We picked it up yesterday and Stuart drove it to a big carpark for me.  I did my clutch and gears CBT about 8 or 9 years ago so I wasn’t convinced I’d remember the single day’s training.  But you’ve got to wonder about the quality of everyone else on the road – for some reason loads of drivers chose to exit via our furthest most remote corner, some of them even managing to mount the kerbs of the planter beds.  Yes.  In an empty car park.

After variously mixing up the clutch, accelerator, rear brake, front brake and gear lever, I decided I’d had enough.  I could remember how to go in a straight line in first (and stop again) and that was enough for me.

This morning I decided that the only way to get up to speed was to get out there, so we got the radios up and running and Stuart gave me a mini lesson.  My brain was full of the mechanics of the bike, so I wasn’t really driving properly.  Thank goodness for the big guy in the BRIGHT YELLOW jacket hanging behind me.  It was like being a driving school duckling all over again.  By the end of the 18 miles into London and back, I wasn’t stalling nearly as much, and when I did I was able to recover from it without too much fuss.  At this rate, I’ll be thinking about the journey rather than the mechanics in no time.

I know it sounds silly, but doing this has helped me feel a lot more London.  Partly because it’s a pain in the arse to get anywhere in a car, so I’ve started to combat that, but more because I now feel like it’s going to be possible to just pop over to visit friends – and that I have friends I actually have friends I want to pop over to go and see.

But right now, I’m sitting at home drinking tea and aching from using new muscles.  Ace.

]]> http://blog.silvershed.co.uk/2009/03/15/brrrrrrrrrm/feed/ 0