Where it all began – with the Head

My other half has been motorbike-mad for some years now, and hankering for me to share some of his passion. He reads bike mags. He has bike mates. He goes riding most weekends with some or all of them.

And me…?

I’ve stayed home. Worried a little (can’t help it!). But generally happy to have some time alone while he was out perfecting his cornering techniques.

There have certainly been times when I felt a bit left out of the action.

• Like the beautiful blue-sky days when he heads to the northern beaches of Sydney and it turns out that “oh, you know, we just stopped for breakfast at the Boathouse at Palm Beach” .
• Or when he rides up to the Blue Mountains and comes back reporting on the “amazing colours in the autumn trees”.
• Or worse, he rides all the way to Mudgee and stays overnight. NOW I’m feeling really put out. That’s not just ‘going for a ride’, that’s what I call ‘travel’. I’ve never been to Mudgee, even though we’ve often talked about it. Sulk, sulk.

So the conversations began…

“How about you come on the back with me?”
“I can’t, I don’t have a helmet.” (Sulk, sulk.)
“Ok, I’ll borrow one for you.”

The borrowed helmets were never right. Most floated on me, which is as dangerous as having no helmet.

I finally bit the bullet: “We’ll just have to buy one.”

My other half – let’s just call him Zorro (for reasons that shall remain secret, so don’t ask) – was thrilled. His second favourite retail outlet is a bike shop (his first love is a hardware store).

Going Helmet Shopping

The sales guy at the bike shop in Artarmon was friendly. And patient.

I had an idea of what I wanted, but only as far as looks:

Not black.
Definitely not pink.

I started with the ‘cheap’ ones because I wasn’t convinced it would ever get more than a couple of outings.

After trying several – each time gradually going up in price – the winner was a white and silver Kabuto Aeroblade helmet. It felt much lighter than most of the others and was a great fit. But what really clinched the deal? It has little gaps inside so you can slide your sunglasses on with ease. How cool!

Ok, so it wasn’t in the cheap range, but at least I won’t hate wearing it. And who knows, maybe I’ll even get to like this gig…

The funniest part of this whole story? We had dropped the car in for a service first and Zorro happily walked a couple of kms – in the midday sun – to get to the shop. And happily waited and caught a bus home. All these things are anathema to him on any normal day.

I knew I’d made the right decision to join him on the back of the bike…