When I couldn’t find the Global Vision Ultra24 photochromic riding glasses that Paul Burdass from Fat Skeleton had given me to review, I was proper miffed. Thankfully, I’d already written them up and photographed them, but I do like Photochromic glasses because I’m invariably late home after sunny days on the road.
I’d only stopped to take a picture of a Scottish castle, put them on the bike or in a pocket while I got the camera out, and when I came to relocate, I figured I must have put them somewhere safe.
When I came to look for them properly, I reckoned they must have fallen off the bike at the first location and went back to look for them, but there was no sign. I briefly thought the worst of the girl who had been walking towards me as I left, thinking she might have picked them up, but I was more angry with myself. It was bad enough that I’d laid the Chief down on my ankle a couple of days before and was still limping badly: to discover that I was infirm both physically and mentally was more than irritating.
Davidsons at the Cottage!
Resolved to the loss, I put on the full-on Global Vision sunglasses/goggles and was glad that it was sunny, and then carried on to Dunnottar Castle, the Davidson Cottage and south to Jarrow, stopping briefly to shoot the bike beneath the Forth Rail Bridge. And then on to home the following day.
Still it niggled at me. Maybe they had fallen off the seat and landed on top of the transmission? No, and anyway it was more important to check the underside of the bike now that I was more mobile, to make sure I hadn’t done any damage? An inspection of the crashbars and the primary drive case revealed no trace of even a scuff, which probably explained why my ankle had gone as black as it had for three days!
Three weeks later we were on the road again: another thousand mile round trip to Köln, via Venlo, which would have been another feature if the roads had been anything to write home about, but two or three lanes throughout, they weren’t. The most I could say is avoid Belgium: the standard of driving – mainly tailgating – is horrendous, and having avoided the gridlock of Antwerp on the outward journey by returning via Brussels, I never want to see another Belgian ring-road ever! Both made the M25 look like the roundabout in a kid’s playground!
I’d stopped missing the Ultra24s by then because I was testing the Anderson Optics bi-focal riding glasses offered by Motorcycle Storehouse, and wishing that they made a photochromic pair of them, but with another big trip under the Chief’s wheels – and a few local excursions – I reckoned it was time to wash it: well, you need to wash a bike to really know it, and you need to get a bike proper dirty to understand how easy it is to wash.
Having washed the timing side of the bike, I turned my attention to the primary side and there, looking up at me from their resting place between the crashbar and the footboard were the Ultra 24s!!
A bit dirty and their foam a bit damp, a quick rinse under the tap revealed that they’d survived their 1,500+ mile ordeal – bouncing around in the path of anything that was likely to come up off the front wheel – without any damage at all!
And, curious as to whether they’d laid there all that time, or had dropped from a higher resting place, I checked out any pictures that might have shown them on their way round, and there on the shot under the Forth Rail Bridge, taken that same day, there they are! Clear as anything!
Excuse me, I’m just going to have to check the underside of the Indian again: if I missed a pair of sunglasses when I was checking for damage, I’d better make sure I didn’t miss anything else …