motorcyclemeditation.com

Suddenly a cold snap and it feels like winter, doubly so with the first week after the clock change and seeming shorter days. A cumbersome feel to the motorcycle, not the motorcycle mechanics, more a human body still not acclimatized, fingers frigid, pupils slow in the cold to adjust focus, reflexes tardy.

After years’ experience, recognition of the new circumstance and respect duly given. Taking it easy, not rushing it, giving time to the strange business of processing the different dynamic. The motorcycle burring obediently forward, grips heating up and the engine temperature showing normal. Gradually, the rider learning to like the cold.

For reward, a clear sunny landscape with dazzling cleanness of frost on the fields. The clarity of the day surpassing that of summer, what you lose on the motorcycle through slower reflexes you get back with pristine vision.

Over the Dartford Crossing, the Thames bang on high tide and the water calm, free of the choppy waves of last week, foam whipped up by wind on their tops. Barges steaming steadily along, towing other cargoes. On the motorcycle, taking brief sideways glances, admiring the spread of the riverscape and the chimneys and the lazy commerce in the bright light. The saddle’s high vantage allowing such pleasures but the exigencies of riding cutting them short, can’t afford to look anything but frontwards for any but the briefest moment.

Through to the motorway and the motorcycle zipping briskly along, the cold having no real nip in the early afternoon, motorcycle clothing doing its work, body feeling the sensation of temperature as a pleasant glow. Memories of summer already feeling distant, seems as long ago as childhood, a past life already consigned to dust.