Here’s where it starts. Yesterday, I’d been listening to BBC Radio Four (UK National public radio for the unenlightened) when they’d run an article on the massive overpricing of new cars in the UK. As I’ve been doing a lot of looking at what’s happened to prices in the motorcycle market with the advent of parallel imports, I dropped them an e-mail to show them what could happen in a properly competitive market.

Next thing I know, they’ve phoned me up and asked me to come talk to them about my experience of buying (or not) a new bike. Complete bluster of course — I’ve been thinking about buying a bike for ages, but not actually getting around to doing anything about it.

I’ve just come back from recording a segment for the show and one of the last things the producer asked me was "So when do you get your bike, then?", to which the only honest answer was, "Er, dunno". Quite. About time I damn well did something about it. She also suggested I might want to keep a diary of what it’s like to come back to motorcycling after a (long) while away. This is it.