It's been weeks (possibly months) since I took my bike out and today I was finally well enough, in the country and presented with decent weather and a willing riding partner.

We rode out to Ceres via Du Toit's Kloof and returned via Bain's Kloof. Nothing floods my system with adrenaline more effectively than Bain's Kloof. I think it's the combination of an uneven surface (the road seems designed explicitly to tackle the overpopulation process), the fact that you have to take it slowly (which means you're in a low gear and your throttle is more sensitive which, coupled with the previous issue makes for a challenging ride) or the fact that a significant portion of the ride is spent looking over sheer edges with nothing more than the occasional thoughtfully placed rock protecting you from a spectacular (but ultimately terminal) sudden change in potential energy.

Generally just a great ride.

The nice thing about a ride like this is that you are forced to focus on one thing: not dying (or some variation thereof).

I read an article recently which proffered an interesting technique for suppressing the urge to relieve yourself: think of sex. Apparently this is sufficiently distracting to buy you some time.

I buy that theory because riding is like that for me: while I'm on the bike anything that's been on my mind, or troubling me, or just generally consuming mental cycles disappears. It's just me and the road (and my riding partner, when I remember).

Not a hell of a lot to say. It's been ages since I've really taken my bike out and Sunday, being pleasant on the weather front and sandwiched twixt two days off (Monday being a public holiday; we have lots of them), it seemed like a good idea to hit the open road.

Our route took us along some of the back roads out to Riebeek Kasteel. Some really pleasant riding out that part of the world, including a stupendous sweeping bend at the bottom of a (low) mountain pass just before you hit the turn into Riebeek Kasteel itself.

Breakfast was pleasant, in spite of a small swarm of miggies (a local term that is hard to translate entirely accurately) that fell in love with my face (although who can blame them?) making eating and breathing challenging.

We took a spin up through Tulbagh and skirted past Ceres, returning over Du Toit's Kloof pass which offered up it's usual fare of spectacular views and tight bends. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's a lot of good riding in these parts.

Hells bells. Was it really a week ago already we pushed out on what turned into a very wet ride out to Swellendam and back via Worcester?

Andy was the ride organizer and apparently all the favours he called in amounted to nothing.

Despite the weather (chilly and wet, mmmm what a combo) it was a very pleasant ride. Werner "Lunatic" Fouche and Riel "Unbreakable" Smit joined us.

Werner's presence was obvious from the occasional random wheelie followed by frantic clutching of brakes as the stop sign (and everyone else's adherence to it) registered.

Riel's presence was evidenced by, well, what more can I say other than Riel was present?

Amazing what a bike can do for even the most miserable day.

The past few weeks have been hectic. Indeed, I'm sure it's been the case for longer than that but my brain is fried and I can't really tell.

We're frantically gearing up for a public offering but the jury's still out as to whether or not we'll make it. Indeed, it may come down in no small part to a small, armoured African mammal. It's a long story and after we launch one I'll happily share over a beer or six.

As a result though, not a hell of a lot been going on outside of the office. My bike's gathering dust and Claire's slowly forgetting what I look like. One day she'll accidentally have all our locks changed ("because I thought it would be a good idea") and I'll have to sleep outside.

But work's interesting, and things are coming together, and I think we're going to give the world something really interesting. So I'm looking forward to that, and I wake up excited to go to work every day, which is really all that matters in the end (for me anyway).

So in summary: tired but happy.

Heart stopping moment yesterday. Because it was such a nice day I wanted the option of riding with my visor open when I was idling at low speeds. So I was riding with both my dark visor and my sunglasses on. Not too much of an issue since neither is particularly dark so the combination isn't overwhelmingly dusk-like.

Until you hit a tunnel. I took the Du Toitskloof pass and completely forgot about the short (fortunately) tunnel until just before I hit it.

Darkness.

As Yoda might have once said: "Crapped myself silly I did".

Of all cars on the road, the Golf GTI is the model I most enjoy overtaking. It trumps even the german luxury sedans.

Golf drivers. Go figure.

With Andy facing looming deadlines and Matt ignoring his cellphone today's was a solo flight.

I really felt like a longish run and a solo flight isn't all that bad because you can set your own pace. So I headed out to Swellendam via Worcester and came back along the N2.

Absolutely superb weather for riding today. Clear skies the whole way and a distinctly toned down degree of lunacy on the roads. At times I may well have been the only lunatic for miles.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it always catches me off guard to discover just how much I enjoy my time on the bike. You'd think I'd have learned by now but no.

I got waylaid on the way out while filling up. A young woman jumped me with a pamphlet and a few questions which I couldn't hear with my earplugs in an helmet on. She looked uncannily like a girlfriend from high school and I think that distracted me long enough for her to get a metaphorical toe in the door. She wanted to know if I'd accepted Jesus into my life. Since I had some time to kill waiting in the queue and since she'd already settled in I figured why the hell not.

To her credit she remained good humoured despite my barrage of questions and counterpoints. After about 20 minutes I realised I'd lost track of time and politely excused myself. Her name was Christine and she offered to pray for me. In return I'll do the best equivalent I can manage: I'll be sure not to pray for her.

On Wednesday morning Andy and I faced the full fury of the Cape Town Traffic Department's grasp of queueing theory.

Or, to put it another way, we "sat" our motorbike rider's license. The day started pretty early for us, we were in town by 7am to make sure we ended up in the first group. So for an hour and a half we sat and made small talk with the instructor we'd spent Sunday morning jumping through hoops for. He was actually quite good. He's an ex traffic officer and has the course marked out and runs through the test with you. He even loans you a bike for the test (a light 200cc bike, considerably more manueverable than our just-sub-litre bikes).

The morning actually ran smoothly for the most part. The testing ground was single-threaded and there was a large enough group of us so that we only actually got around to our test by about 11am. The test itself took 15 minutes and was pretty simple. The rider's test in this country is actually a bit of a joke. It consists only of a yard test and that is almost identical to the practical portion of the learner's test I sat in Melbourne. And on top of that the officer testing our group was particularly lenient.

So no drama there. For some reason I developed incredibly painful eyes and a minor headache. Probably tension. These kinds of things need to be dealt with like band-aids: quickly.

So by 11:15 we'd both passed and headed back into the department building to get everything stamped, signed and filed. Queue one: get it entered into the computer system. Queue two: fingerprints. Queue three: bollocks is that really the guy who finished half an hour before we started?

Queue three was a nightmare. When we arrived it must have been about 30 people strong. One and a half people were serving this queue (for some reason one of them kept disappearing briefly). People were arriving at about twice the rate the queue was being serviced at. We only made it out of there at 2pm, by which stage my back was ready to give out, and the squirrel going ape-shit inside my skull had just started chewing on my brainstem.

But we made it. I think technically we're now required to start a bar fight once a month.

Winter's chilly fingers wrapped themselves around the afternoon, in complete contrast with the clear blue sky and bright sunlight.

Andy and I shot out to the point for a quick run, just to turn the engines over (the bikes' and our own).

As much fun as the act of biking is, the cherry on top is dogs. Dogs seem to go nuts when they see bikers. I don't know if it's the noise, or the fact that we look like something that stepped out of a bad sci-fi show but they wet themselves in an apparent attempt to ... actually I don't really know what they're trying to accomplish. Whatever it is they really put their backs into it.

A quick run is a good reminder that there are nutters out there on our roads. Although you don't need to go out on a bike to refresh your memory. A short trip to the shops is usually sufficient.

It's been waaaay too long since I took my bike out for a decent run. Beyond a few runs into the office I don't think I've used her for over a month.

I've said it before and, no doubt, I'll say it again. I'm always surprised by just how great it is to get out on the open road, open up the throttle and leave the humdrum of day-to-day living behind you.

The day, or rather afternoon, started out with Andy and I meeting up with the Pegasus crowd for a "cake run" out to Stellenbosch. Or rather that was where we thought we were going. It turned out to be a coffee shop in the middle of one of the (many, many) shopping centers that abound "up North". Given that we'd battled Saturday afternoon traffic and at one point stopped for almost 20 minutes in the blazing 30 degree Sun because the group was separated this was less than ideal. An effective 30 minutes on the bike is not what I was after.

Fortunately we'd anticipated (some of) this and had already planned to push on from there and try to squeeze in some more riding before the sunlight waned.

So we jumped onto the N1 and shot through to Franschoek, zipping over the pass, pausing briefly at the top for Andy to play porn photographer to his new toy, and finally stopping at the T-junction at the bottom to admire Theewaterskloofdam.

From there it was back home via Grabouw and Sir Lowry's pass. A round trip of the order of 200km, so not a particularly big run but long enough to rekindle our desire to have a crack at The Great Durban Run^TM. This is a plan we've been hatching over the past few months to do an N2 round-trip run up to Durban over four (or five) days. The problem, as with anything, is that there's never a good time. Which is really just another way of admitting that I'm a huge procrastinator. So we'll see if we can actually swing this one. I think it would be incredible.

I'd also forgotten how much time for thinking there is on a bike. Just thinking. Random thoughts. It's interesting where random thoughts can take you. Today for example, after heading out from the coffee shop I noticed a buzz on my bike which I'm sure I've never heard before. Nothing seemed amiss though (amiss at 180+ km/h becomes obvious pretty quickly) so I left it. But it got me thinking about my general attitude towards things mechanical. I don't like them. Or rather, I don't like their imperfections and the way they let reality walk all over them. I suspect this is why I'm in software.

Mechanical things, indeed anything physical, is necessarily bound by the laws of physics. This means at least two things:

1. They wear out, break, stop working, come to an end.
2. They are restricted by physical limitations. Size. Weight. These things matter.

The former is something I find particularly distasteful in mechanical devices. Indeed, in anything physical. It annoys me that new clothes cease being new so quickly, or that my bike develops rattles and buzzes that weren't there when it rolled off the assembly line. But these things are inevitable and their designers must take this into account.

Software doesn't really suffer from this. Yes, you'll hear programmers talking about bit-rot, but that's really just what happens when code around the code that's "rotting" moves on. Code doesn't rot. Code doesn't change, or mutate, or develop weak spots (those are there from day one). The media the code is stored on might but that's a physical artifact. Code itself is the stuff of dreams. It's intangible.

As such, it's also not bound by the second point. Code, software, call it what you will, it's not restricted by the laws of Physics. Sure, we can only access so much memory, and storage is definitely finite, but these are limitations forced on us because the machines that execute our code are physical in nature. Take away the machine and you have something without boundaries (actually, you have a sub-branch of Mathematics but you know what I mean).

I think these two aspects of software are causing a lot of the headaches in the software world. We have something that never wears out which means we aren't as geared as we might be to maintaining it. We talk about maintaining code, but what we really mean is building on top of it. We have no really ingrained notion of running software day to day.

We also have something that isn't bound by physical limitations. Or rather, is relatively unrestricted (we do, after all, have to produce something that actually runs, which inevitably involves hardware somewhere along the road) which means we tend to aim much, much higher than we might otherwise.

If a team of 5 or 6 engineers took it upon themselves to pull a few all-nighters and attempt to build the Battlestar Galactica how would you rate their chances of success? And if they tried to convince you that a single operator could run it with a few days of training and access to the man page?

Funny, I thought you'd say that.

Nope, not me (but I had you going, right?).

Andy mortgaged his house, sold several "redundant" organs and signed his name in blood this week. As a result he's the proud new father ... er ... owner of a new Machine Of Death^TM.

It arrived today.

And the forecast for tomorrow is
...
rain.

Dear thoughtful motorists.

While I appreciate that you've seen me in your mirror, and that you've pulled onto the shoulder to let me past I'd like to suggest you don't. The primary reason for this is that you're now doing something "out of the ordinary" and, frankly, that's how accidents happen. People take a mite longer to process a situation they're not expecting. It's also difficult from my side to determine when you're going to decide that I'm not taking advantage of your generosity and pull back onto the road. If this coincides with me making the decision to overtake, well, it could get interesting.

It doesn't help that all too often this display of generosity takes place in the face of heavy oncoming traffic, on blind corners, or just before the crest of a hill. In short, in the least convenient place possible.

I'd suggest that instead you stick to a constant speed as far as possible and leave me to overtake you in my own good time. I have more than enough acceleration to render you almost a non-issue.

But I appreciate the thought, which brings me to ...

Dear thoughtless motorists.

Actually, this will take me too long to write. There are too many examples of thoughtlessness on the road, even if you focus exclusively on bikes. Today I ran into yet another example: the thoughtless smoker.

Please spare a thought for the bike behind you when you're smoking. Flicking hot ash back towards me is not the best way into my good books. Especially if I'm riding with my visor up because the act of smoking has paralyzed your central nervous system and it's all you can do to keep your car between the pavement and centerline and I'm forced to slow to 20km/h as a result.

Frankly, if you're prepared to coat the inside of your lungs with tar I don't see why you're not prepared to dump a little ash in your ashtray.

Regards
The guys on the bike behind you

It's been a rather busy weekend, replete with ups and downs. After a late night reorganizing our source control repository (and putting our DBAT back together afterwards) Friday dawned. Fortunately Friday was anything but demanding (unless you consider lunching on Swordfish steak demanding). Friday evening we joined some friends for dinner at what turned out to be a great restaurant in Muizenberg. The evening would have been perfect but for one thing: my car refused to start. Our compatriots had already bailed and were thoughtful enough to switch their phones off and then just to drive the point home both our phones died. We just managed to squeeze in a call to Ben ("Help!") and to a towing service ("Help!").

I hate it when things you take for granted just stop working. It's probably a good object lesson (don't take X for granted) but it really fouls up my mood. And it was all the more annoying for happening on a Friday evening, which means there's nothing I can really do until Monday. I was not a happy camper. But what can you do?

Saturday saw us doing a bit of last minute shopping and some preparation for the Potjie Off Otto's been threating to organize for lord knows how long now. Actually, I think the final catalyst was Walters more than anything else. He's always game. We'd organized a different meat for each pot. Otto did a chicken potjie, Walters bravely took on oxtail and I hauled out my favourite lamb recipe. It's been well over a year since my last potjie (I think) and I'd forgotten how pleasant the activity is: there's the feeling of being productive combined with the necessity of waiting and doing nothing (this is the key to a good potjie: do as little as possible). A beer, some sunshine (lots of sunshine, yesterday was a scorcher) and a chance to talk rubbish (or in Otto's case to trash talk his "opponents").

Although we never dragged a verdict out of the judges I think Otto had the right of it: the real winner yesterday was potjie.

Then a little bit more work on Rox before turning in for an early start. 6:30am always comes as a surprise. Regardless of how much you thought you were expecting it.

After the car saga I fully expected my bike not to start: Life and I have this uneasy relationship: she kicks me, I let her. But she started without any problems and Andy and I headed off to meet the Pegasus crowd for a breakfast run to Hermanus. The weather was overcast but at least it was cool. 34 bikes turned up, more than I've ever shared the road with in a group. The resulting ride (which included Sir Lowry's pass) was a bit hairy. Breakfast on the other end was immensely welcome. I always feel hollow the morning after a large meal, and potjie is always a large meal. After breakfast Andy and I set off and the day's ride really began.

On the other side of Hermanus we stopped in Stanford for fuel before heading off to Napier. The roads out that way are superb. Long sweeping bends, almost no cars and incredible scenery. By this time the weather had turned warm. Before the day was through I'd seen 36 degrees a few times on my thermometer. From Napier we rode to Bredasdorp and on to Arniston where we were treated to a terrific seaside view and some of the worst service in recent memory (at the Arniston Hotel). Back to Bredasdorp and up to Swellendam to get back onto the N2. The ride back was pretty windy and a strong gusty wind like that is pretty much the worst thing possible on a bike. Nothing like the threat of a permanent imprinting of the Mercedes logo in your forehead to keep you tense for a few hundred kms.

When we stopped for a drink in Riviersonderend Andy heard that his mother-in-law may have had a stroke. Fortunately it looks like it may just be over-exertion coupled with high-blood pressure but it's pretty crap to have that kind of uncertainty hanging over you while you're that far from home. And I think his wife was pretty shaken by the news. One more reason to hot-foot it home.

And it really was a scorcher. My word was it hot. Only when we reached Caledon did it cool down and then dramatically. It dropped 10 degrees as we passed through Caledon and it was most welcome. It also heralded the weather to come. Back over Sir Lowry's pass only to hit the longest tailback I've seen in some time. Judging by the emergency vehicles we passed as we slipped through the traffic (a bike has certain advantages) there were at least two serious accidents.

Once through that lot we encountered the usual nutters. Cars that sit on your ass only to pass you and then slow to a crawl when you let them by. Golfs and GLVs (German Luxury Vehicles), as usual. Do owners of those cars have to pass a different test to the rest of us? One that makes sure there's a good chance they're an asshole?

And it didn't make things any better to find ourselves in the middle of a sudden spot of wet weather. Cape Town doing her best to live up to the whole four seasons in one day thing.

So now I'm feeling a little spent. I think I'm going to sit here and do as little as possible. For a little while anyway. I think I have another idea for Rox.

This has to be some of the best porn I've stumbled across in a while.

Tell me you don't agree with me? Now ...

1. How many of you followed that link without thinking?
2. How many of you thought about it but followed it anyway?
3. How many of you rotated your monitor or prepped yourself in some way in case someone walked passed while you were busy?
4. How many of you were disappointed?

Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. Recall that sometime back I had a minor altercation with a car and, much to my dismay, wrote my last bike off.

I came down pretty hard on my left side and since then the skin over my left hip has been numb. I noticed yesterday that the skin on my left foot is numb in the same way. I don't know if it's just something I hadn't noticed until now, or if it's a recent "development".

How do you debug a nervous system?

I'm by no means a speed freak. Nor would I consider myself an adrenaline junkie. I'm definitely still in possession of that little part of your brain that goes "wibble wibble" under duress, in the process distracting that other part of your brain that's responsible for hanging on to the contents of your bladder. In other words, toss me off a mountain unexpectedly and I will almost certainly wet my trousers and probably hit the bottom bawling like a three year old who's just watched her father run over Cindy^TM with the lawn mower.

But. The part of a ride I look forward to the most, by a large margin, is the bit where I get onto the first freeway, usually the M5 just a few minutes from here, and hit the hyperspace button. There's something delicious about going from 40 to 140 in no time at all and watching cars recede into the distance glowing slightly as they're redshifted.

Andy and I set off a little earlier today, largely because of time constraints but also to avoid some of the heavier traffic. We took a leisurely trip along the coast road, stopping in Hermanus for a bite to eat before swinging through Stanford and Caledon and turning back.

The weather was great, the roads quiet and I only experienced one heart-stopping moment. This is rare. Most of the time the local fauna seems hell bent on suicide and damned if they aren't going to take me with them. Just after turning off from Stanford I was coasting down a long hill and remembered that I'd filled up but forgotten to reset the trip meter. So I eased off and released the throttle so I could lean forward to reach it. The first thing I noticed that struck me as odd was that the fuel injection indicator light was on. Then I noticed the oil light. Finally I realised that I had, in fact, lost all power. "Odd" I thought, "I'm pretty sure it isn't supposed to do that". Certainly resetting the trip meter in the past had never required a reboot.

So I pulled off the road and came to a stop thinking that this was probably going to be expensive. It was at this point that I noticed the kill switch was in the off position. For those of you not blessed with a bike of your own this is a switch that normally sits on the throttle. It has to be in the on position before you can start the bike and it's called the kill switch because that's normally how you kill the engine. I must have flipped it off while reaching for the trip meter. I think perhaps in future I'll give that a miss.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Lunatic Golf driver here, psychotic BMW driver there. The usual. Lots and lots of birds of prey out hunting. Mostly Jackal Buzzards and Steppe Buzzards but a fair number of Yellowbilled Kites and more Goshawks than I normally see.

All in all a pretty pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning. Highly recommended (in case that wasn't yet obvious).

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I'm mechanically inept,
And I can't write poetry

Dropped my bike off at Peter this morning so he could take a look at it for me. I just want someone who knows what they're doing to give it the once over and I don't think I know anyone who knows bikes as well as Peter does.

Dropping my bike off at Peter is always a little bittersweet. On the one hand I know it's going to come back like a new bike. But on the other hand, Peter's a little like my grandfather was and I always feel a little ashamed that he can't see his reflection in the bike. This morning he ran through his list of "hmmmms" and I felt horrible about each one (tires looking a little soft; chain needs tightening; seat needs to be washed).

But Peter's a great guy who clearly loves what he does (which is probably one of the reasons he does it so well). He phoned just now to tell me it's done and went on and on about the the long list of things he'd done to her. And he's only charging me 200 bucks for it. I think he's doing himself a disservice (but I'm not complaining). If you need someone to do any work on your bike Peter's the guy to ask.

Andy and I headed out to Franschoek again today. We were going to meet up with a few others for lunch but an accident with a sharp kitchen knife put paid to those plans. The jury was still out (figuratively speaking) when we left but lunch was off by the time we arrived, so we lunch alone (inasmuch as two people can be called alone).

We took the "back" route into Franschoek, via Grabouw and crossing Theewaterskloof dam. The weather was threatening most of the way but by the time we arrived it had cleared and turned into a beautiful day. The pass has been retarred since I was last up there, turning it into an even more enjoyable ride.

The only "incident" on the way out involved something smaller than a kestrel but larger than a pigeon trying to occupy the same point in spacetime as me. I didn't get a clear look, mostly as a result of our relative velocities.

The ride back was a little windy. I still don't understand what makes the N1 and the N2 windy almost without fail. Even if the surrounding areas aren't they seem to be on the receiving end of some kind of funnel effect. It was windy enough so that a relatively boring overtaking maneuver took on a life of its own: "Yup, we'll just pass this guy. Hmmm, wind's a bit strong here. Oer, the wind's really strong here. Crap! Where the hell did that Golf come from?"

But never fear. My lightning quick reflexing (also known as my gutless survival instinct) leapt in and saved the day.

The rest of the return trip was relatively free of traffic, giving us a chance to open the bikes up. Highly recommended: survival is very therapeutic. We ended on a moment of levity: a "well endowed" biker on an absolute brute of a Hayabusa in what looked like his silk sleeping shorts. Andy and I both shared a chuckle about it when we got back. I suppose you had to be there :-)

An early start in the face of dubious weather. "Summer" means the Pegasus Sunday rides start at 8am instead of 9am.

But the weather sorted itself out (outside of Cape Town anyway) and we ended up having a pretty decent morning's ride. All told we did just over 350km (much of it, as Andy complained, being in a straight line). 17 bikes in all (more manageable than 30+ bikes but probably still a tad too many to ride in a single group). We stopped in Hopefield to fill up and kill a little time (the destination restaurant only opens at 10am).

Breakfast (which may as well have been lunch by the time it was served) was at Pedro's in Saldanha. This is one of the most bizarre settings I've seen in some time. Pedro's is an immense restaurant complex (there's no other word for it) with a few bars and a number of enclosed eating areas. It's also smack dab in the middle of Saldanha's harbour (which, let's face it is Saldanha) and seems completely out of place. I suspect, being the only entertainment for many miles, that Pedro's is mobbed by locals from time to time.

Breakfast was less than spectacular. The food wasn't bad but the service was terrible. First they got out order wrong which meant a delay that effectively meant our table ate alone. After correcting our order they had to bring us what we wanted sans bacon, having run out of the delicious pig meat.

Plenty of raptor activity along the route, in both directions. Dozens of Yellowbilled kites (sometimes in groups which you don't see often: they tend to be solitary hunters). A handful of hunting Blackshouldered kites and Jackal buzzards. A few lone Steppe buzzards. And a pair of Goshawks. Identification is always a challenge: it's hard enough looking straight up in a helmet at 120km/h, let alone identifying the small black speck in the sky. Trust me on this.

Andy quoted webbikeworld.com. This sums up one of the reasons I enjoy biking so much. Oddly enough, I enjoy Tai Chi for pretty much the same reason.

Today was a scorcher. Matt and I belted out to Franschoek for breakfast this morning. We didn't quite make breakfast and had to settle for lunch instead.

I had to lift Matt from his place down to his offices to fetch his bike this morning. Even though this was only the second time I'd taken a passenger Matt trustingly jumped onto the back sans helmet and off we went. Sans helmet because Matt's gear was also at the office.

It wasn't as difficult as I'd expected. Stopping and maneuvering at low speeds is a bit tricky (Matt's offices are on one of the higher floors so we took the spiral ramp up to that level). You have to remember the additional weight when you come to a stop and drop onto one leg. But when we were moving I hardly noticed the weight difference at all.

The ride itself was great. We took the N2 out to Stellenbosch and then headed over to Franschoek via Helshoogte. The road's a bit bumpy but the scenery is unrivalled. Next time I'm taking the camera with. Not much beats a hot Summer day, an open visor and a roaring engine. After lunch we screamed back along the N1. It struck me this afternoon how odd it is that biking is so much better when there's more than one of you, and yet regardless of the group on the road you're still essentially on your own. No wonder so many people in IT bike: it's a group activity with almost zero social interaction (or at least it can be).

I really need a decent map of the region. All the maps I've got are either of Cape Town proper or cover such a large area (the whole country for example) so as to make them useless for local navigation. There are plenty of back roads worth exploring around here.

Very pleasant ride today, despite a bit of a shaky start.

For some reason I was up with the first sparrow's fart this morning. Just as well: I was meeting Riel Ferrous Gluteus Maximus Smit at 8am for a ride and I'd forgotten to set my alarm clock (or rather I'd painstakingly set it the night before but forgot to activate it). The first time I started the bike this morning there was a brief hiccup and I noticed it had reset the clock. "Odd" I thought, but paid scant attention when it started without a hitch second time around. When I met up with Riel however, things didn't resolve themself quite so quickly. The bike refused to start. It sounded like the battery was completely flat. Admittedly, I did leave the lights on while waiting for him to arrive, but that couldn't have been more than 10 minutes.

So we had to resort to push starting it. I'm not sure who was more surprised: me or the bleary eyed cyclist who suddenly found himself on a collision course with a silent red motorbike. Somehow I managed the right combination of declutch, rev, reclutch brake required to jump start the engine (first time!) and not kill the cyclist. After that we were all systems go. This is the kind of biker Riel is: let's push start it now and head out. Who cares if we have to push start it after every stop. No sweat. You have to admire spirit like that. It did mean I spent the remainder of the ride waiting for the bike to fail to start. It never did and the ride itself was very pleasant. Riel knows the Western Cape like the back of his hand so riding with him is always a pleasure.

Total distance was around 350km. Not a bad morning's ride (but not a patch on Riel's average ride). We had breakfast at the bottom of Bain's Kloof pass and then stopped in Ceres (inset) to top up (the bikes, not ourselves) before heading through to Worcester. A brief stop there for some water (and to debladder) and then home.

The ride also added to my list of registration plates (yes, I know, I'm an anorak): CEX (Porterville) and CBM (Laingsburg). And Riel mentioned that what I'd thought was Grahamstown (CF), now part of the Eastern Cape, has in fact been reassigned to Brackenfell (up until now CFR), which explains why I've seen so many "Grahamstown" visitors lately.

Oy. Wake up. I'm talking to you.

At the moment I feel a little like the proverbial little old lady. You know, the one that seems to have owned every second hand car on the market (the one who only ever drove it to the corner shop and back).

I took the bike out for a spin today. First time in a few weeks. In my defence the weather hasn't been great of late, and biking partners are scarce, what with Andy's bike in for repairs (and possibly Andy too by the look of things), Matt's being in to fix the oil leak (again), Riel being more dedicated than me (and hence out most weekends on considerably longer rides than I'm up to right now), and Werner and Albert, well, living large in lunatic land.

Today's run was short because we squeezed in a walk in Newlands forest. But I managed to get out to Stellenbosch and scream ... er, I mean putter along sedately ... along some of the back roads out that way. The weather was gorgeous. With luck this means it's finally turning. We've had a few false alarms in the past weeks. If I believed in God I'd suggest he was having a field day screwing with our small minds.

My license expires pretty soon. Which means sitting for the test again. I'm still on a learner's permit (many people do this for decades, you just resit the test every 18 months). When I get around to it I'll book for the full rider's test but I can't really be bothered right now (queuing at the traffic dept isn't my idea of a great way to spend a morning) and there's a backlog of at least a few months (for both tests) so I've plenty of time even if I do book it now. I had a brief moment of panic this morning when I remembered I had a booking in October but couldn't remember when (raising the possibility that I'd missed it). The next available slot is in early January, or was the last time I looked.

Fortunately I haven't missed it. I'm booked for Friday morning. That's the other great thing about most government services in this country (and others to the best of my knowledge). You can almost imagine someone somewhere going "I know! Let's force productive hard-working (ahem) people to take time off during the week to get these things done."

Or more correctly, Andy's off.

Some bastard from Gauteng, trying to shave a few seconds off his journey time no doubt, tried to turn across the line of oncoming traffic just after a light change (to green). Unfortunately he didn't see the little red RF400 pulling away.

The bike seems to have suffered only superficial damage (to my untrained eye anyway) and Andy seems to be in much the same position. We lifted him to Vincent Pallotti for an x-ray and his arm (the point of impact), although a bit numb and quite swollen, is unbroken. However, the swelling was apparently cause for some concern and he's been booked in for an overnighter (bed and breakfast as he calls it) just in case it suddenly turns blue and falls off.

As usual, the local biking community rose the call of one of their own kind in distress. Hats off to Peter for offering to drive out from the Northern Suburbs at 6pm on a (busy) Friday evening to pick the bike up. And news travelled fast enough so that concerns were voice by means of this new fandangled "voice over a distance" (look Ma, no wires) technology.

The previous entry has been brewing in my head as a background task for some time now, but I finally pulled all the threads together over the course of a trip out to Franschoek and then back via Stellenbosch with Andy. It's very pretty country and it's very hard not to stop every few hundred meters and take a dozen more photos.

The South Easter was blowing hard today, hard enough to to airbrush Table Mountain out of the skyline on the way back. Wind like that is always pretty unpleasant when you're on a bike.

It helps to have a heavier bike when battling strong wind. I had a 250cc back in Oz that spent most windy rides leaning at a 45 degree angle, just to stay in the lane.

On the way back we stopped off in town and left handprints and drool marks on some of the shop windows. So many bikes, so few paychecks.

While we were doing that what seemed like every emergency vehicle in Cape Town showed up for what I can only assume was a pretty horrific accident. We found an alternative route out of the city and avoided the very human urge to do some rubber-necking.

Pleasant run this morning out to Napier for lunch. The kind of roads dotted with "sharp bend" signs every few kms. Perfect biking country. Pity the lunatic:levelhead ratio was so high.

This morning started out cold and damp. Rain threatened and spots came down on the way out to the rendezvous point. But the weather on the other end of the ride was superb. Clear skies with almost no clouds to be seen. Amazing what a difference a few hundred kilometers can make. We met up on the N2 so we could grab some petrified tree juice. Werner (lunatic #1) brought a buddy with who rocked up on a new Honda CBX1000 with an aftermarket nitro kit fitted (lunatic #2). Shortly after that Albert rocked up on his new ZX10R (lunatic #3). Lastly we were joined by Riel (veteran biker and voice of reason). I'm going to count myself as levelheaded (feel free to disagree).

Our route took us along the coast road. We stopped in Rooi Els for breakfast at which point we parted company with the CBX. From there it was on to Stanford for more fuel, followed by Napier for lunch. The ride out to Napier included some pleasantly pretty scenery. Large fields of flowering canola (inset) broke green fields with patches of yellow. Combined with generally good road surfaces it's a hard ride to beat. Lunacy aside it was a pretty good ride.

I think fundamentally, the lunatics and I differ in what we get out of biking. For them it's about speed and daring, and perhaps to some degree the "look". Nothing wrong with that but I enjoy a more leisurely ride from time to time, so you get a bit of a chance to look around. What concerns me most is the occasional disregard for the other bikers on the road. I've had Werner pass me on the inside without warning a few times, and both he and Albert have an annoying habit of sitting on your tail (right up your ass). The CBX nearly came off second best doing just this quite early in the ride. They also both seem to pay little mind to their own safety. Albert took a gap at one point that could easily have been the last thing he ever did. If the car had been a few seconds earlier (and there was no way to see this wasn't the case) he would have ended his ride having taken on the form of a fine mist.

Perhaps I'm just overly cautious. Maybe it requires something awful to wake them up. I hope not. Especially since "something awful" on a bike is very often fatal.

We split up on the way back. They took a route back via Franschoek pass. I joined Riel over Sir Lowry's pass, bringing the ratio to zero. I think it was a good decision.

Today was family day. In the Unofficial Dutiful Blood Relatives sense rather than the Official South African Public Holiday sense. Which was rather unfortunately timed to coincide with probably the best riding weather we've had (on a weekend) in some time. Andy rather kindly obliged by agreeing to a short evening ride, which only served to reinforce what nutters we have on our public roads. Beware:

• German Luxury Engineering braking repeatedly, to the extent that it's hard to distinguish their break lights from their tail lights.
• Urban Assault Vehicles driven by people who seem to think bikers are merely one more test for their suspension.
• Bicycles that just know they can make the gap between you and the car in front of you.

Family day is slightly inaccurate, as it included a stop at some friends who have just had their second child and moved into a new place (new in the sense that I hadn't seen it yet). That was followed by lunch with Claire's sister who is expecting their first child (hang on, I'm starting to see a trend here, perhaps today was a string of subtle hints). Oliver (only 5 months old and already he has a name) is due in December. Choosing a name was a bit of a challenge because their surname (Niss) lends itself somewhat to abuse. For example, Patrick, Peter and Paul are all out. As are Adam, Andrew and Alexander. Oliver is reasonable safe (the best I can do is 'is Ollie Niss which is probably not going to scar the kid for life).

Lunch was followed by a surprise visit to my grandmother. Surprise being a key requirement lest she try to feed us too. She had a lock she wanted me to look at. It was sticking and she'd struggled to get it unlocked the first time, and having managed to then return it to a locked state. It's the first time I've taken a door lock entirely to pieces. It was quite a revelation to see how it actually fits together. It's rather ingenious and if you're bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon I recommend it. It's one of those everyday things we take for granted but (I suspect) very few people have actually given much time to thinking about its construction. Especially given that it has to be cheap to make, relatively long-lived and sturdy enough to deter reasonably determined thieves. I'm more of a software guy than a hardware guy so I'm always intrigued to see how engineers get the working world to do things their way.

Reminds me of a display we saw In Montreal at one of the museums: it demonstrated how a simple rotating gear can be made to do any number of interesting things with an appropriately shaped piece of metal.

It's been well over a month since I last had the pleasure of dancing with the devil that is the open road (as viewed from the seat of a two-wheeled machine of death).

Mandy and I prayed to the weather gods all week in the hope that today would be rain-free. This morning, at about 8am, the sky looked miserable, but it cleared up spectacularly by 10am. So at around midday, having executed a backup breakfast plan I had already committed to, we headed out in the general direction of Cape Agulhas (this being the original plan). We never quite made it there, largely because progress along the coast road via Kleinmond was quite slow. Slow largely because I insisted on stopping periodically to take pictures. Too often I've been along that route on spectacular days without my camera, and I've sworn that one day I'd try to capture it. I don't think a camera can do it justice, but I tried.

I really enjoyed the ride. I felt more comfortable on the bike than I remember feeling on any other ride to date. It may have been due, at least in part, to my new riding gear. I've augmented my helmet and jacket with decent riding boots and armoured overpants. But I don't think that was the biggest contributor. It certainly wasn't as if I was suddenly okay with the idea of coming off, I just felt more comfortable. It fits with my theory that your brain can internalize skills with time alone (although I still think practice is invaluable).

Kleinmond was bitterly cold for some reason, but that didn't stop me from opening her up a little. The road wasn't long enough to accomodate more than 210 km/h, but that was plenty fast enough thank you uncle bob. We stopped in Hermanus for a large cup of coffee and a bite to eat. By this stage the coffee was most welcome. Both of us needed a little bit of thawing.

We timed it a little poorly though. On the return leg (via Sir Lowry's pass) the sun was starting to set, so it sat squarely at eye level pretty much all the way home. And the wind had started to pick up. Of all the elements to encounter on a bike, wind is the worst. Even rain doesn't come close. Fortunately by this stage I'd stopped to give my visor a proper cleaning. There were stages on the trip out when visibility was almost non-existent. It's amazing just how effective a motorbike helmet is at picking up flying critters.

And then to make sure the trip was complete, we encountered the obligatory lunatic Golf driver on the way back, doing his (or her) best to kill both of us on separate occasions. I just don't get it. Even BMW drivers seem to back down, as if they accept that their vehicle was designed to a completely different set of specifications to those of a bike. But Golf drivers, they are truly something else.

Every now and then I need to be reminded just how much I enjoy this. It seems crazy to have spent so much on a single "toy". But it really is worth it. Don't ask me to try and explain it. Get on a bike and find out. Failing that, find someone who owns a bike and get them talking about riding it.

Failing that, just take my word for it.

Having successfully pirated a nearby wifi signal so I can check my mail I thought I'd lament for a bit.

This blasted racing visor is giving me a headache. I managed, finally, to find two suppliers, both within the UK but far (far) away doing mail order.

So I order and find out the following day that they have no stock. So I order from the other supplier, having now delayed the delivery to the point where the worst case delivery time they claim (5 days) means I'll pick it up pretty much on the way to the airport. Of course today I received a note via one of the guys in our local office (point of contact for delivery) that someone phoned last week because they don't have any black visors in stock. Only silver, gold or blue (all mirrored). So not only am I now in a race to get this thing delivered before we fly on Tuesday, but I will also have to try to choose a mirrored shade that doesn't make me look like a pimp on wheels.

Anyway, I'm balanced precariously out of a window on the second floor (of the 5 signals available only this one was unprotected and it's not the greatest signal) so I'm going to end this here, before someone has to try to differentiate between bits of my innards and bits of my laptop.

What is it with Golf drivers? I dropped my bike off at Mandy this morning and rode his into the office (he needs to drop it off for a service but needed his car to get home tonight). On the way back, on the u-bend at the bottom of Ou Kaapse Weg on the town side of the pass a woman in a Golf edged passed me. She gained a few metres. I lost years.

The thing is, I know at least four people who own Golfs and all of them are nice enough guys. Maybe it's not owning the car, maybe it's driving the car? I've never been on the road with any of them before, so perhaps they'd take the first given opportunity to nudge me off the road to my death?

To paraphrase an Australian advert campaign: "Bloody Golf drivers."

Well, five actually, but only four bikers (Riel's wife joined us riding pillion). The weather couldn't have been better. And the roads were quiet. All in all, a hard to beat day for biking.

Werner, Mandy and I met up at the office and road through to Plattekloof road to meet Riel and his wife. Our first destination was Riebeek Kasteel where we stopped for coffee.

After that it was on to Ceres for lunch (and a photo opportunity).

We headed back over Bain's Kloof pass (which afforded us with another photo opportunity).

All in all a superb day of riding, and my last for at least a month. On Thursday we're flying to London and from there we'll head over to Canada for a friend's wedding. It's the longest break I've had in almost two years and I'm quite looking forward to it (although it's a pity no one will accept a VFR800 as carry-on luggage).

It's been a strangely full few days since he passed away. I've done a lot of running around, a lot of talking, a lot of eating (my family deals with everything using food) and more biking than I would have expected.

The biking's given me a little quiet time to myself. A chance to think without having to involve my mouth (everyone has a tendency to involve their mouth in the thinking process a little too often). I joined Ben for breakfast on Saturday morning before going through to see the family. They needed a little time to get some of the paperwork sorted out at the hospital. Oddly enough I repeated this ride almost exactly on Sunday morning when Andy and I joined the Pegasus crowd on a breakfast run into Hout Bay, followed by a run over Chapman's Peak (my first time since it reopened; I recommend it) and then over Red Hill. And this morning I went through on the bike to spend the morning with the family and came back via the coast road to be greeted by an oddly misty vista.

We said our goodbye yesterday without ceremony before getting together for lunch. My grandmother asked for an open casket so she could see him one last time. It was difficult to see him. He was always full of life (even if it was in a gruff manner). I'm very much your classic male stereotype (repress, repress, repress) but little tides of emotion keep washing over me. It's usually when I least expect it. Bite down, soldier on. He would have preferred it that way. I only recall seeing my grandfather cry once: when my mother died.

Claire pointed out that something religion gives you implicitly is beginnings and endings. A formal funeral may be a difficult occasion but it brings closure. I'd never considered that. Closure for my family (certainly for my grandfather's generation) involves a meal and sharing stories about their childhood (much of which is less than perfect role model material).

I think the coming months are going to be the hardest, especially for my grandmother. I don't think it's really sunk in yet, and with most of the family down for the weekend it's been busy enough so she's not had to think about it. But pretty soon everyone will have to head home and it will quieten down pretty quickly, and it's then that I think it will difficult.

I just saw my first South African Segway. This was the little suprise that was going to "change the way cities are designed".

Someone didn't get that memo. The Segway was a huge disappointment. Who wants to fork out a large hunk of dosh to trundle along at a fast trot, looking like a lost extra from the first Star Trek series?

Especially when alternatives include speeding along on a big red monsta.

Funny how people are drawn to a spectacle. And clearly people consider 35+ bikes out for a Sunday run a spectacle.

Andy, Riel and I joined the Pegasus crowd for a Sunday breakfast run to Gordon's Bay. A shorter run than usual, but it was just as well. That many bikes on the road can get a bit out of hand.

The most interesting bit of the ride was just before we joined the R300. I hit a very shallow furrow about the width of a car tire and for a few hundred meters "up" was suddenly in flux as the bike wobbled from one side of the furrow to the other.

After breakfast the three of us decided to continue on along the coast road. It really was just too nice a day to waste. The coast road (round to Kleinmond) is one of the most spectacular roads I've ever ridden and the best thing about it is that it's 20 minutes away from home. Can't ask for more than that. And it's a marvelous winding road with terrific tar to boot. One day I'll actually bring myself to stop and take some photos but it's one of those roads that makes stopping extremely difficult.

Anyway, a picture being worth a thousand words, here's my new baby (actually, that second one is just a picture of some random putz). Hang on. A picture? I can do better. After all, the VFR has to be heard (16Mb) to be fully appreciated.

Eish. Ain't life just a barrel of laughs. A little while back a close family member was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

It came to light today in a conversation that they've had to borrow a largish chunk of cash to pay for treatment.

And here I am on a "new" hunk of metal that cost me an amount that would settle all of their bills and then some. And it's my second one.

Makes you want to hang your head in shame and go sit quietly in a nearby corner.

I hate ...

1. People who don't indicate, or who indicate as they begin to turn (what's the point?). Am I supposed to read your bloody mind?
2. People who overtake in the face of oncoming traffic (i.e. me) apparently under the belief that the laws of Physics are repealed for the duration of the maneuver so as to facilitate their passing directly through me unharmed. I must mount the curb for you? I think not.
3. People who sit behind you and get upset (indicated by anything from flashing their lights to hooting at you) because you're not prepared to break the law (by speeding, or running a red light) to suit their needs.

God doesn't hate me. Or he's toying with me. Either are possible, I'm not going to hazard a guess as to which is more likely to be true.

Mandy and I took a run out to Stellenbosch and then on to Franschoek for lunch today. She runs beautifully, and the low end power delivery makes me giddy with delight. Pulling away from standstill is gloriously satisfying. It has to be heard to be believed. And she stands up to a cross wind quite a lot better than the F4 did.

Please, please, please can we have sunshine tomorrow? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

Well, I just handed yet another tremendously large cheque over and I'm now committed.

I have to admit I had butterflies right up until I handed over the cheque. But afterwards I was excited enough to sing all the way home to bad music on a crap radio station.

I suspect the nerves were a side effect of desperately not wanting to throw away so much cash again. And the easiest way to avoid that is to just walk away. Skip the whole bike thing.

And I was definitely tempted. I kept asking myself if this was really worth that kind of risk (yeah, yeah, personal risk and all that too, but I try not to dwell on it), and if I really wanted to do this. If anything, I'm more convinced now than ever that this was the right thing to do.

So tomorrow, once the cheque has cleared, I'll pick her up and with a little luck, the weather will play ball and Mandy and I will take her out for a run.

B-day approaches. Tomorrow holds the first gap I've really had this week to get to the bank to draw a small King's ransom and hand it over. Then tomorrow evening, I pick her up.

And right on time, a cold front moves in. Today was gorgeous. Tomorrow will probably be good too. But I guaran-fucking-tee it that come Saturday, the Universal being in control of all creation will stand up and empty his bladder all over my weekend.

In vaguely related news, I watched a biker get cut off by a blind (no white stick but I presume blind based on the way they were driving) motorist this morning. As I passed the side street down which both had turned I watched him overtake and give the driver a dressing down. DB1 suggested that an advantage to being on a bike is people can see your gestures more clearly. This is true, until the road swerves away and you neglect to follow because you're "gesturing". Needless to say, gesturing at anything over 20 km an hour should be restricted to Moto GP on your X-box.

Earlier today I committed to the purchase of the VFR800.

A few minutes ago I cracked the old champagne glass against the metaphorical ship that sails by transferring an immense sum of money out of our bond (eish) and into my cheque account. Tomorrow the bank turns that into a pitifully small piece of paper which I will duly hand over to the current owner in exchange for a new Machine Of Death^TM.

Mandy and I took a stroll around to look at the VFR800 I mentioned in an earlier post.

Thus far I have resisted the temptation to post photographs to avoid tempting the hand of Fate. Now I'm not sure if should post photos because, to be honest, they just don't do the bike justice. It's in immaculate condition. Absolutely incredible with 25,000km on the clock. A truly superb piece of machinery.

So a purchase looks to be almost guaranteed in the coming week, and with the one who has dominion over my life visiting family up country, Mandy and I look set for a weekend of riding. If the weather plays ball.

Looking on the brighter side of life, my insurance brokers have come back with a pretty reasonably quote for comprehensive insurance on the VFR. Mandy and I will go for a closer look this weekend and if all goes well I may well be able to join Mandy on a trip out next weekend.

Pete dropped his beautiful VTR1000 SP2 over the weekend. To paraphrase Mandy, at least he did it on a track day, and can still hold his head high (as opposed to being side-swiped by an inattentive motorist doing nearly zero km/h).

A moment of silence if you would.

It turns out a VFR800 is for sale just around the corner. Well, not literally, but very near by. And from the photos it looks to be in very good condition. Full service history too.

And within budget.

I will strive not to get my hopes up.

Mandy and I spent this morning in an act that is probably the bike equivalent of surfing pr0n. We headed out to the edge of the known universe, in the vicinity of that invisible line where the Boerewors Curtain Effect^TM starts to make itself known to spend an hour or so looking at machines built with a single aim: to drag one's sorry ass across the asphalt at a blistering pace.

There were some purdy machines out on display. A moment of near-tragedy saw a young lady almost drop a ZZR into a line of rather expensive beasties. Fortunately the two male friends accompanying her caught the bike before bankruptcy was a serious threat. That would have been embarrassing (to paraphrase Mandy's understated English manner). Embarrassing indeed.

Bah.

Both have already been sold. Crap. It's the usual nonsense. Instead of just going for it I hung back and played it safe only to realise when it was too late that I was quite keen on the VFR.

Double bah.

Now I'm just depressed.

And insurance is looking to be a bit of a dog show to boot.

Triple bah.

Nipped out during lunch today to take two bikes out for a test ride, a VFR800 (the red one) and a CBR600F4 (the black one).

Oh, and incidentally, these are the first pics I've uploaded here from my new phone. Not the greatest pics but acceptable.

The F4 felt significantly more edgy than I remember mine being. It hasn't been that long but maybe I've just forgotten it? Maybe Mandy's bike has recalibrated me in some sense. This bike also has the original windshield, whereas mine had a taller custom fitted windshield, so the windshear was more of an issue at higher speeds on this one. But it certainly moves (I'd forgotten how much power it develops).

Oh, and it's the colour scheme I've always preferred on the F4. I really like the black with somewhat subtle orange-red decals.

But then I jumped on the VFR and all I can say is wow. It's a completely different ride (and sound, very throaty) to the F4. The bike's quite a bit heavier, which makes for a much more stable ride. And it's a slightly more upright seating position (it's a sports-tourer as opposed to a true sportsbike), but since my primary aim is probably to try for longer rides that's where I've always kind of been aiming.

The VFR is also a bigger engine (800cc as opposed to 600cc) and all the writeups I've seen suggest it can hold its own against the F4. And it certainly feels like it. Twist the throttle and off you go. And you're doing 160 without even realising it. It's an incredibly comfortable ride. I can't actually convey just how much easier the ride on the VFR is. You can almost (almost) disengage your brain and kind of just watch the scenery pass you by.

And it comes with tourer like addons: a clock, external thermometer, and a real fuel readout. Until you've ridden a bike extensively you have no idea how much you take knowing the time for granted. It's quite a trick rolling your kevlar lined jacket sleeve up to figure out the time without killing yourself.

Bigger tank too. Should be able to get about 350km out of a tank (as opposed to about 240km on the F4).

Slightly pricier than the F4 (the VFR is over-budget, the F4 is under-budget) but has the advantage that I won't need to get the forks resprayed (the previous owner of the F4 was a little negligent and the forks have oxidised).

Eish, the bike I loved in the colour I wanted, or the bike I should want in a few years?

If I never have to set foot in another government building or bank branch it will be too soon.

But, on the up side, after a morning of admin, we're one bank transfer away from the search for number three.

Less than a day after "putting it up for offers" and we have a taker. He's sitting with a 99 model CBR600F4 engine looking for a body.

I'm not getting quite what I'd hoped for it but we've found acceptable middle ground. The first thing I was asked is whether he'd sell the engine. From the sound of it he's not really in a position to sell the engine and write his own bike off (not that I'm really there either but I think I can take a bigger knock than him). And irrespective, it will cost him far less to get his bike back on the road. Body work is much cheaper (and more common) than aluminium welding the engine block.

So next I have to figure out the best way to get at the cash I have "offshore", and then we start looking for bike number three.

Hopefully "third time lucky" holds true.

Feeling a bit bummed about the bike this morning again. Mandy and db1 were at Suzuki South earlier in the week and pointed out they have a CBR600F4 in. Similar colour scheme to mine. Took a drive out there this morning to look at it. Looks to be in good nick. It's a 2000 model, with about the same kms on the clock as mine had. It's been dropped (the exhaust is a bit banged up on one end) but it doesn't look to have been serious. They want 56k for it, a tad more than I paid for mine. So it seems to be a reasonable deal. They also had a 2001 F4i in. A silver model that looks to be in really good nick, but the pipe looks like a no-name-brand. Very odd. I didn't realise the F4i had the same seat as the F4, for some reason I thought it was closer to the seat you see on the RR, or on the Suzuki GSXRs.

I've given up on finding a replacement motor. There appear to be none available anywhere in the country. So I think it's time to move on, sell the bits I still have, recoup as much of the loss as possible and just write it off as a (very expensive) life lesson.

I really struggle with this bike thing though. I definitely want to replace mine. Outside of programming (aka work) it's one of the few things I really enjoy. But it's a large amount of cash and part of me feels guilty even contemplating it. I should be thinking about bonds and the like, not about a shiny new 2005 CBR1000RR.

And I know the bike worries some people (you know who you are), which just adds to the guilt.

And this is a natural point to run outside, jump on my bike (ignoring the crap weather outside) and go for a long contemplative ride.

On the upside, I think I'm closer to resolving at least one of those life decisions that featured earlier. And I'm feeling far more positive about things (discounting the bike) than I did at the start of the week.

Dropped Mandy's bike off just now. Riding over Ou Kaapse weg was challenging: about 2m visibility, wet mist clouding up my visor, and a lunatic woman in a white Corsa sitting right on my ass (~15 cm behind me). I don't understand motorists like that? What the hell is she planning on doing if I have to stop suddenly?

The ride reminded me of the long Sunday ride with Riel. One of the passes (I forget which one) was one of the most terrifying rides I've ever experienced. The conditions were much like this, with the difference that the road was winding up the side of an extremely long drop, it was the first time I had seen the road and had no foreknowledge of its layout, and I was trying to keep up with iron-butt-Riel.

But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Damn, I miss my bike.

Picked up Mandy's bike this afternoon so I can drop it off at the workshop tomorrow morning. He didn't feel happy riding it all the way out here in morning traffic and I don't blame him.

It was great to be on a bike again. It always surprises me just how much I enjoy it. Especially when you get out onto the freeway where you can just open the throttle and watch the scenery turn into a big green blur. Warp speed Mr Sulu!

Sigh. I've started trawling through the biking classifieds to see if anyone might have a second hand motor going. But I'm starting to think it's not really going to be worth it financially to have it repaired. Perhaps I should just sell it as is, get whatever cash I can for my 250cc bike in Oz and go from there. Perhaps this just needs to be written off as a (very expensive) life lesson.

Feeling particularly depressed about the bike this morning. I suspect it's the uncertainty in the air. When one aspect of life is less than stellar I tend to cope with it to some degree by shifting my focus onto another aspect that's going particularly well. I'm struggling a little to find something to focus on.

Don't get me wrong. I don't for a second believe that I have anything but a great life. I'm healthy, I do well enough for myself financially, I get to do something I love and get paid for it. But these are all rational responses to what is essentially an irrational depression.

Maybe if it were raining I'd feel better.

Vodacom owe me an upgrade, I'm going shopping.

News on the bike. It seems all the biking bad luck in the Universe was centered on me the day of the accident. The motor is completely sexual intercoursed.

So the hunt begins for a second hand motor for a Honda CBR600F4 (hint hint). If any of you lot got a spare one lying around I'd be eternally grateful if you'd give it up.

Looks like it will be some time before I take the streets of Cape Town again.