A showery day demands careful planning when it comes to riding and not riding. My Met Office app told me that it would rain in Cambridge from 11 am until 3pm. I arrived  – just before 11 – and got ready to ride out just when the heavens opened so lingered in East Road garages as an arriving lady told me she was parking there to avoid a couple who spend ‘half the year in Spain – and we all wish they spent all year there…’. By the time the strange anecdote had ended the sun had come out and I grasped the opportunity. I tend to head out not really having a destination in mind until I get going. After a familiar exit via the A10 toward Ely I decided to head over to BMW dealer Balderston’s in Peterborough where there would be a welcoming cup of tea waiting and some eye-candy shiny bikes to look at. For once my GPS took me on a meandering and indirect route via Ramsey and places without names, the last 15 minutes in steadily heavier rain. I should have remembered that my BMW Nav does not seem to like Balderstons and takes you on a loop that gets close then veers off, only to return you again in a strange circle – not very amusing when it is raining.

Once there and after a dripping entry I was offered the customary cup of tea which I eagerly accepted and tip-toed around the ground floor showroom. The 1200gs Adventures are lovely to behold but like beasts when you stand behind them or sit on them. The fuel tank is so huge. Highly desirable but a riding experience I gave up for my present practical, nimble but secretly a little boring machine – the ‘ordinary’ 1200gs.

I must have spent an hour in the showroom waiting for the rain to stop and trying to resist the temptation to spend any money – even on the low seat for my bike which I tried out there and decided it was not required. I resisted the now £130 BMW rainsuit and the hydrapack even though my jacket has a clever pocket on the back especially designed for it. I would prefer just to stop, have a break and a drink.

First the sun came out and then the rain thankfully stopped and I along with a number of other bikers left the store.

My ride back was via Coates where I collected my first ever bike and rode home nearly 10 years ago, and March – all in the beautiful sun.

Here are the traces of all the trips I have taken since I relocated the bike back to Cambridge to make way for heavy renovations in Southwark. I am highly tempted to keep the bike here over the summers and just keep it in London in winter.

Here’s more detail of the trip:
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Heavy showers led to indecisions and reversals in the pursuit of fruit in East Anglia.

I did come up with the plan of buying 3Kgs of blackcurrants and redcurrants to take home and make (more) jam. I had the coordinates of two pick your own farms ready but the weather eroded my decision. I thought it might be character-building to ride in the rain a bit. I fished out my old Heine Gerricke fabric jacket as a more practical alternative to my nice but relatively pocketless and tight fitting Hideout Leathers jacket for my next tour across northern Europe. It seemed to keep out the wind and rain – though ended up a little soggy hanging up in the garage. I plan to re-proof it and maybe upgrade the armour before my trip starting at the end of August.

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The concrete floor in my garage is 40cms thick. I know because the builders have drilled a trench the length of it out to the drain in the middle of the drive. This is just a reminder that the space is clearly off limits for now until the building work is finished, maybe at the end of September. I am looking forward to building a work bench and shelves and inhabit the kind of space I have wanted for the last twenty years. There will be electric sockets just where you’d want them and fantastic lighting. Tools will be ready to hand. But in the meantime…

Summer 2017 will be the summer of motorcycle rides from Cambridge out to the Norfolk and Suffolk coast. There is something slightly zombie-ish about my returnings to that city, my shock at the re-developed station and walk down past the house that I used to live in to my secret place where my motorcycle lives. It is like those dreams where you are in the house you moved out of. It feels so familiar but you know you don’t belong there. Interestingly an old neighbour from my 10 year visit to Stone Terrace hailed me and we talked for a while on the street about neighbourliness and house prices.

This Saturday was beautiful: sunny and around 23 degrees. I told the GPS to take me to lovely Long Melford and from there typed in Orford. I’ve never been there but had heard of Orfordness. Suffolk villages must be among the most beautiful in the country and its buildings, whether small cottages or large grand halls are stunning. So many times I was grateful to be riding behind slow moving cars to enjoy the view. Orford seems a bit more up market than Dunwich, but a small place with a view across the river there, with a cool breeze and a tea room that was a little too crowded to visit.

The way back involved 20 or 30 miles of beautiful gently curving roads before leading back to the A14 to get back to Cambridge.
I bought 10 litres of water from Tesco (£2.20) to wash off Belinda’s collection of dead insects.
I am using my brand new Conti Trail Attacks, fitted at the last (first) MOT:

Before I knew it, and a train ride later, I was back in the heart of EC1 where I am staying while the house it being done.

The ride was 150 miles.

More detail:
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This Saturday I headed again to the coast but again didn’t make it. The A10 north from Cambridge ends up in Kings Lynn and on the way skirts around Ely and other old towns. It can be frustrating with sometimes slow moving agriculture and few places to pass but has its nice moments. So far so good but on reaching the large roundabout outside Kings Lynn the penny dropped that on a sunny bank holiday everyone would be heading for the coast. So the road up to Heacham and Snettisham was jammed with cars pulling caravans. Giving that up as a bad idea I scooped myself up onto the road toward Wisbech, not that I would want to spend a Saturday afternoon there, but the road was empty though completely full in the other direction. Via a river event in scenic Upwell and some beautiful fen roads, in a strong fen wind, I made it back to sunny Cambridge. Next time I need a slightly better plan.

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Another Saturday ride out from Cambridge took me to Beccles, well very nearly to Beccles. I was aiming for the coast, again, but time and the body set a slightly closer destination. This is such a good model-a train ride from round the corner Liverpool Street up to Cambridge and then so soon on the bike I find myself in beautiful countryside. On the map I found an interesting corner of the Norfolk coast just up from Great Yarmouth and set my sights there. I took some of my favourite roads, through the Swaffhams, Mildenhall then the A11 briefly, the A1066 to oddly named Diss and the A 143. None of them would get awards but all of them fun, and relaxing to ride certainly compared to the London roads, with opportunities for overtaking. The weather was cool – around 15 degrees and often overcast but dry-ish. After two years of owning my BMW Nav V GPS I finally worked out how to tell it to show me the information that I want to see – all on one screen: my speed, the temperature, the fuel range and what direction I am pointing in. Amazing. I wonder what else I am missing out on.

Near Beccles, hunger, impending rain and other bodily requirements saw me parking up, next to an impressive array of other bikes at Macdonalds Beccles where I was revived by a cup of tea (milk delivered from four tubular sachets, and chicken nuggets ‘do you want four, eight or twenty?’ and other facilities and a few words with other leather-clad rain-defying bikers. Looking just now at the track on Adze, I see I was barely a hundred yards from the interesting sounding Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Church in Gillingham (I wasn’t in Beccles at all). How sad I didn’t keep going for a minute or two longer to investigate this church. There is even somewhere to part there – though they probably don’t serve tea.

On the way back I enjoyed some spirited riding on the A 143 and a loop of getting lost in Bury St. Edmunds. Avoiding the A14. Life’s simple pleasures.
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