Getting there

"I've got everything I need," sings the eponymous Urban Spaceman of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's most successful hit single - who then carries on to tell us in the last line - "I don't exist". Ian Dury expands this thought in This is What we Find: "O vanitas vanitatum/Which of us is happy in this life?/Which of us has our desire,/Or having it, is gratified?" 

Well, yesterday's bike ride was a huge philosophical study in fulfillment. This is it! I've found it! Yes, the bike could have a bigger, more powerful engine - but then: 1) there'd be more guilt about pollution, burning irreplaceable fossil fuels, carbon dioxide emissions; 2) the temptation to ride faster than my mind can focus, and with that - risk and danger; 3) this beauty costs pennies to run and insure.

So - pootling around the backroads of South Mazovia at a steady 60km/h (40mph) on a bike I designed to fulfil my aesthetic longings is ideal. A perfect, cloud-free, rain-free time is needed - in the past I've been chased by thunderstorms and sat out downpours in bus shelters - no fun.

Yesterday was perfect. Being based in Jakubowizna, I no longer have to spend the first half-hour of my ride getting out of the metropolis - it's out of bed and straight onto country roads. Down to Warka, cross the Pilica river, first left onto the DW736 [droga wojewódzka = province road, as opposed to DK = droga krajowa = national road]. This is an interesting road, as it's cut in half by the Vistula (below). One of several DWs that start on one side of the river and end on the other with a significant missing link (bridges that were never built, ferry services that have been curtailed). This means less traffic, because the cars and trucks don't end up going where they were meant to go.

Riding the DW736 from its source (the DW730 just south of the Pilica) to the banks of the Vistula was the purest joy - 19km with barely any traffic around. Through the small town of Magnuszew for a kilometre the DW736 merges with the main DK79 Warsaw-Sandomierz-Kraków road before the left turn for the Vistula. Otherwise - it's just me and the Road. Below: the DW736 between Łatków and Przewóz Tarnowski. Those chromed orbs sparkling, the asphalt, the crystalline sky...

Images like this burn into the retina of the soul and will resurface as 'memory hiccups' for the rest of my days - and beyond. They feel immediately familiar, too, like I've been doing this before - except I haven't (I started motorcycling a mere six years ago).

Below: a few hours of blissful backroad riding later, I hit the village (formerly town) of Jedlińsk. It used to straddle the old DK7 (Warsaw-Radom-Kielce-Kraków) road, but then they built a bypass. The place has become quieter, safer - but much of the business, the passing trade, has died. I felt I was in New Mexico on a sleepy afternoon in 1952.

I passed Bartodzieje to see what was going on by the station there (see yesterday's post) and then headed home to Jakubowizna, aware that the weather would turn and that a storm was brewing. As in previous posts, I'm amazed to see how much new asphalt has been laid on Poland's roads this year. Lovely to ride over. Smooth - not bucking backward and forward over potholes, ruts and cracks.

On the way back, I dropped into the Orlen gas station in Warka to top up the bike and grab a bite and a coffee. The vibe - it's right. Straight out of the opening scenes of The Loveless.

"You don't look like the type to stay in one place for too long..."

"Yeah? I never had the urge."

Back at four, at five the heavens open, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The day had been seized. For such days, one lives.

This time last year:

Best and worst rail journeys in one day

This time two years ago:
What's new around Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Hydrology - droughts, floods and sandbanks

This time seven years ago:
Radom air show - Part 1

This time eight years ago:
Restricting passenger movement and safety

This time nine years ago:
Seasonal fruit - eat it in bulk, while you can!

This time 11 years ago:
Russia-Polish 'unification', 1939-style