for a few hours, just to see if it had been dumped. It was horrible and I never saw it again. It was because of this, that my bikes are either alarmed, have trackers or both.
There are social media groups dedicated to the theft of motorbikes, with people offering rewards and or threatening physical harm on those who have taken it. I've seen rewards for thousands of pounds. Thousands! A high end tracker, not these Poundland wastes of time, cost at the max, £300 and that includes the installation and subscription.
All this just leads to the mindset of instead being poorly prepared and reactive, be well prepared and proactive. It may cost a few quid in the short run, but it will minimise, or completely reduce stress or serious financial outlay in the long term. Back to the rider in question, his little 650 Suzuki had trick grips, ASV levers, coloured braided hoses and an action camera mount on the tank. Now they could have all been on the bike when he got it, but if not, instead of splashing out £200 on levers, spend a third of that and get a top recovery package and don't spend an hour in the local supermarket, worried how you're going to get home in the dark without a clear visor.

So I think its now time to officially retire one of my HJC RHPA 10 helmets. This one has served me well for a little over five years and has stood up fairly well to the rigours of time. I bought it half price as it was a previous seasons style from LidsDirect and at £150, with two visors and a Pinlock insert, it was a steal. Speaking of the Pinlock, when it was really cold, as in low single figures, the pinlock never stopped a little mist encroaching into the top left of my field of vision after 10mins on the bike, which gradually got worse. For the price, I shouldn't really complain, but if I paid full whack, I'd be annoyed. 
The helmet itself was really light, something the HJC continue to do and is a stark contrast to my heavier and ironically favoured Arai Chaser V. The ventilation was okay, which was really helpful on my trip to Italy, but no better than anything else I'd worn before. One of the vents on the top broke in its housing, but still worked to a certain degree. Another benefit of the scooped design of the vents is you could cram some serious dead wildlife in there, which proved a real bugger to get out at times.
The lid was maybe a fraction noisy without earplus, but it's a very rare occasion indeed if I don't ride with them, so that's hardly a complaint.
Despite wearing it during my monster off at Silverstone, my head never touched the ground, so thankfully, I can't attest to its protective capabilities, but there is nothing to suggest it wouldn't do the job.
In the last few years the visor mechanism has gotten a little loose, but when shut, was still secure.  I'm really starting to pick holes in it. The bottom line is this was a great value helmet that proved comfortable in all conditions from heavy rain, to cold British mornings and scorching Italian summers. It was amazing value, fit really well, had excellent aerodynamic characteristics, a decent amount of features, a good clear aperture to look out of and looked okay. I will freely admit the latter is subjective, but this was a good lid, that served me very well indeed.
Would I buy another HJC. Yes I would and here are a few snaps of it hiding my absent hairline from over the years.

Five years ago, I clicked publish on headbehindthebubble and if you are reading this, thank you. 
My aim back in 2012 was to create something that was mine, to stake a claim on a little corner of the world wide web and create a place where I could talk about motorcycles and very occasionally drift off in a different direction. 
Since that first post I've had four different bikes and I've left the city I grew up in to start a life by the South Coast. I've had lots of support along the way from friends and loved ones and I sit here, still proud of what I've achieved. Despite not posting as often as I have, or could in the last 6mths of so, I have no intention of stopping the site. It would seem wrong to just stop, or to delete all the hard work that has gone into what you see before you, so I'll just keep going.
To mark the site's anniverary I spent the day with my friend Lucinda down at the Weymouth Beach Races. To say it was mad, is an understatement. Here are a few video clips (apologies for the sound quality) and some photos from the carnage.

The time for great swift midweek rides in 2017 is drawing to a close. In the UK, the clocks go back in a little over a week which will mean it will have been dark for an hour before I leave for home.
Having spent the last two-three weeks on less than amazing commutes, today I was able to really enjoy the bike, the road and the ride. 
Despite being the Friday before half-term, once away from the large towns, the traffic levels weren't too bad. There were a few larger, slower vehicles around, but that's to be expected and I was able to dispatch them fairly quickly without ruining some of the great corners along my route.
Today's great ride wasn't the only fun I managed to have this week. As part of a communications campaign at work, I spent the day out on the Ducati riding around, with colleagues in their lorry, taking photos of them navigating tight streets. I can't really go into it more any than that, but needless to say, getting paid to ride my bike around was indeed as enjoyable as it sounded.
This Sunday Weymouth is hosting its annual beach race series, and it seems a really fitting way to celebrate this sites official 5th birthday. Back on 22nd October 2012, I started out with an idea, a lot of determination and a plan to build something that I enjoyed and was proud of. I feel like I've achieved a great deal with headbehindthebubble and now five years in, I think its time for some evolution to take place. I'm going to see where I can take the site, see if I can get myself further entwined into the motorcycle culture and to see if I can bring you, the readers, more interesting content.
For me the journey has just started and for those of you who have joined me along the way, thank you and lets see where this road leads us.

As a proud Englishman, it would be remiss of me to not talk about the weather. In the last few weeks since my last update, no two consecutive days have been the same, culminating today in an eerie pink/reddish orange morning (thanks to the sands from the Sahara) following by a crystal clear, warm sunny afternoon with gale force winds. To say its kept me on my toes is an understatement.

Taking the Ducati to work on all but one day, I've pretty much ridden through everything. Glorious unseasonably good weather, to early morning chills, to grey, rainy and overcast mornings. It's been eventful.
The FireBlade has been off the road since mid August now since her MOT expired. As I previously mentioned, without changing the tyres, she would have failed. The local community highly recommends a man in a van called JT Tyres, who you can find through Facebook. We arranged that he would come around on Monday last week and I asked him if could make it early as I was working from home. The van arrived at 08:30 and as I didn't need the wheels put back on, less than 25mins later he was all done. The two of them didn't even finish the tea I made them. I was very impressed. I've gone for GT Angels again as they last well and I'm confident in their performance. 
As the wheels are off, I'm taking the opportunity to clean the bike in the hard to reach places, just in time to cover it in winter crap. Kevin, my local mobile mechanic from Motor Vehicle Services, has started to offer ACF-50 winter treatments and I think that would be a pretty good idea. Yes I know I could do it myself, but its worth having that conversation anyway.

In social media news, after being 'advised' by Carolina, I've started an Instagram account. Although I still fully plan on keeping the blog going, it will hopefully provide a new platform for me to distribute some of the photos I take on my travels. You can follow me by downloading the Instagram app on your phone and searching for me under headbehindthebubble. The account won't just be about bikes though, as a few deserving cars will make an appearance from time to time. Really hope to see you over there. Come and say hi.

Carolina and I recently returned from a holiday to Spain, where midway through, we made the trip over to Aragon to watch the MotoGP. Learning from last year's trip to Misano, we were much better prepared this time, and booked up some grandstand tickets on the final bend. This not only gave us an excellent view of the action, but also gave us the audible delight of full factory grand prix machines under full power. Heaven. My ears were still ringing when we got back to the hotel.
Spain is a beautiful place and even with a little Fiat 500 rental car, the roads were great. One route in particular, the C12 and the N420 from Tortosa to Alcaniz would have been amazing on two wheels.
Aragon is a wonderful place for a racetrack. Its in the middle of nowhere and the views from around the circuit are stunning, with uninterrupted views for miles and miles.

Where Misano was clearly Rossi territory, Aragon is firmly a Marquez brother stronghold. Despite this, the crowd applauded every rider no matter of colour or number and it was an experience I'm unlikely to forget in a hurry. 
We haven't quite confirmed which race or indeed races we will try and get to next year, but Le Mans is quite a high favourite at this point. Although saying that, the amazing experience we had in Spain means Jerez and Valencia are still in with a shot. 

Here is some mobile phone footage at the end of the first lap for each class. The audio really doen't do the noise justice.