The End of an Era

Today I say goodbye to Matilda, my companion of the last 6 years. When I met her in 2007 she was shiney, new and enthusiastic (but, as I later discovered, some baggage from a previous relationship). She was named Matilda by Fish, because "Matilda is a stupid name for a motorbike". She's served me we through wind and rain...I've toured Cornwall on her, done the run to the Mill a few times, and once had her going at 140mph down the M6Toll, while items fell out of my rucksac. Fun times...

She's also been in the wars. I've dropped her (in front of a policeman, after performing a fairly hurried stop when I saw him diverting traffic, only to fluff the U-Turn in a fairly embarrassing way). She's been side-swiped by a chav in a Civic, and she's had her tank filled with diesel. The British weather has not been kind either, especially with the winter riding, and now she has a growing patina of corrosion on all the exposed metal. However, though all that she has never once broken down. Flat battery, yes, but she rode away from the Civic, did a fairly respectable (and smoky) 70 miles on diesel, and has even done a couple of hundred miles with a nail deeply embedded in the rear wheel. In bike-years she is well past retirement age (with about 45,000 on the clock, or 11 services, so roughtly equivalent to 110,000 car miles), and now doesn't like cold mornings, rattles a bit, and the medical bills are starting to go up.

Matilda really is the the machine learnt to ride a bike on. With her I've gone beyond the "fast as you can" mentality, and instead started to enjoy the journey more. There is very little I would have changed with her, and as she demonstrated this morning so long as the temperature is above freezing she's more than happy to still be the super-responsive, fast accelerating machine...it was almost if she knew it was her last day, and wanted to go out on a high.

...but it's time that we parted ways, and at lunchtime today I'll be taking her to Blade Honda in Reading, and part-exchanging her for a new bike. I was always planning on a new motorbike this year, and it was always going to be a Honda, for the simple reason that their engines and build quality are normally (and I realise I'm pretty much jinxing any chance of easy running by saying this) bullet-proof...Matilda is testament to that. A recent promotion at work, and the associated company car allowance, has allowed me to instead use the money I had as a deposit on a new motorbike on Finance. Last week I visited the Honda showrooms, sat on a few bikes, and then arranged for a test-ride on a VFR800.

It was very weird riding a bike other than Matilda (simple things like clutch position, and the differences in handling between a faired and unfaired bike), but once I had adjusted a bit the VFR was a great ride. A bit of negotiation later, and Matildas last day was arranged. I'll miss her, shes been a great bike, and has never let me down, even when I've failed to clean her, shown the chain oil about once a month at best, and ridden her in some of the worst conditions the UK has to offer. The new bike will have some challenge living upto her legacy...