Fun Badger Rides Again

There's nothing quite so deleterious to your plans as the unplanned......  I was booked to take my test on the morning of Fri 19 January at Exeter Driving Centre.  It was a cold, but dry morning, and I felt very positive - the previous day's practice had gone brilliantly, and I felt like I was really getting there with balance and control at slow speeds - hold that thought! Advance warning:  This post includes a gratuitous, and damned ugly photograph of a swollen foot.  I don't approve of it myself, but it is included in the interests of journalistic accuracy. You have been warned! I arrived at  Bridge Honda School of Motorcycling nice and early, to get in some manoeuvring practice done in the yard.  Ben, the young lad who I had been training with throughout the week, had had the same idea.  My steed for the day was the really rather excellent Honda NC750S which I had been riding for the previous 3 days.  As the ambient temperature was only just about 4 degrees Celsiu

Gretchen Much as I liked the idea of buying a brand new, all singing, all dancing ADV / Touring bike, I couldn't find one I really thought I could live with, at a price I could afford, so secondhand it would have to be then.  Fortunately, after about a month of serious hunting, I came across a fully equipped 2006 BMW R 1200 GS for sale only a mile from work.   It is in beautiful condition, well equipped, and only has 26,000 miles on it - just about run-in thank you!  This is her:   I  fell in love with her, and threw down a deposit on the spot!  I'll be collecting Gretchen from the dealership next week, as soon as I have sorted out secure storage, and the small technicality of actually passing my test! So this is where my our Motorcycle Adventuring starts!  Please - stay tuned :-)

I started riding motorbikes as a teenager, when my dad bought a brace of dirtbikes - a Suzuki RM125 followed by an RM250.  These were amazing bikes for bouncing around on sand dunes.  The suspension travel was huge, and their ability to soak up heavy landings was nothing short of miraculous.  Also, being strokers, they revved like crazy, which somehow resonates with teenage boys.... me and my brother (and later, my sister) spent many a happy vacation day riding around the dunes of Abqaiq. The 3 pictures that follow are not the actual bikes - just as close to identical as I could find.  I need to dig through mine and my parents photo stash and scan some pics, which I will do when I can. Suzuki RM125  (1977) (This is not the actual RM 125 - just one that's just like it.) Suzuki RM250 (1977) (Also not the actual RM 250 - but a very clean specimen nonetheless!) A couple of years later I bought a Honda CD200 Benly off a mate to use whilst I was at College.  I l