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10/17/2005: "Road Trip"

Soundtrack: Sonic Boom Six - Sounds to Consume

Having completely failed to see Tom (friend from school) in far too long, an invitation to go to his housewarming party on Saturday night couldn't be refused, even if said house is in (urgh) London (or Brixton to be more precise).

The one thing I do refuse to do however is try and drive into London on four wheels, so the first obstacle was how to fit two people, overnight stuff and two sleeping bags onto the Ninja. We finally managed to squeeze everything other than the sleeping bags into a tank bag and bungee the sleeping bags on in a way that still allowed Sarah to get her feet onto the pillion pegs. Time to hit the M1.

Within about 20 miles I remembered why I hate riding on the motorway (I can't remember the last time I did any significant motorway mileage, and I don't think the Ninja's been on one more than three or four times since I've had it). It's long, straight and incredibly tedious. On a reasonably powerful bike this is a bad thing because it's far too tempting to wind the throttle on and get there a bit quicker. That said, even averaging somewhere between 70 and 80 most of the way down, there were plenty of people coming past. One guy came past in a Mini Cooper Cabrio just before we ran out of motorway - I chased him up to about a ton and he was still pulling away quickly. Going round the roundabout at the end of the motorway we saw him again, parked next to a police car. Silly.

Crossing London was the usual blend of insane filtering and idiot drivers. Not fun, but my hastily scribbled directions in the top of the tankbag served us well and we drove straight to Tom's house without a wrong turning.

Having arrived somewhat early we had plenty of time to walk to the local Tesco and procure booze and pies to keep us going for the night. Went back and the usual house party carnage ensued. Good fun.

Return journey was more of the same, with the added comedy of "is it going to make it back without running out of fuel cos I can't be arsed to stop again". Get back and collapse on sofa to watch MotoGP. Wicked.