30 June 2006

Joe Rocket!

With the weather being into “heat wave” mode, riding into London everyday to work could hardly be described as “fun”. My Hein Gericke jacket is too thick and heavy for summer wear.

Enter: Joe Rocket’s Phantom 4 Mesh jacket. A revelation. The styling is quite good with two inside pockets, a waterproof one for phone and wallet etc, and a huge one labelled “face shield”, I assume American for helmet visor? Mine is in all black although on website there are different colours, but black is best, doesn't show the dirt!

It comes with a zip-in liner that provides some wind proofing and waterproofness. It’s not cheap at £119.95 but I had to have something that leaves me comfortable on the 75 miles each way trip to work!

I wore if for the first time on the trip to France (blogged elsewhere Eddie III and Henry V) and it was fantastic to ride in comfort in 38C weather.

19 June 2006

Isle of Man TT 2007 - Booked

Here is a tale of memory loss... or at least that's what I claim.

Way before TT 2006 I thought it would be nice to re-visit the Isle of Man and jump on the bandwagon that will accompany the 100th Anniversary races. When I had a look on the website, as it was before TT2006, there wasn't much available and an email to the Steam Packet brought no sensible response. So I forgot.

Then after TT2006, I got an email from the Isle of Man Tourist Board about the 2007 event... light bulb...! After an interesting hour trying to get on the Steam Packet’s pre-book website and finding that whatever dates I tried for there was no return crossing (remember that word – return) I almost gave up.

Then by mistake I managed to miss the return button and lo and behold a single crossing, Liverpool to Douglas, bike and 2 people came up… I opened another window and worked through to find a single journey from Douglas to Liverpool or Heysham and got one. Opening a third window (!) I tried both those as a return and it said there weren’t any available. So I confirmed both the singles, costing me £40 instead of the £20 in non-refundable deposit to be on the pre-book list. Sadly, the outward trip to Douglas is Wednesday of race week… and the return the Tuesday after race-week is all cleaned away and fading into history. Bowls week or whatever!

Then started the even more difficult search for accommodation, loads of emails, filling in forms on a variety of websites… phone calls to the Island. Finally resulting in two bookings for three nights each. Deposits paid and now we wait for the Steam Packet to make up their minds about the crossings….