Gravel rash?

As a grade-one tinfoil hat-wearing consipracy theorist, I've always assumed that dumping a load of loose chippings on great biking roads the minute the sun comes out is a deliberate tactic by local authorities to get us to go and ride somewhere else. If the threat of a controlled exit into the hedge doesn't deter, the prospect of dabbing at my spokes with tar remover trying to debond the crust of grey rock that I've acquired in the course of my journey is enough to make me change my plans.

However, Northumberland would have us believe that it's simply a matter of waiting until the roads are warm enough for the tar to stick. Are you convinced?

Thundersprint 2009

If you look carefully at the bike Hazel Blears is leaning on in all the photos next to the story about her capital gains tax, you'll see a yellow and blue Thundersprint 2009 sticker on the front of her Ducati, for in an advertising coup of devilish genius Frank has arranged for the Thundersprint to take place on the weekend the Telegraph go large on their expenses scoop. Ms Blears came and looked glamorous in the paddock, but didn't take questions and didn't take up her spot on the start line for the Personalities class. Dr Stephen Ladyman did, and was announced by the garrulous commentator as "riding to promote CALM" - a quality in short supply on the green benches as the next week's headlines unfolded...

I'm struggling with forward planning at the moment. And with losing things, which I put in the proverbial safe place and never see again, so Friday night found me calling Carol to check my cavalcade number, and calling the football club to ask if there's any camping space left ("Just turn up and we'll sort you out," promises the answerphone. In a different context that could be quite menacing...) There's also the added complication of packing for an entirely different camping expedition to Sweden, departing Tuesday, and the requirement to bake a cake with a file in it, just in case. So it's 5pm by the time PB and I get to Witton Albion FC, and there's a choice of a space next to the dumpster or one under the practice goalposts. (I confess to being a little disappointed, I thought we were actually going to camp on the pitch, but there's a game in progress. Ladies showers will be in the Away Team Dressing Rooms, but not until the Away Team have actually departed.)

Clarky was somewhere in the Pyrenees, but we arranged to meet Nikos for dinner on Saturday night. Given that the credit crunch seems to have turned Northwich into a one-pub town, this proved a challenge, but we were saved from Lidl sandwiches on the roundabout by the recommendation of an Indian waiter in Knutsford, who sends us to a Chinese restaurant next to Tesco. Dim sum all round, then back to the football ground where I weigh up the soporific qualities of Kronenbourg 1664 against the increased need to get up in the night to stumble to the ladies and decide half a pint will do. I am resolved to be calm and chilled this year, but two guys in HM Plant jackets camped against the fence about ten feet away from our tent have decided that it would be great fun to have a camp fire and entertain the 90 per cent of the campers who don't have to get up at 5.30am. I could cope with the sound of tinnies being opened, earplugs cut back the worst of the banter, but if I'd wanted my tent used as a football target I'd have camped under the bloody goalposts. Please do not bounce a ball off my tent as a short burst of swearing often offends.

At 6.05 am on Sunday morning I'm at the front of the queue for the paddock, while Nikos is at home having an extra slice of toast, on the entirely unarguable grounds that as Cavalcaders can't sign in until 8.30 there's no point being up at sparrowfart. "Are you part of some kind of rally team?" asked the scrutineer, and that did make me wonder what people think when, in among the exotica, the vintage and the truly insane (Haybusa outfit?!) a more-or-less stock BMW lumbers by. I particularly apologise if you're one of the people who would have had a fantastic picture of James Toseland giving you a high-5 if it wasn't for the big trailie in the background. I decide that I'm doing two useful things - showing that women don't have to stick to being pillions, and that riding isn't just about going very very fast - important though that is - it can also be about seeing the world from a comfy tall seat. That settled, I concentrate on enjoying the rest of the laps (and not taking out JT). As BMW 291 said with a grin, going through red lights under police escort never really gets old. And in the absence of any decent heavy metal gigs this decade it's good for my soul to be surrounded by noise waves so robust that they take control of my heartbeat. Being passed by one particular Honda with straight-through pipes felt like a physical kick in the guts, something I've not felt since standing too close to the Marshall stacks at Donington Monsters of Rock.

At any biker gathering you'll see someone wearing a T-shirt that says "The older I get, the faster I was." After a day watching Frank Melling and the Masterclass I can tell you with some confidence that's simply not the case. Old racers never die - they just relocate to a North West car park. I've been watching The World's Fastest Indian again recently and I like to imagine Frank sneaking down in the small hours of an autumn morning to see if he can shave a few extra tenths off unobserved. A bit like me riding round Great Missenden station car park practising my U-turns before my test. But faster, louder, and altogether cooler.....

Small vices...

I'm not the best presentation deliverer - I speak at pace, so 30 minutes of material gets delivered in 15. I can lose my thread quite easily. I click the wrong button so the slides go backwards. But today was the first day I've had the Chair announce to the throng that "I wanted to shout stop."

So I have taken a leaf out of Iain M Bank's book and bought a ridiculously extravagant single malt as a reminder that there are many good things in life, even if today they were thin on the ground.

That's the bike your grandad used to ride...

Wide-eyed child:"Wow!"

Coventry Transport Museum is a place where dads and granddads come to impress small boys with things that go very fast, are very old, or just a bit funny to look at (yes, De Lorean, I'm talking about you!). Potential Biker and I had come to look at the bikes, which were surprisingly hard to find and, when I did find them, seemed to be chained down on steel pallets. The Not-The-Ace Cafe mock-up was quite sweet, but the big sign that said "CCTV in operation" served as a robust reminder that we're no longer in genteel times when the most controversial topic at the dinner table was whether or not one's Aunt should be encouraged into Rational Dress.

Just when I'd decided I'd seen it all before, we rounded a corner and I had my own "wow!" moment - Ted Simon's round-the-world Triumph, casually poised on a podium as if ready to go round again should Mr Simon just say the word. Jupiter's Travels was the second motorcycle book I bought (from the Oxfam Bookshop in Oxford) and, together with Zen and the Art of...they did a lot to set my biking frame of reference. Nice to know that at the age of nearly-40 I can still get just as excited as a three-year old clutching his sister's pushchair :)

Thundersprint the Movie

Just a little bit for starters....I'll do a bit more when I get back from Sweden. (still pondering whether to include the Morris dancers...)

Waiting for the paddock to open...

Cool sticker :)

Thundersprint preparations

Last year Clarky and Nikos sorted me out with numbers. This year I've had to make my own trip to Hobbycraft for sticky-back plastic. I can't have been the only one as I got the last 2 rolls of black and white. I think sparkly pink may have been too far beyond the guidelines....

Old age is creeping in...

It's a bank holiday weekend. I could be bagging some landmarks....or I could be planting up this rather nice set of windowbaskets. Sorry.