Last Saturday was my annual College reunion; it takes place in the old part of the now-no-longer-College of Education but is now an academy school.
The college/academy is close to a town in Oxfordshire called Abingdon, roughly 250 miles from where I now live.
My journey down followed a now familiar pattern to me, the first break being at Wetherby Services on the A1(M). (Travel most of the way on Day 1, do the last few miles to destination and back on Day 2, do the return journey on Day 3)
Traffic was queuing to get in. I rolled up the slip-road to the roundabout over the motorway, stopped to look right to make sure the road was clear and got hit by the car behind.
It's one of those places where one has to stop because the angle of the roads means one has to look over one's shoulder. I was doing so and so was the driver of the car in anticipation of moving ahead.
It wasn't a hard bash - I barely moved forwards - but damage was done.
Fortunately, the car's bumper hit the end of the heat shield on the exhaust, not the back of the bike..
It's become displaced and a couple of lugs have broken off but it seemed still firmly attached.
The driver of the car was very contrite and after I'd suggested he was a twit and should be more careful - he was of a certain age and probably was careful - I remounted, told him I couldn't be bothered and rode off into the services.
No doubt it'll cost me a bit to have it fixed but dealing with insurance companies is such a chore.
I had in mind, too, that many years ago I rear-ended a Ford Fiesta in almost identical circumstances and wrote it off.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. Traffic was very heavy and at a standstill in places. I calculated that I filtered for between10 and 15 miles in batches of a few miles, The folding wind-mirrors on the Forza make it quite slim and mean one is not worrying about hitting anything with them.
There was a fair amount of rain on the following two days but the roads were less busy.
It was good to see so many old contemporaries from my time in college from 1968 to 71 so it was worth going.
I rode a total of 559.6 miles and I haven't the faintest idea of fuel consumption.
[Posted on Silverwing600 and X9OC forums, too.]
