January 05th, 2013

Since it stopped raining, the first few days of 2013 have been more like March than January, with unseasonable warm temperatures and roads unburdened with the familiar powdery remains of the local councils somewhat overzealous salt spreading.  Despite the morning being a bit damp and well, grey, I opened the garage door, moved the ZX7 out of the way and unshackled the 1098. The plan for the morning was pretty simple. I’d been given some vouchers for an independent department store a few miles away and I thought I’d take a bike to go am have a look. After going the long way round I rocked up to a very quiet town centre just before 09:00, parked the bike by the window of a coffee store, grabbed my morning fix and had a look around the shops. There were lots of nice things, but as I was wearing my leathers and only had my rucksack with me, I was pretty limited in what I could do/buy. I really wanted to see if they had any trainers that took my fancy, but they didn’t have a sports department anymore, so seeing as I had the rest of the morning free, I just carried on riding. Oh the hardship. Heading North, there were usual selection of metal boxes on the road, but for every Prius (horrid thing) and Focus there were some gems hidden out there too. I saw a Bristol, a gold mark 1 Fiesta, (which are very rare these days as most have been wrecked when being used as a cheap first motor) and even a late fifties or early sixties Chevrolet Corvette which cut a dashing shape in silver. It was good to see that I wasn’t the only bike out there too. The two wheeled highlight of my morning was seeing a red 600ss heading from Sawbridgeworth to Harlow. Maybe Ducati owners aren’t as precious as most riders think we are