Quiet out there

I know it's not the time of year when many want to get out on two wheels but just a reminder that winter rides often mean quiet roads, slower speeds so more time to take things in along the way, the opportunity to find that out of the way pub or coffee stop and the chance to hone your skills.

If you get the chance, try and make time to get out over the Christmas and New Year period, if nothing else it makes you appreciate the warm, dry weather and light evenings even more when they arrive!

Have fun and keep it shiny side up

I've been out on Christmas Day before, roads were empty and dry, sun shining, , absolutely brilliant

I do like Winter riding. It sharpens up the riding skills again. :)

Off out tomorrow :)

Some people only have daylight and summer time licenses :p

Will be using the bike all the way through winter, even with 5 minutes at each end to wrap up it's still more fun than sitting in the jam jar :)
Very lonely out there lately and annoying amount of mud and water - I love the smell of baking mud in the morning....

Decided to take a bike (Royal Enfield as it's one of my two 'winter choices') on my Crimbo shopping trip today. Started with a 25 mile detour to take in a nice bit of road with a few corners, even with newly fitted larger front sprocket, K&N, decat silencer and iridium plug the RE still not exactly an A road blaster though ; )
Then blatted through Poole and Bournemouth visiting 3 bikes shops before finally parking up in middle of Bournemouth for the actual shopping. Bought a few items of over priced cloth, a brand name bauble and a bar of soap for a tenner before stuffing it all into the Kriega tail pack and bungy strapping to the rack. Then a few laughs filtering through the hideous traffic and trying to touch the pegs on various roundabouts before testing out 15 miles of dual carriageway riding in preparation for possible French trip on the RE in Feb. Wasn't too bad, held indicated 70 ok and felt fairly relaxed, even had enough oomph to chug past the odd slower moving vehicle as long as I made sure there was a fair gap behind me in the fast lane!
Didn't see many bikes out even though a pretty good day, mainly scooters and the odd BM although was blitzed off a roundabout by a nice new gixer something, the RE couldn't quite keep up ; )
The good news is that even with a fair bit of throttle wringing I've managed just over 200 miles since I filled up, low level light has been flickering on and off for the last 30 miles (good old Indian float sensor) but there's a couple of litres left at least, hoping for 80 mpg when I fill up.
The bad news is that I'm getting used to pedestrian acceleration and life at 55/60mph, I'll be scared ****less when I get back on a gixer or even the MT03!

Today I decided that enough is enough and I needed to get out on the bike! 150 miles or so of Wiltshire's finest roads later, with little traffic and pretty good ie dry conditions and I feel much better. I need to wash the bike now but that's a job for tomorrow.