There are so many things to do at the weekend when I am in Cambridge. My usual delights are getting stocks in from Arjuna and wandering in town. This morning was sunny against all forecast expectations and I got out on the bike. Since seeing the curious statistic saved by the bike’s computer that my average throttle opening was 11% I have been wandering what would happen if I opened it to 100%, so I headed down to the A14 towards Bury and Ipswich and hoped for an empty road to try it. Sadly there was heavy traffic for a Sunday but I tried all the same. But I never actually made it. I found myself moving at between 95 and 100mph within a few seconds of this action and still accelerating fast so never made it to 100%.

Bury is very different to Cambridge but it is buzzing on a Sunday though not nearly so cosmopolitan. There’s a small section in one of the town car parks for motorbikes so I snuggled up next to a Triumph Tiger Explorer and came to the conclusion it was better looking than the 1200gs, such is the nature of desire and disatisfaction, then grabbed a coffee in Costa (no cake after my weighing scales shock this morning). On the way home I shouldn’t have asked the GPS to send me back. I headed off on some nice roads to Mildenhall and a little further but ended up back on the straight but speedy road home before I knew it.

Once back in the garage I tried to work out yet again where to fit the electrical wizardry I bought for the bike a while back (PDM60 module), the little box of cleverness that you can attach all other accessories, like auxiliary lights or other sockets to. There is no room for anything on this sleek and economical for space bike. There has to be a solution.

After riding a motorcycle for 18 months I tried using ear plugs for the first time on a nice sunny run to Waitrose – its just the other side of town but can be reached nicely by taking the northern bypass then dropping on to the M11 for some miles, then a mile or two back in to town on the south side. The difference (wearing earplugs, I mean – not shopping at Waitrose) is astonishing – so much calmer none of that rattly wind sound at speeds higher than 60 mph. On a nice stretch it felt so much more effortless to reach easy three figure speeds (of course I’m talking about 69.9mph). Earplugs will be compulsory from now on.

Also out for the first time are my new Triumph Roadster gloves. They are lighter and less clumpy than my last ebay purchases, fasten well at the wrist so they don’t get torn off in an accident and, I think, look really good:

Waitrose is also OK. I parked next to a BMW K1100. You don’t see many of those outside ASDA.

Having rather more disposable income than usual at the moment because of the plummeting interest rates and my friendly tracker mortgage I am susceptible to ‘recommendations’ in bike mags for gizmos of various kinds. This time I have bought a Xena bike lock, a chumky bit of shatter proof steel that just looks good and feels so nice in the hand that it could really have no other purpose and still be good to have around.

It locks through a hole in your break disk and automatically sets itself and will screech at 110db if tampered with. I tried it and its loud. In fact I went into an oblique panic trying to unlock the thing to stop that noise. In the meantime neighbours burst out of their front doors to see what the racket was about. I appologised. Verdict: too embarrassing to use (at least at my street).