For the next couple of weeks, onkudu.com is going to be about my little bike adventure. I hope that’s ok with everybody, and I’ll be back on the boat stuff as soon as I’ve got this out of my system but I wanted to write about it, and that’s what I shall do. Besides, sailing is simply a means to an end; exploration and adventure, so I guess the method of exploration is unimportant as long as the spirit is there.

I finally got the tax sorted on the bike today. £15! Amazing. I’ve also learnt a lot of forgotten lessons about driving. 10 years spent being the wheel does tend to make you forget what it’s like to be a learner driver, but that’s what I am, well, a learner rider. The problem I’ve found though, is where the majority of car drivers will give a little way to a car with L plates, it seems the attitude is completely non existent for L plates on a bike. To the impatient car driver, it seems L plates mean a daft young lad on a bike that must be overtaken by any means possible. I admit I was probably guilty of such thoughts myself when behind the wheel.

It’s a scary thing though. I’m riding a machine which I can control, of course, but it’s certainly not second nature yet. I have to think about everything, and some silly sod screaming past rather too closely on a single carriage road with oncoming traffic is very, very off putting. I think there’s a good argument to changing the law so that after you’ve passed your CBT and have ridden for say 3 to 6 months, then you change you L plates for P plates. That way, L plates do signify a learning driver, and not some otherwise experienced 17 year old who hasn’t got around to doing their full license test.

I was speaking about this to a friend who had L plates on his  bike. This bike was pushing 40bhp, and weighed peanuts. It would do well over 100mph, and accelerate quicker than all but the most potent of ‘hot hatches’, but still people felt they needed to overtake the L plates.

I’ve also rediscovered the joy of engines. I used to love working on my cars, but as I’ve got newer cars with bigger engines, everything is just a pain in the backside. I don’t mean the argument my dad uses, along the lines of “it was all simple in my day, none of this computer nonsense”, because that’s a bit of a fallacy. The real reason modern cars are a pain in the bum, is that the engine bay is so rammed full of engine, there’s no room for a spanner.

In contrast, I went out today and bought 1 single litre of 10w40 engine oil, a new oil filter, and a spark plug, and to service my little single pot 4-stroke engine took me about 15 minutes, and I didn’t cut my hands once!

I’ve also had to fettle with the carburettor a bit since it was cutting out at traffic lights on tick-over. I’m struggling with that a bit though. If I set it up to run properly with the lights off, it cuts out when I turn the lights on. If i set it up to run with the lights on, it screams when I switch them off. I’ve opted for the former since there’s no harm in having the lights on all the time. Not sure what could be causing that though, perhaps a faulty battery?

I’d better start planning this trip anyway. There’s a frost on it’s way this evening (it’s bloody Baltic on this boat!), so I can keep warm with thoughts of it being even colder in Scotland. Riding on ice… that’s going to be a silly activity isn’t it.

I passed my CBT today. For the unaware, that’s Compulsory Basic Training. Don’t Google “CBT” though! I’ve just found out to my horror that in some circles it refers to “Cock and Ball Torture”. I’ve not been able to sit comfortably since that little snippet of information was unexpectedly delivered to my screen. Is snippet a bad word to use?

A CBT of the non sexual deviant sort is the very minimum qualification requirement to ride a motorcycle on the road in Britain. It validates a provisional driving license to ‘prove’ you’re competent enough to control a 125cc motorbike (50cc if you’re 16, which sadly I’m not). What’s this got to do with anything though? Why has Nathan done such a bizarre thing (again), you may be wondering.

Well, it started on Saturday, last Saturday, the 16th of October. I’ve had very little time off this year, and on Saturday I found myself waking up to the first day off work in almost a month. I also realised that my contract with the company I was working for was about to be reduced significantly. I’ve neglected almost everything this year; friends, my boat, family; everything, and now I have no job I was hit by the sudden realisation that I had become desperately boring. Drastic action was needed.

Within 10 minutes, still laying in bed, I’d formulated a plan, which I’ll get in to in a jiffy, but by Saturday afternoon I’d bought a motorbike and had it delivered to the boatyard. I couldn’t really afford this bike, but I couldn’t really afford to by my boat and look where that got me! If you’re going to do something silly, it must be done on that first impulse. If you wait, you’ll think, and as you get older that thinking lark becomes a very powerful adventure suppressant. It’s only a split second between living a bit, and having that life swiftly snatched away by “something more important”. There are ALWAYS more important things than fun, but that’s why it’s fun, I guess.

The other problem is, I’d never ridden a motorbike before. Not properly anyway. I sort of had an idea how they work, so set about confirming it with a lap of the boat yard. I set off, changed to second gear, then third, then slowed down, turned around and returned to my boat before stopping. That was me satisfied, I could ride well enough to not look like a plonker at the training centre.

Now, since I’m rather proud of my clean driving license, I opted to get myself all legal like before I went beyond the perimeter of private land, and so ended up giving River View Rider Training a call to organise a CBT, which I’ve done today, the 20th of October. What a great day it’s been, and I’m now feeling confident that I’ll avoid killing myself, at least quite so quickly anyway.

Riding a bike on the road is totally different to driving a car, and it’s going to take me a while to get used it properly I think. I feel a bit uncomfortable and clumsy with it all. You see, I’m quite good at driving a car. I know at least half of you are going to say now “everybody thinks they’re a good driver but..”, however, I am. I’m admittedly crap at defensive, look at my advanced driving license sort of sensible pay attention to the road fuel economy driving, but that teaches you nothing about left foot braking, which is in the domain of my sort of anti fuel economy, oh my gosh life is fun sideways, twin turbo charged boxer sort of driving. In a safe environment, I might add.

So here I am, feeling a bit impotent on a bike. I’m too scared to go over 30mph at the moment, and hopefully it’ll stay like that.

Anyway, this plan, the one I hatched on Saturday morning, my return to enjoying life, is… well, I don’t know really. I’m going to put my camping gear on the back of this bike and head North for a while. I don’t know how long, nor how far I’ll get. It is getting rather cold after all, but it’ll give me something to write about, and more importantly, something to film.

So, there’s a few details to sort of, but I expect I’ll be departing in a week or so. I cannot wait.

Hopefully I’ll come back with some energy and motivation to get stuck in things again.