Happy New Year!!!

Well, that's 2012 (nearly) out of the way and so we look forward to what 2013 has to bring. One thing's for sure (especially for those of us living in London), 2012 will be very hard to beat. Virtually all summer long, London was the centre of the world's attention and despite the downbeat predictions I made at this time last year, I have to admit that we as a city coped brilliantly with the Olympics. In fact, against all expectations, it was an absolute dream getting around London. There was no gridlock on the roads, the transport system didn't keel over and at times Central London seemed largely deserted. Clearly, the government did such a good job with their doom-laded messages that it seems many people simply took August off! If only it could  be like that all the time.... And our athletes delivered - all in all, it was a very un-British display of organisation and excellence!

On the downside, I didn't do nearly enough biking this year. Despite plans being laid, there were no big trips and the weather put paid to a lot of riding here at home. It is also fair to say that this had an effect on this blog. I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions but the message for 2013 is very much "must do better". More riding and more writing is the order of the day over the next twelve months.

As a start, plans are emerging for a return to the roads of France - in particular, the Route Napoleon and Gorges Du Verdon, down in deepest south of France (close to Nice), which have been suggested by biker pal Steve. I'm not familiar with these myself but am reliably informed that these should be on every bikers' bucket list. And I have to say that it does indeed look promising....! (click on the pic below)

The so-called "Grand Canyon of Europe"

So that's something to look forward to in probably April time.

Aside from that, having spent Christmas up with family on Anglesey, we have to do last year's aborted trip to Wales this year. The roads up there are just brilliant (as long as the weather is ok....)

That's all to come (and more besides, hopefully), but for now I would just like to take this opportunity to wish all of you who bother to read this blog a happy and successful new year. Most of all, keep the rubber on the road and stay safe - there are a lot of idiots out there!

Winter is here....

Yes, dear reader....the clocks have gone back, the days are shortening and it's only a matter of a few weeks until Christmas. Where did the year go?

Biking wise, I have to say that 2012 has turned out to be a complete non event, which is a shame because 2011 was full of good riding, including a couple of fantastic long weekends in France. I had plans for this year but work, circumstance and (mostly) the weather has got in the way. I definitely need to make amends in 2013 but this year isn't over yet. You never know....

While plenty of fellow bikers will be putting their pride and joy away in the garage for the winter months, I'm not one of them. Never have been. As far as I'm concerned, bikes are there to be ridden and there is plenty of good winter riding to be had (there's plenty of crap, attritional riding to be had on the commute too, but we'll ignore that for the purpose of this piece). Yes, the winter months get a tad chilly and you might have to deal with a bit of wind and rain on occasion if you're caught out but I don't think there's much that's better than a bracing blast in the bright winter sunshine. It's good for the soul!

And if you are so minded (or a bit of a pansy), there's a plethora of kit and accessories available these days to keep you warm and dry - from handlebar muffs and handguards to heated grips and seats to all manner of waterproofs and heated clothing....gloveliners, vests, jackets, trousers, boot insoles etc etc. Just make sure your battery (and wallet) can cope!

Personally, I don't bother with any of that (other than waterproofs). I had some heated grips on a previous bike (my beloved VFR) but found that while they can almost burn your palms off on the underside, they do very little to offset the chill on the outside of your fingers. They just didn't feel right, so I got rid.

I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to winter riding anyway - I prefer layers to manufactured heat and, despite my advancing years, actually quite like the chill and the feel of exposure to the elements. And yes, I get a strange kick from the cold weather tears, ruddy cheeks and nose dribbles that go with it! It seems to me that if you have heated everything, then you may as well be in a car. Others will disagree, I'm sure (I'm also sure that if I had to do long motorway schleps on a regular basis, I'd be taking a very different view!)

Mind you, there are limits. It was 3°c on the ride into work early this morning and as I drew up to some lights alongside a young guy on an R6, I could see that all he had on as protection from the elements was a thin jacket, jeans, trainers AND NO GLOVES!!! Brrrrr!!!!! 

Enjoy the winter ride!    

Bikes....Football....Beer....GOLF?!

Yes dear reader, it would appear that your faithful scribe has succumbed to middle age....having reached nearly 47 years of age and never having played the game before, golf is now a new pastime of choice. How did this happen? It's not very "bikerish" is it? Well that's what I thought - but the reality it seems is somewhat different. I learn that quite a few of my biker and football pals enjoy a round from time to time. One of my oldest friends is so engrossed in the game he even blogs about it: check out the excellent Three Off The Tee

Everything is still at an early stage - at the moment, I'm enjoying some introductory lessons to learn the basics, will then graduate to playing a 9-hole course, and then onwards to the full 18. I very much doubt that Lee Westwood is looking over his shoulder but it's good fun, a good challenge, good exercise and at the present time, it's all about incremental progress. I'm even buying golfing magazines alongside Fast Bikes, Motor Cycle Monthly and Classic Rock!

Now, you may laugh but what has surprised me is how close golf is to biking. Yes, you read that right - golf and biking actually share very similar characteristics. Let us consider the evidence....

1. It's all about the wrists and arms (and posture) - something I've learned very early on is the importance of getting into the right position(s), of not gripping the club too tight or tensing the arms. This of course is the same in biking - tensing on the bars and throttle is not good. Nice and smooth and relaxed is the way forward in both (mind you, it ain't easy teeing off in helmet & leathers....)

2. Look good and feel good - get the right gear, make sure it's comfortable and that you're looking good (as with John Daly, below right, it doesn't matter if others don't think so, just as long as you do!). If you look good you feel good and you will play better - just as in biking, you will always ride better in decent gear on a clean, well-looked after machine rather than some filthy, rusty old nail. It's sycolojikal innit?

3. The balance of patience, power, poise, touch and concentration - whether you're golfing, racing, off-roading, green-laning or commuting you need to learn how to develop and balance these attributes. Too much (or too little) of any one in the wrong place and it's Goodnight Vienna.

4. Accessorize (and make sure your wallet can stand the strain) - oh yes, both pastimes can be bloody expensive with all the little "extras" that are on offer in showrooms and golfing shops. I'm not a huge fan of golfing "fashion" but the missus is already wincing at the prospect of an open wallet.....for starters, check out this bad boy golf caddy....


Keeping the biking links going, I'm currently using a set of FAZER clubs and as a nod to my favourite tyre manufacturer, will use BRIDGESTONE balls (you can poke Dunlop stuff....)    

So there you have it. Bikes....Football....Beer....and now GOLF. Quite unexpectedly, I'm now embracing fully a game that I had previously thought of as only of relevance to old men and oddballs. How wrong I was....

So where does "Box Hill or Bust" come from?

A few people have asked me where the name of this blog comes from. When I was first thinking about trying a bit of blogging, actually, deciding the name of it was the easiest part - finding something interesting to say is far harder! I needed something bike-related (obviously!), since this is primarily a biking blog but I also wanted to link it to other stuff I'm into. Therefore, in the case of "Box Hill or Bust", it's bikes and heavy rock music.

"Box Hill or Bust" is actually the name of a track penned by a reasonably well known biker rock band called Dumpy's Rusty Nuts, who were popular on the London pub and club scene back in the 1980s. Check out a live appearance by the band on "The Tube" in the mid 80s.

They were also a regular feature at various biker festivals around the country. I've seen them probably hundreds of times over the years - from humble beginnings in the back rooms of pubs like the Lee Green Old Tiger's Head and the Grey Horse in Kingston to bigger venues like Hammersmith Odeon (somewhat bizarrely, supporting black metal nutcases Venom) to the Reading Festival. They also hold the appearance record at the old Marquee Club in Wardour Street, Soho.

Being a "regular" at gigs, I got to know Dumpy quite well. He was bike mad - mainly British bikes and cafe racers, Norton being a particular favourite, as you can see! Box Hill and the Ace Cafe were his favourite bike meets and lots of the band's songs are bike related.

He had a reputation as a bit of joker but was actually quite a serious and thoughtful bloke away from the stage and his great love - apart from bikes - was blues and prog rock music (Peter Green, Hawkwind etc), a direction he's now gone in with the band (yes, Dumpy's Rusty Nuts are still going).

The 80s was a great time to be on the pub and club rock scene - there were some great bands on the way up and from various gigs and parties, I got to meet likes of Luke Morley (once of Terraplane, the band that subsequently became Thunder), various members of Girlschool, Rock Goddess, Engine, Chariot, even Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield of then little-known Metallica at the Royal Standard in Walthamstow(!). And then there was the bottle of vodka shared with Phil (Animal) Taylor of Motorhead at one of Dumpy's infamous birthday parties... Happy days.

I haven't seen the band since the mid-90s, since Dumpy moved up to Derbyshire and when he does venture out to play, he tends to gig locally there, plus the odd biker festival - but never say never. It would be good the relive the old memories once more.

So there you have it. "Box Hill or Bust" is an 80s biker rock anthem. If anyone can come up with something similar that also incorporates football and beer, I'm all ears!

The scourge of the urban scooterist

Time now for a bit of a (hopefully restrained) moan. Yes, it's London scooter riders in the firing line today.

Riding in to work this morning, I came by the aftermath of two accidents. Both involved scooters, both had ambulances in attendance and both looked to be fairly significant shunts. Sadly, this isn't unusual - the vast majority of accidents that I see on London's roads involve either cyclists or (more usually) urban scoots of various sizes and shapes.

Despite the statistics suggesting that you are something like 30 times more likely to have an accident on two wheels (than in a car), it's actually quite rare that I see an accident that involves what I will refer to as a "proper bike". Why is that?

It's not that scooters, of themselves, are in any way more dangerous than bikes - after all, both are machines that are there to be ridden and they will only go as fast as you want them to (or are capable of going). However, I think a key reason is that these different types of machine are ridden in different ways. Certainly, from what I see every day, urban scooter riders tend to be much more likely (and willing) to take risks on the road in an attempt to make progress. Many's the time you see scoots charge down bus lanes, beast cyclists and weave in and out of traffic. Much more so than most bikers would (or do), in my opinion. I definitely think that riding an urban scooter encourages a certain state of mind.

Scooters these days are light, highly manoeuvrable and have very lively and zippy engines. Some of the "maxi-scooters" that have emerged on the market - such as the new Piaggios - are also extremely powerful, with engine displacements of over 800cc. Perhaps this encourages those riding them to go for gaps that a "proper" biker would think twice about?

The other key point for me is the lack of attention scooter riders give to their own personal safety. For example, apart from the mandatory (by law) crash helmet, most that I come across wear zero protective clothing - and then they go out and ride badly! Wearing a suit, office shoes and no gloves, it is hardly surprising that if (when) they come off, the accident will turn out to be a lot more serious than it might or should have been. Many even carry their bloody shopping in the footrest space! Madness.

In contrast, I wear armoured leather trousers and boots and bike jacket with built-in back protector. Solid gloves are also a necessity - your first instinct in an accident is to put your hands down as protection, so they will always take a significant impact. I wouldn't even consider riding in London without these things and I simply cannot understand why scooterists choose to run these risks. It's all about personal choice I know (as well as image), but given that a lot of fatal accidents happen at around 30-50mph where riders come off their machine and hit something solid (or get hit by something solid), to me it's utterly unfathomable. The road hurts.

Ultimately, scooters represent very good value as runarounds or on the daily commute into town, so they're not suddenly going to disappear from our streets (more's the pity!) - indeed, the opposite is true since sales are up year on year, bucking the trend of bigger bikes. I'd simply wish to see better standards of riding and more consideration of other road users. The fact is that by their actions, many scooterists put themselves at risk - and by their two-wheeled association, they give bikers a bad name....


IMPORTANT EDIT: For the sake of clarity, this should not be misconstrued as applying to the Mod or scooter movements - many of whom I count as friends and have enormous respect for. No, as the title (hopefully) suggests, this is about the weekday urban commuters, many of whom shouldn't be let out unaccompanied....  :-)

I vow to thee my.....BIKE

As usual, I rode the bike into work this morning. But today, for some reason, it felt good. It felt REALLY good.

There was nothing out of the ordinary particularly. The weather was drizzly, the roads were wet - flooded in places, the result of another poor English summer - and traffic was fairly heavy. So what's to enjoy? Well, not for the first time I just felt very lucky to be able to suit myself getting into work. No bus timetables, no getting stuck in traffic, no being packed in on the hot and unreliable Northern Line and no smelly/rude/selfish/coughing & spluttering fellow commuters to deal with in an enclosed space.

But of course, it's not luck is it? I love bikes and I have a bike. Therefore, I ride it in to work. Why wouldn't I? The question is, why don't more people do the same?

As is the case every single day I ride the bike, I arrived at work this morning absolutely buzzing and ready for the day. For mental stimulation and a crash course  in problem solving, forget Sudoku - just buy a bike and ride it into Central London each day.

The challenges come from every direction - cyclists weaving in and out, car/van/taxi drivers pulling out, U-turning and jumping lights, long traffic queues to negotiate, death-wish pedestrians walking out between traffic and running for buses not caring about the vehicles that might be in their way, blind school-run mums, potholes in the road, an expanding proliferation of traffic lights and road furniture - and with the Olympic lane restrictions to come.

And you know what? I love it.

Even better, it saves me time, money and hassle. As Loyd Grossman might say...."let's look at the evidence"... My 14-mile ride into Central London takes 35 minutes door to door. Via bus and tube the same journey takes on average an hour and a half - each way. That's up to three hours travelling each day, in not very comfortable or salubrious conditions, just for the dubious privilege of going to work. Then you consider how costly our public transport is. A weekly travelcard for zones 1-4 in London costs £41.80 (£53.40 if you live further out).

By contrast, I put between £16-£20 of petrol in the bike each week. That's less that half the cost of public transport - and that's riding a relatively thirsty (and zesty) Z1000. A smaller bike or even a (spit) scooter will do the job even more economically. Bargain.

More bikes on the road would benefit everyone - there would be less congestion, less pollution and less overcrowding for those who choose (or have no choice but) to remain on public transport.

Time for the ride home now....I may go the "scenic" route and enjoy some more.

Box Hill here I come.....

Weather....Jubilee....EURO 2012....Weather....

We are now in June. Nearly half way through 2012 - so how has the biking year gone so far? Well, not to put too fine a point on it.....it's been crap. Apart from a couple of mini bimbles round mid Surrey and a couple of long routes home at the end of the day, all this year has consisted of so far is the commute to and from work.

The reason? Well, work has got in the way a lot and then there's The Great British Weather.

Coming out of a relatively mild winter (only one major snow fall that I can recall - luckily we don't live "oop north"), I'm sure many of us had high hopes for spring and summer, but it's largely been a washout....quite literally. After a freezing cold February, things started to look up. Apparently March was lovely. I say apparently because we chose the best and warmest March for a long time to go on holiday to South Africa, so missed it all. But never mind, things looked good for April. Or not.... April 2012 actually turned out to be the coldest since 1989, the dullest since 1998 and the wettest since 2000. Remarkably, there have been only three wetter Aprils in 285 years of records in England and Wales!

May had to be better, didn't it? Well yes, but only marginally. It was bloody cold through the first half of the month, and unusually dull and gloomy in the South East. Not at all what we've come to expect in recent years. Very disappointing. And so to June.

As I write this, I look out of the window and it's raining. This has been the story of the month so far - there has been widespread flooding across the country (particularly in the South East) and for the first time in over 100 years the showpiece Senior's race at the Isle of Man TTs was cancelled because the roads were so dangerous (and those riders are nutters, with no regard for personal safety!).

And it's about to get even worse. The short range forecast is for three month's worth of rain to fall over the next three days! Lovely.

So if no biking, what else has happened? Not much to be perfectly honest. Fulham finished the season strongly and ended up in 9th place in the league. The Jubilee celebrations took place and, typically, it rained! 

Thankfully, our street party happened on the Saturday - the one day on that weekend not affected by the weather. The sun even made an appearance during the afternoon! Some photos of our day can be found HERE. 

And now we're into Euro 2012. By all accounts it's 30-odd degrees in Poland and the Ukraine (we are currently at 15 degrees in London) and it's been a good tournament so far.

For the first time in a very long time, I'm actually enthusiastic about England and our chances of winning something. Maybe not this particular tournament but I think we have it in us to do well over the next few years.

The reason? Well, we have some good young players coming through but it's largely due to the new management team. Roy Hodgson and Ray Lewington were the principal figures in Fulham's storming run to the Europa League Final in 2010 and we as supporters hold them both in extremely high regard. Add the impressive Gary Neville into the mix on the coaching staff and we have a team that hopefully everyone can get behind. Much more so than was the case with the distant and wasteful Capello.

A highly creditable draw with 3rd favourites France opened our tournament and tonight we play Sweden - the land of ABBA and flat pack furniture. We haven't beaten Sweden at a major championship since Joan Collins was a virgin but I'm quietly confident we can do the business tonight - and then we see where it takes us.

I just wish they could send some of their weather our way....

The law is an ass - and here's the proof...

Ok, so I haven't updated this blog for a while - too much other stuff going on (you know how it is...). But then something happens which incenses you so much that it makes you want to put pen to paper - or finger to keyboard, as it were. This morning that something was a story shared on Facebook by the excellent Fast Bikes team - take a look...

Of course, this is simply a small piece on a provincial news website - few will have read it, fewer will care but those of us who are seasoned bikers know instinctively what has gone on here. In short, this case is a travesty of justice and it beggars belief that an apparently learned judge has come to this particular decision. What it means is that new case law has been created confirming that a motorcyclist travelling IN HIS OWN LANE can be held accountable for a crash involving a lorry that has strayed into the opposite lane. By any measure of justice, that can't be right...can it? Evidently so - as the appeal QC puts it:

“The collision occurred for one reason and one reason only, and that is because the claimant was driving right close to the centre when he accepted that the course should have been a very different one.”

I'm not sure what sort of legal description "driving right close to the centre" is but we'll assume that he means the centre of the lane, close to the white lines. Bikers call this "white-lining" and, despite what this QC would have you believe, as long as you are the correct side of the white line it is perfectly legal - or so we thought. However, the judge in this case disagrees. What we have here is a judgement effectively saying that any insistence that a lorry driver should stay on his own side of the road is imposing too high a standard on him. Yes, you read that right. Forget the fact that this was a Lithuanian lorry driver in a left hand drive truck, used to driving on the right....not relevant. Apparently, we must accept that lorries drift out of lanes and in any resulting accident, the fault will lie with the vehicle coming the other way!

I wonder whether the same judgement would have been reached had it been a car/van etc coming the other way instead of "just" a biker? A bigger vehicle would have no other line to take but if you follow the logic of this judgement, straddling the lane would be perfectly acceptable and there would be no recourse on the lorry driver in the event of a collision. Yes, that makes perfect sense. 

The human cost of this is a biker ending up with the loss of one leg, having to use crutches and a wheelchair to get around - his life ruined. And thanks to this "learned" judge, he is unable to pursue the compentation he should be due.

Like I say: The law is an ass....

I hate bikers....(sometimes)

There....I've said it. But why? Why would I, as a biker say such a thing? Where's the solidarity? Where's the sense of community? Well, frankly it's because some of us are utter prunts. I can take or leave the "all the gear but no idea" crew, annoying though they can be, I can even excuse BMW and Harley riders their choice of steed (ha!), but what I cannot abide is fellow bikers putting other bikers at risk.

Take this morning on the usual commute into Central London. You get to recognise the regulars on the route and there's a kind of mutual respect amongst winter riders, as well as an unwritten rule about rush hour in London not being a time to take liberties. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule but generally you just try to stay out of their way and ride your own journey. One such guy rides a similar route to me, up from Morden in South London. He even has the same bike (albeit an older 2005 version) with some nice, throaty Remus cans on it. But....he is a twat. There's no two ways about it. He's quick, but he's also dangerous. Thankfully, I've managed to stay out of his way thus far....until this morning.

There's a road junction on the approach to Westminster where the Embankment joins Lambeth Palace Road and Lambeth Bridge Road and these are separated by a roundabout. It's a very busy roundabout with a lot of jumping of lights and then there's a lot of jostling for position for the entry to Lambeth Palace Road (2 lanes into 1) - and none of this is helped by there being a bus stop located precisely where the road narrows (take a bow TfL Planning Department....). Anyway, the aforementioned twat and I had been exchanging positions on the ride up and at this point I was in front of him. There was a bus at the bus stop at the entrance to Lambeth Palace Road, so I indicated, did a quick lifesaver and then moved to pull round it. Out of nowhere, said twat roared around me on the outside, and then had to take evasive action as he had failed to spot a car coming the other way - so he turns into me and almost forces me into the bus on my left. Bastard!

Naturally, I do the sensible thing and chase him up the road to the next lights, whereupon I decide to have my say. All he did was laugh but let's just say that by the time he pulled away, he had been left in no doubt that if he pulls a stunt like that again, it won't be cars, vans and lorries he has to worry about - I'll put him off myself.

And breathe..... 

And so to 2012....

2012 promises to be an interesting year. I say "interesting" in the sense that we will be living through some momentus events - the Queens's Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics and the US Presidential elections will be the big set-piece events, but storm clouds are gathering almost everywhere else. Syria moves ever closer to civil war, Iran moves ever closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, while Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, Afghanistan etc remain extremely volatile. China's advance continues.

In Europe, we can expect more austerity measures, job losses, recession, poverty and the prospect of serious social unrest as governments and the EU try to pay their debts and avoid financial and political meltdown. Protests against unaccountable, non-taxpaying political and business elites will grow. 2012 could actually be a dangerously rudderless year with key leaders in the US, China, Russia, France and Germany distracted by elections or changes at the top. And on top of all this, if you believe such things, the Mayan calendar even predicts the world will end on 21 December 2012! Happy New Year indeed....

With these happy thoughts in mind, it would be easy to downbeat about the year ahead. As far as Britain is concerned, the Jubilee and London Olympics will doubtless provide a welcome boost to national self-confidence, even if the short to medium-term economic outlook remains pretty depressing. I have to say, however, that I am not looking forward to the Olympics one bit. By the time the Games start, nearly ELEVEN BILLION POUNDS will have been spent. More than £81 million is being spent on the opening ceremony alone. There will be a huge security operation, the like of which we won't have seen since WWII - the talk is of 14,000 military personnel being used, of surface to air missles systems being deployed, aircraft carriers stationed in the Thames Estuary and Weymouth Bay, and attack helicopters, Harrier and Typhoon fighters will be in use.

And what will be showcased? No doubt London’s beggars and homeless will be relocated far from the games. It will not showcase our economic failure or the incompetence of our politicians. The TV cameras will not show our crumbling infrastructure or the long delays people suffer as a consequence of airport-style security at the Olympic venues. Nor will London’s traditional ales, pie & mash and fish & chips be found at the Games; instead the food and drink will be provided by those healthy purveyors of nourishment – Coca Cola and McDonald's (Stratford now boasts the dubious honour of the world's largest McDonald's).

While the Games themselves will take place in the relatively short period of four weeks in August, the disruption this will bring to London will be felt through many months. Starting in January, there will be numerous "rehearsal" events - in effect, dry runs for the main Games.

Then we will start to see changes on the roads. There will be over 100 miles of the Olympic route network in London - entire lanes will be dedicated to "official" traffic only, forcing huge delays and congestion onto everyone else. "Official" here relates to what is termed "The Olympic Family" - that is, governments, sporting bodies, the International Olympic Commttee and over 10,000 officially accredited sponsors. No-one else will be allowed to use these routes - expect fines of up to £1000 if you do. It is good to see that special treatment is being given to these highly deserving people. Motorbikes should be part of the solution but even on a bike I don't expect getting into and around town will be at all easy and public transport will be a nightmare. For the rest of us, London will be a good place to avoid in the summer.

Most of the events will take place a few miles away from where I live. I have not bothered to apply for tickets. Those I know who did apply did not get what they wanted. And the legacy of this monumental folly in an already bankrupt Britiain? Just look at every other host city whose costly stadium buildings stand unused and rotting, and where the displaced local communities are still poor, homeless and unemployed.

Is this really a price worth paying?