Not sure why this outing with the motorbike club didn't work for me but a few sessions on the club circuit at Brands didn't catch my interest at all. Disappointed but glad I've done a track day at last and glad it was well-organised and safe enough but I'm not thinking of booking on any more track sessions any time soon.

I'm told the addictive buzz comes from being competitive but it didn't hook me at all. The adrenaline rush of riding at full speed didn't get me either: much less impression of speed out there on the track. It wasn't a surprise there are riders hugely more experienced at the track style of riding than I am, that happens in any sport. What did surprise me was that I didn't find where the fun came in amongst the rules on how to ride safely and advice on how to ride fast in the specialist closed environment of a track.

The experience reminded me of how I felt about school and college running: I used to love running competitively but only cross-country running: running nearly four times round an athletics track (1500m) just bored me senseless.

What I do get out of biking is the freedom and adventure. The sales motto of the first bike shop I was involved with was "We sell freedom", meaning the freedom of the open road. That bike shop serviced the Kawasaki KH250 that I learnt and passed my test with and then sold me a Z750 twin, that would have been the bike that I last took to Brands Hatch, as a spectator.

Great to watch the superbike and motoGP stars battling it out on the race tracks, though there must be a high degree of obsession to get to be that perfect.

My biking Everests remain the mountain passes like the col de la Bonette. Challenging and thrilling.

But I enjoyed taking my camera for a walk around Druids and Brands Hatch pit lane. The last camera I took there was a Pentax MX (35mm film camera) with a 500mm catadioptric lens with which I netted shots of Barry Sheene etc. Brands Hatch has changed track layout since then and built plenty of new facilities.

• With a KH250 at the London Motorcycle Show 2018
• Snetterton Circuit
• Pôle Méchanique d'Alès-Cévennes

A fine spring dawn in Marseille got me up for a sporty ride around the lakes of the lower Verdon: the Lac de Greoux and the Lac de Sainte Croix, in Provence.

First a stop at the Café du Midi in Peyrolles whilst my bike was being serviced. Saturday is market day and people were happy to chat in the spring sunshine. My friend Pascal from Marseille joined me and we enjoyed the roads through Vinon and Greoux and on to toasted goats cheese salads in a cafe at Esparron sur Verdon, which is on a calanque of the Lac de Greoux.

I rode on around the Lac de Sainte Croix, long clear roads and not a lot of traffic about so lots of opportunity for throttle-on/throttle-off riding style with cornering sitting on either edge of the seat or hanging off. Oh and back for grilled red tuna for dinner at the Rowing Club de Marseille. Fantastic view of the Vieux Port but it's not quite as posh as it sounds.

And a flight back to Gatwick that was completely clear of cloud all the way from the Mediterranean to the English Channel. Great views of the Alps all the way over to Mont Blanc and even the Jungfraujoch far away in the Bernese Oberland.

Last weekend in January and - taking advantage of a lucky break in the winter weather in Provence - an opportunity for a quick spin on my RR of the tour of the Étang de Berre, the lagoon adjoining the oil refineries constructed to process oil bought by France from Iraq.

The area is a geological melting pot with numerous different types of rock; consequently the road is both interesting and challenging to motorbikes, there are sections of autoroute, including the Caronte viaduct over Martigues, ordinary N roads (route Nationale) and a very interesting section of particularly troubled geology between Istres and St Chamas where the road twists on under the shade of low pine trees along the shoreline of a thin isthmus. Both exciting to ride and pleasing to the eyes.

Read more: Étang de Berre - January 2012

A fiery dawn in Marseille and fresh start for a ride up from Barcelonette to the col de la Bonette, that the French say is the highest road pass in Europe. The route de la Bonette climbs more than 1400m in altitude over about 14km length up from Jausiers. The current route, built 1963-64, passes the barracks at Restfond and some high altitude bunkers built by Maginot in 1931 as part of what became known as the “Maginot Line”. Many inscriptions in the rock and on the buildings and bunkers confirm the area was heavily associated with the Légion Etrangère.

Autumn colours in the trees in the valley of the Durance and onwards past Chorges and the Lac de Serre-Poncon to Barcelonette, Fine, dry and clear roads with just real insects hitting the visor, no police (“flics”) and no cyclists! No snow on the crags and the signs confirmed all the cols open; but time for winter leathers.

Then the magnificent col de la Bonette, practically perfect, lots and lots of corners to get the leg down and use some sidewall rubber. The corners keep on coming and they are all different. Pretty much an empty road: a few cars, a downhill board rider, then just a couple of cyclists and no flocks of sheep sprawled across the road, but there were a few marmot calls. Is this biker paradise, the place to say to the devil that I want to stay for ever? Maybe that's getting a bit fanciful, but having seen Gounod's “Faust” earlier this week at Covent Garden, I was just waiting for Mephistopheles to appear and make life hell. Maybe he didn't appear because I was missing a “Marguerite” on two wheels; I was riding alone, despite asking around both the UK or the French bike clubs of which I am a member. Anyhow, I got back to Marseille under a colourful sunset for a meal with friends at a favourite small restaurant on the Canebière; a social end to a brilliant day.

I was last up there in August 2010: Col de la Bonette, 2802m - August 2010

The col de la Bonette, 2715m, is where the route passes from the valley of the river Ubaye to the valley of the river Tinée

The highest point of the Route de la Bonette is at 2802m.

Leaving the bike and walking up a further 60m altitude (about the same as a Avon Gorge in Clifton, Bristol) one reaches the Cime de la Bonette at 2862m, 9390ft.