Monday was the first time I have ridden to work this year. Such has been the longer than usual winter we have experienced in the UK, that my riding has been heavily curtailed.
Despite having a train season ticket until June 6th, I needed to get the bike to Neil Harrison, aka Steptoe, for its annual service. It also needed the alternator belt replacing.
BMW have service intervals of 6000 and 12000 miles and recently as the bike has got older I have dropped the ones at 6k.
For a first ride I was a bit uncomfortable. This may be due to my Hood Kevlar lined jeans being a little baggy under my arse after the best part of 10lbs lost on a Slimming World programme. Although it might be that I have ridden 75 miles nonstop since last year!
It may also be something to do with having to wear Held waterproof over trousers as it was drizzling all the way to London. After a fine dry weekend Monday was not very pleasant.
Luckily, traffic wasn't too bad and I was at work pretty promptly.
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| GS at work |
Steptoe is based in South West London and in the opposite direction to home. The eleven miles from work in London's congested traffic took 45 minutes.
It goes to prove that the local government's congestion charging is purely a money making exercise and that it pushes excess traffic to the boroughs outside the central zone!
He also has a range of loan bikes and this time I got the 1985 K100RT.
I've not ridden one before and despite the buzzy feeling through the pegs it cruised at 5000rpm all the way home, where I eventual arrives two and a half hours after leaving work.
It might not look very pretty but it ran okay and back to work on Tuesday. And the weather cooperated as well. Dry and cool in the morning and dry and warm in the afternoon.
The ride to collect the GS took a little longer than the day before, although I did leave a little later and encountered more traffic around the periphery of the C-Zone plus a frightening number of kamikaze cyclists.
Why do the owners of the slowest vehicles on the public road insist on squeezing up the kerb side of buses, coaches and trucks?
I had one do it to me despite my indicator running and being hard on the left; my foot less than a foot (!) from the kerb!
The GS ran sweetly on the ride home and some three hours after leaving work I pitched up on the drive. Just in time for dinner!
Two days and 375 more miles under my butt cheeks!!!
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