Start the week topic - voices in your head

[guest7]

On long rides I often lapse into some pretty dire singing to pass the time. This does sometimes earn me puzzled looks from oncoming drivers who see me (in my open face lid) mouthing away at them.

Occasionally I find myself giving a surreal travelogue commentary of the places I pass... which can be disturbing as it takes my mind onto some little-visited topics and themes.

Can you add any other coping techniques for long rides? Counting buses? Making up limericks? Thinking up words to match the letters of car numberplates? (NCG - Nuns Can't Gurn)

GC

[Richard]

All the above, and endless mental maths about MPG, distances and time for exercise.

Singing is truly awful inside the helmet though.

[guest7]

Bollocks, I'd forgotten about the mileage maths, I do that too. I also (on Euro rides) endlessly mull over miles to Kilometres conversions... reaching some sort of ragged conclusion just as I pass another distance sign and start it all again.

What about counting out the seconds between the distance markers on the motorway and then getting bored of that and inventing a looped phrase that neatly fills the gap between them? (and people wonder why I'm so down on the long motorway ride to the Elephant Rally  )

GC

[Andy M]

Straining to hear that odd little rattle that you just know is the main bearings about to let go? 
 
Thinking about the half of "Road Craft" you once read before you decided to stick to the pictures and trying to apply it all to the bit of dual carriageway? 

Dipping up and down trying to see if the thing on top of the white car, mostly obscured in the mirror by your elbow is a ski rack or some cunningly disguised blue light and radar set up 

Doing my "cool rider" face as bus loads of school kids and assorted car passengers photograph me  . OK, I know, it's the dog in goggles and I'm just a bloke in the back ground looking constipated 

Andy

[squirrelciv]

Making acronyms out of number plates... Altering song lyrics to include signs/features I've seen (eg Petula Clarke "Down Town" every time I see a Downton lorry)... The 'Bog rat/Wazzok/Hunny Bunny' game (classifying car drivers you overtake into said categories - sad I know)... Talking like a 2nd World War British (occasionally German) fighter pilot... And finally (restricted to the M5 only- don't ask why) shouting "Gypo" in various accents at every car I overtake!

How much fun can a Man have in a helmet???

[Steffan]

Straining to hear that odd little rattle that you just know is the main bearings about to let go? 

Dipping up and down trying to see if the thing on top of the white car, mostly obscured in the mirror by your elbow is a ski rack or some cunningly disguised blue light and radar set up 

Andy

No doubt about it, the reason Andy and I get on is that we are nearly as paranoid as each other...nearly..

[guest564]

On long rides I often lapse into some pretty dire singing to pass the time. This does sometimes earn me puzzled looks from oncoming drivers who see me (in my open face lid) mouthing away at them.
GC

Ah yes, I do that too. There have been occassions when I realise that I'm still doing it and I'm stopped at the traffic lights, between two cars, both with their windows down