The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

The Aimless Evening Ride

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It seems I’ve been waiting all winter for the late summer nights so I can take my motorcycle out on the country roads of Oxfordshire for some aimless riding. 

An aimless ride is so much more superior to a daily commute.  Although I much prefer commuting on the bike instead of a car, the humdrum of the daily route causes your mind to wander and think about something outside of the here and now–for me, it is usually work.  But an aimless ride– a ride where the route is determined at junctions by looking in all directions and seeing which one look most promising– keeps you in the moment.  You are constantly admiring new scenery and looking for new pot holes.  You don’t have the luxury of mentally wandering off.

Monday night, I was able to watch the sunset from the WWI monument near Wooley.  Here’s a pic.

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Changing in the Stalls

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I’ve been riding the motorcycle into the new contract for a month now. The last contract was great–I could work in my boots and jeans and didn’t have to worry about bringing a change of clothes. Now, I’m back to the compulsory uniform (meaning suit and tie). I’m wearing jeans or wet weather trousers into work and keep my suit shoes and trousers under my desk. I get into work, grab my suit and change in the toilet stalls.

There’s an art to changing in the toilet stalls. I’m still getting to grips with it.

First, you have to find a clean stall (no drops on the floor) with a hook.

Second, you have to find a quiet time of the day to do it.

I had a very embarrassing situation last week where I tried to change in a toilet at a busy time of day. I went into my stall and pulled off my boots, took off my trouser and was just folding them up to put into my bag. A queue was forming outside the stalls. This is when all of the change fell out of my pockets and onto the floor. It all rolled out of the stall and into the growing queue of people waiting. Since I was in my underwear and socks, I didn’t really want to walk out and start picking up my change, so I put my hand under the stall and started feeling around for the coins. I knew I had some £2 coins and I was going to need those for lunch later–otherwise I would have taken the hit and avoided the embarrassment. Eventually, everyone started kicking the coins back under the stall door. I deepened my voice and tried to say something masculine like “Yeah, nice one. Cheers mate.” I waited until all of the other stalls emptied and the queue was gone before I left.

It’s not easy changing in the toilets. Luckily, at the bank I’m working at now, the stalls are pretty clean.

When I told a colleague how difficult I was finding it changing in the toilets, he commented that it worked for Superman. But Superman didn’t change in the toilets– he used a phone booth or a broom closet. I couldn’t see Clark Kent sneak into the bathroom and check all of the stalls for the cleanest one to change in. “This looks like a job for Superman. Let’s see . . . this one? No, too smelly. This one? No, someone didn’t flush. This one? Skidmarks,” he would say before resigning to the first smelly one.

My point? Brink back the phone booth.

Nodding to other bikers

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I’ve been riding the motorcycle for about six weeks now. It finally dawned on me the other day that bikers nod to each other. All this time, I hadn’t noticed. I guess I was too focused on watching the road for occasional dead squirrels, deer, or foxes to even look at bikers going in the opposite direction.

This feels kind of cool. I’m in the club. I can nod to the other bikers and they nod back. Well, it’s not that easy–I can’t just give a big smile and nod like Dopey from the seven dwarfs. I have to give a stony-faced, slow, tough-guy nod as I pass other bikers.

You know who else always nod or wave to each other when they pass? Bus drivers. Whenever I take the bus, I notice the driver always waves at the driver of the bus coming the opposite direction. I always wonder if they know each other. Have they ever attempted a moving high five? I always assumed that these drivers know each other because they see each other around the depot.

Imagine being a bus driver and passing the same bus with the same driver every day several times a day. They must get sick of each other, really. Maybe every time they pass, they get a thought like “I’ll have to remember to tell him I like his new haircut” and then keep having the same thought every time they pass the other driver, then forget all about it when they get to the depot. Anyway, it’s not that way with bikers. Bikers don’t all know each other and we (my new clique) always nod to each other.

The biking community is really very helpful. A few weeks ago when I dropped my bike, a fellow biker stopped to help me out when I had trouble getting the engine started after using the emergency cut-off switch.

The bike is great, by the way. I rode up the A34 this evening and was surprised to see that I had the bike at over 90mph. Scary. I didn’t think I was going so fast. I usually stick to the country roads on my way in to work. It’s always nice to take the bike for a quick tour around Newbury at lunchtime since there are so many places for a bike to park. I’m having a lot of fun.