Don’t laugh but it’s face-achingly cold and I’m out on the Black Bullet. It's the the end of the year and the gloves I bought back in the summer aren't warm enough for this. The forty quid lid starts to lift off at fifty and my plastic site glasses must have belonged to Eric Morecombe the way they’re flapping in the breeze.
Cloud has descended on the Berkshire Downs so no money shot as I hit the crest of Chain Hill today, just freezing damp and cold. The mist closes in by Lockinge Kiln and all I can see through my comedy eyewear is 25 metres of the road ahead and the spiky boles of pine trees slipping by either side.
The bike hits a hole in the tarmac which jars my spine. “Ugh, pibneeth,” I grunt, spitting involuntarily. “Um, kidneyth,” I repeat more deliberately, trying out my newly discovered face of rubber.
Icy cold and hits to the kidneys are not fun in the traditional sense of the word but I am relieved to be out all the same. The puncture seems slow enough to hold out for a seasonal lunchtime pint, with Poz in nursery and Jane studying at home it’s a rare treat grasped with both hands.
Despite the conditions and the iffy outfitting, I give it full throttle down one of the bigger hills. The needle trembles between 55 and 60mph but advances no further. There’s going to be a lot of thinking time involved in doing any kind of trip on this bike. The right mental attitude will be key to the enjoyment of it. If the focus is on arriving, the lack of power and handling will become frustrating.
The problem is the faster you go the less you notice, even 55mph is too fast to notice much more than the tarmac and the trees zipping by. I’m wary of going much slower on this road in the fog, however, and I react to this thought by leaning over to flick the lights on. I begin to feel that there’s an unholy clash about to happen between my outlook on this anachronism and the attitude of the next modern car driver to come steaming through the mist. I'm a little spooked by this, having not really thought about it before. I'm always going to be a bit of a sitting duck on this old thing.
Then all at once the odometer shows 100 miles covered and I'm smiling again. At least I think I am.
