An interesting time, at a kind of crossroads or fork in the path. I’m not sure which it is, or a liminal period.

I got back on Tuesday from a short motorcycle camping trip to north Wales, via Ludlow where I stopped in to visit Jane Robinson my old PhD supervisor – which I mentioned earlier. The choice to investigate north Wales came after Jane made contact and invited me to see her and have lunch. Before that I was planning to revisit the Yorkshire dales and then head further north to Scotland and a particular forested area where there are meant to be some good gravel path routes. So I was quite curious to visit a new part of the UK for me but compared to trips to Europe, UK motorcycle trips lack a certain excitement that is guaranteed without any special effort – just by choosing and planning to go to a far flung, exotic place. And at the back of my mind has been a question that I was trying not to allow to develop too much – how much longer do I want to keep making these annual and heavily anticipated and planned for motorcycle trips? Is the original excitement and even intrepidation wearing off? And that thought re-emerged riding in Wales. Some of the routes were beautiful and fun to ride, but some, particularly where there was a stream of cars, really not that much fun even though they were included in the Bikers Britain Best Routes. As ever I was toying with the idea of coming home a day early. Then I arrived at the last campsite, set in a farmer’s field, surrounded by loudly mooing close-up cows, with some basic facilities (three composting toilets and a open air wash basin) but absolutely no shade – and the sun was now unexpectedly hot – hitting 30 degrees. Part of me feels that this style of ‘almost like wild camping’ campsite is a little cynical and is an excuse for not investing much in the site – but this was not expensive so it is fair maybe. And perhaps in a different mood I would have enjoyed it more. Another thing to mention is that at both campsites I stayed, I chatted to people who were walking. At the first site two young guys – one of whom was sweet and articulate who was wearing what I thought was a really stylish top but turned out that he was wearing it back to front. These walkers obviously have a very different pace to motorcycling and the man at the second site told me that he had also experience of motorcycling and cycling trips which I found a little confusing as I had thought of the people that do these different activities as fundamentally different groups, not the same people doing different things. This is all a preamble to the main event which was a tumble off the bike on a steep country lane trying to squeeze slowly past a car and landing heavily on my side in a lot of pain. I mentioned it in the last post. The miracle of then getting the bike upright and moving again (walking trying to slip the clutch but also hold the bike from rolling backwards) on this steep lane is another story, then dropping it again once I got to the campsite. It was 2 parts bad pain but 3 parts, at least, anxiety about how would I pack up and get home. Before I lay down to sleep, I was considering staying another night in the tent and having an ‘easy’ day walking and hopefully would be in less pain a day later. But a painful difficult night on the ground made it pretty clear that I needed to get going. The ergonomics of the campsite – sinks that were far too low with a crazy pain etc. were just not working. But waking up at 6am in pain and crawling around to get my clothes and boots on made me think that I would not be able to pack let alone climb on the bike and ride the couple of hundred or so miles home. I got up to make some coffee but as I waited for the water to boil, I began to feel so panicked that I almost fainted and had to lie down on the bench. Somehow though, with the help of Brufen and taking things very, very slowly I got everything packed up. I had the feeling that the action of climbing on the bike would not be agonizing as some other twisting movements were – and still are as I write this – so I climbed on and rode carefully out of the site. I rode past the turning to the steep road that was the scene of my undoing and carried on until I joined the A5 and then it was major roads all the way home which started at least as a kind of relief. After a couple of hours, I could definitely feel the pain killers wearing off but on the M6 had to keep going for much longer than I wanted to before a service station appeared, so even moving the indicator and shifting my weight was becoming painful. But after a dose of brufen at the service station, waiting half an hour, followed by a dose of paracetamol I set off on the rest of the journey eastwards to Cambridge. The M6 turns into the A14 and that goes all the way to the outskirts of Cambridge.

It was hot (I just noticed from my video that it was 34 degrees when I arrived in Cambridge) and there was heavy traffic so it was not enjoyable riding. I just wanted to get back. Eventually I arrived in Cambridge through the very familiar Girton Road toward the city centre then got to Davy Road where someone had lined up wheelie bins across the entrance to the garage, giving me anxiety as I squeezed through. I managed to get changed, unpack the bike, lock it up and throw what I needed to bring home into a bag and walk slowly to the station and sat on an air-conditioned train to Blackfriars. I don’t know if you can see how uncomfortable I was from the picture here.

That’s the narrative. Now the reflection is partly prompted by H voicing her anxieties about my habit of riding a motorcycle. In my mind now, adding up the questioning and fear of a waning of enthusiasm about biking that I mentioned earlier, my asking how long do I really want to keep doing this, my sense of being quite different to much of motorcycling culture, it feels like I am entering a period of deciding about this. One of my instincts is to just throw more money at it – I was checking out body armour: it can be both extensive and expensive, then I’d need a different style jacket to go over the top… Then there is the lure of trading in for a lighter bike… as I originally dreamed about along with the building of a workshop in Suffolk. Maybe a KTM 690 or a Honda… (recently, after another fall, and being unable to lift the bike, I thought about the Yamaha Serrow – 20 horse power).

But I have forgotten to mention the details of the tumble. I fell on my right side and when I hit the ground I had the feeling of something inside my abdomen bumping into the inside of my ribcage – whatever that actually means in terms of injury. (I think my boots stood me in good stead. One was stuck under the bike but eventually I lifted it enough to move). But the effect is that I have intense pain in my side when I make certain slight twisting movements: even burping sends some muscles into painful spasm. The next day at home I went to the doctor who thought it might be an inflamed nerve judging by the pattern of pain as she palpated and I have had an xray, but no result yet. I’ve since read quite a few m/c riders talking about the pain of cracked/broken ribs and their experiences of strong pain killing meds – constipation and hallucinations. I have the feeling that though, very painful, I have not broken any bones. (I finally got the xray result and I did fracture a rib). I am finding just now that regular Co-codamol does protect me from the worst of the pain. Nights are the most painful time, getting into and out of bed, or any movement from my back to my side while lying down. And I am in a mood of anxiety and suspended routine, but with my routine, habitual thinking, just starting to re-emerge.