En route

When I was a stripling I bought a motorbike. A friend showed me how to start it and put it into gear and before he showed me where the brake was I careered diagonally across the road and slid along a garden wall. Luckily the road was quiet and luckily I stalled. Over the next few months I learnt how to ride it. I passed a risibly easy test and the law said I could ride it wherever I wanted, even with a person on the back, for ever and ever.

Eight years later, when I went to live abroad, I gave my bike to my brother. Soon after, despite being a motorcycle instructor, he rode it into the back of a lorry. He was OK (luck, again) but I then had no bike to come home to.

But that didn’t matter because I came back eight months pregnant, thus unfit to ride, both of which facts pleased my mum. The day I got back she saw me gazing longingly at a motorbike.
‘Aren’t you glad you’ve given up biking?’ she asked.
‘What makes you think I’ve given it up? I replied.
One month later, when I metamorphosed into a parent, I understood her rock-hard silence.

Last week, over twenty-five years later, I phoned my mum to tell her I was buying a bike and having my first ever proper bike lesson before going to collect it. She wasn’t thrilled. Today I caught a train to Peterborough (from that much-blipped station with the roof - spot a segment there?), picked it up and rode the 95 miles back.

Bikes have improved! It has electronic ignition! I don’t have to kickstart it!

The weather has not improved. I’d forgotten how very cold and wet you can get on a bike.