When it rains, everyone drives like retards.

It rained today. Hard. Like the Earth was dying of dehydration, and only the sky could help. I was out on my motorbike going to get fed by my folks, and riding along I noticed a couple of cars and a people carrier ahead pull into my lane, the outside one. 'Ideal', I thought, 'I'll take that gap, thank you', and slipped into the inside lane, and accelerated to about 70mph (I was doing about 50mph). I pulled level with the people carrier. This is when I saw the 'puddle'. It was about the length of a train carriage, and as wide as one of the lanes. It was also about a foot deep. Really, 'puddle' is an unsuitable word. 'Pond' or even 'lake' would have fitted better.

"Uh-oh" thought I, as I relaxed myself, ready for the bike to hit the water. The bike nosedived slightly what with the front wheel now having to cut through water instead of air, and I soaked up the bumps with my nicely relaxed attitude to giant puddles of water. The water went up over my handlebars (my boots were submerged to about the ankle), and sprayed up like a storm wave hitting a sea wall all over the people carrier that had changed lanes to avoid it.

Needless to say, I think he was more suprised than I was.

Having both me and my bike survived that, my bike thought that it was in neutral for the next couple of miles, even though it wasn't. The water must have finished seeping out from various orifices in the bike, cos the light went off after about 5 minutes.

Then having overtaken some twat in a Subaru Impreza he found it fit to tailgate about a foot behind me. I slowed right down to about 30mph (in a 40), turned round, and motioned for him to back off. He didn't, so I flipped him the bird, make a 'wanker' sign with my hand, and accelerated away from him. Tosser.

Next up was a blue MG Metro. On a really steep hills, especially ones with a nice curve to them, it's nice to rocket up them, even if it is raining. I was doing so, when an MG metro coming down decided to swing right across my lane, without indicating. Bastard! I slammed on the brakes, and gave him enough time to get across my lane. Fair enough, I was going bloody fast, but he had seen me in plenty of time, and hadn't indicated. I missed his back end only by about 2 feet.

Incidentally, indicating can save the life of a motorcyclist. So many arseholes in cars just don't do it. The other day, I was filtering through statioinary traffic on the motorway. Interested to see how fast I could go and still 'feel' like I was being safe, I brought it up to about 75-80mph. It was a bit fast. I didn't quite feel safe. Apparently 80% of people will drive within a sort of safety buffer. They instinctively know how fast is safe, and so they don't drive any faster than this. This is the technique road planners use to work out speed limits, unless they are outside schools or on housing estates, etc.

So I drop down to about 70, and this feels better. My brain's processing the information at a nice comfortable pace, and it's not feeling quite as 'crazy' anymore. You know when you play computer games, and you're losing and starting to lose your cool and you sort of have a brain panic. Your brain cannot handle the level of processing, and you struggle to keep up with what's happening and the co-ordination becomes messy. I do not get this. I seem to have a level of calm when it comes to computer games that allows me to have an incredible comeback facility. I am the finisher. I finish it where others panic.

Anyway, I digress. Although I get the feeling rarely in computer games, drive too fast on an unknown road, and you'll soon be feeling it. You can only react so fast, after all.
So anyway, I slow to about 70mph. I'm still on the white lines in the middle of two lanes, weaving in amoungst cars of different widths apart, occasionally slowing slightly to line myself up with the tight gaps, then blasting through. The cats eyes make my bike jump up and down like an excited puppy at dinner time. I noticed an indicator on up ahead. Bad news, but better than movement with no indicator. I slow down as fast as I can, but the people carrier is moving. Luckily for me, the car letting it in has left enough of a gap for me to pull past it, then swerve in a right had curve around the people carrier as it moves to the right, and then swerve back into the center so that I don't go into the back of the car at the front of the gap. I was doing about 50mph by now.

That was a close one, but I was pleased with the level of calm involved. The whole thing was very smooth, and had the whole thing had been filmed from a helicopter, I would probably have added classical music as the soundtrack.

I guess 70mph isn't safe after all. I must be in that remaining 20% then!
- posted by Ryaninja @ 6:49 pm