"14 stone, 2 foot midgets" Friday, May 20th:
(One from a few weeks ago that I forgot / was too pissed to upload at the time of writing)
I'm fairly wankered as I sit here typing this, my latest and out of order missive (there are as yet uncompleted works awaiting my careful touch), so don't expect much in the way of coherent thought, noteworthy grammar and other such petty stuff - this is from the drunken head and heart, so fuck the grammarians and nit-pickers amongst you; I do this for some greater good that I do not fully understand as yet and thus cannot fully articulate...but when I do, and I can, you can bet it will have been worth waiting for... that should have made sense but doesn't, but who cares.
Anyway, and moving swiftly on for fear of getting hideously bogged down in words of little value, tonight I completed my first ever Mullins to Holetown full throttle run. This was an important milestone for me and thus one which I felt duty bound to share with you. Let me explain. I have a scooter, be it only a 49cc wimp of a scooter, but, none the less, a vehicle that propels me along the pothole ridden roads of this fair island at speeds of up to 40mph quite happily. Jesus, this is going to take quite a bit of explaining, which I'm not entirely sure I'm capable of at this time in the morning, but, for your sake I will try.
As an aside, the sun has just risen on me - it does so at concord speed here due to my location relative to the equator - not in a seriously dramatic fashion mind; not like the opening salvo of a late 70s Genesis lighting rig, but dramatic enough to be of note. What three or four minutes ago was a Parker ink bottle bluey black, is now pale grey blue, made all the more resplendent by flecks of orange tinted cloud drifting off the high ground to the east of me. It's a beautiful thing to behold...if your head is where mine is...which I doubt it is.
Back to the plot. The road between where I live in Mullins and Holetown (aptly named) runs for about 5 miles along a relatively straight stretch of coast; thus the road is also relatively straight. However, approximately half way along this relatively straight road between Mullins and Holetown there is an 'S' bend and also a few sharpish kinks. Now an 'S' bend and a few sharpish kinks in a road does not tend to bother your average traveller/tourist/commuter, but, being a man who rides motorbikes for adrenaline highs as much as for simple transport, these parts of the road constitute a daily physiological and topographical challenge. However, and more importantly, they are an irritating impediment to rum ridden travel at ungodly hours, and as this is a fact of life out here, need to be studied and thoroughly understood. Now, there is probably a point at which some of you mere A-to-B road users will lose interest in a story based solely on 'S' bends and a few sharpish kinks... and this is it. However if this does describe you, then I strongly suggest you go grab a two wheeled motor vehicle with more power than you can adequately handle, and let rip on a fairly straight road with an 'S' bend and a few sharpish kinks. If you survive intact and are able to move your cast encrusted arms over a keyboard, come back and read on.
I've hammered - if hammered is an apt adjective to describe the progress of a half de-restricted 49cc step-through scooter - open-to-the-throttle-stop, up and down this road quite a few times now, and each and every time I've had to back off at the 'S' bend and one of the two sharpish kinks. With careful attention to the pockmarked road surface and an almost supernatural understanding of the swing-out trajectory of the oncoming traffic, I've managed to conquer sharpish kink 1, but number 2 and the 'S' bend still eluded me. That was until tonight. Tonight, on my way back from a night on the 'Hole' town, I decided to try the 'squat in the foot well and lean out' technique, which you may have seen employed by motorcycle sidecar racers and which, to oncoming traffic at least, must look like a 14 stone, 2 foot midget with no head, practicing for the 14 stone headless class of the 2 foot midget world Moto GP. This is a dangerous technique, more so for the fact that it will scare the bejesus out of road users unaware of the 14 stone headless class of 2 foot midget World Moto GP racing, and may lead to mass sightings of extra-terrestrials riding scooters around 'S' bends at gravity defying speeds. And woe betide anyone caught riding a scooter after a rash of such sightings, because a human like appearance will not stop the bastards from ripping your skin off in an attempt reveal the reptilian form of a comic book alien beneath.
Moving on ever so quickly, tonight I mastered this technique and consequently (but not obviously) mastered the last sharpish kink and the 'S' bend that stood between me and an open-to-the-throttle-stop run between me and Holetown. This is a huge monolith of a milestone and one that I felt moved to mention in despatches. That's it really. I did it. It is no longer a physiological or topographical impediment. It is, as it were, no longer. Sort of shuffled off its tarmacadam coil and gone to meet it's highway planning maker. It's pining for the Rotring marked, tracing paper fjords.
The target now is an open-to-the-throttle-stop ride between me and Bridgetown; a perilous journey of nearly 16 pothole ridden miles, passing through the heart of 'Hole' town and culminating on the infamous two lane, Spring Garden Highway.
Wish me luck.
(Click for pdf)