A Day In The Life
If I'm honest the journey to work often begins the night before. I go to bed trying to convince myself that the bike I'm going to ride in the morning is my 24 year old, battered and bruised, BMW K100 'mile-muncher'. This bike is made for riding the 40 miles from Haywards Heath to work at the gym in the House of Commons, whatever the weather... not my 'shiney' bike, a 1998 red Honda VFR 800, bought with the intention of selling the BMW ‘cos it makes me feel as old as my Dad, who donated it when I passed my test 2 years ago.
The day begins in earnest at 5.30am as I creep out the flat in my pants and slippers, I've been banished to the garage to get dressed as I make too much noise and it wakes the baby. The bike, which ends up being the BMW, is pushed out of the close, as far as my neighbour with an R6, to save me undoing all the effort I've put in trying to avoid waking anyone up. If I've given in to temptation and taken out the VFR, generally it all goes to plan up to this point until I turn the ignition key and...WAKEY WAKEY, the alarm goes off and it's time to make a speedy getaway (the text from the wife that awaits me when I arrive at work is usually interesting and not repeatable!).
The journey is divided into 3 parts: Balcombe Road, M23, A23 into London. Part 1 is a fabulously twisty, dipping and rising B road and at 5.45 am it's just me and the old deer... Not the missus, the bambi variety.
They're few and far between but are big enough to make a right mess if you hit one so there's no chance to relax and completely enjoy the ride. Ever had one of those moments where you close your eyes and wait for impact, only to open them again 2 seconds later to find that you're still alive and must have imagined what just happened? It's happened to me and I don't fancy a repeat.
Well, fun over and it's motorway time. I've only got one thing to say here... middle-lane drivers. I'm not sure I even want to go there with these muppets, I mean, do they not realise that crawling down the middle lane forces everyone into one lane to overtake them? I'm not too bothered by the first few that I encounter. The next few will get a shake of the head and then well before I've left the motorway they're getting the full treatment - the stare, shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders and then any one of three possible hand gestures. That leaves me in precisely the wrong frame of mind to start riding into London but fortunately there's not much traffic so there's little filtering to endure; that pleasure is saved for the journey home.
I pass 19 speed cameras over the whole commute, soon to be 20 I fear. When I first started riding into work I was under the impression that if a rider received 6 points in the first 2 years after passing their test they would lose their license and have to re-do the test. I've got no idea where I heard that but I was convinced I wouldn't last 2 weeks never mind 2 years! Whether it was true or not my license is still clean, amazingly! I've only had 2 shunts in over 2 years, which also surprises me, and I stayed shiny-side up for one of them.
Finally arriving at work about an hour later (best time is 55 minutes), having passed clubbers still going IN to a club in Vauxhall (on a school night as well!) I have to present my photo ID pass at the security gate. Most of the security peeps know me and my bike and will wave me straight through but occasionally some jobsworth will insist on lid removal. I'm not too bothered by this but would rather not as my hair shouldn't be seen in public after an hour inside a lid.
Now, I rely on the gate security. Not because I'm worried about soap-dodging tree-huggers getting in to hang banners off the roof or protesters armed with balloons full of purple dye. When they do get in (and they have) I doubt they would find the gym as we're hidden well out of sight and if you've seen the state of most of our MPs you'll be forgiven for thinking most of them can't find it either. No, the security boys have been excellent... At spotting when my bike needs maintenance. So far they've noticed a loose chain and also when my tyres need some air. Keep up the good work fellas. It's also amusing when asked by insurance companies whether the bike is parked securely at work.
My standard reply is that I don't have a garage or even a D-lock but is a bloke with a machine gun secure enough?! People at work are surprised to hear that I ride 40 miles each way, whatever the weather, but even when the traffic is heavy and it's cold and wet it beats the hell out of taking the train (which is actually quicker) and driving a car in and out of the congestion zone every day, doesn't bear thinking about.
The journey home is a lot less interesting with more traffic, more filtering, more red lights... More stress. It's lucky that the best part of the ride home is at the end and I pray for a clear run from the motorway back to Haywards Heath (no numpties crawling at 40mph, no tractors crawling at 20mph... And no deer crawling at, well, 0mph cos they just stand there!).