I’m very found of T-shirts with witty one-liners and the best one I’ve seen so far is from Horizons Unlimited and says: “Wherever your heart goes – ride after it”. I’ve just got back home from the MCN London bike show and I have troubles following my heart, big troubles. Because my heart wants to go everywhere.
It all started when we were talking to the guy at CCM. We do fancy the CCM and I had tried to get a test ride last year at the Overland event in Great Missenden but it was unfortunately fully booked. I was slightly shocked when the sales person remembered me and offered to contact me later on to schedule a personal test ride when we could meet up for a ride out. Amazed, both by his memory and the offer, I gladly agreed to this. If this bike is as ace to ride as everything I’ve heard about it, I would very much consider buying one, or two, for us. That is what my heart fancies.
Next was a visit to the Adventure Stage where Nathan Millward (best known for his journey from Sidney to London on a 50 cc postie bike) was interviewing fellow adventure riders who had done equally amazing trips on old and small bikes on small budgets – true adventures. Yes, said my heart. Buy a cheap old bike and find out where the road ends.
Well, well. We went for a walk around the stalls and found Kaapstad Motorcykle Adventure. I wanted to talk to Alex since I follow him on Facebook and his nature pictures are fantastic. Now I started thinking about spending my money on one of his package tours to see wildlife from the saddle – in my heart, I could feel that I wanted to.
We continued and strolled by the Ducati stand where we filled in a form to possibly win a Ducati Scrambler. Yes, please, I want to ride a Ducati again – and live in Italy. When I took my certificate, my TESOL teacher even said there was a school in Bologna and she thought I should move there. Ducati has always got a place in my heart.
From there on we went to see the Bike Safe and Metropolitan Police stand. I fancied posing with their Ducati police bike, so I did. While there, we were convinced to sign up for at Bike Safe rider course, free of charge since apparently our borough will cover the cost for making us safer riders. Who ho! Living in London is ace – why would I ever want to leave, there is always so much cool stuff going on. My heart felt like staying for ever. In addition, tomorrow I’m going to run the Harrrow Hill race with my amazingly friendly social running club – so why would I want to leave.
But all the other dreams then… London was never meant to be forever, just a transit to something new, but what? My heart was set on Japan… life to be continued!
