Balderston’s Motorcycles in its much-easier-to-get-to site just outside Peterborough is becoming one of those nice to hang out in places for a Saturday morning. It seems friendlier and more relaxed than SBW Motorrad down in Hertford which is where Bertha goes for checkups, but which on a Saturday is best avoided. Upstairs at Balderston’s is their collection of 2nd hand bikes, and tucked in a corner is the very model of BMW, the R90*, that I first rode as pillion from near Dorchester to Bath on a lovely summer evening in 1975.

Today I came away with a Ralleye Pro 3 jacket (after telling myself I’d never spend that much….). The jacket and the trousers feature removable inner liners that seem designed to keep out the weather (though how you would fit it by the side of the road when storm clouds threaten is beyond me). Today they were definately installed but the jacket seems like it will be cooler than what I have, which boiled me in Spain and France, but able to cope with showers which is what I got on the way home over the Fens. In fact I retraced the route home that I took after picking up my first motorbike from a large house owned by the manager of a tattoo parlour in Peterborough, just outside Coates.

Here BMW Motorrad gets a blessing from the Buddha.