My morning commute.

My morning commute 

 It is not a long ride into work as it is, at most, ten minutes from my home to school. The street I live on has quite a lot of gravel from roadworks done in the summer so the chips flick up. There is a simple left and immediate right and I ride past a secondary school. One striking aspect of this school is that I often see students practising football, some forty minutes before school starts. They are dedicated. Of course, parents are beginning to drop off their teenagers, buses are rolling up and I have to watch out for the pedestrian crossing. I ride up the hill at a steady 50-odd kilometres an hour, keeping within the speed limit, in third gear. The revs are fairly high, but I know that if I click up to fourth gear I am likely to push up to 60 or 70 km/h. I keep in third. 

 Then there is a tricky t-junction; some traffic is pulling in to go down to the secondary school, some traffic is heading straight and there is that irritating regularity of traffic. Either the road I am crossing has minimal gaps, or someone is turning in front of me. I now take a slightly aggressive attitude and I pull out when I see a gap, and then drive in the median, slotting in on the other side of the road. I have not had anyone gesturing to me or honking their horn, so I assume that road users here are not complaining. Soon after I turn, and while negotiating the median strip, and trying to slide in between vehicles, there is a Zebra Crossing. It is so easy to be looking in the rear-view mirrors, glancing at blind spots, trying to slide into place, shifting from first gear to second, and third, that I have to consciously look right and left to see if any pedestrian is crossing. As a pedestrian, I like Zebra Crossings as there is something powerful in just stepping out, knowing that the traffic is obliged to stop. As a motorbike rider, looking left, right, ahead, changing gears and slotting into position, the necessity to see if some pedestrian is claiming their right to cross is a challenge. I have, on occasion, not seen the pedestrian. I feel guilty. 

Then there is a good moment or two. I have my position in the morning commute. I pass some sports fields and a café that I have been to a few times. A traffic speed indicator states 48 km/h or 55km/h, but I have not yet worked out if it picks up the motorbike. There are some traffic lights, and most of the traffic heads up an arterial road leading to the west of the city. I keep straight. Curiously, I often see a young man walking to the high school I passed quite a few minutes ago. He is distinctive as he has a huge head of curly blond hair like some kind of halo. I often wonder about the boys’ hair regulations in his school, because in my own school, that length hair would not be acceptable. We have a bald-headed man who is a stickler on boys’ hair length. It is tempting to speculate on the reasons he is so strict on hair, but I will not do so. At the next traffic light, I turn right. I am usually at the front, as either I filter, or I am one of very few turning right. At this point I have one of my high points of the commute; I can pull right carefully and then accelerate away, from first gear, to second, to third and to fourth. I know that I am exceeding the speed limit as I pass by a football field, but it is great to have wide-open road in front of me for a short while. I slow for the next traffic lights, keeping a little to the right to avoid manhole covers. There are few things more disconcerting to a well-ordered person than skidding on a wet manhole cover. 

At the next traffic lights, I can frequently see students from my school, often heading into a fast-food take-away to get fried chicken and chips. I do not know whether to remonstrate that the students are eating chicken and chips at 8 o’clock in the morning or to accept that teenage boys can have a healthy breakfast at home and then be hungry after a short walk. I also admire the take-away restaurant owner’s acumen; what a great idea it is to fry up chicken and chips at 8 am! There is a gentle curve at this point, giving me a chance to counter-steer and accelerate as I head alongside the school rugby pitches. Then I indicate left and ease down, from fourth gear to third, to second and to first. Frequently, I have to stop as students are ambling across the road without paying attention to traffic. 

Although I have a designated parking place for my vehicle, nowadays I park the motorbike under a set of stairs. This flight of stairs provides some shelter from the rain. The bike is new. I love it. As an adult, I appreciate that it can withstand some rain, but I would still like to protect it as much as I can. So I indulge in some pavement riding, back up with difficulty, inch forward, back up again, and ease the bike into a protected position. My morning commute. The fact that I am on my motorbike makes this great. Unless you ride a motorbike, you will not appreciate the joy of even a simple and repetitive trip.

New Start

I have had quite a change. I don't want to detail my personal life, but instead, I would like to push my writing into a new area, that of motorcycling. In December 2019 I bought a brand-new Suzuki V-Strom 650. I have been delighted with it since I bought it. It is a beautiful machine, with a lovely dashboard interface, partially digital and partially analogue.

The revolution counter is analogue, but the left side is digital and clearly displays fuel tank range, time, air and engine temperature, and traction settings. I can move between traction settings and also other aspects such as fuel economy. It is more sophisticated than my car dashboard. Of course, the V-Strom is more expensive than my car, so that might explain the technical advances. It is a beautiful machine to look at, with lovely lines and a simple colour styling. I chose the white petrol tank which I have waxed. It seems odd to wax just the petrol tank but the reward is seeing it gleam. Another reason to wax it is because I met a guy on an immaculate scooter in Taupo. I complimented him on what looked like a new vehicle, but he said it was five years old, but well cared for. I realised he spent quite a bit of time cleaning his scooter and could enjoy the pride of a well-cared-for scooter.

So what next?

I hope to take a major road trip next year, 2021. Covid-19 has disrupted travel possibilities so it is impossible to make clear plans. My most adventurous idea is that of South America. I could fly to Santiago de Chile with the motorbike, then ride it to Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, back to Chile, then Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. From there, I could ride through Central America; Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Once I have gone that far, I can continue through Mexico. I am not sure about the US of America. It should be relatively easy to freight the motorbike from Mexico City, D.F., to Spain, and then I could begin a European tour. The Latin American tour would be well over 18,000 kilometres and, at a recommended 300 km/day, a minimum of 60 days. Online advice suggests that travellers should add on 1/3 to the number of days, which results in 80 days. A good point about South America is that I am fluent in Spanish though the accents might be difficult to deal with.

A more manageable possibility is a tour of Australia, the big tour around the country. The Australian State Highway One is 14,935 km, but many attractions are off that, so 15,000 km is minimal. I could go clockwise, starting from Sydney, and finishing there too. I could do such a tour in 48 days, or a month and a half.

If it is impossible to get to Australia or South America, then a tour of New Zealand is possible. I have seen much of New Zealand, so there is no great novelty, but it would be fun to see the country whilst on a motorbike.

Meanwhile, I need to get through the next five months, work out what is happening about Covid-19, and make some decisions.

moving on

On a completely different note, my wife has left me. So I suppose I can umpire lots of cricket, once I get my act together!

Premier Grade

During December I was able to umpire a few senior grade games, and I enjoyed them, though they were long days!

School cricket

I have now umpired a couple of cricket games and I have enjoyed the experience. The team has not won much, but it has been good.

We won the warm-up game against the school development team (ie the colts team), but then lost to OBHS and to KHS in the league. That was followed by another loss, this time to the school development team. Still, we have played quite well, we just need to put up more runs, catch a few more catches, and get a few more wickets!

Good news was that my son played one game. He was kind of bored, but at least he played a game.

Uni vs others

I have now umpired University Grange in two successive games; first against Albion at the Albion ground, then in Mosgiel where they played against Taieri. The composition of the side was quite different both times, with a team largely made of Otago Volts players one week, and Otago youth representative teams (eg younger age groups). The result was the same both times; a clear victory for the University.

I made a couple of mistakes, but they were not significant. In the first I called a wide for a ball that came dramatically back in; I justified it by pointing out that the bowler was in my line of sight and I saw it heading out wide. In the second game I was perhaps lax on some no-ball decisions, though I don't think anyone noticed. I also missed a ball that pitched and so, when it was at the batsman's chest I should have called it a no-ball, but as I thought it had pitched I didn't call it.

Rain

The first game of the season and I had been told that the team was to meet at 10.30am and the games usually started at 11am. I was little surprised thus to find that the players were already on the field. Still, I took over from Mr MMcK and umpired. It went well. I did not have too many tricky decisions, though I need to check how many bumpers per over at this level.
It was good to get my eye in and to see the wides and the no-balls. It was also good to be active and to move in to position correctly.

The the wind changed, it became colder and the rain set in. I called it off at 12.55, as the rain was hard and cold.