RANTS BIKES SUP'S AND KITES

Anyone that reads this stuff probably has a good idea by now that I have a habit - it's called compulsion. I recognise it and to be honest I celebrate it - my compulsion's are usually born from genuine passion and in my defence there have not actually been that many over the years. Fishing - Rugby - Motorbikes - Surfing - Push bikes - Triathlon and anything involving the sea, not getting bored and staving off wearing pissy smelling fleece jackets that seem to accompany the onset of middle age and terminal tedium.

I'm fortunate in that I can usually indulge my compulsions, not in a 'Bollox I'll buy a new Porsche' sort of penis substitute sort of way, but more of a £1500 quid MG Midget sort of whim way, if that makes any sense at all.

Charmaine has pretty much given up on trying to contain my disease, of course we'll go through the initial 'what do you want another board for?' stuff, but she knows it's got to go through the process until the possesion thing happens and all my internal boxes are ticked and then I can move on to the next compulsion.

I actually envy people who have lifelong single passions like . . . I dunno running - that's a good one I would love to like running as a passion but the problem is I just couldn't deal with having that seemingly permanent dribble of semi dried caked spittle tracing down from the corner of my mouth, and I'd look shite in running shorts, and, well I just don't think that I could get that horny about a new pair of running shoes or think of enough excuses why so and so beat me. But a new board or a new road bike or another motorbike - hell that's something else . . that's something that tugs from deep inside something . . unreasonable - passionate - selfish even.

So - the story so far -

I drove Charmaine's car, nothing special in that except that it's a VW Bluemotion Polo and it does an average of 73mpg. AN AVERAGE. So there I was beating down the bypass at 80 plus and I checked out the mpg readout and it said 85mpg - WHAT??? The car is no rocket ship but it is fun, and lively and it cost's nothing in road tax like ZERO and it uses less fuel in a month than it costs to boil a kettle, and, I thought 'I want some of that rightous greenism'.

So I started touting my Vito about the dealerships and was amazed at how much Merc would give me for it after three years and 33,000 miles. So amazed I sold it to a customer.

It's not like it was particularly thirsty 27-35 mpg for a 3.0 v6 diesel, 205bhp 0-60 in 8 seconds auto van, it's just that I fancied something that would do 50 plus mpg carry my board and impending motobility scooter and full range of varying thickness aromatic fleece jackets to the surf with . . .

So having sold the van and with at least 12 weeks before the new bus arrives I went surfing, . . . . on my moped. ULI Lopez on my back and no car parking fees, and you know what - I had a ball. The look on peoples faces as I walked back to the ped with a 10' SUP and paddle and proceeded to pack it all away and then disapear out of the car park in a haze of Aprilia generated two stroke smoke, accompanied by the sound of a thousand wasps in the confines of an empty Party Seven tin. Wonderful. Life does not get much better than that, then I saw this -

http://www.surferpeg.com/



And I thought 'Great - but not on the Moped' - I know I'll get a SLR650 Honda single, or a Bonneville, or a Kawasaki cruiser Twin or maybe being totally content in the trouser department I'll pick up dirt cheap 250 Honda Nighthawk twin and email the surfer peg guys and see what they can do. I'll let you know how it goes.

In the mean time and against my better judgement I bought a Flexifoil Big Buzz, I know what your thinking but actually it's a kite, and it packs away to nothing, and I took it down on the beach in 20mph Northerly onshores, and had a blast. Gavin - if you say I told you so I'll run you down with the Ped!. Ok it's only a small two line kite but - it has got me thinking . . . .