‘Not a lockdown regret in sight’

In a short break from the daily grind I read, this week, about a number of people who regret their lockdown purchases. And this got me thinking…

Back as far as mid-january, and mid-lockdown, nostalgia for adventures past led to a shiny Tracer 700 being delivered while the snow was still laying on the ground.

Was it with a sense of regret that the Tracer and I rode through the beautiful Scottish landscape? No. On a trip to the coast? Not a regret in sight. Riding out to meet a friend on a cool early autumn afternoon? Still nothing negative.

So, as the mild summer evenings slowly give way to the darker nights of winter, and plans of future adventures, does regret for my lockdown purchase trouble me in the early hours? Je ne regrette rien!

We’ve certainly been through different times, but it’s hard to see how anyone could regret buying a motorcycle. Lockdown, or no lockdown. HW

I’ve gone DCT with an Africa Twin and I don’t think I’m ever going to come back to the dark side. And here’s how it happened…

I went to Cornwall to meet a mate of mine for an over night stop at a campsite he was staying at. I was doing nothing else that weekend so a 320 mile blast over on the Saturday and back on the Sunday seemed a decent stretch of the legs for my Busa.

Sunday morning, while he was still a bit fuzzy from our campfire libations, I asked if I could borrow his DCT Twin to go and get the coffees. He said I would hate it: wind forward and survey says ahhhhh aggggghhhh.

The sun was out, the road was dry and it was 11.2 miles to Costa. What the AT did in sport mode, to me, was sublime and very bloody clever. Honda have made a big machine that can read your mind; it is so naffing comfortable and a master of the nadgeries, that I just wanted to do that coffee run all day long.

So the Busa is gone and an AT is in my garage. If I never reach for a clutch again it will be too soon. Mark Crawford, email