Climate change trousers…

A recent ride in the rain prompted thoughts of trousers and our prime minister’s warning that we only have days to ‘save the world‘ from climate change, and then a bit more about trousers…

I have been amazed by news that the classic British short film The Wrong Trousers is now sixteen years old. It is known for many things including the fact that it features a motorcycling inventor named Wallace – and his dog Grommet, who steadfastly rides in the sidecar by his side. This rings a distant bell for me as my first experiences of motorcycling were as a small kid in a big sidecar. It was, to the possible horror of classic bike fans, attached to an otherwise beautiful Ariel Square Four – as in a black version of this one. And, although I can’t actually remember this, I never got wet when it rained because the appended ‘chair’ was one of those fully enclosed jobs that looked like an ovoid shed.

Anyway, as you might know already, the Wrong Trousers is actually not so focused on sidecar thrills and spills as it is on the potential benefits of pioneering new types of trousers – and the importance of choosing the right ones to wear for different situations. However, it has to be said that a leap of faith is required for full enjoyment of this racy classic as you need a capacity to believe in images of challenging events and trousers that seem grippingly real, but are actually made of plasterciene. And, as all informed members of the motorcycling community will know, the type of trousers we choose for riding is important – and can even become a highly contentious issue and subject for heated debate. Fear not though. I am not trying to re-ignite that focus for brouhaha. But I have had second thoughts about the ever expanding range of trousers we have to choose from, for facing various challenges in a constantly changing world.

This all started the other day when I needed to take my youngest daughter to an open day at an Art School she wanted to see. Going by bus, train, tram, bicycle or shanks’s pony were all out because the trip would have taken us too many hours to do. And, although I do have access to a rather old car, driving it is bad for my blood pressure and the air in it’s wake. So, I do most trips by my trusty Rocket lll or equally reliable Fuoco scooter, and in most of the weathers that keep Britain a green and generally pleasant land. Before taking to the road though, I usually dip into two sources of ideas about what sort of weather to expect. I look at the sky to make my own guess, and read the latest predictions from our state-of-the-art meteorologists – usually at the BBC. The forecast for the next few hours was for light showers as we set off. Guess what happened next?

Yep, you got it in one. It chucked it down. Throughout the trip we were enveloped in a relentless deluge. Ah, but was we bovvered though? Nah. But, this was not because either of us are rufty-tufty biker sorts. As a matter of fact, I am deeply committed to avoiding as much weather-made discomfort as I can. And, I am totally averse to immersing my nether regions in sogginess and the chilling feeling that sets in if rain gets through the final frontier of underpantage. But I also refuse to accept that it is necessary to get our vitals cold and wet, just because it is raining. Hello? We live in the 21st century and the dry bottom line is that effective waterproof and warm clothing is readily available.

Then I remembered that some folk, including our PM, say that we will have much more ‘extreme’ weather to cope with in the future because we humans are doing things to change the climate. And they say this includes riding motorbikes so we should stop. However, I find these ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ a bit puzzling.

First, we live on a planet with a surface that is constantly changing – with huge plates of land-mass splitting apart and bashing into each other. Nevermind more floods and heatwaves or rising sea levels, this makes new continents and changes the shape of oceans. And, although I may have missed one, I cannot think of a single era of time when the earth’s climate has not been in a state of change. Lastly, I struggle to understand how anyone can be sure about the weather or climate in 50 years time – when our experts often fail to accurately predict what will happen in the next few days or even hours.

So, maybe there is a better way to tackle the effects of climate change than stopping riding or paying loads more Green taxes – as our leaders and their ‘experts’ say we should. IMHO, we motorcyclists and one or two other groups of inspired souls have already found brilliant ways to cope with dramatic changes in climate. We choose the right trousers and carry on…