Snow, Motorcycles and Mangled Feet
I am not a happy member of the oryctolagus cuniculus family...and no, I'm not telling you what that is because I am feeling particularly petulant. There is snow...not small amounts of snow, not a mere 'coverlet for a hobbits toes'..., great fucking drifts of the stuff, and I am stuck in bed. The last time I played out in the snow I was barely out of my thirties...alright I was 45, but as far as I am concerned that counts as barely out of my thirties. But we've had snow since 2010 I hear you exclaim, and indeed we have, in fact we had 'great fucking drifts of the stuff' in 2013 and guess what...they'd just taken the plaster cast off my leg and I was in the middle of doing my impression of a ballerina as they'd fused my foot at the wrong angle.
When it comes to snow...at least for the last 10 years...I suffer from the 'barrel of tits' syndrome...you haven't heard of it, I will explain. 'I am so unlucky that if you threw me into a barrel of tits I'd come up sucking my thumb'.
I am quite addicted to the art of sledging, we have a whole selection of sledges and I have even made one from a couple of ski's which is, frankly, lethal..but this year I can only experience the sledging vicariously. What makes it worse is my purchase of a Honda CRF250L some three months ago.
I am quite unreasonably happy with this motorcycle...it's underpowered, overweight, not very good on long journeys and it has a tank that is slightly smaller than my bladder...and it's swiftly becoming the contender for my favourite bike of all time. This is quite something as I have had a ridiculous number of motorcycles, in fact I worked out the other day that this is my thirtieth bike since 1978 which even to my mind seems a trifle excessive.
I bought this bike because the last one...a rather pretty little Honda MSX125... was a tad under powered and on several occasions made a determined effort to kill me whilst I was innocently riding it back down our lane. It only had little wheels and on anything other than tarmac that resembled a baby's rear end it would try to spit me off. I spent ages making my mind up about getting the 250. The problem was that I justified buying the 125 by it's unbelievable fuel consumption..I once got 148 miles per gallon out of it.
I just couldn't think of a good excuse to go and buy another bike until the little 125 started to try and kill me as the weather deteriorated. I had taken out a bunch of other bikes for test rides but nothing was ticking all the boxes, and I had to do it clandestinely otherwise Helen would have smelt a rat. The problem was I really liked the CRF250 but I couldn't get anyone to give me a test ride. I spent several months just looking at bikes on the web until I came across a new make from Italy, SWM, that were selling a 300cc super moto...I love super motos, what, oh right, its a bike that looks like a dirt bike but it has road tyres.
I found an SWM for sale in a bike showroom in Yeovil and organised to go and do a test ride with a friend from work who is also looking at upgrading his bike. We turned up at the showroom and had a little wander round before looking at the SWM, and as it turned out they also had a CRF250 available to test. The SWM was a dead loss, I am not a tall man and the bike was, in fact when I sat on it my feet dangled some six inches off the ground and it was obvious that even though I loved the bike it did not love me in return. The next candidate was the CRF250, I only needed to take it round the block and it was love at first...first ride I guess.
To cut a long story short I had bought a CRF within the week. The day after I picked it up from the showroom I went out 'green laning' with Mr Newman and, pretty much, I was instantly hooked and as a result I've spent the last couple of months playing in the mud, every weekend and sometimes during the week.
I even put off the operation in order to have more time to play. The NHS suggested that they could do the operation on December 11th which was only a week after I took delivery and I declined saying it was too close to Christmas, in actual fact I couldn't face the idea of picking up a new bike and not having any time to play.
So back to the snow, having spent the last couple of months scaring myself silly riding offroad I can't believe its now snowed and I have the perfect bike to go and play in the snow and I can't so I'm not happy, not by a long shot. I can't go sledging, I can't ride my bike...I can't do any fucking thing other than lie here swearing gently at my foot and not sleeping until 2 in the morning because my bastard foot won't leave me alone. Ooh er, this does sound quite petulant...my foot decided to give a particularly vicious twinge just as I wrote that sentence. I'm nothing if not existential...fuck me, it just won't give over...right, I give up, I can't be arsed to write any more, this will just have to do.
Cheers
Charlie
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| The garden in January 2013 |
When it comes to snow...at least for the last 10 years...I suffer from the 'barrel of tits' syndrome...you haven't heard of it, I will explain. 'I am so unlucky that if you threw me into a barrel of tits I'd come up sucking my thumb'.
I am quite addicted to the art of sledging, we have a whole selection of sledges and I have even made one from a couple of ski's which is, frankly, lethal..but this year I can only experience the sledging vicariously. What makes it worse is my purchase of a Honda CRF250L some three months ago.
I bought this bike because the last one...a rather pretty little Honda MSX125... was a tad under powered and on several occasions made a determined effort to kill me whilst I was innocently riding it back down our lane. It only had little wheels and on anything other than tarmac that resembled a baby's rear end it would try to spit me off. I spent ages making my mind up about getting the 250. The problem was that I justified buying the 125 by it's unbelievable fuel consumption..I once got 148 miles per gallon out of it.
I just couldn't think of a good excuse to go and buy another bike until the little 125 started to try and kill me as the weather deteriorated. I had taken out a bunch of other bikes for test rides but nothing was ticking all the boxes, and I had to do it clandestinely otherwise Helen would have smelt a rat. The problem was I really liked the CRF250 but I couldn't get anyone to give me a test ride. I spent several months just looking at bikes on the web until I came across a new make from Italy, SWM, that were selling a 300cc super moto...I love super motos, what, oh right, its a bike that looks like a dirt bike but it has road tyres.
I found an SWM for sale in a bike showroom in Yeovil and organised to go and do a test ride with a friend from work who is also looking at upgrading his bike. We turned up at the showroom and had a little wander round before looking at the SWM, and as it turned out they also had a CRF250 available to test. The SWM was a dead loss, I am not a tall man and the bike was, in fact when I sat on it my feet dangled some six inches off the ground and it was obvious that even though I loved the bike it did not love me in return. The next candidate was the CRF250, I only needed to take it round the block and it was love at first...first ride I guess.
To cut a long story short I had bought a CRF within the week. The day after I picked it up from the showroom I went out 'green laning' with Mr Newman and, pretty much, I was instantly hooked and as a result I've spent the last couple of months playing in the mud, every weekend and sometimes during the week.
I even put off the operation in order to have more time to play. The NHS suggested that they could do the operation on December 11th which was only a week after I took delivery and I declined saying it was too close to Christmas, in actual fact I couldn't face the idea of picking up a new bike and not having any time to play.
So back to the snow, having spent the last couple of months scaring myself silly riding offroad I can't believe its now snowed and I have the perfect bike to go and play in the snow and I can't so I'm not happy, not by a long shot. I can't go sledging, I can't ride my bike...I can't do any fucking thing other than lie here swearing gently at my foot and not sleeping until 2 in the morning because my bastard foot won't leave me alone. Ooh er, this does sound quite petulant...my foot decided to give a particularly vicious twinge just as I wrote that sentence. I'm nothing if not existential...fuck me, it just won't give over...right, I give up, I can't be arsed to write any more, this will just have to do.
Cheers
Charlie
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