motorcyclemeditation.com

Business meeting in London, usual drill, leave enough time to enjoy the ride, don’t cut things fine and then spend the journey fretting. Making up time, a near impossibility, you make good time anyway on a motorcycle, if you push it any harder you or someone else will get hurt.

Traffic through Wood Green and Turnpike Lane, choking. One lane each way, overtaking opportunities on the motorcycle limited to when the oncoming lane is held up. Modest patience required, far better than being in a car. The complexities multiplied by pedestrians darting through gaps in the traffic to cross the road.

The motorcycle balanced and unflappable. Like I must try to be.

One notoriously difficult stretch approaching. A piece of luck, the oncoming lane empty, blocked by a bus, loading and unloading passengers. Easy for the motorcycle to surge forward, the faster you go the more you gain.

Wiser than that, however. Proceeding cautiously. Motorcycle making reasonable progress. The challenge being to find a place in my lane to pull into once the oncoming traffic arrives. Then, in my lane, a stationary truck, a big gap in front, quick, I can nip in there. Except, the truck’s blocking my vision. Why in the world would it just be sitting there.

Slowing to walking pace until I can see what the truck can see. Yup, as expected, a pedestrian. In this case a runner in a tracksuit, the truck waiting so he can cross. Could have been a granny or a mother pushing a baby, any of them would have been ploughed down if the motorcycle had ploughed ahead.

The motorcycle stopping, waiting next to the truck. The runner suddenly seeing the motorcycle, too late if it had been moving, freezing, almost in cartoon shock, seeing that there’s no danger, carrying on, a quick nod of acknowledgement.

Good riding discipline, feels good. You need it a lot in London. Plus, that truck, the courtesy of waiting, a tiny but precious offset to all the clamorous loutishness in the world, feels good not to have been the lout to cancel it out.