Staff Blog: First long ride (and in the sun, too!)

It seems I couldn’t have picked a better time to finally get out on two wheels! The sun’s beaming down, I’m sitting in the press office at Snetterton, and the little Yamaha R125 is parked outside.

I’ve made my first decent length run on it to get here, knocking back the 70 miles from Peterborough in just under an hour and a half this morning. The bike was flawless – yes, it’s a little hard to pass slower vehicles when you can only just do 70mph – but it’s performed far better than I expected.

I thought I’d be in some pain when I got here – the riding position at first seems like a ‘proper’ sports bike – but I could have done the return leg straight away again. Seat is comfortable, bars are fine, and I think my neck’s getting used to it!

It barely sips fuel as well. I rode over to Leicester to meet an old friend on Monday afternoon, and between that A road run and my usual commute and some town riding, it’s averaged 99.65mpg. Not bad at all!

So the plan for the next few days is to spend my free time riding really slowly around the work car park, as I’ve got my A1 module 1 test first thing on Tuesday morning. Looking forward to getting it in the bag, but I’m still a little cautious of a few things.

One thing I have noticed noticed today, though, riding with lots of other bikers on the road… Does the biker nod not exist anymore? Or are ‘hardcore’ bikers too up themselves to nod back to someone on a 125 with L-plates?

 

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