Two wheels good

I can finally confirm my long awaited return to biking, when I collected a 2 year old, low mileage BMW R1200GS from those nice people at Bahnstormer in Alton today.

I tried a big BWW earlier in the year, and fell for the combination of practicality, performance and clever engineering, so was really just looking for the right bike to come along (and approval from the FD). Its s shame its the end, not the beginning of the summer, but carpe diem and all that...

One big change since the last time I owned a bike (1996) is the amount of tech. involved. The BWM has shaft drive, ABS, fuel injection, catalytic converters, alarm and immobiliser, traction control, trip computer, and aftermarket music and comms system and a tyre pressure monitoring system.

I've probably left something off the list - but thankfully as an approved dealer bike it also comes with a warranty should any of the tech. decide not to cooperate.

The weather was incredible; nearly 19 degrees at the dealer, so by the time the admin, customer briefing etc etc. was finished, I was surrounded by miles of warm, dry Hampshire tarmac.

Determined to take it easy, I did for the first oh, 2 miles. After that a loping 70mph seemed a natural pace, overtaking slower traffic as if I’d never been away from bikes, and leaning comfortably through the bends. The only rusty bit was slow speed riding but later on I even was able to get a little filtering practise as the A27 jammed up.

The route from Alton is a peachy combination of lightly trafficked A and B road, and apart from a section under trees along the downs, was all open and fast. A great way to get back to biking.

After a bite to eat, I later dropped in at Goodwood who were running an Octane track day. They get a better class of boy racer at their events, I counted 4 race XK’s, a real looking Jaguar C type, Cut 7 (the famous racing E-type), a very genuine looking D, and the Ford France GT40 and a rapid little Datsun 120Y.....

Great day.

SS7