The M11
Of all the (longer) roads in the UK that I've travelled, I think the M11 will be the one that I end up remembering. It's not a particularly noteworthy road, really. The roads around High Beech and Box Hill are much more fun, and considerably more scenic.
However the journeys up and back the M11 have more mental baggage associated with them.
The motorway starts strangely, with traffic merging into the right-most lane from the North Circular. (The right-most lane being the /fastest/ moving lane, here in the UK.)
For me, the M11 brings back many memories of travelling at night. High speed, often in mist or rain, and always with buffeting cross-winds. There are no speed cameras, and the lighting is intermittent, yet the highway curves back and forth and over hills apparently at random, leaving me straining to see the distant cats-eyes that are poorly illuminated by my bike's headlight.
My trips up that motorway also always coincide with fairly active or intense weekends - parties, strenuous battles in fields, hangovers, strange movies, sex, vodka, architecture, gin, punting, new people.. And I guess that by framing events with a motorcycle ride on either side, the ride becomes part of the event in my memory, even if all the journeys will blur into one over time. Just one night/day ride in the hot/cold, taken fast/slow, with/without music in my ears.
However the journeys up and back the M11 have more mental baggage associated with them.
The motorway starts strangely, with traffic merging into the right-most lane from the North Circular. (The right-most lane being the /fastest/ moving lane, here in the UK.)
For me, the M11 brings back many memories of travelling at night. High speed, often in mist or rain, and always with buffeting cross-winds. There are no speed cameras, and the lighting is intermittent, yet the highway curves back and forth and over hills apparently at random, leaving me straining to see the distant cats-eyes that are poorly illuminated by my bike's headlight.
My trips up that motorway also always coincide with fairly active or intense weekends - parties, strenuous battles in fields, hangovers, strange movies, sex, vodka, architecture, gin, punting, new people.. And I guess that by framing events with a motorcycle ride on either side, the ride becomes part of the event in my memory, even if all the journeys will blur into one over time. Just one night/day ride in the hot/cold, taken fast/slow, with/without music in my ears.