Took my shiny new bike down to get the painty bits covered with venture shield at RaceByDesign somewhere near Gatwick - totally recommend these guys if you’re in the market; Guy, the guy who runs it, is an ex enduro racer [that is, he used to race enduro but stopped, rather than riding old squeezes for hours in a field somewhere], and a thoroughly top dude [according to me, of course.]
Anyway, I figured Google maps would send me M25->M23, but no, it decided I should take a pleasant bimble along the A217 and through some nice leafy parts (granted many of the leaves were brown and on the floor, but stop ruining my rose-tinted vista, dammit). Lovely.
Then up towards Croydon to the bike shop to get them to tighten the chain a bit, buy some lube (fnar), and ask some questions about an intermittent orange light on the board took me on my first motorway jaunt. Up the M23. In the rain. And it was frikkin’ great and I loved it. 10/10 would ride again. Who knew?! Well, other than you lot.
Even riding back home out of the depths of Croydon through the hoards of cars trying in vain to escape the pits of hell (sorry if you’re partial to Croydon - just artistic licence*) had me grinning as I filtered out past them.
Yup, I know - a totally run-of-the-mill day for [almost] every other biker, but I fecking loved it and sitting here grinning wasn’t enough so I had to splurt it out here.
*this statement is not true.