Getting ready for the next adventure

After nearly 30 years in law enforcement in London and 40 years of working life I am about to leave the Police and start my next adventure.

When I logged back in to HU I was amazed to see that I have been a member since early 2012 and yet hadn't even started my blog and believe me I love to write reports, reviews, biogs etc. So brace yourselves :)

Let me give you some background and how i see things developing.

I have been lucky enough to do quite a bit of touring in the UK and Western Europe. I took part in Aid convoys to Romania in the late 1990s and early 2000s and have had mostly excellent times but there have been a few difficult times as well and as my blog developes I will tell you more.

In the meantime, like for many, CoVid has impacted my plans. Originally I had planned to spend 2020 with my wife doing some 2 up touring in the UK and Europe to confirm whether or not this was for us. 

She used to be a regular pillion on my GS500 in the second half of the 90s but my fatal accident in the early 2000s put her off it. More on that in a later post.

In recent years she learned to ride a bike but on the Friday evening before her test on the Monday she was having one last practice run and riding home from work on her CG125 along the A10 in Tottenham when someone to her right at the lights pulled off and turned left across her into a side junction knocking her off and breaking her left ankle. I had hoped she would try again so that we could ride on our separate bikes but sadly not, so being a pillion is the next best thing. 

As I was saying 2020 was meant to settle the quandry, 2 up touring for us or 1 up touring 1 up scratching for me and some other type of joint holiday for us. She is a singer and at that point was going to several music festivals each season both in the UK and Europe as well as the Carribean. So we do have our own interests but it would be nice to combine our time as well. 

Needless to say the 2020 plan didnt work.

The 2021 plan had been to test out the various bike options for either 2 up touring and 1 up scratching or if that wasn't happening, me going solo with 1 up touring and 1 up scratching. I would then be replacing my aged CBF1000 in early 2022.

Well guess what, that hasn't happened. Brexit caused some import delays and then CoVid caused the bike factories to close and the lockdowns came, went and kept rebounding in and out and now I'm told that a microchip shortage is slowing vehicle production!

Obviously with high demand and low stocks vehicle prices be they new or old, car or bike are very high currently and no one seems to have any test bikes to ride. It looks like the 2020 and 2021 plans will have to be worked through in 2022 hopefully. 

So after the longest introduction my plan is to update you with life as we go forward and recount tales of touring derring-do to get you al, caught up. So please stand by. 

Thanks