Top Review

Riding on my CG125 to work and back for a week has allowed me a little clarity on some matters that I might otherwise have not seen. For starters, my Spada jacket is terrible. Riding my bright red CG while wearing bright green gloves, helmet, and jacket would have had me pulled over by the fashion police on more than one occasion so I went back to the dependable red Frank Thomas jacket I got when I first bought my CG. It's comfortable, it's more form-fitting (see below), and it has a million pockets rather than just two.

To me the important thing about a motorcycle jacket, regardless of material, is that it doesn't move around. If you were to have an accident and the front of your jacket twists part way around your body as you hit the gravel, or your sleeve rolls up your arm, or even worse you're sliding on your back and your jacket lifts up, you won't be protected properly the way you would be if all the protective areas of the jacket were in the right place to protect your vulnerable body parts (elbows, shoulders, back, ribs, etc.); my Spada jacket doesn't sit still for five minutes while I'm riding.

I can't tell which is more annoying; that my jacket moves of its own accord, or that the sleeves are so wide that they don't fit inside my gloves. So every ride I take I end up with frozen wrists because there's a huge gap in my wind proof protection.

Also the jacket only has two pockets (three if you include the inner mobile phone pocket). The pockets are placed at the base of the jacket, right at the front next to the centre zip. That means that once you've put your wallet, bike keys, house keys, and anything else in them, they meet at the middle and weigh the jacket down awkwardly. My Frank Thomas jacket had some five pockets that distributed weight evenly in several places rather than all in one area.

So, yeah, while I'm ultra-happy to have the Versys back (minus some £160 for the new tyre!), wearing my Frank Thomas jacket for a week showed me how pants my Spada jacket is. The Spada gloves and trousers are fine (although the gloves aren't the best I've had in my relatively short biking career), the Shoei helmet works (even if it is a little rough on my ears), and these SDI boots are awesome, but the jacket needs replacing. I doubt I'll go for a leather jacket since I generally prefer textile gear, but this weekend I think I'll be visiting the guys at Gedge for a new jacket.

In other news I was very bad and made a new video (which you can find on my YouTube channel). It's not a music video like the others I've made; it's more of a silly hour-long project that sprung to mind while I was playing Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (again). I'm playing Black and White 2 more than anything at the moment because I love the city building so. The same reason I liked playing SimCity (for a short while since I CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! I WILL REGRET THIS!), Stronghold, and the Civilization games.

As for Gorkamorka I've gotten a little more painting done but not as much as I'd like. I'm still trying to juggle preperation for both D&D and Gorkamorka (Gorkamorka is currently winning) so every time I think "right, I really need to stat some of these monsters/NPCs/traps/treasure hoards" I just end up picking up my paintbrush because Gorkamorka could start any day now. Well, not really. In fact, next week is half term so I'll have many daylight hours in which to bring my rag-tag mob to life with paint and plastic-adhesive.