‘Type-Two Fun’
The sort of ‘fun’ which is actually only fun at a later date,, a much later date!
You know the kind of thing… you’re riding to a destination and it’s raining. It’s raining really heavily, that is until it turns to sleet, anyway. Your visor is steamed up, the rain has long since gone through those jacket seams and you’re amazed at how wet your feet can be whilst they are supposedly hidden behind your leg shields. The gloves that you bought because they were ‘waterproof’ turn out to really just be showerproof (at a push). You can’t see a thing through the visor so you’re riding with it partially raised, but now your eyes are streaming and sore from the wind. Your journey is seemingly endless and the whole situation just seems grim, really grim. There’s no other word for it really. The miles pass slowly and the traffic gets ever slower. Perhaps stopping for a coffee would help get you warmed up and more lively for the next 60 or so miles. Pulling up at a McDonalds for a break, you just want to go to the toilet, but you’ve got to battle a ‘waterproof’ layer, then get your jacket off, followed by those bib trousers that seemed a good idea at the time to block those draughts on your back. Carrying your helmet and sopping wet gloves to the toilet and then battling all those layers is getting you pretty hot under the collar as you drip water everywhere and leave a pool behind you. Then at the counter you’re fumbling trying to get a card out your wallet with those cold, red fingers that have actually started to shrivel up as they have been wet for so long. Good job the vinyl seats in McD’s are waterproof, as you leave that trail of water everywhere. The napkins you try to dry your visor with are pretty useless as your fingers go through it as breaks up into a mush when it’s wet. I bet you can’t wait to put that soaking wet helmet back on in 20 minutes’ time, followed by easing those cold, wet gloves back on over your now warm fingers!
So yep... that’s definitely Type-Two Fun. It is most definitely NOT fun at the time, most definitely not. No. But as time passes, weeks later, you’re in the sunshine outside the pub regaling that dreadful journey to your pals over a pint. Even managing to now look back and laugh about it! In fact, it will probably become like the proverbial ‘fisherman’s tale’ as it goes along. It was quite an adventure that journey really, the stuff of legends.
Of course, there is the other Type-Two Fun when the journey becomes a catalogue of errors, disasters and breakdowns. Yes, for sure that time when the rear suspension snapped, sending you across two lanes of motorway to the central reservation with your heart in your mouth and a stain in your underwear. Three hours waiting on the hard shoulder for a recovery to arrive, only to find they are taking you six miles down the road where another vehicle will come and recover you home. It’s going to take hours. Social media allows you to share the pain, but the guy who lives down the road and can bring you a rear shock on any other day is away on holiday. Bugger.
Or maybe it’s that time you holed your piston on that moors road absolutely miles from anywhere, for no obvious mechanical reason. Your mate can come and pick you up in the van when he finishes work… in another four hours. Once he’s found you that is, being as even you’re not entirely sure exactly where you are. Oh yes, and your phone has just 18% battery power left in it. Deep joy! Still, it could be worse (maybe).
So yes, Type-Two Fun is really not fun at the time… only later on, usually ‘from the warm fuzzy glow of your favourite armchair and when holding a beer’ amount of later. The more you ride, the more chances you have to experience Type-Two Fun. Some people get the chance to experience it more than other people, or at least that’s how it feels to you. Or perhaps you’re the one who always seems to be experiencing it. People riding certain types of scooter get to experience it more often. Lucky devils.
Then there is always the chance that you could have more than one person in your group experiencing Type-Two Fun on the same journey. Just when you think your fun is over, someone else starts to experience it too. That’s when the journey really becomes the stuff of legend and you are not sure whether to laugh or cry at any given time. It could be fun… just not right now.