Phone call from the repairers today, Rosie is ready. Which is fortunate, because the Insurance Company haven't yet authorised the repair. Sometimes it's helpful to be crap with paperwork and not send the right things to the right people.

The Missus and I had slightly different opinions on whether or not being back on the bike so soon is a good idea. Trail riding at AJP? OK, she says, this is a smart way to get my bike time up without racing. Fraternising with the locals when riding on their land on a Sunday? We can live with this. Commuting to work up the M3? No, no and - just in case we missed it the first two times - no.

I'm not bike fit, she tells me. I've been off a bike for months. "It's just like riding a bike", I grin at her. "And", I continue, "I didn't get bike fit in the first place by not riding a bike did I?".

Apparently, I am "fucking impossible". But in a nice kind of way.

I got a lovely email from the Nutty Guy from Bolton, pointing me at a very very amusing short story by the legendary Mark Twain - "Taming the Bicycle".

Mark Twain was one of these guys who we all wish we could be. He is the most quoted person on the face of the earth but, funnily, he didn't actually say all of the things he is quoted as saying. If you think of a phrase that is amusing, witty and perceptive, just credit it to Mark Twain - everybody else does.

His real name was Samuel L. Clements, "Mark Twain" was just a name he used for publishing. Raised on the banks of the Mississippi river, he witnessed the fall of slavery, the American Civil War, the Gold Rush, and the Wild West. He had an uncanny ability to find satire in pretty much anything end everything - and had a wit so dry that it would make a Martini jealous.

I can see why the Nutty Guy pointed me at this short story - it's got "Twain" all over it. Amusing, incisive and - true to form - satirical as hell, there's a lot in there. Mark Twain could do in 10 words what the rest of can only do in a hundred. Or, as Winston Churchill used to put it - "Dear Sir, I am writing you a long letter because I am too lazy or stupid to write you a short one".

So I am hunting through the garage, trying to dig out all my riding gear. Helmet - put that somewhere. Gloves - I've found one so far. Blow the dust off the BMW Rallye Pro suit. I have a dilemma about footwear - do I wear my road boots, or my offroad boots? Hmm. The Missus reminded me that I always used to wear my road boots until I started taking detours on Salisbury Plain on the way to work in the morning and we won't be having any of that thank-you-very-much. It's a good point, well made.

This day always had to come. The Missus was always going to be a bit nervous about it. To tell you the truth, I am too. But, to mis-quote John F. Kennedy, "we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard". I mean, if I slipped on the pavement I'd be out for a whole season right now - the only safe option is not to get out of bed. Which would be nice, but ultimately wouldn't pay the bills.

So they deliver the bike to me tomorrow. Apparently, the estimator - guy named Paul (whose book "Armchair Rider" will be published in the Autumn) treated this bike like his baby. Normally, the estimators pass the bikes on to the engineers but Paul stuck with this one all the way through and lovingly nursed her back to health.

He's just sold his own BMW and bought himself a KTM 250EXC 2-stroke. And he seemed like such a nice guy as well. As women always say - the best guys are married, gay or they ride 2-strokes. Thanks for doing a good job Paul.

Martin tells me that he back wheel falling off an AJP when trying to remove the engine is a perfectly normal affair. He tells me that the first time you take the engine out, you are left with what looks like a completely stripped bike, and you have no clue how to put it back together again. He also told me that service manuals work best when they're the right way up:



Ahh, so that's where I was going wrong.

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