My first Blog! Hope it all works.... This one is all about the motorbike training which followed SKWID VSO training in the middle of August. I've started here, a few weeks before I've left for Ghana as this was when it really started to feel like I was going... here it goes!
Turning up to Gilt Edge social club down a lane, off an industrial estate, off and ring road somewhere south of Kidderminster had to indicate for me the start of VSO. I imagined this was the start of many new and slightly strange situations I would find myself in over the next year. CBT in a car park facing what I can only describe as a derelict, 1970’s single story block, covered with windows, full of fixtures and fittings which further exemplify it’s hay day was not what I had in mind. Where the hell did the name ‘Gilt Edge’ come from? There was nothing ‘Gilt’ nor ‘Edgy’ about this place... in fact the complete opposite. With unused tennis courts full of weeds on one side, a golf driving range and golf course on the other it was a truly strange mix. We later found out that ‘Gilt Edge’ was the name of a carpet factory that the social club was once part of. When manufacturing left the UK and the carpet factories (of which Kidderminster had many) slowly closed down, the social clubs remained and are still the only reminder of the vibrant industry and factories which once surrounded the area. Despite appearances it was still in use. Although who the hell travels all this way out of town to drink cheap bear in a dirty 1970‘s throw back is beyond me.
Our instructor clearly didn’t like people full stop and was hard work; I found out he was an engineer and that he has a son and daughter both who drive trucks and that was it. He never mentioned the wife so neither did we. Other than that he was pretty much mute... monosyllabic at times and made it quite clear he didn’t like Liam. He was tall, fat, with white hair and a white beard with an austere look about him but with no soft edges unfortunately. Liam named our instructor, Papa Smurf, it was perfect. Liam had commented on the fact that ‘Papa Smurf is generally pretty nice towards you whilst simultaneously beating me over the head with a verbal baseball bat’. Sums up our 3 days of training nicely. Luckily, we had one-way ear piece communication, so we could hear him but he couldn't hear us. Lucky because generally Liam and I found ourselves using language aimed at him that would, as Liam said, ‘make a docker blush’. We had decided that Papa Smurf had no concept of how to be flexible or patient and to top it off he had never heard of the shit sandwich. Just the shit. Consequently Liam and I found ourselves peer and self praising often. At one point I thought he was going to pop a blood vessel. It wasn’t even that we were doing a huge amount wrong... although I am very sure it was not helping that for some reason (that even I am not sure of) I was unable to turn off the indicator. This led Papa Smurf to say in a thoroughly tiresome pissed off Brummie accent 'Ellllliiiieeeee.... what have you forgotten?....again' followed by a huge *sigh* numerous times.
We successfully navigated the Kidderminster ring road and central Birmingham followed by a few country lanes heading somewhere towards Redditch on day two. On day three I was frozen. It dropped about 8 degrees over night and I felt it. Liam’s pac-a-mac (although I was incredibly grateful for it) just didn’t work, I had the thinnest jeans on and a couple of thin layers. Even my summer biking gloves didn’t do their job in the ‘English Summer' ... mid August. Why am I surprised? We had a good run out to the Shropshire Hill’s, beautiful scenery, so glad he took us there, and to give Papa Smurf his credit, he hardly spoke to us except for a few instructions. I was in front the entire way, Papa Smurf in the middle followed by Liam. Liam might have been ignored on the last day but at least it was better than being shouted at. Unfortunately I got a puncture going down some farm tracks on the way back about 90 minutes from Gilt Edge. This was troublesome for a number of reasons; One. I had to ride with Papa Smurf and two. Liam got a puncture 45 mins later...
Getting on a 1000 plus cc BMW bike with rear storage isn’t easy. Especially if you have short legs and Papa Smuf is in front. I had to shoehorn myself between his bum and the storage box (problematic when you have an arse the size of West Africa). Coupled with the fact I was so cold that my nipples hurt I had to try very hard to position myself so that they weren’t poking in his back, this lead to a very uncomfortable backward banana. Thank goodness Liam got a puncture. He had borrowed gear so, in order to get this back, he had to jump on the back of Papa Smurfs bike, collect the car and come back and get me 90 minutes later...frozen like an ice block!
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