N is for New Town#
Tue Dec 31 17:12:15 2024
Anyway, N is for New Town, which is a sculpture by Nicola Burrell, which is in Harlow, which is a New Town. The New Towns were a big
postwar government project so that people in substandard or bombed-out
accommodation in cities would have somewhere better to move to, so
Harlow was previously a small village up until 1947, then quite
suddenly a medium-sized town.
This last ride of 2024 was a milestone because it's the first time I have ever successfully overtaken a car on a single-carriageway (one lane in each direction) road. Waited for a straight bit, nothing coming, moved out into the opposing lane for a better view, dropped a gear and opened the throttle, and the car driver didn't decide to speed up as I went past - or if they did, didn't react quickly enough to stop me from getting past. So that was a nice confidence booster.
Better weather than Saturday, albeit quite windy (20mph gusting to 40). I'd been wondering for a while how much wind is OK for motorcycling - I'd have no qualms at all about riding on any of my much lighter pedal cycles in these conditions, but none of them are fully faired and none of them can go at 70 mph (at least, not with me riding). Turns out it was fine: I could tell the wind was there but it wasn't blowing me around and didn't feel unsafe.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/new-town-244275/view_as/grid/search/2024--makers:nicola-burrell-b1966/page/1
Ahaha, I win at getting files from GoPro : it works with go-mtpfs when you use a different USB cable than the one you didn't know was dodgy.
Would like to point out that my speedo overreads slightly and this overtake was conducted entirely within the 60mph legal speed limit, officer.
Couple of rather cool vehicles pulled up alongside as I was waiting at the lights.
I didn't see the trike had L-plates until I looked at the photo just now. From the amount of noise it was making I'm quite surprised if it was a 125
O is for Octagonal. This is the "Dutch House" in Rayleigh, said to be the oldest council house in England (although it's not been in council ownership all that time). I had to park a few minutes walk away and come back to it, so I didn't spend long here. Plus it was starting to get dark by the time I arrived.
it took longer to get there than Kurviger said it would, but I feel I have a reasonable excuse for at least one of the delays. I was far too risk-averse (cowardly) to go through this when I didn't know how deep it was, it seemed like a bad place to potentially break down
I went a bit closer on foot, and then I said a rude word and pushed my motorbike round through 180° and went back the way I came