What the hell happened?
- Simon Weir
- Jul 24
- 6 min read
Where has this year gone? We’re more than halfway through already…
I don’t know what happened. I woke up and… it’s nearly August. Where the hell has the year gone?
I can’t deny that it’s been busy so far, though. In January I set off for Australia – partly to escape the British winter, partly to see my brother, partly to have a holiday and then mostly to work. Some of what I do can be done on a laptop from anywhere in the world, so why suffer drizzle in East Anglia when I could enjoy sunshine on Sydney’s Northern Beaches?
After a week of deskwork in my brother’s kitchen, it was time for my holiday. I flew to Perth, my girlfriend flew in from London and after giving her 36hrs to get over the jetlag (with a trip to Rottnest Island to see the quokkas) we hired a bike and set off to explore.
It was hot. It was alien – especially the way the towns along the south coast of WA all seemed to shut by 7pm – 7:30pm was kicking-out time in the chippie in Augusta and the lights were out in the rest of town. I absolutely loved it. Our week was a blur of brilliant beaches, straight roads and strange towns. I loved it, but it was hardly a vintage bike trip in terms of the roads. When the sat nav says “in 613km bear slightly left” you know you’re in WA…
Flying back to Sydney, it was all systems go for the Chickenstrips Ozzy Outbreak tour – 12 poms and one Western Australian fireman riding with me and Bruce “Teapot One” Smart through the mountains of New South Wales and Victoria. When we got to Canberra at the end of the first day, Roy the fireman said, “That’s more corners than I’ve done in the past 10 years”. Well, hang on, fella – we haven’t even got to the twisty stuff yet…
There’s a perception that Australia is just straight roads – and that’s certainly true in places. But our route through the Blue Mountains, the Snowy Mountains, the Southern Alps and the Dandenongs was mile after mile of extreme twisties. Getting to Melbourne, we headed south fast then took the Great Ocean Road – wild and scenic and beautiful.
And then I thought, for the benefit of the Poms, we’ll do some of that straight-road-intense-heat thing, by heading inland to Mildura. I’ve been three times before and every time it’s been over 40°C. Yeah. Two days of constant rain, flooding, straight roads… we could have been in the Fens. Even the locals were coming out protesting, “It never rains like this…”
The return to Sydney was more stunning mountain riding – days of twisties with another day of rain – before heading out to the coast to ride Seacliff Bridge and the Royal National Park on the way to the city. It was a great trip, despite the weather. “I thought you poms liked the rain?” said one of the guys at the bike-hire depot. I didn’t correct him.
Back in Europe, there was barely a month off before the first of the year’s Santander ferries. We’d been rained on in the Picos last April, so this time we headed south into Portugal. The weather was glorious: sunny days, dry roads, great riding. Only the final afternoon turned slightly, getting back to the Picos. It’ll be fine next month, I thought…
Yeah. May. Not quite the Picos trip we hoped for. The week before we arrived: heatwave. The week after: heatwave. When we landed: solid rain. Next day: solid rain. Third day: hey, it cleared up in the afternoon. Next day: er, boys, that car coming the other way has about two inches of snow on top – how about we don’t ride over the mountain today? All week we had the locals saying, “It never rains like this…” Yeah, heard that before.
So frankly I was mildly dreading going back to Santander at the start of June. And, you guessed it… rain. Or at least a cloud base so low that, as we reached the Pyrenees, we rode up into it. Cold. Wet. Limited visibility. Slippery tar snakes… Here we go again, I thought…
And then it changed. The weather got better. And better… and better… and then everyone was gasping that 32°C is too hot and can we get some of the rain back? Not for me. Days of hot sun, grippy tarmac and empty roads: bliss.
That wasn’t even the hottest trip of the year. With barely two weeks’ turnaround, Bruce and I were headed north to ride, well, we call it The North (pretend Sean Bean’s narrating – it sounds better). From Peterborough up through the Wolds and North York Moors to Northumbria, into the Scottish Borders, back through the Lakes and Dales, things just got hotter and hotter. I had 34°C on the dash as we rode past York – that night I had a message from some clients on tour in Croatia, where it was a relatively mild 30°C…
Then suddenly, here we are. It’s practically August.
What’s happened in the lockup?
I’ve changed my bike. So if you’ve followed me since I left the world of motorcycle magazines and set this website up in early 2019, you’ll know that I took my Kawasaki Z1000SX, put it in a crate and shipped it to Toronto and proceeded to ride coast to coast across America (and back to the middle then back to the coast) before shipping it to Australia, riding it around there, then shipping it home (it’s the blog section called “The Big Trip”).
Then in 2020 I added a Honda CrossTourer to the line-up – principally for two-up touring with my girlfriend, as the limited legroom and luggage space on the SX wasn’t ideal for bigger trips. And I ended up loving it, the big heavy lump… As Chickenstrips got started, it was brilliant: 1200ccs of shaftdriven practicality with way more oomph than the GSs that surrounded it on many tours.
But then I stoped riding them. For 2025, I was riding a different Kawasaki on every tour and with three bikes in the lockup, I was only taking out the one that was easiest to reach – the new loan bike Kawasaki… As MoTs expired and tax lapsed, I SORN’d my bikes. For shame…
When the last of the loan bikes went back, I got the SX back on the road – but not the CrossTourer Who needs two bikes over winter? Especially with a trip to Australia looming? When I got back, I started thinking things through. And decided things needed to change.
For this year I’ve been riding a long-term Versys 1100 and I already knew that with three bikes in the lock-up, only the easy one to get out gets ridden. My trips on the new Ninja 1100SX SE convinced me I needed one in my life – and there’s no point having two SXs sitting there. And as the CrossTourer hadn’t turned a wheel for 15 months by that point, it needed to go… Still started first press, mind…
So both my bikes have gone, making way for a six-month-old Ninja 1100SX SE. I couldn’t be more pleased: it has a topbox rather than panniers (more practical as it’s easier to get my laptop in) which I can supplement with a rollbag on the back for longer solo trips or my round-the-world throwover panniers for longer two-up trips. With two bikes in the lockup, swapping around is easy so the Versys can carry on being the touring bike, while the SX is principally for weekend rides and trips with my girlfriend. I’m feeling very fortunate to be in this position.
Though not all that lucky. I got back with the new bike, opened the lockup and saw that the not-even-scrubbed-in-yet new rear Metzeler Roadtec 02 on the Versys was flat… Is that karma?
