OneAndOneIs2

It was raining this morning, quite heavily. And I wanted to go swimming, and I needed to go shopping at some point, and what with one thing and another it seemed easier just to go to work in the car today.

First time I've driven in a month. It was interesting to note the differences.

Most major of all, mirrors. I really miss having a rear-view mirror on the bike. I never realized just how aware I was of my mirrors in the car until I didn't have them. It's not that I look in them all that often - I only occasionally take an actual look in the mirror. But I more-or-less permanently keep a small part of my attention on my rear-view.

When I was learning to drive, my instructor often covered the mirror with his hand and asked me what color the car behind was, because he never saw me check the mirrors. I was always able to answer, because although I hadn't directly looked, peripheral vision is a wonderful thing. In a car, I always know exactly what's going on behind me.

On the bike.. I don't. The mirrors are off to one side and a lot lower down, and they have much more of a blind spot. You have to move your whole head to look in them, and you can't trust what you see - an empty road in your mirrors doesn't mean it's safe to pull out. And turning your head to look isn't fun at high speed, there's so much wind your head gets buffeted quite severely.

I might have to look into my next helmet having a built-in mirror.. and/or getting some after-market bike mirrors to replace my current ones, as I hate having so little idea what's going on behind me.

It's also interesting on the last stretch of road how differently I position myself in car vs. bike - in the car, I think nothing of cutting bends by going wide when visibility permits - there's no point in staying in your own lane and hugging corners when you can go much straighter if you can see the other side of the road has no oncoming traffic. In theory, this should go double for when I'm on the bike, but the idea of going that far out is somewhat scary on two wheels.. may have to work on that.

Lastly, it's nice to have a vehicle in which you can comfortably go to 70+ mph - the most frustrating thing on the bike is being stuck behind a truck which is going at or just under 60mph - sitting in their slipstream, this is annoyingly slow. But it's almost impossible to overtake because I don't have the power to go any faster, and even if I do (if we're going downhill :o) on such a small, light, thin-wheeled vehicle it's not fun to try and get through all that turbulent air.

Maybe in a year or so I'll switch to a bigger bike. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the fuel economy to much to consider any switches - 260 miles for under 10 litres on my last fill :o)