Get on yer Bike and RIDE!!!

In fairness to the mechanics, they brought the bike in within the quoted price and seem to have done a bloody good job. I loved riding it home. And I am about to go out on it now. Encouragingly, they also said that what I thought was loose tappet noise was pretty normal and that I shouldn't worry.

Got that Queen song running through my head, albeit edited from bi-cy-cle to mo-tor-bike:

I want to ride my mo-tor-bike, I want to ride my bike di-na-di-na, di-na din........I want to ride my mo-tor-biiiiiiike........

GET ON YER BIKE AND RIDE!

If teachers could charge more when they discover that kids are thicker than expected....!

The GT550 failed its MOT on two points: headstock bearings were locking and the brake arm was floppy and needed retapping because it couldn't be tightened up. They are probably jobs I could have done myself....but you know how it is - if you start a job you will probably end up being interrupted, not having all the right tools, etc etc...and with no guarantee that you have done it to the MOT pass standard. So I bit the bullet and got them to do the jobs.

£46 plus VAT per hour - I swear, I am in the wrong business! That is twice what a teacher makes......and teachers can't charge for extra time spent on the job.

Worst case scenario quote was £230!!! SHIT.....and just when I think I can cope with that, they discover that their work on the headstock has affected the wiring, which they say they will put right at no cost because there was nothing wrong with the wiring before, but then they discover that the fairing bracket is affecting the run of the brake cable. So I tell them that if necessary I will rip the fairing off.....

Anyway, they are making good and hopefully they won't exceed the worst case scenario....but you bloody know they will and that they have you over a barrel.

How do they manage to sound irritated with you for feeling squeezed? You back off when the phone call is getting tense because they make you feel like if you play hard ball the price will go up.

But, all is not lost. I have worked out a way to foot the bill, I will just invoice the Headteacher for another 500quid this year. He will say that he has my contract which says I get 500 less than that, but I will just say that while I was teaching Year Two this year, I discovered that they were unusually thick so teaching them took a lot longer than anticipated. He will threaten not to pay and I will pull the old, "Well I can always open them up and take the new parts out" ploy.












In fact, I am going to float this with the teaching community :)





.

Bat-Cave Manoeuvres

The turntable (or dolly) was purchased for a miraculous £39 plus postage on ebay and assembled in the bottom garage. I then cut away a step and put in a concrete ramp. I found, initially, that the floor locking mechanism slipped, so put holes in the concrete floor to anchor the dolly with steel bar.

Today I tested out the concrete ramp for the first time and the bike launched effortlessly up to the upper workshop and out the door, up the garden and through the new gate, which I wanted to test for fit. I adjusted the quick-release on the mirrors so that they can be folded in for this.

I turned the bike round (having turned the dolly round ready, because the side stand tray has to be on the left) and took the bike back down the garden for these photos...in which you can see the bike driving on to the dolly, the latter being turned around and pushed sideways out of the way. It is a terrific piece of kit.

Mantis transformed into Rack of Lamb

Discovered this bike last night and feel inspired. Been discussing it with Lori, a friend in Arkansas. I am planning on doing something similar on Mantis. I have never liked the dead space in Mantis's frame, where you'd ordinarily expect to see an engine. A crouching skeleton could be answer. In the next day or so I'll post a sketch of the idea. On Mantis I'd want the skeleton to be full size. I'd wrap the rib-cage around a rounded black tank (instead of the coffin tank). I like the halogen lights in the skull's eyes. I'd like the arms to be articlulated and fixed to the forks so that they move when the bike turns.

On mine there'd be less of the impression that the rider is shagging the skeleton and more the impression of riding on death's back.

Collected and cleaned Mantis

As planned, I pushed Mantis home today and cleaned her up. It was just as well I took a footpump with me as the tyres were completely flat. She was covered in cobwebs and dust and had lots of rust-spots on the chrome; altogether she was a sorry sight. But by the end of the evening she was looking pretty good.

I sat on Mantis this evening and it brought back just how much fun riding her is. John's right, I really must get the chop running again soon.

Getting Mantis from the garage

I am giving up the garage this month, so I have to get Mantis out this weekend and wheel it back to mine. She is in a sorry state but it wouldn't take more than a long weekend to get her running properly. John keeps nagging me, but it doesn't feel a priority right now.

The carb is on a rigid mount and really needs to be suspended on a rubber or flexi mount in order to stop my mixture from frothing, which in turn makes it hard to set the the tick-over just right. Apart from that, it needs general maintenance, cleaning, polishing and the headlight will need adjustment (also, come to think of it, the speedo doesn't register either).

I need to get it and the Cyclemaster back on the road this year for sure. The Cyclemaster only needs reassembly, though the front of the bike will need some tweaking after the crash down a flight of stairs had me landing on the front wheel, buckling it.

My wife, my car

When I was a ridiculous young romantic living in a fundamentalist commune 25 years ago I fell in love with a girl, but our relationship was forbidden under the strict courtship rules of the group, which required that before I could be married (no relationship at all unless it is for marriage), I had first to renounce all hopes of marrying, to then be told by the elders, years later, that despite my commitment to singleness, God had layed it on their hearts that I should be married. The Catch 22 for anyone in my situation secretly harbouring hopes of this happening was that the commune believed that God almost never approved such matches! It was in such circumstances that I wrote secret love poems in very bad Latin, because few would be able to understand them if they were found. Idiotically, I sent them to the girl herself, even though I should have known she wouldn't understand the code either, so that I then had to send incriminating translations.

I once got told off by a policeman when I scrawled one of these on a dusty back of a coach. American tourists to Oxford called me cute and took my picture when I translated for them.

This long preamble gives context to this posting, because one line included the hope that "mea uxor eris" (you will be my wife). When I went to the DVLA to point out that my 1958 Prefect had been allocated an 'A' reg in error (1963) when the old registration had been sold on, they acknowledged their mistake and said it would be put right for free. They gave me the next un-allocated period number (taken from a 1950s' London borough list), 886 UXR, which made me chuckle. UXoR means wife. My present girlfriend has always teased that I love my car more than her!