My Transport Opinion

I was quite surprised this week to discover a hobby of one of my colleagues that I hadn't known anything about. We were sat discussing skip bins hire as his manager had asked him to hire one. He had come to me knowing I had Internet use and a few contacts to make his job a bit easier.

I have worked with the colleague for over three years, being in his fifties we hadn't really found we had that much in common, but did still tend to chat about things we're interested in occasionally. We'd got talking about young drivers initially as I had recently decided to start driving lessons again and was the hot topic on my lips right now! I had been discussing with him how I felt that as people got older they lost confidence, as in this weeks driving test I had been very nervous about passing a bike or a motorbike due to the horror stories you hear involving them.

My colleague agreed that young drivers seemed to have much more confidence, and commented on how he saw many young drivers racing around his street at night which scared the life out of him. But what surprised me the most was when he said he felt safer on his motorbike. I was of course surprised to hear he felt safer on something less protected like a bike, but even more surprised to hear he even rode one!

Showing my surprise and interest I probed for more information and he talked about how when he was very young he had done his cbt test, bought a cheap little motorbike and it became his life, but as he grew older and started a family it became necessity that the bike got put to one side in favour of a much more family friendly car.

His excitement grew as he talked about how now his kids were all grown up he had decided to revisit his motorbike years and occasionally rode again at the weekends when the weather was good. Imagine my further surprise when he informed me that the bike he still rode was actually the one he had bought as a teenager, he had worked hard to restore it and make it roadworthy again. Although very slow moving, he loved it and enjoyed riding it has much as he did all those years ago! He even showed me a picture of it, looking old fashioned it was immaculate, everything shining and perfect colour.

By the end of the conversation we hadn't managed to hire a skip, but I did think I may learn how to ride a bike once I had passed my car test!