Valheru Rides!

With the possibility of having to upgrade in the next few years, it’s got me reflecting on my own undeniable love of being the underdog. It has allowed me to squeeze between traffic and cut past cars in the same lane on strategically useful wide road sections while having the ability to ditch it practically anywhere to avoid having to pay for parking.

One of the things that always amused me the most was the continual underestimation of what smaller capacity bikes are actually capable of. One of the most memorable being the dock in Bowness when another biker seemed surprised I had ridden the mere 430km.

“What? On that?”

I don’t really regard 400-450km to be a particularly long way, it only took 5-6 hours because of the state of the road network. It kinda makes me indignant in a strange, non-confrontational way. As if the whole capability of small CC bikes is personally resting on my shoulders and to prove everyone wrong by pushing it to the limit of what an air cooled 350 can do. I’m not sure what my actual response to this kind of attitude should be, ride the M41 Pamir highway while on annual leave and take loads of gloating photos?

“Not only did I do it, but it was on a 350, so mehhh!!!”

Down the dirt track.

I keep obsessing about weight, not just my own here, but the overall weight of the bike. I visit a lot of farm shops, which are often situated down a barely made gravel track, a muddy side road or on the side of a grassy field. I like the factor of just dumping it into second or third gear and just trundling along until I find a suitable parking spot. Can I take a serious road bike across the pea shingle and ditch it next to a tree?

I have a natural worry that a more powerful bike will be less capable than my current bike due to it. Maybe this is down to the gorgeous retro-classic Meteor being such a great all rounder that I’m worried about gaining power, at the expense of overall capability.

So I’m interested to hear from everyone, what could your little bike do that your big bike can’t do?