Soaking up the sun as we go searching for lean
This has been a long winter but now it’s almost time to rediscover the joy of lean
IT’S BEEN A long time coming. The first gentle, golden sun of spring warms the salt-free tarmac, its scant warmth enough to bring my tyres to life and flood the Triumph with feedback. The bike flicks into the right-hander with newly-found confidence, banking at an angle not seen since last September. As the corner opens up, there’s enough grip not to be shy of the throttle and the Triumph leaps forward, as happy as I am, casting long shadows and freed from the shackles of winter.
All humans miss summer: light and warmth are two of our most basic needs. But us lot… well, while we crave golden sunsets and woozy barbecue weather as much as the next person, our well-being also depends on a third essential life force.
And the moment it returns, the instant that connection between road and rubber re-energises our handlebars, we are re-ignited, eyes back on stalks and truly living again.
Yes, we are talking grip — the return of lean.
To the postman who knocked at the door and the neighbour who waved at me while shouting something blokey about José
Mourinho, I probably appeared pretty normal this morning. A day older, perhaps, but otherwise the usual me.
But, actually, I’m not normal at all. My pulse is racing and, for the first time in months, I am wearing tights. I’m also off work, on a day’s holiday only booked after forensic scrutiny of the Met Office’s long-range weather forecast.
In other words, it is day one, ride one — the first full-fat day of the year. And, as always, those who don’t own a motorcycle have no clue how seismically magnificent it is.
Yes, on some half-forgotten day last year, during that tricky period when autumn gives in to winter, I did what thousands of RIDE readers do and popped my bike in the garage for just one night, then didn’t take it out again for three months.
There were times during those dark, wintry days when the bike — by now up on stands, belly pan hanging from a rafter with wheels out and awaiting fresh rubber — seemed about as likely to leave the garage and barrel off down the B660 as the tumble drier next to it. But, in truth, I quite enjoy the non-riding months.
A winter break reminds us just how much we love and need to ride. It substitutes freezing your arse off with planning — talking rubbish with friends about heading somewhere adventurous for a change this summer. How about Hungary? Hunstanton more like, with the TT possible if we book now (we won’t) and a sundrenched blast to the Borders in our sights (it’ll rain).
Then there’s the excruciating countdown to the first day back on the road: the wait for the gritter lorry to call it quits and those new tyres to bloody-well arrive. I love it completely.
And now, as I pull the RS out of the garage, there’s a temptation to slow the moment, to open this annual present one corner at a time. Winter may drag but only a break can give you an exhilarating, tantalising fresh spring start.
Initially, my bike’s tyres are cold and disinterested, its suspension semi-solid in the morning freeze. Up ahead the road looks greasy and mainly gripless — and I am deeply suspicious. How long, I wonder, before I’m overtaken by a bicycle?
What’s required is a little gusto, so I roll on the Triumph’s throttle and the triple’s creamy torque shovels us forwards, bars twitching as the front end pings off a cats-eye. After 90 days of riding nothing quicker than a sofa, the world rushes towards me — make it stop! — and I snatch a glance at the speedo, which says we’re now rollicking along at, erm, 46mph.
Ah. Well, it’s a naked, you see, which exacerbates the sense of speed. And, no, my hands aren’t shaking. That’s just the chill.
But, wow, it has certainly been a while.
Like many I tend to do this day solo, mainly so that all this, plus my missed gears and clunky overtakes, go unseen by smartarse mates, themselves as rusty as an old bicycle frame chained to the railings on Brighton seafront.
I spot my friend’s Ducati Multistrada parked outside our local café — the crafty bugger hadn’t told me he was coming out of hibernation today too – and it’s not just fair-weather motorcyclists making a return either. Cyclists, dreaming of Mont Ventoux
‘This is the first full-fat day of the year’
while wobbling into the path of traffic, are also not at work, likewise our horse-riding chums, back with that admirable, cast-iron sense of entitlement to the whole of the road.
I’ve missed them all. They’re a part of the ride. So too our farmers, so busy with farming they fail to notice that they’ve spread 20 acres of topsoil over the best bends in Northamptonshire.
There’s also a tangible feeling of change — who, for example, plonked that housing estate, complete with new roundabout, on that excellent road near Corby? — and also a worry that our increasingly broken B-roads might, in only a few more winters, be un-rideable on anything but full Sahara-spec adventure bikes.
I keep moving, increasingly immersed in the moment and the road ahead, blissfully aware that now I’m back on a bike, my only problems in the world are an icy nose and a flashing fuel light.
Actually, that’s not true. My kit is a mess. My jacket has shrunk over winter, though I can’t recall ever putting it in the washing machine, while my phone’s digging into my ribs. When I walk into Starbucks — juggling lid, gloves and rucksack — heads turn as my keys and phone clatter to the floor. I ask for a coffee but my credit card is buried deep. “It’s somewhere, sorry.” And the barista sighs.
On we go, and the day is warming. There’s no route planned so no need for navigational distractions; all my focus is on my bike and the surface ahead. And at 11.22am, slightly lost near Market Harborough, we find a dry line – a chalky-white stretch of obvious grip. Cue the blip of a downshift, the hiss of brake and, at last, a degree or two of lean angle. Oh god, that feels good. Where have you been?
Forty increasingly energetic miles later I notice that last summer’s nonchalant overtake is back online. So too the breezepast-traffic and slightly-superior-dribble-to-the-front-at-thelights. I would never take something so responsive, able and liberating for granted but today, I am in awe of the motorcycle.
Five hours in and my fingers are stiff with cold, and there’s a reawakening of old aches, too. Familiar and irritating, they tell me that I’m nearly done. On the way home I catch the smell of cut grass — spring is truly here — and a knot of anticipation tightens in my stomach. Anywhere suddenly seems possible.
I’d love to say that as I rolled the RS back into the garage my eyes lingered on the beautifully textured edge of a well-worked Pirelli Supercorsa, but there is still some way to go. But putting that right is for the weeks and months ahead.
‘Suddenly everything seems possible’