So I picked Number One Son and Little Miss Sunshine up from the airport yesterday. Again, Luton confirms that it’s just a nightmare of a place… Can’t think of a worse one to fly from (though apparently they now charge you to park a bike at Stansted, which seems crazy). Anyway, they showed me enough  [Read full post…]

Forget any thoughts of me taking time off to do any kind of fly-ride caper. Job’s just come in that’s going to keep me flat out until the end of March (especially juggling to make sure all my other clients are still happy). But that does suggest I should be flush enough for a trip  [Read full post…]

I’m pretty knackered. I had to drop Number One Son and his girlfriend, Little Miss Sunshine, off at Luton Airport this morning at some ungodly hour (and don’t get me started on that experience). I was driving his car, as I’m the named driver on the policy. They’re off to Malaga to have a long-weekend  [Read full post…]

If like me you’ve been reading RiDE magazine for a few years, especially for the touring stuff, you might have noticed that Simon Weir – the bloke who did most of the useful touring stuff – has left recently. The mag’s still very good, but I was wondering where I’d get the touring stuff I  [Read full post…]

Gentlemen, today is Valentine’s Day. Even if you dismiss it as a “Hallmark holiday”, do yourselves a favour and nip out in your lunch-hour to get the special person in your life a bunch of flowers, some chocolates or at least a card. Ladies, when the clot forgets that it’s Valentine’s Day – a) tell  [Read full post…]

Following on from talk of the nicknames I use for my riding buddies when I write about them… Everyone knows what an Aberdeen Angus is: high-quality cattle that makes for good eating. A few days ago I was at a client’s site where the new boss – a lady from the north-east of Scotland, with a  [Read full post…]

Great ride at the weekend. All the touring crew were there: Hogsback Harry; Tidy Tim and DA; Punchy Pete and Dale Caesar; Noddy and Big Ears. I know, listed like that we’re like the extras from a really bad Harry Potter film. From the bit that ended up on the cutting room floor. I use  [Read full post…]

I’m not going to make light of the very real struggles some people have with winter – what’s often called seasonally affected disorder. When the extra hours of darkness and cold get them down, when everything is harder than it is in summer. It’s a problem for lots of folk and they need a bit  [Read full post…]

One thing I will say about riding at this time of year: it does mean a lot of washing. Frankly, I’m getting a bit fed up of it. I like to look after my bikes properly and though it’s the work bike, rather than the pleasure bike, that comes out when the salt has been  [Read full post…]

Well, I think I timed that pretty well. I dodged the worst of the winter weather – thanks to the tax man. Not often he does something that helps… Like most self-employed people, the final week of January is a slightly anxious juggle of getting all those accounts you thought were in order actually into  [Read full post…]