Telling it like it is

We've got a trip to the UK planned shortly, and I don't know why but I decided to check the trip details today. Both the schedules had changed going to and from England, but the outbound trip was the most interesting. When I originally booked the flights, we had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta. With the changed schedule, the flight from Atlanta now leaves 28 minutes before the flight from Salt Lake gets in. And Delta, bless their hearts, hadn't re-booked us on an earlier flight. In other words if I hadn't checked, we'd only have found this out when we went to check in at the airport. All fixed now :)

I finally laid to rest my old motorcycling boots last night. They'd given me 14 years of service and have ridden on two continents (and one island). Sadly the "vigorous" riding last weekend didn't do them any good and the sole of the right boot had parted company with the upper so I had air-conditioned toes. Not ideal for something that is supposed to be protective. So I invested in a shiny new pair of Oxtar/TCX X-Five boots and will be breaking them in this weekend. I wonder what motorcycle boots will look like in 2023?

I just got back from our annual autumn mini tour of southern Utah on the motorbikes with my friends. This year was a good one - it was cut short by the weather today but the ride yesterday was one I'll remember for a good long time. There were six of us altogether - there should have been seven but due to a brake system fault that threw one of our riders off a 20mph less than 100m from her hotel, we were down one person. The bike can be fixed - the important thing is that she was OK. One of the riders was Walter - a new guy to the group who trailered his bikes in from California to meet us in Torrey. We'd all been told that he was the sort of rider who didn't slow down for anyone and by golly that's putting it mildly. He wrung the neck of his Kawsaki Versys like no rider I've ever seen. Litre-bikes and Ducatis were having trouble keeping up with him, but keep up we did. I was ultra pleased with my own performance. The new, lighter me plus a heavy sprinkling of ove...