FROM THE FRONT

I always really enjoy this time of year. My inbox and Facebook sessions are filled with endless grousing about the rain (‘In January! How shocking!’) or the cold (see previous parenthesis), followed by endless outrage at … well … anything and everything. Not here. Here in the windy wetness of Cornwall (some great gales so far, thanks for asking), all is furtive planning. Because last year I discovered something I’d not really recognised before. I’d better whisper it, because it’s one of those things which everyone knows everything about … apart from me.

Did you know that several motorcycle emporia boast a café? I sort-of did, although a café, coffee and cake have never been a reason to visit a bike shop. Not really. I often somehow manage to steal a coffee when watching the Ace mechanics down at Ace Mosickles in Bude repair / MoT / laugh at my bikes, but that’s not the same as sitting in a café contemplating the wonder of nature which is a bacon buttie. Or a slice of fruity cake. Not that…

And then I was wondering where to break the dull drive home from somewhere even further north than Bristol, and it dawned on me that there’s a big bike shop in Bridgwater which has a genuine caff serving genuine stuff. So we pulled in there and … and … took a bike out for a test ride and … I’ll stop now.

And then North Cornwall Motorcycles moved premises and found themselves with a great big car park … so they slotted in a portacabin and a few tables and chairs and hey presto! Another excuse for a ride around. ‘I’ll just pop out to buy …um … a spark plug!’ (also a coffee and maybe an egg’n’bacon sandwich, and…)

And I fell to wondering. Wondering is a good thing at this time of year, when opportunities for wandering can be restricted by unavoidable forces of nature. How many other bike shops – large or small, urban or rural – also boast a café, a place where a chap can ride up, sit down, warm up and sup up while surrounded by other chaps chatting about bikes and things like that, rather than whining about the weather or the price of things? Do you know any you can recommend? This has to be a bike shop with a café, not a café which just happens to attract bikes…

If this sounds like I’m sort-of looking for excuses to go riding off to bike shops as an excuse to look at bikes and maybe talk about bikes … well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Time was, I would plan my navigations on a Little Chef roadmap, often detouring through all manner of odd places in a quixotic quest for the elusive hot coffee or all-day Olympic breakfast, caffeine and sat-fats being essential ingredients for rider wellbeing on such a winter’s day.

And now … hardly any Little Chefs and no free road maps showing where they are.

Any suggestions? I’m planning for a whole pile of summer rides, see, and need excuses to visit unfamiliar places.

Ride safely