Dinkoman.com

I know it’s not the article I promised but I am still in the middle of writing that one and several others. 4000 words is a lot longer than I expected ahaha. Anyway, I had THE MOST AWESOME ride home today! I decided to attempt my commute in Jeans and a Leather Jacket (gloves and all the usual as well of course) instead of my filthy touring/enduro suit. It’s the first dry day I can remember in recent times and what an epic ride it turned out to be.

When I set off at 10:30am it was around 1C (degrees = 34F) but glorious sunshine and no rain predicted for the whole day. I miss going out in my leather jacket, it reminds me of the Summer time, last Summer in particular – which was one of the greatest. It did occur to me before I set off that I might be a little chilly but I had layered up wearing my under suit. It turns out that I had become a little too accustomed to my touring suit as I got pretty cold, pretty fast. Not to deter me though.

To get the true picture of what I am describing you really need to know what my commute is like. I live about 10 miles away from where I work and where I live it is semi-mountainous with fast twisty roads and beautiful scenery. After about 7 miles of this it heads to inner city type traffic, heavy traffic. Well that is at 9:00am. Seeing as I set off at 10:30am some days I miss most of the traffic, but generally get stuck behind some commercial vehicle making overtaking almost impossible. The way to work was pretty uneventful as I was stuck behind a coach of school children who had never seen a motorcycle before judging by the endless waves I kept getting. However the way back was completely different!

3:40pm and I set off. The traffic was as usual but for some reason I had a real aggressive feeling towards queues and filtered the entire city section of the journey. I usually filter but if I am behind a car or two the lights change pretty quickly so I just tend to sit behind most days and only filter if the traffic is more than 2 cars. Well it turns out that if I am at the front of every light than nobody is every in front of me. Who would have guessed?

This is the Google Street view location for where i took this picture.

To be honest filtering the entire way was kind of fun for once. Generally it is dull, grey and raining when I filter so it gets kind of boring but the sun changes everything! As I got out of the city and the road opened up my excitement meter went form 5/10 to maximum overdrive! Every corner was pure bliss. DRY ROADS! For the first time in 3 months – DRY ROADS! I decided to go the long way home through the moorland to my house and snapped this awesome picture on my phone (above). It’s amazing how something as simple as dry roads and no traffic can lighten your day/week/life. In general I am a happy person but this past week has been dragging for some reason. I needed that. Thank you weatherman and BRING ON SUMMER!

*Sorry for some of the grammar and structure but I have been awake for 20 hours now, it is 1am and I am tired as… well nothing is more tired than I am right now but I promised an article, even if it is mediocre. I will tell you about my upcoming Amsterdam trip shortly!