Late Spring’s a glorious time to ride. The sun comes out, mornings are cool and bright, and the olefactory system gets bombarded with a range of pleasant distractions. It’s still cool enough that the asphalt doesn’t get heated to the extent your senses are overpowered by hot tar and exhaust fumes.Cut grass,petrol, and the pleasant cocktail of plants in bloom.
Most of all, there’s a short period when people’s windows come down, before they start surrending to the heat, closing their houses and cars up, and resorting to the air conditioner. You pass houses where breakfast is cooking, fresh laundry is carrying on the cool breeze, and nobody looks in a hurry.
Somewhere in front, perfume escapes through a car window, for miles and miles. It’s hypnotic.
If you think they’re out to kill you, it’s because they behave as if they are.
The tunnel monster is real
Riding to work this morning on my dual sport, I negotiated this blind corner and came upon a stationary utility truck (the type with the dorsally-mounted crane) head-on smack in the middle of the road.
My guess is that the driver did this to allow the crane to clear the tunnel ceiling. Be that as it may, it was poor judgement as the this tunnel has a blind entry on both sides:
Blind entrance, both ends
I’m assuming the driver had his window down, heard me, and stopped. There were no lights, no flag man, nothing. Had I been riding more aggressively than was prudent, had I been on my sport bike, this might have been a little hairy; you can see it is an appealing pair of corners; that’s why I ride this little road in the first place.
I’ve been riding a lot, but I haven’t been writing a lot. It’s definitely not been due to a lack of things to say; but time’s played a part. I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my kid, and Summer’s been pretty fun outside of problems with my bête noir, the Pittsburgh weather.
I’ve ridden a lot of bikes; more Ducatis, some Yamahas, and a Suzuki, so that’s a target crossed off this year (I wanted to get a lot more demo rides in).
I’ve also made some more riding friends and been out on group rides a few times, and bike nights have been a blast.
I have also, truth be told, experienced a little fatigue towards riding, although everytime I hop on the Ninja I’m invigorated. I think it’s some irritation toward the lack of any real bike culture here, so riding becomes a little close to tedium at times, and tedium is a very efficient passion killer.
I’ll write some more about this, I need to think carefully about how I word it as I may come off as a little harsh.
I’ll make no bones about it: My dream garage would definitely include a Tesla Model S and a Zero SR. I think they’re brilliant. Electric motorcycles are in the news cycle again, thanks to some YouTube and written reviews. Here’s Motorcyclist Magazine executive editor Zack Courts on the Zero SR. Do watch it, because the remarks on performance and handling are of the usual high standard. Courts is a bike commuter in SoCAL, so he knows of where he speaks:
Electric vehicles (I’ll use ‘EV’ for short from here) generate (sorry) predictable levels of rhetoric. We’re humans: We do not adapt to change without resistance (I’m not sorry).
The elephant in the room is range. You cannot talk about EVs without mentioning range. Zero knows it, Elon Musk (of Tesla and SpaceX) knows it, and the public sure as shit knows it because they never shut up about it. There’s a comment on the video that is prototypical of the criticism of current EVs:
i wonder how long it will take for electric bikes to reach a top range of 500 miles round trip, as well as a full charge time of 20-30 minutes, all for about $12-15k. that said, i dont think id consider buying one of these until there was at least a 300 mile range, with a charge time of 1 to 1 and a half hours max and preferably around $10k or less.
This theoretical bike’s range isn’t currently achievable from the internal combustion (IC) market, as far as I know. In fact, most bikes wont’ even manage 2/3rds of that. You see this a lot; this notion that electric will only be viable when it’s achieving utterly arbitrary performance numbers.
Taking the Zero SR as an example, here is the spec sheet concerning range:
For Commuting, The Range Problem Is Already Solved.
The average commute in the United States is 15 miles Consider that the worst scenario for EV endurance is highway running, the very opposite of an internal combustion engine, because there is no regenerative braking; no opportunity to convert the bike’s kinetic energy back into chemical (battery) energy. With that in mind, 81 miles isn’t bad at all. That’s London to Southampton, with change. Of course, that’s a one way trip.
What about a round trip?
Using the Zero SR’s two ’70mph’ stats (‘Highway’ and ‘Combined’) and a really handy web tool that draws range circles on Google Maps, I made this graphic:
Range circles for ’70mph Highway’, and ’70mph Combined’
This represents round trip endurance, roughly centred on Monroeville, Pennsylvania. This is approximately (only accurate if the bike could fly, and I don’t think Zero have included that feature yet) what you could do without recharging. I picked Monroeville because it’s where I live; Ohio and West Virginia, and a tiny corner of Maryland are within reach, but that’s not really the point. That area has lots of riding on great, twisty roads, and you likely would not use the highway if you’re anything like me, so the range would probably be somewhere between the two circles. For reference, my average weekend ride is about 2-3hrs long, and about 50-150 miles; lets say 75 miles on average. My commute is a 30 mile round trip, so at present the Zero SR would work for all but my longest weekend rides. Without a charge, that is. As I’ll elaborate next, realistically you aren’t going to be charging mid-ride. Not yet, so the range can be considered as a bound on any trip.
Filthy Lucre, Charging Spots, and Kilowatts
The way I see it, two things stand in the way of EVs being widely adopted, and they are two areas where IC vehicles are king: sticker cost and getting fuel in the thing. There are no two ways about it; EVs are expensive. The Zero SR is the premium chocolate in the Zero cupboard, and it will set you back about $16,000 for the base model. You’re going to want the charger tank or power pack, so call it nearer $18,000. If you’re a true 24/7/365 biker, you would experience some bottom-clenching at that price, but you’d likely still do it if you could. If you’re a weekend warrior, forget it. Despite the cruiser crowd dropping well over $20,000 on their chromed sofas; they’re buying a lifestyle, not a spec sheet. It is similar with the sportbike casuals. They’re doing a hard-charging 2-300 miles on the occasional summer weekend. This isn’t their bike. Likewise the 55yr dentist with kids just in college that buys a 600lb ADV bike the size of a Humvee to go to Alaska (there’s an internet forum full of them, trust me) won’t see anything they like either. Unfortunately, those three examples cover the majority of riders in the United States outside of CA (in which the motorbike-as-an-appliance prospers). Most riders would be considered hobbyists, for whom the motorcycle is a recreational toy. Certainly here in Western PA very, very few riders commute, even in ideal weather. Zero Motorcycles have a tough job. They’d should kill it in England, or any territory where bikes are woven much deeper into the transportation system. So what’s stopping them? Well there’s the cost. IC bikes are way, way cheaper, and more practical right now, because…
When you think about it the distribution of petroleum products on the planet is an absolute marvel. An incredible achievement of engineering and logistics. It’s also completely insane. From pulling it out of the ground, to refining it, to shipping it about and building places to distribute it from…all of this for something that is running out.
If that is possible with gasoline, it’s definitely possible with electricity. It’s already everywhere, it’s relatively easy to transport (or more accurately, transmit), but the sticking point is the charger and battery tech. That’s what we need way more investment in, and it needs to work faster. A bike with a 122 mile range is one thing (very much the low end of a typical IC bike’s endurance), but the ability to recharge it quickly – say around one hour – is crucial, and will open up much longer daily rides for the time cost of sitting down to lunch. Right now the quickest you can officially recharge a Zero SR using supported infrastructure is 2.6hrs, but that’s with multiple chargers to increase the charging circuit’s KW throughput. Realistically you’re looking at leaving it for 3-9hrs. There is a third party ‘supercharger’ available ($1755!!) so it looks like progress is being made.
It’s apparent an old engineering problem has to be solved: packaging. You can shove all of this stuff into a car chassis, you’ve got the space and don’t need to worry that much about the weight: a Tesla Model S weighs around a pretty staggering 4500lbs; that’s similar to a Chevrolet Silverado pickup. A motorcycle designer must concern themselves with both, so between batteries and charging equipment (the latter is quite large, about the size of a PC power supply) you do not have a lot of room to play with.
In an ideal world chargers would be on every street corner, on every lamppost, and in every parking space. Until such time, it’s going to be a tough sell for the mass market, and there will be no mass adoption until the infrastructure is there, and without the numbers the vehicles will remain expensive, and to paraphrase The Matrix’s Agent Smith the futuristic whirr of an EV feels an awful lot like “…The sound of Inevitability”, but we’re not quite there yet.
I spend all of my riding time on small bore bikes, by US standards. My Ninja 300 at 296cc and the CSC TT250 weighing in at 229cc.
The Ninja will – realistically – pull to about 75mph easily, above which there’s a tardy roll-on to about a top speed of 105, with my 210lbs astride it, at least. The TT250 will achieve 55-60 with nearly linear acceleration. The gearing limits it, with the engine turning almost 7000 rpm. It is possible to gear down via losing a couple of teeth on the rear sprocket, but I do not want to lose any more pull as it is about perfect for the hilly terrain here.
Both are easily quick enough for the street and back roads, but the TT250 isn’t really suited for superslab, at least not allowing for a safety margin.
If you take a 300 on a group ride and you have a lot of seat time on it, you’ll have no problem keeping up, assuming you’re not blasting down an expressway. On a technical road it’s a giant killer. It’s light, stops fairly well thanks to docile brakes and strong engine-braking, and turns in sharply. At around 18ft.lbs peak torque, you can pull silly amounts of throttle and it won’t get out of shape. In short, it’s easy to ride quickly. Get used to people telling you they’re surprised how fast it runs in a pack. It’s a truism that few riders (here, at least) have experienced the limits of their bikes, so they’re surprised how quick a ‘learner bike’ can run in familiar hands. They’ve just not spent enough time on one.
Ninja 300 territory
The TT250 is an absolute blast on tight, nasty roads with a poor surface, thanks to generous suspension travel. A very driveable engine with modest torque, it delivers power a lot more evenly than the piquey 300, but obviously there’s less of it. The bike’s turn-in is very rapid (it’s light at 320 lbs.) and it feels glued to the road thanks to relatively soft tyres. You can easily imagine why Dual Sports are such popular street bikes, not to mention their street-tyred derivative, the SuperMoto.
The downsides? Going uphill. Street bikes in the >500cc class will climb a hill while maintaining good acceleration. My 300 is okay as long as you keep the revs high. The TT250 really doesn’t like it; again my weight doesn’t help and maintaining some kind of fitness would help matters a lot. Aerodynamic drag, which squares with speed, is another. I’m 6’3″, and make a nice sail while sitting on the bike. Tucking low on the Ninja, stomach on the tank, makes a huge difference and I can’t reach the bike’s top speed without it. Running tight roads uphill is often easier in the TT250 due to the engine’s much wider torque characteristics, and short gearing. On a group ride, riders on torquey bikes will typically eat your lunch when accelerating out of tight uphill corners.
My recreational riding on Western PA’s fantastic roads is at a speed regime that is squarely within the 300’s performance envelope. Interestingly, this also goes for everyone I ride with, and that includes someone with a Superduke 1290. I too want a bigger bike sometime soon, and I’ve spent this year riding a few. So why, if all of my needs are met?
Well, they’re not. More power is more fun, and it’s also another thing to master. It’s why we ride, right? There’s more. With larger bikes come bigger tyres, typically better suspension, and stronger brakes. These usually bring a step in performance too. There is a specific scenario any small-bore rider is familiar with – and that’s overtaking. This is a most fraught area when you’re new to riding, as you don’t have enough power exactly where you need it, that is around 50-60mph with a small time window to get around a car. Overtaking is a reality when you’re on an aggressive ride; it’s a necessity. You have to learn to do it and you must know exactly what your bike will do. When in a group you need to exercise highly-disciplined judgement as everyone else will typically have a lot more power available, and they will use it to pass where you cannot.
There is also the matter of work. There’s a fine line between rider engagement and simply being busy, and on a long country ride at spirited speeds, you can be regularly at full throttle while constantly, constanty rowing through the gears. It adds up over a day. Being able to use a fraction of a bike’s performance to run at a pace your comfortable with makes a difference to your fatigue level. The 1000cc class bikes I’ve ridden have been an interesting change in workload. They are by no means ‘easier’ to ride, but they can be less work due to simply having far more performance available in a given situation.
A friend of mine finally sold her pre-gen Ninja 250 last year, and bought a rather handsome Yamaha FZ6R. She’s an excellent rider, and one of the things she was emphatic about was how relaxed it was on the highway, in terms of comfort and smoothness, so she arrived at the twisties with no stress. These things start to matter to you, after a while.
It had to happen sooner rather than later. The Ninja 300 has had a five year run, and now Kawasaki has thrown another 100CC at the formula (in what is apparently a new engine, not the re-sleeved ER-6 650cc that has been around for a while.)
So it’s got quite a bit more poke, and weighs less, that’s quite something. The H2-derived styling isn’t bad, it’s a very consistent family look now; the 2017 Ninja 650 has these cues too, along with the handlebar and dash style.
That’s as much as anyone really knows. I look forward to the reviews. No doubt the demo truck will be doing the rounds in summer, I’ll try and get a ride in if there’s one close by.
I have to say though, I really wonder where this leaves the 650.
Back in September I spent five days in Los Angeles at the 2017 Open Source Summit. I’d never been to California before. I wasn’t sure what I’d make of it. My wife thought I might hate the endless, dusty sprawl, but I had a certain fascination with the place through the same medium as most people: Entertainment. My perception of Los Angeles was formed through the lens of Michael Mann, James Cameron, and Kathryn Bigelow. Most of the metal bands I listened to in my youth were from California, and one – Megadeth – formed in Los Angeles. There is also something else that’s notable about LA, at least for the biker: California has the most sane motorcycle traffic laws in the United States. It remains the only state where ‘lane splitting’ – or filtering as it’s known at home – is not illegal. The wording is deliberately imprecise as it is not explicity forbidden, and the California Highway Patrol offered guidance but were obligated to withdraw it:
A petitioner complained to the Office of Administrative Law that there was no formal rulemaking process for the guidelines, and raised other objections. The CHP discussed the issue with the Office of Administrative Law and chose not to issue, use or enforce guidelines and thus removed them from the website.
Simply: No guidelines, because there’s no law.
Los Angeles, Sept 10 2017
The sprawl of Los Angeles from my flight into LAX. Downtown is visible under the wingtip.
I arrived after a painless if long flight from St. Louis (nothing direct from Pittsburgh, natch) and slowly worked through a busy terminal 1 at LAX, waited what felt like an interminable time for my luggage and walked out into a perfect southern California evening.
I knew beforehand I wouldn’t be able to secure a bike; there’s plenty of rental opportunities in LA but given I had to pay my travel, car, and hotel expenses up-front I had nothing left in the tank for such an indulgence. I’d been in touch with a couple of SoCal internet people I knew, but this came to nothing. A pity, because as I’ll touch on later, I would realise a motorcycle is the best way to get around LA. No sooner had I walked to the shuttle stop at LAX I’d seen a Triumph Daytona whistle past and wished it had been me riding it. A car would have to do.
The shuttle bus took about ten minutes to get to an enormous Enterprise lot near the airport, and I ended up being allocated a metallic grey Kia Soul. I placed my phone in the console cup holder and turned the GPS app up loud enough to hear, and started the 14 mile run to the hotel, which involved a simple route of two freeways and a single exit.
Flickr Creative Commons via arbyreed
LA’s freeways are huge, and when they move, – which at 6pm on a Sunday they surely would – they move pretty fast. I didn’t get lost, which for anyone that knows me is a minor miracle.
Downtown LA is, perhaps, like downtown anywhere. People don’t really go there for fun; it’s a sterile showcase of glass and steel; work and function. There’s the occasional panhandler. In this sense it is barely distinguishable from London’s Square Mile, Manhattan’s financial district, or the relatively diminutive Pittsburgh Golden Triangle. Like NYC, there’s a strange familiarity with place names, because you’ve heard them before from books and film. South Figueroa, Sunset, Wilshire, South Union…
I was booked into the J.W. Marriott Live, which adjoins the much taller Ritz Carlton on the western edge of downtown LA. It also happened to be the conference venue.
J.W. Marriot Live, LA.
I used the gym and swam 50 lengths in the pool I had a burger and a couple of pints for dinner ($50!!!) as part of my highly disciplined healthy lifestyle, took a couple of photos from my hotel window while tired and buzzed, and soaked in the atmosphere from the view below.
The view from my hotel room
Feeling the effects of dinner and a long day’s travel, I rolled into bed and settled into a fitful sleep.
Out And About
Daybreak from my hotel room
As it turned out, I would have two full afternoons to explore LA. I wanted to see the ocean; and I knew going west would take me through most of the urban sprawl, so I intentionally avoided the freeway. The city has a nearly total grid system (unlike Pittsburgh, which was designed by M.C. Esher) so you could pick up a half-dozen roads anywhere within a block of the hotel and follow them all the way to Santa Monica on the sea front. I chose Sunset Boulevard because I knew the name and thought it might be interesting. This route would take me through Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades, and eventually Malibu, so I hoped to see a range of neighbourhoods, although this is still a small fraction of the total sprawl.
Most of what I visited outside of the moneyed areas is dusty and slightly shabby, which was as I expected. It reminded me of some mediterranean industrial towns: Shades of magnolia and grey, lots of low-lying concrete buildings and iron railings, mom & pop convenience stores, fast food outlets, automotive shops and wide, heavily-trafficked roads. None of it was particularly alien to my eyes, but entirely different to everywhere else that I had visited in the US. The heat and light gives it a distinct atmosphere from the East Coast. You’re in the entertainment capital of the world, but you wouldn’t know it in the midst of the sprawl. It feels like and industrial town.
Suddenly the sidewalks get cleaner, the grass is conspicuously lush and cultivated (remember that this area was only just in drought conditions) and you’re in Beverly Hills. In truth, from the road there’s not a lot to see. It’s all tidy sidewalks, gated entrances and whitewashed walls under the shade of palm trees. The cars get more expensive, but there’s little character to the place. Pacific Palisades is easier on the eye, and there’s some fantastic architecture at some of the properties (sadly I could not get pictures) and some elevation changes as it is at the foot of the mountains. This area reminded me a lot of the wealthier parts of Capetown, up in the hills. I kept thinking this would be a cool place to cruise about on a Harley.
I took a quick detour through Santa Monica. It is like any city pierside scene; chintzy, seedy stalls cheek by jowel with more moneyed joints. It didn’t feel a great deal different to Atlantic City in New Jersey. The colour palette gradually changes from industrial concrete to whitewashed apartment buildings and houses, and after a short run you pick up CA-1: The Pacific Coast Highway.
The PCH takes you through Topanga Beach, which feels a little run-down and shabby, but has a certain charm. In Malibu I stopped for lunch at a ‘Country Kitchen’ (a chain) and enjoyed my coke & fries and taking in the atmosphere, listening to the Spanish chatter from the larder compete with the radio. There was the road and some villas between me and the ocean, but I got a little sea air. It was terrific, and I could have stayed there all day.
Topanga Beach fishermanTopanga Beach, Santa Monica in the background
I knew Mulholland Highway (‘The Snake’, of some notoriety to bikers) wasn’t too far up the road, and I really wanted to see some of the famous canyon twisties, but both days would see me pressed for time. I drove up one of the roads off the beach near Malibu and enjoyed the view:
The pacific ocean from Big Rock Drive in the mighty Kia Soul
Malibu itself is obviously wealthy, I recall thinking of my Dad because it all reminded me of Marbella in Southern Spain; whitewashed villas, immaculate lawns set above a bright blue ocean, and that is a place I have only been with him.
Traffic
I decided to take the highway back. It was about 4pm. This would turn out to be very poor judgement. LA’s traffic has a reputation, and it is well deserved. It’s absolutely absurd, and the end result is that getting across town on highway 10 took me almost two hours.
This was my view for a couple of hours.
This was the real evidence for me that bikes were of the utmost practicality. Time and again I would hear the rumble of a Harley, or the creamy, reedy vibe of an inline-four and watch helplessly as bike after bike whizzed past.
As for LA, I really enjoyed it, and developed a certain fondness for the place. I definitely want to see more of it, and as the last day rolled over I was determined that I would come back when I can. Would I live there? That’s a big if. Who knows what’s around the corner?
On the third of January 2006, I came home from work to find SG in what would be the finale in a long line of sulks. On pressing what was wrong, she told me she thought we should split up. We’d been together seven years. We’d shared this house in Calmore since September.
It had been less than a year since the death of my mum. When one of the worst possible things in your life happens to you, the premature loss of a loved one over an excruciatingly slow and painful period of time, things change in you. I am not saying I am over it, because I don’t think I ever will be, but getting through this had changed something in me. Hardness and perspective. I felt like I’d been battered into some of other form. If I could get through that…
I decided to go quietly. There was no sense in friction as this had been coming for a while. I can’t say I wasn’t upset, because this had been half of my twenties seemingly down the drain, but deep down, I didn’t truly see it that way.
I was good friends with my colleague Nick by this time, and short term he let me stay at his digs in town just a street off from Bedford Place. Nick, on his good days, always knew what to do. He took me out to lunch and we had some chips and a pint as I lamented things. Just then, Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ came on the jukebox, and we both burst out laughing, because it reminded us of this:
Nick, It turned out, would have to vacate his current place as the landlord decided to renovate and/or sell up (I don’t remember the details). We would look for a place together.
There was a friend on the Eastern side of the Itchen River Nick wanted to be close to. We looked at one or two places, but this whole area was Mordor to me, I didn’t like it, too far out, involved a bridge, and orcs (probably). I wanted to be close to Work and the city. We eventually settled on a little rental on Avenue Rd, a very short distance from my last house with the gang on Middle St. SO14 had pulled me back in.
All but two of my addresses up to this time were in that same square mile. I can’t explain why, and there would be two more during my time in Southampton.
The snag was, this place would not be available until February 15th. I would be at the house in Calmore until that time, and we’d just have to deal with it. Six weeks. It sounds awful, but actually it wasn’t bad, SG was out frequently with her mates and the bloke she didn’t know that I knew she was seeing. I didn’t particularly mind. What difference does it make? She would be out on holiday for a week during the day of the move.
I was getting on with my HNC and completed the first module, and was surprised how well I took to the academic side. I found I could sit down and sweat out study for hours on end if I needed to, which was revelatory to me.
Moving day came around, and Nick recruited his cousin George (I had a lot of time for George) and a Sprinter van from SixT (why do I remember this shit?). I realized I actually owned very, very little, which made things easy. It was about an eight mile shuttle between Calmore and the new place, and we did it in one trip. We did not, however, have room for my bicycle, a Halfords heavy old thing which had kept me sane in Calmore. I decided to leave it and collect it later (editor’s note: never). I’d also left my ironing board, which would be returned to me during a puzzling reunion with SG a bit later.
We emptied the van and headed to Nick’s, and after collecting what I estimate was about 300 tonnes of comics and the rest of Nick’s stuff, slammed the van door shut and headed to Avenue Road.
That evening, I remember looking out just after sundown at the melancholy blue light on the dusty roofs of the houses opposite, and having this sinking feeling of starting all over again, back here in that same square mile, like a giant fucking loser. It was odd and left me feeling quite low. The mood was gone by morning, and never came back.
80 Avenue Road was a small, two bedroom house with a garden. I was sharing it with Nick and his Dalmatian, Anya. I came to absolutely adore that dog, she was such a character. The house was unfurnished, we had very little stuff, and this minimalist setup (front room was a TV and futon) would remain for the duration. I even had to buy a bed, but I had my desk, shelves, and a basic chest of drawers. I made it work. Money was still tight at this time, and living in the city meant much higher rent, but the tradeoff would be worth it.
Nick, from his time managing the local comics destination, seemed to know half of Southampton. I met an incredible number of people through his network of acquaintances and the Friday evenings in Goblets (long gone, sadly) were a highlight for me.
About two weeks after moving in, I got a cryptic text message from my ex SG, telling me she needed to meet in person for some very important news. I had a brief moment of panic wondering if she was pregnant (it was possible), as did Nick, whom I had of course immediately shared the text with.
It turned out the purpose of the meeting was twofold: Firstly, I needed to know she had met someone – she considered it important because she believed that I thought it possible we could get back together, oh, and here’s your ironing board. Okay.
None of it was anything I didn’t already know, I was completely over it by this point. There is obviously more to all of this – there always is – but my dad told me once that it doesn’t do to dwell on these things, so I took his advice and moved on. I wished her luck and asked that I be allowed to get on with my life, no more texts, chats, or any of that. And that was that. I would never see her again.
I have nothing but good memories of Spring in that house. Carefree sunny days, dog walks on Southampton’s spacious common, sitting in the garden on the rickety lawn chairs. I don’t remember much about work, because it was all routine at this point. It was a 2 mile walk there and back, and I lost a bunch of weight, not least because I’d regressed to a decidedly student diet of beans on toast, and various pasta creations. Weekends I’d splash out on a kebab from Lodge Road, or – if I’d just been paid – the hallowed Chinese takeaway feast.
I’d spend long hours sitting with Nick watching LOST (red hot TV at the time) and the excellent reboot of Battlestar Galactica, or sometimes watching him noodle about on the Xbox, with the ubiquitous can of Fosters in my hand (4 for a fiver from the corner shop!). I reconnected with my older sister in London, and started going up there regularly on my weekends. I had started to see a wider world, one I could maybe be part of. I was single, debt free, and could do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted. When you’re 32, that’s a superpower. I toyed with the idea of going to London in the future, but never that seriously. Nothing was keeping me in Southampton.
Our friend Stacey came to visit our house at Easter. She was the daughter of one of the library staff, and I’d spend many work lunchtimes with her. It is safe to say I had no small feeling towards Stacey, but she always seemed to have a boyfriend or something going on. She had bags of charm, and had that quality of treating you like you were the only person on earth, on the occasions you got her attention. Nick was of course greatly amused by it all, and gently ribbed me whenever she visited, although he was kind about the clearly unrequited nature of it. She stayed very late after one night after an evening out, and we of course didn’t have anything to eat, but she had previously spied my Lindt Chocolate easter treat in the fridge, and demanded that. That was Stacey to a tee. Stole my heart and my chocolate bunny. We’re still in touch.
Summer Brought in a change of mood and tempo. Nick had met the person he would eventually marry, and I was spending lots of time with Alexandra, a recently-divorced colleague that I had developed an on/off thing with. She was from Northallerton so of course I liked her. I was still very carefree and didnt care that it was nothing serious, but I liked spending time with her. She was highly intelligent (a mathematics graduate and trained teacher) and seemingly very sorted out. She’d bought her own flat at 23 (miraculous given the housing market at that time), got married young, and had it all fall apart on her. I just liked being around her, but she had some latent, severe mental health issues I would come to see in time.
Out of the blue, my younger sister got in touch and asked me if I fancied a trip to New York with her. She’d pay. I could not believe it. This was an act of incredible generosity – there is no way I could otherwise have afforded it – and we would go for a few days in July. I went up to London to stay with her prior to departure.
What followed was five perfect days in the Big Apple. I loved every second of it. The city was all I had thought it would be, Paris being the only other place I’d been that really delivers what you expect of it. There was a heatwave but it didn’t slow us down. It was pivotal for me, it created a spark in my head that life could be so much more. There’s an electric, thumping can-do attitude that seems to crackle in the streets. This markedly positive first impression of America would play a big part in what came later.
Times Square, by me
I came back, utterly exhausted, feeling a bit like NYC had thoroughly had its way with me (it had) and got the National Express back to Southampton.
I was late completing my HNC. the new, compressed format of the course had meant some reorganisation of of the delivery and subsequently deadlines, and it wasn’t yet critical, but I had to get it done before July ended. It felt like the last mile of a marathon (not that I’d know…) but I got it in just under the wire.
I’d started to recognize some issues in Alex. She would periodically keep me at an arm’s length, but when she wanted me around she was aggressive about it. I went out for her birthday, and she introduced me to her friends, not as a partner, not even as a friend, but as a colleague.
I remember telling myself there was no point putting myself through this, it just didn’t fit my low-drag lifestyle I presently enjoyed, so I told Alex I’d be stepping back and letting things cool for a bit. This was fine, for a time. Until it wasn’t.
Days later she ordered a cab to collect me at 2am after I’d told her I didn’t want to see her, followed by a torrent of abuse on the phone. When that didn’t work, she responded with threats of self-harm. I didn’t bite, and kept my distance. I told P about this, who had plenty of professional experience at the sharp end of mental health support work. He told me to block her number and change my locks. P knew what he was talking about and I took his opinions seriously. I stayed away. Not long after, she didn’t turn up at work, and it turned out she had taken an overdose while previously at the office, and they’d put her on paid leave. Whatever contact I had with her would always end in the same way – late night phone calls and erratic behaviour. Eventually she changed jobs and I heard she was working in Basingstoke, had been put on anti-psychotics and seemed to be doing well.
We lost touch, but much later on, in 2009 a mutual friend informed me she had returned home to Northallerton at some point, and had subsequently taken her own life. I was shocked, but not completely surprised. On her day she was an amazing person, someone I loved being around, but there’s a terribly high price for untreated (and she’d implied she’d resisted help for years) mental health problems, and when it came out, it consumed her.
Between Christmas and New year I would see P for the first time since the previous December. I travelled up to his new home in Hertfordshire, and spent the break there. This would set a pattern, as I don’t remember P ever coming South again.
It had been a decade since my first set of visits to Southampton from York.
January 2007 would kick off another period of big changes. It would see me back in another relationship, a change of occupation to the profession I am still in now, and start the final chapters of my time in Southampton. I would leave the country within five years, but I didn’t know any of that yet.
I had quietly – and by my standards calmly – calculated that I needed to move on from City College. As detailed previously, while Fred was around, I had no prospects, and I had resolved to start shopping around for a career in information technology. I’d take whatever I could get. I was on my fifth boss by this time at SCC, could practically do the job in my sleep (some would argue I did..), and I had the sinking feeling the department wasn’t going to last (and it didn’t…) The amount of managers that had been thrown at us was not a good sign. They were all put there on their way to something else – nobody wanted it. We were also charging more and more money, a sign funding was drying up. I’d been around long enough to see the writing on the wall.
Around this time I met Alice, a vocational student that on completion of her IT skills course, asked me out for a drink. I was a bit taken aback, this didn’t usually happen to me. Alice was a perennially serious Polish expat (Southampton having a huge Polish population since joining the EU in 2004) and she was definitely the right person at the right time, seeing more in me than the low-drag lifestyle I’d sort of lazily eased into. She civilized me a bit.
In February I spotted a job opening at Solent University, for an IT technician in the business school. Solent was the new name for Southampton Institute, which had achieved university status in 2005. I’d applied to Solent previously (I think it was a library job) with little success, but this time I reckoned I’d found a good score.
I took the risky step of contacting the administrator (named in the job posting) to introduce myself, and asked if it would be worth applying, given my lack of experience. I would never do such a thing now, but at the time I remember thinking they might remember my name and show me a little sunshine. She was very nice about it, probably thought I was a bit of a wanker, but It gave me some cheer.
I applied, interviewed with John Ince (Senior management at SBS), Nick (who managed the main campus IT operations), and Malcolm, a faculty member. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone over, but I really liked Nick, and I’d given it my best. The biggest obstacle was despite having the right ticket I did not have direct experience – I know from recruiting in my present world how this can be a problem for applicants. Usually they just don’t stack up. I left just as another candidate stepped into the interview room, and kept my fingers crossed.
I got the job. My foot was in the door at Solent, a growing organization, and it was doing work I was interested in. I don’t think it can be overstated how much that job would come to mean for me. If you were to imagine a pretty much perfect support tech job, this was it. I’d be largely responsible for myself, had all the resources I would need, and was encouraged to learn.
I handed in my notice at City College. They had been good to me over the 3.5 years I’d been there, but I knew it was time to go. I would see Fred quite a bit over the next few years (usually passing on his bicycle) and there were no hard feelings, but to me this was a lesson in how not to treat staff. If you fuck people about, they’ll just leave. And tell their friends. My housemate Nick would follow me to Solent about a year later. It was a complete coincidence, but migration of staff between neighbouring educational institutions is pretty common.
I had my own office. it was a nice little perk. It overlooked the quad between the canteen and the library. It was great being at a university; there’s an energy from the kids that creates its own atmosphere; I still enjoy it today. I was one of three techs assigned to the different schools of the university, we all worked independently and ran our own little fiefdoms, with escalation support from the central office when needed. I was in a corridor of lecturers, and the place wouldn’t have won any prizes for modernity, but it was cozy, especially when filled with cardboard boxes of toner and computers. My immediate neighbors were Stewart and Matt, the sports science guys who paraded around in football kit and were clearly living the dream, and Bryn, who would talk at enormous and occasionally exhausting length about any subject. If you were procrastinating and wanted an excuse, go find Bryn.
Most work came from supporting the administrative offices, which were scattered about the building, but the most concentrated was a large open-plan room on the main business school floor. Everyone was great. My whole time at Solent was marked by the notable fact that I did not encounter a single person I disliked. I don’t know if the feeling was mutual, but they’re not writing this.
Shortly after I started I got a pretty big bump in pay, as HR had done some kind of calibration exercise to bring salaries in line with the rest of the sector, nationally. This study concluded the university underpaid us (and quite amusingly, HR themselves, of course). For the first time in my adult life, I was making some decent money. My dad always told me money wasn’t everything, it was an enabler, but it was definitely nice to be enabled. I was able to take regular holidays for the first time, and finally upgraded from Asda value baked beans to Heinz. This was the life, folks.
Alice lived in a tiny little apartment on Lodge Road, about five minutes from my rental house on Avenue road. I preferred spending time at hers, as Nick frequently had his partner over and I had no desire to be in the way, plus Alice spoilt me with great meals and her library of DVDs. We decided we’d move in together when my lease was up, in August. I recall Nick remarking he thought it was a bit soon, which I did not welcome at the time, but he was probably right.
Alice had a colleague who owned a one-bedroom apartment on Queens Terrace, at the Southern end of town, close to what Southampton pretends is a waterfront. We could rent it at mate’s rates, not perhaps as cheap as you might think. It was easily the nicest place I’d ever lived in. It wasn’t big, but the space was well organized and the living area was perfect for two people. It was an older building that had been extensively refurbished, so it all felt very modern. The bathroom was all black tile and chrome. It was a bit Scarface and I loved it. P visited once (on what must have been a rare occasion, he didn’t come down too often by now) and remarked “The 80s called, they want their bathroom back”
I liked this end of town. It was behind Oxford Street, which is easily the nicest street in central-ish Southampton, a weird little oasis sandwiched between the docks, a dual carriageway, and a housing estate. There was one minor downside. Southampton has dead zones either side of the busy town centre. Businesses and places to go just sort of evaporate, and on the Southern side it gets very sparse until you reach the rather spotty waterfront developments. It feels like a sort of hinterland. Oxford street is really the only place to go. There is the absurdly named Ocean Village a bit further along the road, but even that didn’t have much apart from a tired multiplex cinema and a couple of pricey bars, intended to service the housing blocks sitting atop them. Beyond that, it’s the Itchen River and Woolston. I was going to make some pissy remark about nobody wanting to go there, but thought better of it.
The Itchen Bridge, about a 5 minute walk from Oxford St. By me.Oxford Street, Southampton (license: See watermark)
Nick would move in with his partner, and find a place not too far from Avenue road. We’d not really spend much time together, and our respective moves had left us quite far apart. That chapter would close for now. We’d both had over a year of fun and hedonism in the little house on Avenue road, but it now felt like we were rejoining civilization and being all grown-up, like.
That August also brought a two-week holiday in Poland, which was utterly fantastic. I saw a lot of the country, swam in the Baltic, and camped in a tent for the first time in about 20 years. I liked Poland, against all my expectations, knowing nothing about it. Krakow is a beautiful city, like Prague but without the insane tourist numbers, and the mountains around Zakopane are breathtaking. They like their beer and food, too. I was startled to realise I’d been staying within a few miles of what used to be Auschwitz the entire time, but it’s just part of the history, and history is all over Silesia.
Zakopane, Tatra Mountains. By me.
Wawel Castle, Krakow. By me.
Work would give me a golden opportunity. They ran evening classes for Cisco System’s CCNA certification. This remains the single most useful knowledge I’ve acquired in my career. It’s golden, and it only cost me my time. Being able to do this was highly influential in informing my own attitudes to professional development. It was three hours every Tuesday, and was taught by a lovely bloke named Imran who worked in IT for the National Air Traffic Service (NATS). Instructing was his side gig. The knowledge continues to serve me to this day. If you work in IT you should take the CCNA. It’s unbelievable how handy it is.
Solent had a pretty fast social life, and Brought a lot of new friends into my life. Andi worked in the office upstairs, and we became good friends over time. Through Andi I’d get to know his friend Jen, whip smart, very beautiful, slightly intimidating, and great fun – if you could keep up. Then there was Berenika, another lovely Polish girl who was absolutely on my wavelength, and an absolute blast. I always felt a bit guilty around Berenika, because I liked her so much. She could charm the dead, that girl. Tessa worked right next to Andi and started around the same time as me; she’s in virtually every photo I have from the nights out. You don’t realise how much you miss people until you think of these things. Everybody got on with Andi, he had that kind of character, and he would go on to do me a huge, huge favour much later on.
I finally had something I could call a profession. I had come a long way. Maybe I could go a little further?
Life comes at you fast, as the internet likes to say. In Autumn 2008, a position for a support analyst opened in the main computing office in Solent. In IT terms, this would put me behind the curtain. It would take me away from directly supporting users, which I liked a lot more than I’d ever admit, but it was necessary to learn more and start taking on more responsibility. I’d been in post about 18 months, I didn’t feel too bad about moving on from the business school, on the very shaky assumption this would go my way. I remember thinking I had an outside chance, but didn’t think I’d swing it. I knew everybody up there, maybe that would count for something?
I applied, and to my surprise, got an interview. I recall being pretty stressed out about this, because I considered landing the job a bit of a stretch, but still definitely within reach. In hindsight, it really wasn’t a big deal, I just wasn’t familiar with doing well so quickly, after years of trundling through bumfuck go-nowhere jobs.
Nick (another Nick, not my old housemate) would be on the interview panel. He was already technically my boss, but in this role I’d be a direct report. Also on the panel was Stephen, and John, who ran the whole show. I gave an okay account of myself, but very much kept my feet on the ground. The worst that could result would be staying in the business school, but I had a feeling I was tantalizingly close, and I remember It driving me a little mad.
To my astounded delight, they offered me the job the next day. I was elated. It was an exciting position, and a good bump in pay. It might seem strange but I felt like after years of fucking about, I was finally doing something decent.
I would lose my own office, and join the cramped but cheery computing office on the top floor of the library. I’d be an understudy to Neil (my de facto supervisor), and Nick would be in the corner diagonally across from me. James was the Mac specialist and was directly opposite. A team of techs would fill the rest of the floor. Veejay was the nearest to me, and I’d known him since he oriented me on my first day at SBS. My job was essentially image creation and application packaging for the configuration management infrastructure, which was looked after by Neil. It was a time of transition to Windows 7 (remember that?) which offered different methods and would have to all be learnt and tested. Neil would do most of this work during my first year, then it would be up to me for the full switch to Windows 10 and a new configuration management solution the following year.
Before starting the new role I’d spend a week in Spain with my dad; the 2nd of that year, on top of yet another trip to Poland in Summer. I’d also go out to Poland again in December. I travelled so much those days, thanks to the liberal UK holiday allowance and increased means. It is something the US could definitely learn from.
I’d also started journeying to Hertfordshire on the regular to see P, who by now was well established in his Pharma career. I’ve got many happy memories of evenings watching films in his flat, with the warm buzz after a few beers down the pub, then the subdued feeling at 3pm on a Sunday of having to get the train to London as the first leg of the journey home. It was a long 90 miles when you’re feeling a bit blue. I don’t know why, but I preferred to go to Herts rather than host him in Southampton. I put it down to a slight feeling neither of us really cared for the place that much. We had spent a lot of time there, after all. There was nothing new to be experienced.
I placed my phone in the console cup holder and turned the GPS app up loud enough to hear, and started the 14 mile run to the hotel, which involved a simple route of two freeways and a single exit.
