C's! Continuations: Comfort & Cats (Cats?) Complacency & Crashes

Before I go on i would like to say thank you to many for the kind responses to the Bike blog thingy! Especially Eezo (a bikin buddy no less) for the links you sent me today. Im hopin i may be able to copy and paste a little picture or two into this one, dont know if it can be done like but hey lets give it a go... if you see words you dont understand next to a big space then the picture thing doesnt work and i will plan to get a vertical on The Creator next time we race coz its his fault!

Comfort & Cats

Top important thing for me on a bike is comfort because you don't want distractions when you're riding - some people opt for heated grips for cold days and gel seat inserts for tender bottoms, you can buy thermal clothing for every single part of the body: you can buy arm rests for your pillion that fix onto top box's (the box's on the back that take 20 mph off your top speed if your pillion is not there).  There are tight rubber overboots, kinky, helmets with drop down sunglasses built in for those squinting at the sun glare days, tailor made earplugs so the illegal aftermarket exhaust system on your bike doesnt eventually make you deaf:  I dont go for any of that but i am guilty of Puff Muff's.  Lets see if i can get you a piccy!

There ya go.  Inside these babies you will not feel winter riding pain, your hands are dry, warm, still able to feel your controls and beep your horn at car drivers falling asleep at the wheel when the lights turn green.  You can guess why we call them puff muffs and i'll be very interested to see if the pic thing has worked. 

Clothing is a major factor in your comfort, i ride all year and always will do so being warm is essential to helping your brain concentrate on whats important, you have to contend with really bad weather sometimes as the above pic has shown but i think the owner of the above bike has opted for his/her car as there are no tell tale tyre tracks in the snow aaahhh fair weather riders!! 

Cats:  Why is a Cat different to a Dog in that you have to stop your car or whatever if you run into a dog but you don't if you hit a Cat?  Cat's are bloody great, i love their aloofness, they dont love YOU, they dont give a stuff about YOU, they give you a false sense of security and let you think they love you and that they want to be stroked or scratched or brushed but THEY know that you feed them and give them lots of lovely treats an stuff... Bloody clever they are.  If you meet a clever Dog then thats another thing entirely - why am i talking about cats an dogs? 

I live in a remote/ish place and one of the roads that eventually leads to my home takes me through a short enclosure of trees and one day im driving in the car and a cat belts it out of the trees and i run the poor little thing over... Im a Leo... this hurt my feelings big time, a first for me, hitting an animal.  So i do the right thing and pick the little mite up - its in shock and not gonna survive - i knock on a few doors and find this little old lady who takes in abused cats and its the 3rd one thats been hit on the same stretch in so many days.  Then i get to thinking, at that time i was a bit pepperami on a bike and i belt it down that stretch (complete opposite in a car and actually completely sedate on a bike these days... keep reading these blogs an you will find out why)  What if i had been peppering the throttle on a bike and that had happened to me?  I'd have come off the the bike - a rapid unintentional dismount as Eezo once said.  I'd be sliding down the road, hopefully not into oncoming coz that would be game over. 

So yeah things happen for a reason, a cat or dog runs out at you then you better have either luck on your side or insane skills! 

Complacency is a killer:  I noticed of late (as it is in burnout - ah dont mention burnout dude you'll just get bored of this an leave it you pillock)  that traffic patterns dont change.  You set off at  the same time every morning or evening to go to work and you come across the same people/cars bikes or whatever in the same places innit? Get comfortable with your chosen route to work because you're bored with it and you are bound to get complacent!  So mix it up a little, learn shortcuts, learn longcuts, be late or early or something, drive slower even. I dont want to see the same faces all the damn time - thats why im in this biking game, i know hundreds of bikers - meet new people all the time - advise them on whats best for their bike etc charm the bloody socks off them so they spend lots of mulah with me hehehe!

Anyway not impressed with the blog today but i'll post it... can i leave you a tempting taster pic of tomorrows blog though - damn hope the piccy thing is gonna work or this is just ruined!