SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[blues2cruise]

That was a funny story. Thanks for the laugh.

I also think you write very well.

[sv-wolf]

Wednesday 12th October


Cheers blues. keep writing and happy riding.


_____________________________________________________________

There are few words or phrases in my vocabulary that adequately describe the experience of getting out of bed at five o’clock in the morning. ‘Pigging awful’ is one of them. It’s a rotten feeling. If the early morning is a fist, then I'm the punch bag. But sometimes you've just got to be courageous about this. On Wednesday night, already stressed and knackered from lack of sleep, I set the alarm for ten to five, got into bed and curled up into a tight ball, trying not to think about how I would feel six hours later. I was doing this for the bike (I kept reminding myself): nothing else – nothing at all - would induce me to drag myself from under a comfortable duvet before I was good and ready.

So, Thursday morning I hit the bedroom floor at five o'clock, feeling like I’d just crawled out of a rock guitarist’s armpit and dragged myself downstairs to breakfast. I ate in a hurry, leathered up as quickly as I could, got my travelling kit sorted, and then, just as I was about to go out the door, my resolve collapsed and I spent the next ten minutes wandering vaguely around the house, muttering to myself . By the time I’d pulled myself together again, it was ten to six.

In many ways I’d been looking forward to this trip. Thursday was to be the day when my bike’s rumbles and rattles would cease and I’d get back to enjoying it. I was taking the SV up to Redcar Motorcycles in Leicester to have the new clutch basket fitted. The job had been booked for the previous Friday, but the part on order hadn’t arrived in time and I’d had to content myself with waiting another week. As well as trying to sort the vibrations, I’d asked the guys at Redcar to do my 16,000 mile service – the big one. They told me that I would need to allow two hours for the bike to cool down before they could begin and then the work would take most of the rest of the day. I needed to get there early.

IMNSHO, at this time of the year, the pre-dawn is neither beautiful nor awe-inspiring; nor is it any of those other romantic things that people imagine. It is merely comfortless. I sniffed the air outside my front door: it was chilly and noticeably damp. The weather forecast had predicted fog all over the Midlands and South right up until mid-morning. And as if to confirm all my forebodings, the moment I pulled my visor down over my face it filled with mist. Great!

When I hit the A1, just two miles from my house, it was already packed with commercial traffic. Long convoys of canvas-sided wagons were lumbering up the inner lane for as far as the eye could see. White van man was strongly in evidence, weaving at speed in and out of the traffic and doing his very best to be annoying. I had to take avoiding action almost immediately as one member of the species swung out suddenly in front of me without indicating. Up ahead, a long articulated wagon was wobbling up the outside lane at 65.005 mph attempting to overtake another long articulated wagon travelling at 65 mph.

The gods were not going to be friendly this morning, so I reckoned it was up to me to make the best of it. Many years ago, I tried being depressed, but discovered pretty quickly that it didn’t work. And anyway - I told myself - I was out on the bike, I was enjoying the challenge, the night air was fresh and the early morning was doing that thing to my brain: polishing my thoughts till they shone and paring back my sense of reality to its essentials. I felt happy - in a sleepy, melancholy sort of way.

Still, there was a maggot in the apple. By the time I turned off onto the A41, some forty miles later, the SV was vibrating for all it was worth. I gritted my teeth, comforted myself with the thought that it would all soon be sorted, and tried to concentrate on the road. My tiredness and early morning preoccupations made time slip by unnoticed. Unfortunately, they also slowed my reactions. And that was not good, for what was about to happen next. About twenty miles along the A14 the patches of thin fog grew more frequent; the fine drizzle, more persistent and despite everything I could do to keep it clear, my visor ran permanently with water. It was as though a whole procession of carnival lights had wandered into a hall of mirrors. I couldn’t make out the lanes or the bends in the road. Tail-lights twinkled like stars, their rays spreading out right across the carriageway. Sidelights danced crazily in the corners of my eyes. Everything in my visual field fractured and ceased to make sense.

There then followed a whole string of scary moments. Suddenly, I panicked. I haven't thrown a wobbler like that on a bike since I had a serious dose of hypothermia up in the Welsh mountains two years ago. But this time there was nowhere to stop. The A14 has few service stations and, at that moment, there was no sign of a turnoff. I dropped my speed to 60, jammed myself between two lorries in the slow lane, focused on the lights in front and hoped for the best.

A service station did eventually loom out of the mist. I turned the bike down the slip road, uttering my gratitude to the great unknown, and thruppenny-bitted round the corner like a three-week squid. (Thruppeny bits were small British, brass coins with thirteen edges. I’ve always liked that phrase but as the chunky little coins became obsolete in the 1970s it's only us older - i.e. 'more mature' - types that use it.) Trying to pay for food in the shop, I found my words weren’t coming out right and when I reached for my wallet, my arms moved awkwardly and with little jerks: my neck and shoulders had gone into spasm. Months of stress, grief and lack of sleep; the morning’s early start; the chilly weather; a meagre breakfast and poor visibility on the road had combined to put my body into a state of shock.

I sat down with a pork pie and a bottle of fruit juice and waited. One thing for which I am hugely grateful is that although I have nerves like firecrackers (very uncool when you are a teenager; very irritating in middle age), I have the constitution of a horse and recover quickly from almost anything. Within fifteen minutes, with a little food inside me, I’d reassembled myself and felt ready to get back on the road.

By that time, the dawn had arrived and the sky was turning a pale, if uninviting blue. I’ve always found the dawn a surreal time of day. It brings a lightening of the spirit, but a simultaneous flattening of mood. It’s like recovery from stress: there is relief and a letting go of tension, but also a shutting down of exhausted emotions. I felt drained.

I rode the last fifteen miles of my journey to Leicester along the M1. It was here that I hit roadworks, a 40mph limit and the new speed cameras that work in pairs and calculate your average speed as you travel from one to the other. No-one on the road was taking any risks. It was a slow, tedious ride in third gear. At junction 21, the Leicester/Coventry turnoff, I felt very glad to be riding a bike. The traffic on the roundabout is so heavy at that time of day that one car manages to get off the M1 slip road and into the traffic flow about every minute. Lorries take longer. There were about thirty vehicles waiting at the junction when I arrived. Filtering was never more of a pleasure. I imagined all the looks of pure hatred on driver’s faces as I swept past them and then accelerated hard into a small gap in the circulating traffic. Torque is a wonderful thing.

When I reached Redcar Motorcycles I was definitely the worse for wear. In the shop I lost one of my earplugs. It just disappeared. The only explanation I have is that I must have dropped it down the loo. It was a custom job and cost me fifty quid. But I was dog tired and, right then, just didn’t give a "poo poo". I left the bike in the capable hands of Chris, the mechanic (I’m a trusting soul. I have no experience of this guy’s work, but I have a good feeling about him. He seems to know what he is talking about) and set off to explore the delights of Leicester.

First, I needed food. After that… Well what was I going to do with the rest of a bikeless day in a strange town? I wandered around the covered market for a bit, bought some fruit, then set off to try and find a Tourist Information Bureau. The guy in the Bureau was about fifty, extremely helpful and wanting to talk bikes (I was still wearing my leather jacket) like it was an urgent need that he could no longer restrain. There are three things, I’ve noticed, that will get you into conversation with strangers faster than anything else: dogs, bikes and children. (Give me the first two, for preference.) He knew Redcar Motorcycles, and told me that it was a father and son outfit and that it had been around since, as a lad, he had crashed his first Triumph (or was it his first Kawasaki?) We went through a long list of bikes he had owned in great technical detail. Most of it went right over my head.

Half an hour later I found myself wandering around yet another cathedral. Only this one is a bit different from most. It’s a small gothic building, only recently consecrated as a cathedral and has been much 'restored' by the Victorians. Whenever the Victorians got their hands on a medieval building, they usually ruined it, but not in this case. Leicester cathedral is just beautiful. Not beautiful in the manner of a big gothic church, not overwhelming and impressive. This little gem is as cosy as a Victorian parlour, warm and inviting. A service was in progress in one of the small side chapels. A congregation of about six elderly people were responding to the dreary liturgical mumblings of the priest. The routine inconsequence of their ritual seemed incongruous in this setting and irrelevant to the sense of security and strength radiated by the building that surrounded them.

I’ve always loved wandering around old churches, especially at times when there has been great stress in my life. I like their big echoing spaces and their sense of history. And right now, I need to know that my wife’s death, when it happens, is not an isolated event but part of a greater history of things dying. At the moment, her death and separation from me feel like uniquely painful and incomprehensible things. When you live with a partner you love long enough she becomes a part of you. The idea that she will cease to be while you continue to live in the world seems a gross violation of everything that is essentially human. If I don’t stand outside my feelings from time to time, I’ll go nuts.

In a small way, visiting these beautiful old buildings helps. Gothic churches are filled with images of death, carved into stone and wood, and illuminated in stained glass. In their detail, they are complete representations of the human condition as it was imagined by the medieval Christian community. Buildings like this also carry a sense of continuity. They remind me that death can be survived: life carries on. I don’t mean that I believe in an after life. I don’t and that’s not the kind of reassurance I’m seeking, but the persistence of such images down the centuries grants me two things: the knowledge that Di’s death will not immediately be the end of me, and that my own death is, nevertheless, certain. And in both these truths, I find reassurance and some peace.

On leaving the cathedral I made my way on foot across town to the National Space Centre and an adjacent museum which was located in an old steam pumping station. I avoided the ring road, and wandered along a network of footpaths that followed the river through the Abbey Park. There were few people around and I was glad of some peace and quiet. The only sounds were the calls of water birds and the soughing of wind in the autumn trees. I rarely have time for my own thoughts these days and moments like this are precious.

Even in the closest relationship, there is a part of you that always stands alone and remains uninvolved with your chosen partner. Di has a part of herself that is completely private and has always been closed to me. I’ve always been aware of it, but never wanted to acknowledge it till now. Now, I see it very clearly. I see that her journey into death is one that she will have to take on her own. I can’t help her, or travel with her. All I can do is let her go. If she is going to make a good death, a peaceful one, she needs to leave the world in full possession of herself, unattached and unencumbered by anything she must leave behind, especially my need for her. And I’ve discovered an astonishing fact, that it is in this letting go that all the greater part of my love for her resides. Understanding this has pulled the cork from the bottle and has allowed the love I feel for her to flow in as pure a form as I have ever known it.

Of course, I too have a part of me that she has never owned, and if I am to survive her death intact, I need to recognise and accept this too. I was horrified, at first, when the thought occasionally crossed my mind that I could start a new life after her death and that it would be refreshing, something I could even look forward to. It felt so disloyal. (I don’t know if anyone on the site is interested in these musings, but it helps me to record them here. It is often as I am out and about on my bike that many understandings come to me.) Di has no interest in motorcycles. And since I got back into biking, it has been while I have been out riding that I have been most aware of this separateness from her.

Of course, in all this I’m assuming I’ll survive her. Who knows for sure. I could take a tumble down the road at any time or be run over by a bus. I’ve not thought about my own death for a number of years, at least, not since I bought the bike. For a long time the bike made me feel too much alive to think of death, which is ironic since it certainly reduces the odds of my living to a ripe old age. But who can make sense of statistics? And who understands probability? I mean, really understands it deep down in their guts. I have a degree in Philosophy, which taught me to think in abstractions. But that is a bit of a joke as I’m really a peasant, at heart. I know what I can see and touch and taste. And I’ll know about my death when it happens (if it’s not instantaneous). ‘Probably’ is just a piece of conceptual junk that rattles around with all the other conceptual junk in my head. You accumulate a lot of mental rubbish in the course of fifty years.

And the bike teaches me a lot about living and dying, too. When I’m strong and confident, I ride like there is some ancient intelligence working through me. It’s effortless and egoless, much deeper than anything that preoccupies my daily mind. It puts me in touch with a moment by moment experience of life in a direct and bodily way. And it makes me supremely happy. When I’m scared, I know in every muscle that I’m fighting to survive. Either way, riding makes me understand that to be alive is a tremendous gift, not to be squandered, and in some measure, it teaches me what it is to be human, as well. In contrast, so much of the rest of my life – my working life in particular – is just a pointless passing of time. When this emotional chaos is all over and I’ve achieved a measure of tranquillity once again, it will be time to review my life and make some serious decisions. Taking three months to do my Baltic trip on the bike will be one possibility. Giving up my job will definitely be another.

The museum was closed. That was a disappointment. The steam pumping engine it houses has been restored and in working order. I love Victorian steam engines. Like internal combustion engines they are a knowable technology. I understand how they work. Microchip technology, on the other hand, loses me completely. There is something spooky about circuits and computers that, useful and fascinating as they are, completely mystify me. Rocketry, on the other hand is pretty boring and for the opposite reason. As sophisticated as the technology surrounding it is, in principle it is moronically simple. Rocketry is just a lot of big metal tubes filled with solid fuel pellets. Hmm.

The National Space Centre was a bit of a disappointment (rather like the National Space Programme.) The exhibits were really intended for school kids. They wer broad and lacking any kind of complexity. The most interesting thing, to me, was a display about ‘Galileo’ the new European commercial sat-nav system that has been set up to rival/complement the American GPS network. It will have 30 satellites, as opposed to America's 29. There was a detailed explanation about why one extra was required but the whole thing sounded like ‘Yah! boo! sucks!’ to me.

At three-fifty pm I got a call on my mobile from Redcar Motorcycles to say the SV was ready for me to pick up.

Back in the showroom, Chris showed me the old clutch basket. The original part on the 2003 model was faulty. The rivets holding it tended to weaken and the basket came loose, causing the vibrations. The basket would jam and unjam itself making the bike vibrate intermittently. The replacement part had been upgraded for the 2004 model so the problem should not recur. It sounded like good news and I was eager to try the bike out. I said goodbye to Leicester and headed for the motorway.

Hell!

On the way home the bike vibrated just as much as before and rattled worse than ever. So, as you can imagine, I felt pretty glum - worse – worse than glum, just wholly fed up. But as I continued to ride her over the following days I noticed there was a difference. The amplitude of the vibes was not so great and they were less disturbing. Over time, the rattle disappeard completely and hasn't returned. This leaves me still hopeful. The bike has recently been developing definite problems with the fuel injection system and I'd already spoken to a local firm about getting it balanced and set up on a Yoshi box.

I'm an incorrigible optimist, me. I'll let you know.

[sv-wolf]

Friday 14th October 2005

OK so this was my last, very last, totally final attempt to cure the vibes on my bike. I took the old girl down to SDC today (You see what this vibe problem is doing to me? - how it's got me thinking of a fourteen month old bike as 'the old girl'). They put it on the dyno and tweaked it with a Yoshi box. The result: excellent. The Dyno readings show a rise in Max torque from 66 to 70.9 (lb-ft presumably) and a rise in Max power from 106 to 111.9 bhp. (106 is the manufacturer’s claimed bhp – so that surprised me. I've always understood that manufactuer's claims are unrealistically high.) What’s more, it looks as though the SDC guys got a pretty consistent improvement right through the rev range. It’s made a huge difference to the ride. The additional torque is very noticeable and the delivery is as smooth as butter. Yummy.

Now, if they can do that on a Yoshi, what would I get if the bike were Power Commandered. At £400, could I afford it? Would I need it? Could I justify it to my wife? Could I justify it to myself? Could I justify it to my dog? (Now that would be the test – how many tins of dog meat could I buy for £400? And would I get another 6bhp out of him?)

And here’s another question. What’s it done to the fuel consumption?

The bike’s still backfiring occasionally with the new Beowulf pipes, but I guess I can live with that.

And the bad news? - the vibes are still there and the rattle is back.

Weep!

(Pulls himself together)

OK the next task was to book in the SV for a trip to the plastic welders to try and get the fairing lowers fixed firmly back onto the frame. The vibes have shattered the plastic on both sides around the fixings, so there is nothing to hold them in place at that point. With all the vibes though, is it worth it?

[sv-wolf]

Saturday 15th October 2005

It’s always the same, this time of year. Whenever I start up the bike outside my house, I look down and there is a hoppity black squirrel ferrying one of my walnuts across the road to some unknown storage place in the gardens opposite. ‘Hey you, these are MY walnuts from MY walnut tree’. Do you think they listen? Do they hell!

Yesterday, as I was getting out the SV, I disturbed one of the little buggers hurrying purposefully through my back garden with his mouth full, as usual. I nearly tripped over him as I came round the corner of the house. He dropped the nut, hopped-and-stopped half a dozen times, then crouched in the middle of the lawn, staring reproachfully, first at me and then at the walnut. I picked it up and threw it at him. I aimed to miss, but he hopped off just at the wrong moment and it caught him squarely in the arse. He roared, ran like buggery up into a hazel tree and sat there chittering at me aggressively. Even squirrels make me feel guilty.

I like watching them, though. About ten years ago, I worked at a complementary health clinic out in the countryside, A tall chestnut tree stood on either side of the driveway entrance. One particular squirrel liked to run up the tree on the left, leap across the gap, run down the trunk on the right and then back across the drive so that he could do the same thing all over again – and again and again. Sometimes, he’d keep this up for hours. Who says squirrels don’t know how to have fun? (Although, it is possible, of course, that this squirrel just had OCD.)

I’ve been enjoying my riding more recently. My handling of the bike has improved considerably in the last couple of months. I’m holding my lines better and no longer squirreling around corners like I used to. In general, I'm riding much more smoothly and confidently. And that’s got a lot to do with the company I’m keeping. As well as riding with the club, I now sometimes go out with another couple of guys who I met recently. One of them, Keith, is a very experienced biker. He has the kind of background anyone would envy. His dad and granddad were both into bikes and they encouraged him to ride from a very early age. He has now been knocking around on two wheels for at least forty-five years, part of that time as a professional racer. What he doesn’t know about bikes isn’t worth knowing.

The difference between this guy and most of the other people I ride with is that he is not at all interested in speed (That’s not to say he isn’t fast, when he wants to be.). His road riding philosophy is simple: concentrate on riding smoothly and skilfully at all times. That’s another thing I admire about him. Despite all that experience, he is still interested in developing his ride. Riding behind him, following his lines, watching how he uses his gears and brakes has been a huge education. He clearly gets a lot of fun out of his bike without needing to ride like a maniac and break the speed limits at every available opportunity.

He told my other mate, Ron that he liked riding with me because I was ‘a nice steady rider’. That gave me quite a boost, as, at the club, I’m usually the butt of interminable jokes about my slowness – which actually means that I don’t like to ride at 120mph whenever I can. It’s a different perspective.

Ketih currently rides a KTM 900 adventurer. I’ve never had a good look at one of these before or read up on the specs. It is such a pig-ugly bike that I have never been tempted to give it a second thought. But having one introduced to me by an enthusiast who has ridden almost every bike going put a different perspective on it. Suddenly, it didn’t look quite so ugly (though, It's never going to give me the hots). And there is a lot about it that is very impressive.

It was, after all, put together as a serious rally bike, and is full of practical design touches. Adjusting the suspension, for instance, is as easy as opening a hinged element on the side of the bike and turning a knob lightly with your fingers. According to Keith it is also a do-it-all bike, not just a rally bike or off-roader. He says it is warm to ride in the winter and keeps off rain and windblast. And it has, by all accounts, excellent build quality. As an all-year-round rider, there is a lot there to make me prick up my ears.

Keith offered to let me take it for a spin one afternoon. I think I might just take him up on that. Apart from general use, I’ve been thinking about what bike to get for my ‘big trip’ round the Baltic. I recently bought a copy of Chris Scott’s ‘Adventure Motorcycling Handbook.’ (Great book by the way if you want info and advice on long distance riding). Top of his recommended bikes is the KTM Adventurer 640R. An Adventurer might be worth considering for the trip. After all, if I can’t get on with its looks, I can always sell it when I get back home. At £8,000, a new one might just be out of my league but a second hand bike might be possible.

In the meantime, I have to give serious consideration to my war against the squirrels..

[sv-wolf]

Sunday 16th October 2005

Yesterday, some friends drove Di and I up to Hartford Marina just outside Huntingdon for a meal and a boat trip on the river. We'd planned the day out with Di in mind. She's been stuck in the house a bit lately, so I wanted to get her out into the fresh air. And she has always loved boats. She was on the point of buying one when I first met her. Unfortunately, the deal fell through and afterwards we couldn't afford it. I think she has always regretted that.

And yesterday the weather was beautiful: a warm, mellow autumn day, just perfect for a lazy trip up the Great Ouse, in among the water meadows, watching the coots and crested grebes and all the noisy comings and goings of swans and canada geese. There's something so slow and peaceful about life on the river. I understand why Di loves it so much. I could be tempted to buy a boat myself.

So, that morning, I should have been thoroughly relaxed and looking forward to the trip. Right? But, no. There I was, sitting in the back of the car on the way up to Huntingdon scanning the road for bikes. Every time some guy overtook us on two wheels, I had this sharp longing in my chest. So what was going on? I'd given up one day's riding - just one! - and already the very thought of getting my leg over a bike had my tongue hanging out. Even BMWs were giving me the hots – well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but they had me staring and that says an awful lot about my condition.

Maybe I need to see a shrink. Maybe I need to get a life, or to rediscover the one I had three years ago before I started riding again. Seriously! Sometimes I feel I ought to get a grip on this biking thing and put my life back into perspective. Here I am, aged 53 and acting like a hormone-soaked twenty year old. Almost everyone else I know of my generation has settled down to a comfortable middle-age. Even those who are still physically active or young at heart seem to lead balanced, settled lives – like I did (sort of) until I got back onto two wheels. Some of them climb mountains or go hang gliding, but they’re not actually obsessed with these things - not addicted. Not like me, sitting there, in the back of the car with my tongue hanging out. I'm convinced this is an obsession and ultimately not good for me. But will I do anything about it? Of course not! I’m having too much fun.

I got back into biking three years ago after a long, long, break. At that time, I was feeling just a bit gloomy. I'd had to start wearing reading glasses for the first time, my hair was falling out and if I didn’t shave for a couple of days, instead of designer stubble, I grew this ugly, old-looking grey stuff on my chin. Worst of all, I was turning into a werewolf – hairs were starting to grow out of all those tiny orifices where they had no business being – like they did in all those elderly men I knew. This was never supposed to happen to me. Then the realisation struck. For the first time I began to notice there was a ceiling up there and one day I was going to bump my head against it. Until then there had been nothing but blue skies. Was I feeling depressed? Yep, I was feeling depressed.

Then one afternoon, I was checking my work contract when I noticed that there was something peculiar about it. I couldn't put my finger on it at first but then the penny dropped. I was entitled to a higher grading than the one I had, which meant that for three years my employer had been underpaying me. After long discussions with the Personnel section, a back payment was agreed, and at the end of the month, there were several thousand extra pounds in my pay cheque.

So, what was I going to do with all that money? Well, I thought about those grey hairs and asked myself what I would do with it if I were twenty. The answer was instantaneous: I would buy myself a big f**k-off motorcycle, get out on the road and have a lot of fun.

I’d given up my last bike in the mid-1970s when I moved back down south once again and was living not far from my family home. My parents were pathologically terrified of bikes. I’d intended to gently talk them round and buy another machine the following year. But my life went off in another direction and I never did. By the time the windfall landed in my pay cheque three years ago, my parents were long dead, so I no longer had to protect them from my bike fantasies. My other circumstances left me free to do what I wanted. So I made my decision there and then. My mid-life-crisis time came and went, and left me with a raging obsession in the form of a Hyosung Comet GT 125, a SV650 and finally a SV1000S K3.

Having decided to buy the bike, the next hurdle was to persuade Di that it was a good idea. I tied myself in knots working out how to explain that owning a bike had suddenly become absolutely essential to my life. And I rehearsed dozens of diferent ways of breaking the news to her.
When I did tell her, there was no subtlety about it, it just came blurting out.

'Er, I've been thinking of buying a bike.'
'Yes.'
'Huh?'
'Of course you have. Why else would you have been leaving bike magazines all over the house?'
'Oh!'

And that was all there was to it. I could have saved myself the bother.

When I think about it, I’m a bit of an unlikely biker. Apart from bikes, I don’t have a lot in common with any other bikers I know. I’d been a number of things in my life: an academic, a community worker, a complementary health practitioner, a writer, an editor. I've always been heavily into classical music, Shakespeare and 20th-Century modernist literature. That's a pretty middle-class sort of CV, don't you think? None of the other bikers I know have the slightest interested in any of these things. They are mostly practical hands-on types. Many have a background in science or engineering. Now, I know that’s a stereotype and people from all walks of life ride bikes, but it’s generally true. In England, at any rate bikers are predominantly working class. Which I’m not. But then again, you see, I am. And that's the hook.

As a kid I grew up tearing round the streets of a council estate in North Hertfordshire with all my mates. There were only two things any of us wanted when we grew up: to "pee" off our parents and to ride a bike. This was the Mods and Rockers era. The kids in the village where I grew up were all Rockers. We used to meet on the village green in the evening after school. The older teenagers turned up on their BSAs and Triumphs and we younger kids used to stand around hero worshipping them and dreaming of the day when we would be able to earn enough money to own our own cafe racer. Everyone wanted a leather jacket from Santa at Christmas.

The kids from the posher end of the village were different. They existed in a hermetically sealed world that we knew nothing about. They lived in big houses behind walls, and the houses had names like, 'The Manor', 'The Fays', 'Cherry Trees', and 'Dove Cottage'. The only contact we had with their world was when we broke into their gardens and scrumped apples from their orchards. We didn't care. We all knew who we were and who we were going to be when we grew up.

But in my case it didn’t turn out like that. By a complicated set of coincidences I found myself finishing off my secondary education, not in the local secondary modern, but as a full-time boarder in a boy’s public school down in Hampshire. This was definitely a rich kid’s establishment. The school’s termly fees were in excess of my father’s annual income. By sheer luck (if that is what it was) I had been awarded a bursary on the grounds of my supposed academic ability (I was always a good bullshitter).

I now found myself in a seriously different world where bikes had no place whatsoever. For many of the kids in my new shool, there were two types of people: ‘us’ and ‘the peasants’. Bikes and biker culture were definitely for the peasants. The first thing the school did was to knock the local Hertfordshire accent out of me and replace it with something a lot more 'acceptable'. How this happened I have no idea, but it did. I have some transfers from old reel-to-reel tapes of my voice from the early 1960s and I hardly recognise myself on them. Life at boarding school changed many things about me: my expectations and attitudes (not always in the direction the school would have wanted) and many of my interests as well but they didn’t get rid of my fascination with bikes. When I went to university, away from the frantic bike-haunted harangues of my parents I bought my BSA , and the rest is history.

Three years ago, I found myself back in a world that, at first, I no longer felt part of but which was very familiar and exciting. Hanging round with other bikers in pubs and bike meets now is not so different to hanging out on the village green when I was a kid. I love the bikes and I love the social life that goes with them.

Apart from the fun of riding, and the biking culture that goes with it, I've started to rediscover a lot of buried stuff about myself and my early background. Yes, I feel like a kid again in some ways, and despite my misgivings, I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. Or if it is I don’t care.

And of course, all you need to get on with other bikers is an interest in bikes. It doesn't matter a toss what you do with the rest of your life. But in any case, since I bought the Hyosung and the SVs, I haven't had time for anything else, anyway.

Di, sadly, has no interest in bikes, but, like me, feels at odds with much of the world in which she lives - and she milks it for all the fun she can get out of it. She's usually willing to have a go at anything - even now. At Hartford Marina, yesterday, we persuaded the boatman to try and help us get her on board his boat for a river trip – not that it took much persuading, he was a cheerful, try-anything-once type. As she no longer has any use of her arms or upper body, it was a bit of a performance getting her over the side of the boat. We managed it with much laughter and confusion. It was a lot of fun and for an hour or so I forget entirely about her illness - and about bikes as well (sort of.)

Anyway, enough of this. Time for a ride.

[blues2cruise]

I like reading your rambling musings.

What about the rattle, though? Are you going to pursue getting it solved? Going back the fellow who replaced the clutch basket and did the 16,000km service?

[sv-wolf]

What about the rattle, though? Are you going to pursue getting it solved? Going back the fellow who replaced the clutch basket and did the 16,000km service?

Cheers Blues

Thanks for the reminder. Of the three million things I have to do this week, yes I do need to get back to Redcar Motorcycles up in Leicester and talk to them about it.

It's hard to explain, but somehow, though the vibes are still there, the ride is a lot smoother than it was before they changed the clutch basket - it's like the frequency of the vibes is the same but the amplitude is not so great. Redcar definitely did something that needed doing, but they didn't get right to the bottom of the problem.

Having the bike Yoshi'd on the dyno also helped the ride.

I'd give in at this point and accept that the bike is a V-twin and the vibes are just part of its make up except that they are intermittent and there is this rattle that usually (though not always) comes on with them. Sometimes the vibes subside to a gentle burble and the bike rides beautifully, at other times the frame feels like a buzz saw going through a piece of tropical hardwood - and the engine produces a noise to match.

The SV1000 K3 model has some inbuilt problem in the engine or the clutch. The 03 V Strom which has the same TL1000 engine has it as well. There is an knock. Suzuki are not letting on what is causing it. All they say is, yes, there is a knock, it is not caused by the main bearings, there is no danger to the bike and you just have to live with it. Most riders have come to the conclusion that it is a clutch problem. Well, maybe. I don't know. But it does seem to fit in with everything I've discovered so far.

The knock is a funny affair. It is only heard at idling and at very low revs. It's supposed to be very loud. Some 03 bikes get it, some don't. Characteristically it comes on after the first oil change - which is peculiar to say the least. I get it intermittently (which is unusual) and it didn't come on till I'd done about 8,000 miles (which is doubly unusual). On my bike it's not that loud. Whether the knock is linked to the vibes or not, I have no idea. I only used to get the knock occasionally, though it had been happening more frequently recently. But I have not heard it since the clutch basket was replaced. I was told that replacing the clutch basket would not make the knock disappear. Apparently, it has.

The vibrations can come on at any time, but I've noticed they are most likely to start at the end of a long, hard ride. The rattle will usually come on with them. They will then persist for one or two days. Another odd thing is that they usually disappear overnight or after the bike has been standing for a few hours. When I kill the engine they are there. When I start her up again, they are gone.

I also suspect that the vibrations are less likely to come on in damp weather. I'm in the process of checking this out. Damp air will affect the carburation of any bike, but if it is related to the vibes then it might suggest the fuel injection system is implicated. I'm not sure of the mechanics of this, so please shoot me down if I have got this wrong.

Some of the guys at the Stevenage club are fascinated by this. I just want it to stop so I can quit worrying and enjoy the ride. Any words of comfort or wisdom gratefully received.

Gnarrrrrrrrrrgh

[sv-wolf]

Friday 28th October 2005

Well that was a lousy couple of weeks. I've been close to exhaustion much of the time. I gave up keeping tally on my sleep debt at twenty-five hours. I've used the term 'exhaustion' in the past to describe periods of extreme tiredness, but until recently I had no idea what the word really meant. It's a foul condition. On several occasions my legs buckled and I felt close to physical collapse. Everything around me seems less than real and looks very bright and close up. Yuck. And I'm actually too stressed to sleep. Hence all this late night posting.

But I keep on riding. Somehow on the bike I get some of my strength back. On a few occasions I've had to force myself into my riding gear, but the moment I do, the world seems different. I've said this before, but it's very weird. I associate the gear and the bike with energy and excitement, so the moment I put them on or go for a ride I feel energetic and excited, no matter how knackered my body and mind are otherwise.

I've finally done it. I've postponed my application to do the Enduro India in the spring of 2006. Strictly, according to the contract, I should lose my £500 deposit by bowing out at this late stage. But when I spoke to Simon, the guy who runs the whole show, he agreed, under the circumstances, to transfer the money across to the following year.

I've been putting off the decision to cancel for several months. I was hoping Di would remain well enough to come out with me. She was as excited as I was about me doing it. (She has no interest in motorcycles, but she loves the idea of India, and, despite her illness, remains very supportive of me - I think she is extraordinary). But I've had to face up to reality. It now looks extremely unlikely that she could make it by then. In fact, she is already too disabled to travel, and by spring next year, she may well no longer be here.

Blues, it has taken me a while since your reminder to get round to it, but today I finally rang Redcar Motorcycles to tell them that the Clutch Basket didn't do the job. Chris, the Redcar engineer, is as puzzled as I am. There is nothing in his experience, he tells me, that can explain what is happening. He says that because the problem is intermittent, it can't be a physical problem. If it were a physical problem, the vibes would eventually settle down or vary in some regular way, with heat or revs or something. Well, that's as much as I figured. So, I'm no further forward.

Except...

If it isn't physcal, then it must be spiritual. So I've decided my bike has a poltergeist. It's the only possible explanation. What did Sherlock Homes say to Watson? 'When you have eliminated the obvious, what remains must be true, no matter how improbable.' (Or something like that). So a poltergeist it is - no matter how improbable. Maybe the bike is haunted by the spirit of some guy who froze to death in the air conditioning system in Suzuki's factory in Japan - and he is still shivering.

Well, next week, I'm going to do the only think I can think of. I'm off to see a priest to get the SV exorcised.

(And just in case any of you are taking me seriously or think I have gone off my trolly, I'm kidding, OK )

Chris is going to ask the Suzuki technical advisors about this next week, to see if they have any ideas. It's more than my local dealer would have offered to do. In the meantime, I've stopped fretting. I've gone past that point.

Enjoy your riding, everyone.

[BuzZz]

First off, let me say how sorry I am for what you and Di are having to endure right now. I can't imagine the toll it must take on you. I'm glad you got the bike to get some respite from some of it. My best wishes that things go as well as they possibly can in that situation.

You might want to have the ignition and especially the fuel injection systems checked out with a fine-toothed comb. It could be a wonky computer, or a suspect connection causeing a combustion stutter of some kind......

[sv-wolf]

First off, let me say how sorry I am for what you and Di are having to endure right now. I can't imagine the toll it must take on you. I'm glad you got the bike to get some respite from some of it. My best wishes that things go as well as they possibly can in that situation.

You might want to have the ignition and especially the fuel injection systems checked out with a fine-toothed comb. It could be a wonky computer, or a suspect connection causeing a combustion stutter of some kind......

Thanks for the support, Buzz. It's much appreciated at this present time. I wasn't really intending to post about it on the site until I started the blog, and then it all came squeezing out under high pressure.

And thanks for the advice. When I speak to the guys at Redcar next, I'll suggest this to them and see what they say. The bike is still under warranty, so I can afford to push this now.

I keep remembering a very early experience I had with the bike, when there was only about 250 miles on the clock. I was in France. I had to pull up quickly at a crossroads. Something happened, I'm really not sure what, but when I let go of the controls, the engine/clutch continued to roar for about fifteen seconds, and made the same sound as it does now when the vibes are bad. It settled down within a few minutes after that, and when it didn't happen again, I didn't think any more of it until months later when the vibes started. I guess that whatever is going on was there right from the beginning. Some fault in the FI electronics sounds possible. I hadn't thought about that.