motorcyclemeditation.com

Five minutes into the journey and the North Circular in seizure. The motorcycle easing its way between lanes of stationary traffic, twenty miles an hour where normally you’d do sixty. Maybe claw back some lost time later, traffic’s probably thinner further on, like a tributary trickling rather than gushing into a river, it affects the river's flow.

Disciplines clicking into place, resisting the temptation to make up time, left home early, no need to rush. Even if there was, dangerous to do so, there’s a natural maximum speed for these circumstances, you’re already doing it, force it faster and you might not arrive at all.

The cars mostly staying in their lanes, occasionally squirting out to an adjacent gap. Not much of a danger, if there’s a gap you have to assume the car will go for it, so you hold off, leave some extra space.

Occasional motorcycles coming up behind, too fast for the conditions in my view. Their choice. Pulling into a gap, letting them pass, watching for the glove waved in acknowledgement, motorcycling salute of a motorcycling brotherhood. Exposed to the same dangers, practicing the same skills, sharing a view of the world.

A car in front veering, the cars behind it, braking. On the motorcycle, leaving the braking late, trying to do without it altogether, first gear and you slow down quickly anyway. Succeeding. Making the point to anyone caring to notice such things, you didn’t even get to see the motorcycle brake light, the margins were that big, this riding between the lanes might look risky but it ain't.

Not just the big crashes to avoid, also the little dings, somehow everything in an accident is always your fault, stridently proclaimed, the subsequent insurance claim involving every dent and scratch of the last three years plus heart failure, whiplash, loss of earnings, suchlike opportunist vulgarities.

Ten miles on, the gridlock reaching a head, three lanes squeezed into one, cars jostling for their place, horns blaring, motorcycle zipping past them all to the front. Ahead, the open road.