SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[sv-wolf]

I'm not quite as uneducated on the pub life in england as you might think having been born in the NE of England and living there some 22 years. I assure you I have never had a swift pint in 'the carrot' pub.

I even worked in Bishop Stortford for a year which I believe is in your neck of the woods. I never encountered 'the carrot' there either.

I just found it funny, that's all.
(apparently "carrot" is the TMW translation of chicken)

No offence intended PB. Just shamelessly using your post as an opportunity to get facetious. I had a funny feeling you might be English or have English connections. Maybe it was the completely casual way you referred to 'pubs', but in any case you've been demonstrating a classically low English sense of humour.

As a pub sign, 'The chicken' is, as you say, not as universal as I was suggesting (give me a little poetic licence here, mate ), but it is still extremely common, especially down here in the South (Bishop Stortford notwithstanding). Try googling pub names chicken and see what you get!!!!!

As far as 'carrot' and the TMW robocensor are concerned - yep I noticed that too. Funnily enough, when I was part of a team conducting research into regional slang some fifteen years ago, we never came across the word with this meaning. Surprising in a way, but it's definitely not British!

[pigsbladder]

No problem at all sv. It was very difficult not to whip out the double entendres when discussing a pub with such a great name.*cough*

Rest assured if I still lived or worked round your way, I'd invite you for a pint in 'the chicken'

[sv-wolf]

Cheers PB

I'd look after that cough if I were you. You never know what might start coming up if something gets on your chest.

Regards

Dick
(yeah really. no kidding!)

[dr_bar]

Dick
(yeah really. no kidding!)

[sv-wolf]

I’ve recently become interested in werewolves. No! I’m not going loopy (or should that be ‘loupy?’), not yet awhile. Myths and metaphors have always fascinated me. So I’ve started reading loads of trashy werewolf novels and am a bit surprised at how good (or how truly terrible) some of them are. I’ve also been exploring the web. There are an amazing number of kids out there outing themselves as werewolves, and sharing their fantasies. Most of their accounts are just the product of high-powered teenage imaginations (though one or two I read sounded more than a little psychotic and left me with a queasy feeling inside.)

There was some research a few years ago which showed that kids not only have to put up with a huge onslaught of new hormones in their teenage years but that their brains go through a phase of restructuring themselves as well. No wonder adults think teenagers are nuts. Because of these changes (it’s thought) we don’t normally get the boundaries between fantasy and reality sorted out until we are in our twenties – when we start pretending we are ‘properly mature.’

Maturity? It’s a fine, high-sounding idea. But from what I can see, 'maturity', in the conventional sense, is a pretty fanciful notion. Adults are partly 'mature,' partly eternal kid. I don’t think 'maturity' ever comes to anybody completely. If it did, life would be excruciatingly boring.

You may have guessed from my web handle that I’m into wolves (and foxes, as it happens). They’re very much like big dogs, really. And they are very much maligned. Real life wolves are nothing like the demented creatures that appear in werewolf and horror stories. They are not mindlessly vicious or violent. In North America there has never been a single authenticated account of a healthy wolf attacking a human being. Wolves get their bad press from the farming community, because of course, when they are hungry, they will attack and eat small domesticated animals.

In all sorts of ways, werewolves are a completely human creation - a projection of our hidden selves. It’s pretty obvious really. We invented werewolves as a way of liberating all the impulses that society teaches us to repress and which fester within us: anger; rage; violence; aggression. The image of the werewolf is a kind of scapegoat. It allows us to pretend these socially unacceptable feelings are not really ours; they belong to something else. Or else it gives us permission to admit that they are ours, but we are not really responsible for them. Then, like all those kids on the web we can dive into our fantasies (werewolves, vampires, whatever) and indulge our forbidden feelings, free of guilt. But actually, this is a wholly human matter. Real wolves don’t generally need to complicate their lives in this way.

The image of the werewolf has been around for centuries. It is found in many cultures, wherever wolves exist. In more recent times it has become a common figure in Gothic literature and horror stories. Gothic literature began, not as a kind of fantasy genre but as a realist one. It began as a commentary on the French Revolution and the Terror. Socially, it dealt with what Enlightenment conservatives saw as ‘the forces of unreason and chaos.’ Psychologically, it was a way of exploring the unstable, unsocialised and destructive side of our inner natures – something that the middle-class ‘social realist’ novel was useless at. ‘Gothic’ storytelling exhumed that little bit of Truth that ‘official culture’ liked (and still likes) to bury. No wonder it is so popular. No wonder it is so obsessed with underground passages, sewers and catacombs.

Since Di died I’ve been trying to keep up a social life, but it is difficult and I don’t often feel like being around a lot of other people. Relating to others often feels like too much of an effort. And sometimes I get to feel a bit low. Recently I found myself staring at my office computer screen for hours with nothing going on in my head. This went on for several days before I realised that there was no point in my being there. My GP (National Health Service doctor) diagnosed me as depressed. He presecribed anti-depressant drugs. He’s a good man and was giving me his best advice, but it really wasn’t that helpful. Almost everyone who is bereaved goes through a period of feeling very low - ‘depressed’ if you like. But we are not allowed just to grieve any more; we have to have a medical condition.

You can see how it happens. Western medicine has no developed idea of health, only of sickness. To understand human reality, the medical profession has to pathologise it. So grieving gets to be called depression. Depression is understood to be a series of physiological changes in the nervous system. And as soon as you have a physiological explanation of an illness there will be a commercial response from the rx companies - and some horrible new drug will come onto the market. Or an old drug that was originally designed to treat something else (but which hadn't been working particularly well) will go through a couple of quick trials and then be reissued and rebranded as an anti-depressant. That sort of thing happens all the time. Then the drug reps burst out of the big company offices like bats out of a cave and descend onto doctor’s surgeries with big smiles and a lot of professional-sounding sales-talk. I don’t do drugs – of any kind (unless you consider riding a bike is a kind of drug).

And because I’ve never thought life was about feeling good 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the idea of being ‘depressed’ doesn’t strike me as anything unusual or even something to be avoided at all costs. Pain, discomfort and feeling low all come as part of a package deal. Serious clinical depression may need treatment but it’s crazy to automatically chuck pills at someone the moment they are feeling a bit down - or bereaved. To be truthful, I’ve always been mildly addicted to states of melancholy. Melancholy is creative. It gives me a space in which to think and watch and learn new things about myself and other people. It opens up other perspectives.

But because feeling low makes me shun company I do get a bit lonely at times especially in the evenings. So I have done my own prescribing. Among other things I’ve prescribed myself lots of late night bike rides. This suits my mood. That’s the funny thing about melancholy/depression/feeling low – you can get quite high on it – in a sad kind of way. It’s an oddly pleasant, oddly comforting sort of feeling.

Out on the bike, in the solitude of the late evening, I get to sympathise with the kids who think they are turning into werewolves. Late evening is a strange time and can do strange things to your thoughts, especially if you are feeling down. Being a bit low is similar to teenage frustration. You have all these strong feelings flooding round inside you, loads of hot anxieties, yearnings and confusions - anger too. They seethe about under your skin like a pack of wild animals. You want to let them out of their cage. You want to shout or yell or groan. And sometimes you want to ride a bike fast round the back lanes.

Me? I’m a sophisticated, experienced adult (as the theory goes), so of course I have an adult way of dealing with difficult feelings. I don’t sublimate them into teenage fantasies, and I don’t pretend to myself that I’m something I'm not. No, of course I don't! Tearing round the lanes at night, it’s not me that is turning into a werewolf. It’s the bike.

Out on the country roads in the cold of the evening, racing along between steep earth banks and with a gibbous moon hanging on the black horizon directly ahead, I feel it happening. Under my hands and feet, under my bum and down between my legs I can feel the Daytona starting to transform. We rip round corners, tear down bumpy straights – me silently spilling out my anger and frustration, the shadowy hedgerows rushing by, the bike responding like she was always meant to. I listen, I feel into her: there is no doubt that something is different. It’s nothing obvious. She hasn't suddenly grown a layer of fur (great idea for a custom bike!) but she's definitely not her daytime self. And as the wind begins to churn up those lonely feelings and the moon starts to leak into my soul, I get the sense that she has grown all dark and furry - on the inside. And when I suddenly wind on the throttle and I hear her respond with a wolf-like growl, then I know for sure, she is a creature of the night. Believe me. It’s true.

I love riding under the moon. The night presses in. It's so lonely! And how easy it is to give in to the desire for danger! On empty roads like these, solitude and blackness spiral into a tunnel. My eyes and ears - and all my senses - are drawn down it. Thoughts become razor sharp. Nothing else ever feels quite as real (or as unreal) as this. Alone on narrow roads in the dead of night the darkness forces me in on myself and a different channel of life opens up inside. It’s tense and it’s sure. Skeins of thought wind tighter and tighter together till they are as tough and vibrant as hawsers trembling under load. I want nothing but to experience the sheer physicality of the world. I want to ride and ride and ride till I’m completely exhausted.

One half of my mind is caught up in thoughts of risk and consequence. At any moment there could be a sharp bend up ahead; there could be gravel on the bend; there could be a deer in the road beyond; and no doubt there will be a moment of coming face to face with fear as I ride blindly into the darkness. Images of danger rise and fall; moments of anxiety rise with them. But they are matched, impulse for impulse, by a powerful night-time desire to feel wild and free: reckless. My senses stretch out, seeking every bit of information available. I want to survive the night (my thoughts demand it) but I have a bodily need for speed and energy.

We roar (my changeling bike and I) through altered villages. Their streets are empty. All the comforting human metaphors that make up our daytime existence have withdrawn into the interiors of shadowy brick-built houses. The pulse of the human imagination is quiet. The winding streets are naked and cold, hollow and uninviting. Hinxworth, Edworth, Eye, Ashwell: the villages pass by, all surrendered to the irregular beat of the wind and the bursts of showery rain that come sweeping in from the surrounding fields. The only humanised things are the occasional glow of light from a window and my own tightly strung thoughts.

Last night, I got back from my ride at two o'clock in the morning, tense and exhilarated. I put the bike away, grinning conspiratorially with her, and walked into the house. My nerves were firing like pistons, full of energy and glee. And then some favourite lines from Macbeth – fragments - began to go through my head like I'd never heard them before. For quarter of an hour at least I kept running them over my tongue, savouring each word.

The shard borne beetle with its drowsy hums…

Come seeling night
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale – Light thickens and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood;
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

Woooooh! How does anyone write like that? The words sent tingles up and down my spine. Who needs werewolves?

As my nervous system gradually throttled down, my thoughts begin to relax also and my body started to give signs of sleepiness. And then it was definitely time to go to bed. I had started work again, so I needed to be up early the following morning. I needed to shake off this strange nocturnal mood and get back into a practical, daytime kind of mindset. Yeah, well... As my teenage nephews would say: Bor-ing!

[sv-wolf]

Tell me the world is not full of commercial scams and self-interested bike dealers! Go on! Just tell me! - and see what I say.

Tell me that it’s perfectly normal for a new Daytona 955i to guzzle nearly a litre of oil every 1200 miles. Tell me this isn’t a sick bike.

Monday 30 July

But when it comes to getting things fixed it’s the SV I think of first. She will soon be due for her first MOT (her third birthday). She's not been running well. For a long while her power delivery was uneven. Open up the throttle and nothing would happen for one, two, three, four seconds; then the power would kick in hard and nearly throw me off. Either that, or nothing would happen at all and I'd have to change down to get her to respond. In the last few days she has started behaving herself again. ( ) But the engine note has changed. The engine sounds and feels a lot looser. The V-twin knock has got louder. It happened very suddenly. I don't like it at all.

I ring up SDC, a bike repair outfit in Stevenage that has done good work for me in the past and ask if they can service and MOT the SV. No can do. They are busy and several of their mechanics are on holiday. It’s coming up to August. So I try Bike Pavillion, a new firm just opened in Letchworth. They can do it a week on Tuesday (7th August). The MOT test has to be done by the 9th to keep me legal, so that’s OK. I book her in.

The Daytona has also been booked in. She is due to go back to the Triumph dealership up at Watton in Norfolk tomorrow. They can’t look at her for nearly two weeks (their mechanics are off on holiday too) but I’ve agreed with Rob (the guy who sold her to me) that they will hold on to her and let me have a courtesy bike until they have done the work. I keep thinking the problem must be broken piston rings or something like that. Oil is getting through into the combustion chamber - it must be. How else would it end up looking so black. I don’t want to ride her too much until I have had her looked at.

Right from the moment I rode her out of the showroom for the first time, I was aware of a funny catch in the engine note. I’ve never owned a Triumph before so I had no way of knowing how normal or abnormal that might be – but it has been bugging me. It doesn’t sound right. The Triumph mechanic rode it a couple of months ago and said it sounded fine to him. So what am I to think? I can't get piston rings out of my head. I’m told that it is not uncommon for them to get broken during assembly.

Tuesday 31 July

I take the Daytona into Lings at Watton as agreed. I speak to the warranty manager and immediately start to have a bad feeling about it. Rob had been hesitant and awkward on the phone. But this guy is downright defensive and unhelpful. We look at the figures I've been keeping. The bike is eating a litre of oil about every 1200 miles. He tells me that Triumph will not agree any work under warranty unless the bike is eating more than a litre of oil in every 1,000 miles. So, what is he telling me? Is he going to get it looked at, or not? Well: yes, no, maybe. Hmmmmmm…

I hate this!

Eventually, he grudgingly says he’ll have the mechanic crack it open 'if I want,' but implies that I would be a fool to insist. As far as he is concerned (this is his official line anyway) there is nothing obviously wrong with the bike. I tell him that Rob has already agreed to do the job. He counters, saying that Rob does the sales; he is the warranty manager and he makes the decisions. I can’t believe this!

We argue a bit but he won’t come out and admit that there might be anything wrong with the bike. I tell him the oil is black. He wipes some off the dipstick onto a white rag. It's very discoloured - very. He says that's normal. I wonder what universe he lives in. He looks at the bike, sticks another half litre of oil in it, and takes note of the mileage!

I'm having difficulty making any practical sense out of what he is saying. Suddenly I realise that has reluctantly agreed to open up the engine in two weeks time - but, he says, I might as well take the Daytona home again for now: riding it won’t do it any harm. (Again - the implication that there is nothing wrong!) Now just a minute! I tell him that Rob has agreed to lend me a courtesy bike. He is cagey about this idea too. I tell him I’ve taken a day off work and ridden 70 miles to get here. He blanks me. It's back to the game of admitting nothing, committing to nothing.

I’m about to blow my stack when something turns over in my brain and I go cold inside. OK, I say. I pick up my keys and walk out. They’ve lost the business. I won’t be back.

Because what’s the point? If they are messing me around now, they are likely to mess me around again in the future. And, more particularly, if they are this defensive about checking out a new bike - one I recently bought from them - they are not going to give it their best shot when they open it up.

I ride the Daytona back home through Eldon Forest and on to Brandon. It is beautiful out here. It's a lovely sunny afternoon. Gradually, I calm down.

People keep telling me to sell on the bike. But I've fallen for it. I'll wait and see.

Wednesday 1 August

Last night I talked to some of the guys from the club, members of the Triumph Mafia (the ones that hang around in official Triumph tee-shirts and get all defensive at the very mention of engine oil.) They tell me that On Yer Triumph at Aston Clinton is a very good setup. The firm has been with Hinkley Triumph right from its start-up days and their chief mechanic is top class. Apart from that, Aston Clinton is much closer to Hitchin than Watton - only half the distance.

I give On Yer Triumph a ring first thing in the morning and speak to the service manager. He can get someone to look at the bike for me on Saturday. I tell him what the problem is and then ask the question:
“Lings say that Triumph won’t agree to opening up the bike under warranty unless it is eating over 1 litre in 1,000 miles. Is that right?”
“Yes” he says, “That’s right,” and then, without a pause, he continues: “But there’s obviously something wrong if it is burning that much oil. Bring it in.”
He’s said the magic words.
“Can you do a compression test or something?”
“Yep. Could do. Bring it in. We’ll have a look.”

Thank you!

I start back to work this morning after nearly a month’s sick leave. I’m not looking forward to going back.

I meet more motorised loons on the road on the way in.

Thursday 2 August

Drumwrecker might be able to come with me over to Aston Clinton on his VFR and give me a pillion back - but he's not sure. I need to make a decision. I work through the bus timetables. There is no way the busses will get me back in time to meet my step-kids on Saturday afternoon after I've taken the Daytona in. The kids have arranged a picnic in Shefford, Bedfordshire at half-past-one to celebrate Di’s birthday. Damn!

I ring up On Yer Triumph to cancel the work. But then I have a last minute thought. I ask if they have a courtesy bike they can lend me for the day. Yes, of course, they have. Wonderful!

Saturday. 4 August

I ride over to Aston Clinton. Drumwrecker comes with me for the ride. We arrive. The service manager tells me off for being late. Ho Hummm! But I like that. I get the impression that they know what they want and they know what they are doing - the very opposite of Lings . I leave the Daytona with Bruce, the service manager, and am given the keys to the courtesy bike. It’s a nearly new repro Bonnie. Great! I've always wanted to ride one. Coming home I decide I like this bike – except for the high bars. Even after I’ve put a fair few miles on her I still can’t get on with them. I don’t feel comfortable sitting upright like this. Maybe my spine has gone into a curve after years of riding sports bicycles and motorbikes. I just like being hunkered over.

Drumwrecker used to live near here and so knows the area well. He offers to take me home on some of the back roads. We have just enough time, so I agree. The plan falls through when I start to run out of fuel (thank god for whoever invented reserve tanks) and have to make an unscheduled trip into Dunstable to find a filling station. At the filling station, I then remember that I’ve forgotten to leave the alarm fob with the dealer. My life is like this at the moment. We have to trek all the way back to Aston.

As we hurry back down some narrow, country roads, a biker coming the other way warns us to slow down. I imagine that there is a speed trap up ahead. But a hundred yards further on round a tight bend we come across cars and broken bits of cars lying all across the road. There are people lying in the road too. The accident is very recent. The police and ambulance have not yet arrived. One guy is sitting up against the bank with blood pouring down his face. I get a good look at him and the image haunts my imagination for hours.

We get back to Aston. I deliver the fob and we ride home the fast way.

The picnic is in an open space in the middle of a maze. A great idea! Di loved mazes and this is one of the last places her son took her before she became too paralysed to be moved. I have a great afternoon with the kids and the grand-kids. A lot of good friends have been invited too. It's lovely all being there together. The mood is cheerful rather than sad.

Late in the afternoon I ride back to Aston Clinton, and am told that I have one sick bike. Yay! Wonderful! Someone has noticed. Bruce suggests I take it back to Lings and ride it as little as possible. I tell him I'd rather leave the bike and let On Yer Triumph do the work. He says that's fine, but they couldn't do it for another week and a half - it's August. But what the hell!

The only problem with this arrangment is that it is going to take me ages to get home by public transport and that will cut down on the time I have with the family. Di's daughter and son-in-law are over from Ireland and are going back on Sunday. Bruce offers to let me have the Bonnie till Monday. Result! I'm liking this outfit more and more.

That evening we go out for a Malasian meal. Di's goddaughter and her partner join us. The kids decide they want to stay the night. Great news. It’s not often I get to have the whole family under one roof.

Sunday 5 August (Di’s Birthday)

Late that morning, Di's son gets off back to London with his two little ones. Di’s daughter, her husband and their two kids set off back to Ireland at half-past-three. Their car is fit to burst with a great mound of cuddly toys. They are driving up to Liverpool to catch the ferry. I ride with them into Luton on the SV to show them the way to the motorway. It's easy enough to find. The main reason is to prolong the goodbye. I’ve had a great couple of days. It reminds me just how important they all are to me. I don’t have any immediate family of my own: no parents, brothers or sisters or children. Di's family feel as close to me as my family ever did - maybe closer.

I’m out in the back garden talking bikes with Toby and Becca, my next-door neighbours, when I suddenly discover the cause of the red splashes that have been appearing all over my Daytona and SV (and over Toby’s bikes too). As we are talking, a shower of plums comes flying over the hostel wall and into our gardens. (There’s a plum tree in the hostel garden three doors up.) Kids! I thought so. I walk over to the wall and we have words.

Monday 6 August

I take the afternoon off work and ride the Bonnie back to Aston. It’s a beautiful day.

The guy in front of me at the On Yer Triumph service desk is a copper. He is asking the service manager to identify something. He holds up a narrow telescopic rod with three retractable elements to it; you flick the rod and it extends into what looks to me very much like a cosh. The policeman demonstrates. It has a knob on the end, and the final element is bendy. The copper tells the service manager that it has been taken off a guy who is claiming that it is a ‘special tool’ for removing fork bolts on motorcycles. The policeman thinks it is a cosh. He asks the service manger if he has seen anything like it before. The service manager laughs and shakes his head. He thinks it is a cosh too.

Drumwrecker meets me at the dealers and gives me a pillion home. (If Drumwrecker decides to call in all the favours he has done me over the last year, then I’m going to be very busy.) We take a back-road route home - the one we didn't quite manage last time. It follows some lovely roads - very narrow, winding roads. They run through the Vale of Aylesbury, up over the Chiltern Hills and on into my home county of Hertfordshire. They snake around through woods and parkland, circle towns and nip quietly under heaving motorways. All about us is rural Hertfordshire, a gorgeous wide-open little world which somehow intersects with the messy, urban, overpopulated county that visitors know like a strange parallel universe. I’ve lived in Hertfordshire for forty-five years and I’m still finding little winding back ways to travel around on.

It's Monday, so the club are meeting at a local pub. I ride up the A1(M) to The chicken in the village of Broom. (It's that pub name again!). I get to tell my tale about the Daytona half-a-dozen times. People are genuinely pleased that I've finally got is sorted. But most of the evening they are absorbed in their game of 'cheeses'. Many traditional country pubs in Bedfordshire have a room dedicated to the playing of a local version of skittles. The cheesy-yellow skittles stand on a raised platform and you throw thick cheesy-looking yellow discs at them. The chicken is a good pub, but it's very small. It sells some excellent beers. It has no bar: if you want to be served, you have to queue up by the cellar door.

Tuesday 7 August

I get up early and take the SV into Bike Pavillion (about three miles drive from home). I ask to use the phone so I can call a taxi and get home. The guy at the counter offers me a courtesy bike instead. I don't even have to ask. Great! That will solve a lot of problems. Usually, you have to book a courtesy bike in advance. My luck is clearly in. I take the key out onto the forecourt. There she is. It’s a commuter Kwacker, a 2007 ER-6N. Nice looking bike! At low revs it feels like a very nippy little’un - but wind on the throttle and she powers up quickly and pulls very respectably – like the 600 twin she actually is. Very nice motor. Very nice bike. I enjoy my ride home. I enjoy my ride into work and I enjoy my ride back to the dealers in the late afternoon.

The SV has failed its MOT. This doesn't surprise me. It needed new back wheel bearings and there was a worn gasket on one of the pipes. It also needed a new air filter (which I was expecting) and the front brake calipers are ok for the moment but need monitoring (the front brake was starting to feel a little spongy). The engineer also suspected that the left fork seal was going - something else to watch. The guy I spoke to was helpful and informative. If everything goes OK I’ll use them again.

But the mechanic couldn’t discover why the engine had been running badly. He suggests that there might be a build up of water in the petrol tank. That’s quite possible. The SV has to live outside in all weathers. The guy on the counter orders the gasket for me. I can still ride the bike without it till the 9th August when the MOT legally falls due. The part should come in by Thursday and the mechanic says he can fit it that afternoon if I bring back the bike by four o'clock.

I think my luck has changed.

[roscowgo]

Congrats on the younguns. They're good for you.


Did they tell you What was wrong with the bonnie?

[sv-wolf]

Did they tell you What was wrong with the bonnie?

Actually, yes. Apparently, it's the wrong colour.

[Nalian]

Great update! As always, you have quite a way with words. Now I have to ask - what is a cosh?

[sv-wolf]

Hi Nalian

Good to hear from you.

Cosh? Sometimes I think we need to teach you guys some English? Is 'cosh' purely one of ours?

OK.

Cosh Brit noun 1. blunt weapon, often made of hard rubber; bludgeon. 2 an attack with such a weapon. C19; from Romany kosh. Collins Concise Dictionary

Or more accurately perhaps: "If yer wanna belt some geezer rahn the 'ed, yer 'it 'im wiv yer cosh."