SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[Loonette]

Thanks so much for sharing your story(ies). Since I hadn't been reading the blogs at all, I printed out yours and took it to work with me, reading it up in my little bat cave of a projection room (we've been showing "Brokeback Mountain" for two weeks straight and I've shown it myself a total of 8 times already - by now I could quote the whole movie). I think it's great that you are comfortable expressing your feelings to us all. It's good to vent that energy - it will most likely aid you in your healing during this part of the journey with Di. In my honest opinion, I believe you would do well to even get your words into book form. It has been very interesting, funny, sad, and mostly - inspirational.

Cheers,
Loonette

[sv-wolf]

Sunday 5 February 2006

Thanks for the support, Loonette. I'm glad you like the posts. I feel safe to blog openly on this site in a way I don't on any other, because there's a great bunch of people on here, and I don't feel pressured to conform to any rules or norms of what I can or cannot say. The TMW boards have a unique quality to them.

As you suggest, putting just a little of what is happening out into cyber space does help me to cope with our present circumstances. It is without a doubt the most painful and difficult situation I've ever had to face. It's testing me to the limit and I need to offload anyway I can. I get bereavement counselling from our local hospice. I also talk to friends. And I post here. All three help in very different ways.

Thanks again

[sv-wolf]

Sunday 5th February 2006

Two years ago, when I was still persuading myself to buy another bike after 30 years of petrol abstinence, one of the excuses I used was that it would be cheaper than buying a car. It was just an excuse, of course; I needed the bike because I’d got an itch inside to have one. My need was completely unrelated to any of the ‘sensible’ reasons I gave myself, my wife, my friends, my bank manager. Two years down the line, I’ve come to realise that, not only was it just an excuse, it isn’t actually true: modern bikes aren’t a cheap option.

I knew that motorcycling had changed almost out of recognition since I bought my first rusty old BSA thirty years ago, but coming back to it in 2003, I was still startled to discover just how many things you could now spend your money on. I should have been prepared for the wonderful world of mods, expensive maintenance opportunities and money-spinning gimmicks – a shedload of toys from a world of consumer durables – but I wasn’t. The it’s-a-tough-old-world, grin-and-bear-it philosophy of the post-war period had long since disappeared from biking as it had from everything else.

When I started riding in the 1970s you needed a bike, a leather jacket, a pair of Levis, a pair of boots and a bit of savvy, and that was it. The bike test consisted of convincing some bloke with an official look on his face that you could ride round the block without falling off. Most of your maintenance and mod work you did yourself (or found a mate to do it for you.). And that was easy enough then because the engineering technology employed by British bike manufacturers wasn’t much more sophisticated than what you had in the shed at the bottom of your garden.

But all this was 30 years ago and took place in what Kevin, a teenaged neighbour of mine, once innocently referred to as ‘my day.’ Now that got my hackles up. I pointed out to him, rather acerbically, that I wasn’t dead yet and this was still ‘my day’ thank you very much - as much as it was his. In fact, it was probably more ‘my day’ since I and my generation had certainly contributed more to the world we live in than he and his… As I ranted on in this vein, I listened, in mounting distress, to the words tumbling out of my mouth. I sounded like some old buffer stiffed up by a lifetime of resentments and missed opportunities. In fact, I sounded like my father when he was on one of his hobby horses. And this, I realised sadly, pretty much proved Kevin’s point. So, yes, the world of modern biking was unknown to me three years ago. I was a newcomer. I was starting out all over again.

Wide-eyed exposure to the new consumerism might be one way of explaining why I’ve spent a cartload of money on bike bits recently, and a fair bit on the bike itself. Another might be that, despite all my dislike of PR and the world it has created, I’m the perfect consumer: when I need to cheer myself up, I go out and buy something new. Each new, desirable purchase is accompanied by a brief, rosy glow of happiness. The glow persists long enough for me to get the miraculous object home and for about fifteen minutes after. Then it fades and all I have to show for my money is the consumable carcass of a one-time fantasy object. Two days down the line it’s just one more inert and unconsidered thing lying around my house. To renew the experience I have to go out and buy something else. Consumerism is the drug of choice for us poor dupes of twenty-first century marketing – however old we are and whoever’s ‘day’ it is. Bike consumerism is, I discovered, no different to any other. So, here’s my latest list of aquisitions.

One Windstopper balaclava and neck protector
One pair of Daytona Roadstar Goretex winter boots.
One pair of Revit winter gloves
Three other pairs of gloves – all disasterous purchases
One nondescipt pair of inner gloves
One Pinlock Arai visor and insert
One Motrax ‘breatheable’ bike cover
Replacements for various dodgy and broken zips and fasteners on my current gear
One set of Bridgestone 014 tyres
One very expensive Kreiga rucksack
One bike battery.
In my defence, I have to say that some of these purchases, like the Bridgestones, were essential to my continued existence. Some were necessary for my basic comfort and convenience. But several were just whims. Whatever the practical reason for a purchase, I probably spent rather more on it than was absolutely necessary, and ‘need’ was not always my guiding light. My mate, Ron, who is a practical and financially sensible sort of guy, would have had a fit had he known how much some of them cost me.

Take the Windstopper balaclava and neck protector, for example. The rationale for buying this bit of kit was that I’d mislaid both my neck tubes (along with loads of other stuff since the builders moved in) and eventually, I got fed up riding with a frozen neck while I tried to find them. On the surface, the Windstopper looked like a good bit of kit. The blurb on the packaging explained that the item was made of a material that has no holes in it to let the wind through. That’s sort of impressive and interesting, but on past experience, another cheap neck tube – holes and all - would have done the job just as well.

The main point is, it’s only my neck that gets cold on the bike, not my head. My head is fine, even in the coldest British weather. So, I didn’t need a holeless balaclava, or any kind of balaclava to keep warm. I got mesmerised into buying one by a well-meaning friend who over a period of several weeks enthused so effectively about it that, listening to him, I began to believe I needed one myself. Then, one afternoon, while I browsing round a bike accessory shop looking for something to cheer me up, I bought one without a second thought.

Buddhists are great students of the human mind. They’ve been observing it intensely for over 2,500 years and have a profound understanding of the way it works. They will tell you that if you want to get someone to believe something, you must repeat it to him frequently with emotional content and it won’t be long before he will regard it not only as true but as self-evident as breathing. This clearly worked on me. (***** Brief Rant warning ***** Unfortunately, politicians and PR firms have also caught on to this simple human fact and are now very effectively manipulating the process whereby the commercial/political interests of powerful minorities are rapidly converted into everybody’s common sense. )

One pair of Daytona Roadstar Goretex winter boots. Now these little jobbies set me back £200. That ’s a lot of money to spend on a pair of boots, and my inner bank manager was very not-happy about the idea. I agonised for weeks about the pros and cons of making this purchase until the issues got so complicated in my mind that eventually I had to resolve the problem by walking into the shop one day and laying down the cash.

On the positive side, they are brilliant boots. I had a pair of Daytona Roadstars once before. They were comfortable on the bike and off it, my feet never get painfully cold in them, even in the coldest weather, and they were waterproof (once, in a downpour, the rainwater ran into them off my leathers and I rode home with several pints of water sloshing around my feet, but that was my fault for wearing the boots loose over my trousers.)

The Roadstars have Velcro vents at the back which are adjustable to fit any size and shape of calf or trouser leg. They’re a cool-looking piece of kit. And when the soles begin to wear, Daytona will repair them for you (at a price). So potentially they could last for years – that is, if you don’t crash in them first. That’s how I said goodbye to my last pair. They took a hell of a bashing when I hit the tarmac and they did a good job of saving my feet and ankles.

The new pair is proving every bit as good as the old ones (which is reassuring as my memory is sadly defective these days.). They are making me wonder how my toes managed not to get frostbite and fall off in my Sidi Vertebras (vertebrae?), which I wore for the early part of the winter. So, for anyone with cash to spare the Roadstars are a good buy. Magazines reviews rarely include Daytona stuff. I’m not sure why. But I reckon it’d be hard to find something to beat the Roadstar for warmth, comfort or waterproofing. Cost is something else, I guess.

One pair of Revit winter gloves.
These weren’t cheap (£65) but as it turned out, they were well worth every penny. My old Dainese ‘racing’ gloves (even more expensive) gave up the ghost during the summer. The wrist straps snapped. I tried to glue the ends back together but I couldn’t get a strong enough bond. I bought a winter pair (Schoeller Hipora), which I picked up for a tenner at the BMF Tail-Ender. I found them on a stall in the auto-jumble area. They were comfortable and warm and had enough feel but were not very safe. They slipped easily off my hands no-matter how tight I pulled the strap. I eventually replaced them with two more pairs which I bought at the NEC bike show: a winter pair (Lewis Stormguard) and a summer pair (‘Dynamic’) for the coming year. They were also dirt cheap and, as it turned out, nasty. The so-called winter gloves were more apt to let the weather in than keep it out. The summer ones felt great when I tried them on at the show but began to feel tight across the palm almost as soon as I got on the bike. People always say that new leather stretches over time. Well, maybe, but it’s never happened in my universe. It’ll soften up and mould itself to you better, but it doesn’t stretch. So, these were two semi-useless purchases. I guess that’s the chance you take when you buy on sight.

(BTW has anyone noticed how bizarre product names are getting these days? Several weeks ago I was in one of the supermarket superstores and witnessed the ‘Dominator’ doormat. I kid you not.)

I hit glove crunch time a little before Christmas. The remains of a heavy overnight frost still lay on the ground as I set out for a day’s riding and the air whipped through the vents in my lid like icy daggers. By the time I’d ridden ten miles my hands were so cold and painful that tears were squeezing out the corners of my eyes. I diverted, dropped in on a local dealer and asked the salesman for the warmest pair in the shop. He recommended the Revits. I had to buy something or abandon my day’s riding – and I wasn’t going to do that! The Revits looked good, had lots of feel and had been recommended in a ‘Ride’ test (Oh! What a sucker! Consume! Consume!). The young salesman told me quietly that if they weren’t any good, I should bring them back after Christmas and say they were presents that didn’t fit. (He’s either an extremely canny salesman, or he’ll quickly lose his job.) I took a risk and shelled out the cash.

My hands do get cold in them if I am riding a long time in this weather, but what should I expect? My fingers don’t get to the point of being painful or feel as though they are about to fall off, which is what I would expect from most leather gloves. In fact, they are very good. The only problem with the Revits is that the gauntlet part is clearly meant to go under jacket sleeves and, except when its pouring with rain, I like wearing them over. If I try to fasten them over my winter jacket the Velcro pads only just meet – and I don’t have very big wrists. When I get round to it I’ll have to glue an additional piece of Velcro to them – I repeat, ‘when I get round to it’.

One pair of inner gloves. Not much to say about these. I think they help a bit, but only a bit. I didn’t expect them to do much. They were dirt cheap and more an act of desperation than a considered hope at a time when I was wearing the misnamed ‘Stormguards’

One Pinlock Arai visor and insert. This is another great buy. I’d not heard of the Pinlock system until recently. It’s a kind of double glazing for visors and it works. No more misting up inside the helmet even on the coldest dampest mornings. It’s similar to the Fog City insert except that it’s not stuck permanently to the visor so you only need one, no matter how many visors you use.

To fit the clear insert, you have to buy a visor that has two plastic pins moulded into it (like those you sometimes get for tearoffs). Or you can get a conventional visor drilled and the pins inserted by a stockist. The visor is flattened out and the insert is fixed between the two pins. The torsion in the curved visor then keeps the insert in place and maintains the seal between the two. The pins lie on the edges of your normal range of vision. But the rim of the insert remains visible at the upper and lower edges. It irritated me to begin with. I kept thinking that the visor was open. But now I don’t notice it at all.

One Motrax (Dupont) ‘Tyvek’ Breathable bike cover. The cover is ‘water resistant to a water column of 2.20cm'. Its seams are sewn with ‘a special thread that expands in humid conditions.’ All sounds highly tecchie and space age, doesn’t it? So it must be good (??). An important question might be - will expandable thread help keep my bike rusting up? Still, it might be useful to have some handy if I ever get gagged and bound and thrown into a damp cellar by a gang of opportunitst kidnappers.

I don’t have a garage so my bikes have to stand outside in all weathers. One of my bike covers recently went missing. I’ve no idea where. Maybe the pixies got it. It will maybe turn up sometime when the builders leave and some sort of order re-establishes itself in my life - or it may not. In the meantime I need something to keep the SV dry.

Trouble is, if I come home in the rain and park up the SV for the night, I have to put it away wet. This ‘Tyvek’ breatheable cover is supposed to ‘dry’ off a wet bike by wicking away moisture. I find this hard to believe, but the cover was only a tenner (£10) more than my last one, so I thought I would give it a go. I’ve only used it a couple of times so far and can’t say I’ve noticed much of a difference.

Various mended zips etc. I’ve had a Dainese Goretex Cordura suit and a Hein Gericke ‘Tricky’ two-piece leather suit for the last two years. I like both of them. They’ve given some good wear. The Dainese has a detachable padded lining in both the jacket and trousers, which keep me very warm in the winter. It’s also comfortable to wear. It is supposed to be fully rainproof. I’m not sure about the ‘fully’, but it is pretty good. The jacket does let some water in a really heavy, persistent downpour, but the trousers have always kept me dry. The Hein Gericke leather suit is very comfortable. It survived my tumble on the SV650 last year with only minor scuffs and a tear in the corrugated panel above one knee – always a weak point, so I understand. I got the panel repaired and it is as good as new.

As a kid I remember reading a poem about a ‘One Hoss Shay.’ The ‘shay’ was a carriage built sturdily to last for a hundred years and a day. And for a hundred years it gave daily service and never needed a single repair. But the day after its centenary year, it suddenly disintegrated into a pile of dust. My riding gear seems to have been built along the same principles, though two years perfect running was all I got out of it. I feel short changed. After that, in the space of four weeks, two zips have gone on the Dainese suit, and four (!) on the Hein Gericke. A fastener also went on the Hein Gericke jacket, as did the neck strap.

The Velcro on the neck strap had been weakening for some time. When it finally went there were some interesting and dramatic consequences. Without it there was nothing to stop wind blast forcing open the front zip on the jacket. The first time it happened I just felt a bit uncommonly chilly. When I checked the jacket in the mirror it was wide open. Trying to ride down the motorway in windy weather with one hand on the bars and the other (gloved, of course) repeatedly trying to find the zip toggle and then tug up the zip was a scary experience I didn’t want to repeat too often. When it happened a second time, I decided I had to do something about it..

I’ve had the zips mended and the Velcro on the neck strap replaced with a couple of press studs. The new press studs are fun. To fasten them, I have to exert what feels like a pressure of about four cwt per square inch on them while pulling them together. I’ve been late for meetings twice in the last couple of weeks as a result of trying to get these little buggers to snap shut. I also have sore fingers and increasingly painful finger joints.

I noticed the other day that the pattern is continuing: the catch at the top of the Tricky trousers is now coming loose. I’ll probably get that replaced with a pull strap. I’ll let you know if the ligaments in my elbow survive.

I bought the Tricky suit partly because ‘Ride’ magazine gave it a ‘best buy’ commendation. But I remember noting at the time that the said the zips and toggles were reported as being weak, and thinking that this was probably just a one-off in the review kit.

The Bridgestones were necessary. The old ones were badly squared off, even though they still had a legal amount of treat on them. I had the 014s fitted this time. I had 010s before and they were brilliant. They ran for 13,000 miles (!) and until the last few weeks they gave good grip, especially in wet weather. I’ve done about 300 miles on the 014s now, and my impression is that they are great in the dry but don’t seem to be quite so good as the old 010s when there is water on the roads. But maybe that is unfair. The roads are very sticky at the moment with all the salt that is being put down on them. I’m told that local councils are mixing the salt with all sorts of things, including molasses(!), this year to make it stick to the road.

One Kreiga rucksack The rucksack was an indulgence. I wanted something better than the old battered item that I’ve been using for the last fifteen years. But £90 is still a lot of money to pay for a rucksack. The blurb in the accompanying glossy booklet has tried its best to sooth my by congratulates me for my discernment and good sense in buying a top quality item – the first rucksack specifically designed for bikers (My suspicious mind wonders whether that means it is already old technology). But being very bullish about this, I’m very pleased with it. It doesn’t have loose straps, like my old sack, which fly up in the wind turbulence and smack the back of my lid. It is waterproof (though it doesn’t say how many centimetres of a water column it is resistant to). It is comfortable and sturdy (it’s made of Cordura), has a back protector and a system of straps, which keep in close to the body but dispenses with a waist strap.

However, having said all that, this is a consumer item: something I bought because I liked the look and feel of it.

And it appears I’m not the only biker who is seduced by the look of a thing. I bought the rucksack last week at the MCN bike show at Alexandra Palace in North London. ‘Ally Pally’ ia only about 30 miles from where I live. Half way round the North Circular while I was on the way to the show, a young guy in a plain black lid and riding a standard CBR600 pulled up behind me and asked if I knew the way. I said I was going there, and he tagged along behind. His name was Sam.

Sam and I bumped into each other again in one of the aisles some time later. He was in an agony of indecision. He had come to buy a lid and had put his money on a rather sober looking job that was in keeping with the rest of his gear and his personality, and asked the stallholder to keep it for him. But Sam clearly had a rather more flashy inner life than he was letting on about, because it soon became apparent that he was secretly trusting after a sexy looking Shoei helmet, with triple T’ai Chi designs on it in sparkly pale blue paintwork. It was really a very nice lid, but you would need to be something of an extrovert to live up to it.

Sam was worried about the ribbing he’d get from his mates if he bought it. But the truth was, he was clearly begging me to persuade him to buy it. That felt oh, so familiar. So, how could I resist? Sam had chosen his man well. I gave him a sales pitch that Saatchi and Saatchi would have been proud of. (Who am I to thwart the strivings of a butterfly trying painfully to emerge from its cocoon). I did the job well. Sam bought the sexy lid and left the show a very happy man.

The next morning the texted me to say that he’d worn it most of the evening and only just resisted having it beside his bed at night.



So much for my list. But I'm a sucker for lists just as I am for consumables. There are lots of other lists I could make. Here's two:

Things I think I might seriously consider buying in the future.

One Scottoiler for the SV
One tinted visor
One waterproof winter jacket that will fit over my leathers.
A couple of pairs of thermal socks
A good quality back protector
A centrestand

Things I could go silly over but probably have enough sense to resist:

A pair of mirrors with dark blue backs to go with my dark blue screen and cans.
A pair of dark blue rearsets
A proper customised paintjob on the SV
A (silver/dark blue?) cowl for the pillion
Two sets of small indicators, (neater than the standard items)

I'd better stop there. Just writing the list is beginning to persuade me that I need these things.

[blues2cruise]

I think for next winter you need to add a couple of things to your list.

Heated gloves
Heated vest.

If you're going to go into consumerism, you may as well be cozy.

[sv-wolf]

I think for next winter you need to add a couple of things to your list.

Heated gloves
Heated vest.

If you're going to go into consumerism, you may as well be cozy.

Hi Blues. How're you doing?

Hmmm, not sure I'm into consumerism. I think I'd prefer to be seen as a militant opponent of the system who doesn't have the willpower to resist a nicely presented commodity.

I've never been a great fan of heated gear. Riding around in a personal electromagnetic field somehow does not appeal to me. I'm a complemenatary health practitioner by profession (these days, only part time) and used to feel duty bound to keep up to date with current research (not that I do that much any more), but from what I read, there seems to be a fair degree of evidence that electromagnetic fields do have many sorts of unfortunate consequences for our general health. These days we're surrounded by them all the time. Most office buildings are just huge Faraday cages. And I'm always getting static shocks off light switches, metal door frames, filing cabinets, etc, etc. Some recent findings show that the electrochemical communication systems of our cells are disrupted by external electromagnetic fields. What that means is anyone's guess but it sounds pretty fundamental to me.

Having said that, I'm not a purist. If we had the extremes of weather here which you have in Canada I would assess the matter differently. If a set of heated clothing meant the difference between being able to ride for six or for twelve months in the year I'd plug myself in and go for the twleve months, no question! I'd take the ride and hang the consequences.

As the weather in dear old Blighty is temperate and mild, I reckon I can manage the winters with a more traditional means of keeping warm - multiple layers. My gear is mostly good. In an emergency I've resorted to more unorthodox (and untrendy) measures. I've ridden with a leather jacket stuffed with old newspapers, before now. And one day last winter my hands go so cold, I stopped off at a garage, went into the loos and wrapped toilet paper around my fingers before putting my gloves back on. That worked a treat. My fingers were like toast for the rest of the day. It took quite a time to work out how to stop the toilet paper coming off my fingers while I pulled my gloves back on. But it was time well spent.

Fortunately, I have little pride when it comes to such things.

[sapaul]

Bloody amazing, I had a couple of hours spare today(raining all day) and having just finished an epic book decided I would read a blog. Yours is astounding. Reading between the lines your relationship with Di is about as perfect as anyone gets and as there is only about 9 years difference between us I can identify with a whole mountain of stuff you have expressed. Although our lifestyles are different I fully understand your obsession"must be catching". My biggest fear is to pass on regreting things I could have done and didn't. I know that the bikes give me an avenue to overcome that fear in a rational calculating manner. Every trip and mile taken is an outlet and a satisfaction. Correct me if I am wrong but I sense it is the same with you. I would say more but don't know how to express myself as elequently as you. Keep writing I think it is good for your soul. Mine too.

P.S I was born in Sunderland.

[sv-wolf]

Wow! Thanks Paul. Biking has definitely turned my head inside out. I still think that buying a new bike thirty years down the line was just about the best thing I ever did. (Apart from taking the risk of putting my arm round Di at the back of the cinema one evening in the eighties, of course). If there is any possibility of fulfillment on earth, then Di and bikes do it for me. I don't tend to look back much, which saves me from too many regrets. And that is lucky since I have the kind of personality that could torture myself over that stuff if I let myself. Good to hear from you. Ride safe.

Thursday 23 Feb 06

Snow! Not the kind of snow the Totalmotorcycle Cowtowners might consider worthy of the name, but that’s what we call it here in Blighty: big, soft, fluffy stuff that dissolves within minutes of hitting the ground. Its not the kind of snow that normally prevents me from riding. Nevertheless here I am, down in my cellar during prime riding time, tapping away on the laptop. Reason: the SV is back with the mechanics again. Got another problem. Problem. Problem. Problem. Not a nice simple problem like a burst tyre or a set of worn bearings. No this is the kind of problem that is specially reserved for the SV - and for me: an intermittent one that no-one can understand. I left the dealer’s workshop yesterday morning, wearily nodding goodbye to a group of guys in overalls standing round the SV shaking their heads.

This is it: the SV won’t fire up properly. Or to be more accurate, it will only fire up properly when it’s cold. First thing in the morning I switch on the ignition and immediately my ears are filled with the big meaty sound of the V-twin TL engine and Beowulf cans. (It's a big, primeval sound - I like to think - and it sets off a big primeval reaction deep inside me.) I set off, arrive at my destination and park the bike. An hour later I climb back on, turn the key in the ignition and watch a F1 diagnostic error code and a blinking red light come up on the digital clock. I thumb the ignition button. Nothing doing. No rumble. Not even a single cough. Well, I keep trying, adding in a bit of throttle here and there, until, five minutes and two pints of pure liquid frustration later, suddenly that annoying F1 symbol and winking red light disappear and she roars into life. Everything’s fine now – perfectly fine.

Everything’s fine except that every time I put the engine under pressure within the first couple of minutes of riding, it’s liable to cut out. When that happens I fire her back up and she responds instantly. It happens once or twice now at the beginning of every ride. After that, she is her usual beautiful self, a fun machine that raises my spirits and makes me feel like there are still a few thrills left to be had in life.

Later, when I get back into the saddle, I have to go through the same agonising process. And so it goes on for every ride of the day. (The SV is my transport. I don’t have a car). But then, at eight am the following morning, embracing the first chill winds of the new day, I roll her out on to the tarmac, press the ignition and she fires up instantly without a moment’s hesitation.

On Monday I take her in to see a man with a spanner. He presses the ignition. I expect to see the error code, but maddeningly, she fires up instantly, no trouble at all. I leave her with him. Later he rings me. He has fired her up several times during the day. "Sweet as a nut," he says. No flashing red light, no F1 diagnostic. I’m consumed with frustration. And more. Just a hint of jealous anger licks around the corners of my mind. She purrs for him. Why won’t she purr for me? I collect her from him and take her home. A couple of hours later I swing into the saddle, press then ignition and watch the F1 and little red light jeering at me from the dash.

What have I done to you, girl? What? Tell me please. All right, I’ve been neglecting you. I’ve let you go a bit rusty under the belly over the winter months. I haven't always cleaned away the salt. I have so little time to look after you these days. (To be honest, washing the bike down every night after dark when I get home is, frankly, is just a bit of a pain – but don’t tell.) So, sorry, SV. Won’t you forgive me now?

The problem isn’t new (if it is a single problem); It began over a month ago with the cutting out business. At first I thought it might be my fault. Until that time, I’d always warmed her up for three or four minutes each morning before putting her into gear. But recently I'd been getting stressed and impatient. She’s fuel injected, I'd reckoned, so she didn't realy need much of a warm up and I shortened the time. When she started cutting out, I tried being good again, rumbling her in neutral till a bit of engine heat showed on the clocks. And it did make some difference, but the problem didn’t go away entirely.

Round about that time the odo passed the 20,000-mile mark. I asked Simon in Breachwood Green to give her a general service. Simon is the ex-Ducati mechanic I blogged about earlier. As I live just five miles from him on his route to work, he volunteered to collect the bike in his van and take it to his garage. Breachwod Green is a small village way out in the sticks and, without transport, a hell of a place to get to from here. So I gratefully accepted. When he arrived outside my house, he caught me red handed trying depserately to give the bike a last minute wash before he took it away. It was the first time I’d cleaned it in a month. It was filthjy and I hadn’t got very far with it.

He didn’t say anything about my rather pathetic efforts at bike hygiene, just chatted and took her away. When he brought her back two days later she was all gleaming and lovely, steam polished to the nth degree of perfection. “You’re a dirty "procreating" bastrd,” he said aimiably as he drove away. I like Simon. Dead straight and no messing. He gave the SV a clean bill of health… except for one thing - the charge on the battery was low. That was a bit strange. There was no obvious reason why that should be. The next morning I rolled her out, intending to take her for a longish ride and get her charged up again. I pressed the ignition, but instead of that gorgeous rumble all she managed was a whiney little fart. She couldn’t have spoken more plainly: battery dead.

What followed was a tale of idiocy and incompetence to rival the doings of senior bureaucrats, but the telling of it will have to wait for another time when I’m feeling more up to exposing my foibles to the world. In short, I tried to revive the battery on a smart charger that evening, but it prefered being dead. It was Saturday and I wasn’t going to miss a weekend ride-out the following day. No way. Not for anything. So, I asked my mate, Ron, to pick up a new battery for me early on Sunday morning and bring it over before we set off. I left the old battery hooked up and two days later it started to take a charge. A week later the F1 and the little flashing red light showed up on the dials.

It is a sad thing when some loved object that has always been perfect in the eyes of its owner suddenly develops a fault. It's worse when its something you get closely bonded with like a bike. There is a sudden falling from grace; a rude awakening as the rider becomes witness to a lovingly crafted fantasy hitting the tarmac at 186mph. It just takes one small thing; one very small but irritating thing, for the special glow of self-worth to evaporate and for the miraculous to become merely ordinary once again.

When the SV first developed its rattle way back in 2005, it felt like the end of the world. And that was accurate enough: it was the end of a glowing bike-shaped world that I'd constructed in my head and in my senses without ever being aware of having done it. At that moment, when the SV’s perfection, and the perfection of being a biker again after all those years of abstinence began to vibrate uncomfortably beneath me, an illusion was shattered. I was forced once more to confront a much more ordinary self with all its failings and inadequacies. It was then that I realised just how much owning and riding the bike had raised me not only into another level of excitement and interest but into another sense of who I was. But that was before the rattle started to tell me she was just metal after all. I felt like a fallen angel.

But the mind is a wondrous things, and it didn’t take long for the broken-backed feeling to pass off and for me to grow a new pair of wings. Human imaginations, like their owners are infinitely adaptable - and infinitely deceiving.

Update: Took the bike back to the garage yesterday. The SV deigned to show the mechanic her F1 code and their equipment diagnosed a failed ignition ‘valve’. At least, ‘valve’ is what it sounded like to me over the phone as I travelled to work, rather bad temperedly, on the train today. I presume the dealer said (or meant) ‘barrel’, but I rather like the idea of having a valve in the ignition: one of those things we had in the back of television sets when I was a kid - the big evacuated glass bulbs that boiled electrons across a gap between two terminals. (All this was before the world discovered transistors and then micro-chips, of course. Hell! we've travelled a long way in fifty years.)

But I really wish I knew more about bikes. I really do.

[BuzZz]

O.K., now I am almost positive your ECU or an attached device of electron useage is pooched. An intermintant pooch, but one that is progressing toward wisps of smoke and the smell of ozone.

Maybe this 'ignition valve' is the culprit, but dollars to donuts, it's only a symptom of a bad brainbox.

I would also not be surprised if your mystery clutch rattle wasn't caused by the odd wonky firing signal or outright miss generated by the ECU.....

Of course, I would also not be surprised to find I'm totally wrong.......

You got 20,000 miles on that thing already, eh? Seems like just last month you ....uuummm.... retired the little SV and bought the Thou.... time flies.....

And metal and plastic they may be, but they are living entities unto themselves. At least to a rider.....

[sv-wolf]

Hey Buzz! Any chance of you moving your operation over the pond some time soon? There's a nice little plot with business potential only a couple of miles from here? I could do with a ready supply of advice and help on all matters bike related.

Thanks for the suggestion mate. I broached the possibility of an ECU fault with the dealer, and he thought it was kind of unlikely. But of course, he would say that, so I'm no further forward. I'll monitor this one carefully. Crunch time will come in the middle of this year when the warranty runs out.

[BuzZz]

Bikes are rapidly following cars into needing technicians, not mechanics, for most repair work. The mechanicals are so well designed these days that the only failures are rare, defect-induced anomalies. There is an up side and a downside to this. It's a blitch to rebuild your ECU in the driveway.....

Basically, if they can't plug the bike into a computer and change the sensor/controller/actuator that the comp tells them to change, dealerships don't want to touch it. This requires a technician who can operate the diagnostic equipment well, rather than someone who can do the diagnosis themselves, then fix the problem. We are going to end up with small, private shops staffed with mechanics and dealerships, staffed with tech's.

One big problem with that, is that dealerships using diagnostic computers are overly reliant on them. If that computer says the bike is perfectly fine, then that bike is perfectly fine, even if it won't run....... car dealerships are good examples of this. And IMHO, the ability of many 'techs' to even operate the diagnostic gear is suspect.....

"We believe you when you say your car runs poorly, but our computer says it's running fine. There's nothing we can do... maybe you need new floormats." is a common refrain at any service counter these days.

I asked the guy who was changing the high-pressure fuel pump on my truck when the last time he saw a piston was. It was when he was in tech school. But he could swap out external components like a demon... nature of the business these days.

I myself, love bikes, and most all things mechanical, but bikes are special. They are how I relax, how I get exited, my stress relief and therapy, all together. I work so I can afford to screw around with bikes(and I spose so I can eat and keep from freezing to death). Work is work. It's a necessary evil. To take something I love so much and turn it into work would not just defeat the purpose, it would take all the fun out of life.

Customer's bikes? Who f'n cares. Is MY bike ready to go? That's the only real question....

I'd rather be the azzhole standing in front of the counter than be the poor bastid standing behind it.