The Thundercat Diaries

What a difference a day makes, the old song goes - I can’t argue with that, but I’d say that, if a day can make a difference, a week can be a paradigm shift. I love the ’Cat. I don’t care if she’s old, I don’t care if there is better kit out there, I don’t even care that I’m still occasionally stalling her in traffic - the ’Cat ticks every inexperienced box I have, and pretty much every ride leaves me wishing I could do the same thing over again. I knew I’d love biking, I’ve dabbled enough to know that it was a cast-iron certainty. What I didn’t - couldn’t - know was how great it can be. 

This week I’ve been making the journey cross-country from south Birmingham to Banbury, a round trip of just under a hundred miles, via some lovely fast-flowing A roads, and the learning curve has been exponential. I spent Monday groping my way to and from work, light rain keeping the visor opaque from the outside whilst mist made vision almost impossible from the inside - I had to go real slow in order to feel remotely safe, but even pootling along at a snail’s pace was more entertaining than the car (vision problems aside). On Monday evening we had the visor out vigorously applying washing-up liquid as per Rocket Ron’s advice in the April issue of the magazine and, with the rain holding off and the roads dry - oh… my… god… What a difference indeed. 

The skies were pretty gloomy, but being able to ride with the visor down and still being able to see clearly where I was going made an absolute world of difference. With the roads being fairly quiet at that time of the morning, I was able to just push on at my own pace, not much ahead to hold me up, not much behind to occupy my mind, and those glorious A road sweeps turned from drab tarmac into the best roller coaster on earth, the ‘Cat just firing me along as fast as I pleased, happy enough to go slow with rocket power to hand if I felt like it. I didn’t (and don’t, and won’t) go mental, but pushing along at a brisk pace was just brilliant, a genuinely fun way to pass an hour or so before I got nailed to the desk at work. There just wasn’t a downside to it. 

At least, not that I encountered - not everyone is so lucky. One day, whilst cruising along a curvy section with elevation changes, I passed a bike stationary on the other side of the road, rider aboard, pulled into the curb. I was past before I could make a decision to stop but with a roundabout half a mile ahead, I had some time to think what to do - I’m new to all this, but even I know that bikers stop and help each other, but… Did they need help? The rider was aboard the bike, and the lights were on, there were no obvious signs of distress - if anything, they looked for all the world like they were about to do a parallel turn. But still - it was an odd place to stop and no mistake. 

Torn between getting to work on time and helping a rider in distress, I hit the roundabout planning to carry on as normal and found myself doing a 180 back the way I came, only to meet what appeared to be the same rider coming sedately the other way. Ah well - mission of mercy not required, I thought, but I was glad that I’d stopped anyway. I turned and retraced my steps, and found myself catching the very same rider through the next village - fastidiously maintaining the 30mph speed limit, I was still creeping up on them , to the point where I was on their back wheel as we left the village. The rider, indicating left, pulled into the curb in the middle of no-man’s land, definitely not a place of residence, a garage or a bike shop - donning my mission of mercy coat again, I pulled alongside. 

“You all right, chap?” I asked, which says as much about my misplaced pre-conceptions as anything - the other rider was a young lady aboard an SV. She was fine, but had just had a bit of a moment, to say the least - on that lovely, flowing quick stretch of A road, she’d had a deer run out in front of her and hadn’t been able to avoid it. New to this whole rescue mission game, I never even asked if she’d fallen off, but she did assure me that she was all OK, but just felt that she should park the bike for the day, a big crack running down the front right corner of the fairing, although she very kindly thanked me for stopping to check. Not really having anything further to offer to the situation, I told her it wasn’t a problem and pushed off out of the way. 

Wildlife issues apart (I haven’t seen any deer but I’ve had some pretty hairy moments with the odd pigeon, let me tell you), the week’s riding has been exquisite, even Monday’s somewhat obscured traverse of the route. And Friday, with a glorious purple sunrise to light the whole thing, goodness me, what a ride in that was…. It’s chilly but not uncomfortably so, and it takes more time to both prepare and make the journey compared to commuting in the car, but not so much that it’s not worth the trouble. Mornings like that, however, make any resemblance of hassle a small price to pay. It’s the involvement in your environment that makes it so special, I think - I would have noticed the sunrise if I’d been in the car, but on the ’Cat, it wasn’t just a visual to spot and admire, it was a glorious vista of infinite shade and light to immerse myself into. Everyone should have a bit of that before clocking on.