…when the bike wouldn’t start.
But honestly, I thought it was the battery. I left the battery on charge after it wouldn’t go this morning; booked the MOT, crossed my fingers and prayed. At 1500, a full hour before the MOT I wheeled Cherry out of the garage onto the paving, I strapped all the bits to the bike – my presumption being if the battery is iffy I don’t really want to try and start her and then stop her (him?). She wouldn’t go. There followed half an hour of fettling, of switching the exhaust to the nice in good condition one that I bought for Claire (I couldn’t find it earlier so I’d fitted the ratty battered old one from Claire) because I was working through things I’d changed and that was the most similar to the one I’d had before. Finally I dragged her down the road in a (vain) attempt to get a rolling start. She just wouldn’t run. I’d like to say that my memory of riding two strokes kicked in. I’d like to say that I knew what was wrong.
But I didn’t. I just randomly cursed and decided to change the spark plug, the old one it turned out consisting of a good layer of oil and very little sparking capacity and thus with 30 minutes to the MOT she was running. I ran round throwing things into the garage dragged the rest of my gear on and sped off. Well, I say ‘sped’. Sped might be an overstatement.
This is was for two reasons. The first is that my rebuilt brakes have not exactly ‘settled in’ and my first pull on them gave a retardation effect similar to that of loosely gripping the brake disk with some damp lettuice. A couple of squeezes and there was some braking effect, not a lot, but it was definately getting a bit better. The main reason for the slowness was that everyone in Bristol promtly decided that they needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else, at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. The traffic was dire. I filtered, somewhat cautiously, I’ve not ridden for months, the sun beating down on me. Lord was it hot. Finally, the ring road cleared a bit… and the skies did the opposite. It started raining. Not terribly hard, but just enough to let me know the universe was laughing at me ;-)
Of course, this was an optimum opportunity for me, out of practice as I was, to experience the wonder of Chin Hung tyres. I’m a stickler for good quality tyres, but not, apparently, so much of a stickler as to transfer them from my other ‘zed to this one. Actually, that’s mostly because I’ve not been so impressed with the Mag Mopus tyres on the 251. I think the bike’s too heavy for the tyres. Anyway. It rained. Not a lot, enough to make a mockery of my summered (de-wintered) bike gear and summer gloves. Damp, I continued on…
I made it to Hanham at 1555, my MOT being at 1600. I pulled over and checked the map. I struggled through Hanham, it was solid with traffic. Thankfully the rain’d stopped so I could actually have my visor up, but it was so sunny now that I could feel myself melting in my black bike gear. Finally I pulled into the industrial estate, I hunted round and couldn’t see the garage anywhere. I hopped off again to check the address – and look at my watch. 1615. Shit. I might as well see where the bloody place is anyway. The brakes were still spongy as hell (imagine squeezing on a sponge with a frozen pea right in the middle, that’s what it was like) and I had no real belief that – especially with the new computerised system – they’d be able to do the test.
Finally, after hunting round for about 5 minutes I realised they were on the other side, at the back, inside the large multi-unit workshop. I stopped, killed the engine, stripped off a bit (i.e. my helmet, I didn’t suddenly perform an impromptu striptease using the bike as a prop (or indeed some form of kinky accessory), and wheeled the bike in…
…and the guy turned to me and said “MOT”?
“Yep,” I said, “am I too late”?
“Nope, you’re fine… D’you want a cup of tea?”
I have never sucked down tea quite as greatfully as that cuppa. I had half a bottle of water too, I was so hot and tired. We chatted while he did the test. He suggested that I might want to get some red dye or somesuch to make the rear light more red (waves at Nikki (:-P)) but that it was okay this year at least. He prodded round the bike; I’ve not seen a bike test before and it’s oddly archaic.
Eventually he came to the brake test. He rolled the bike onto the rollers and his wife operated the machine. From no-where the bike’s brakes worked. The front wheel locked and the bike rolled forward… off the rollers.
The back brake though was shite on the way there. I’d tried to adjust it when I got there but the adjuster’s stuck. It’s still covered in quarry dust – and when that went on the roller, he had to press really hard…. to make it pass.
We chatted awhile while he checked the headlamp alignment (something I’d not bothered with); he even got me to sit on the bike while he did it… Finally he declared that there was nothing really wrong, and that the bike had passed. Cherry. MOT’d. Running.
As he did the paper(computer)work we chatted, and I joked about the tradition of it raining every time I got a bike on the road – and that it’d rained on me on the way there… as I entered my PIN in the machine there was a deep rumble and a flash of lighting. No, I’m not joking. There was a full on thunderstorm which broke out as I completed payment for my MOT. Piss = Taken.
I headed out into the rain, the summer gear I had on now demonstraing it’s complete lack of waterprooficity, and rode through the appauling traffic. Now, I don’t know what you think, but as far as I’m concerned; rain should not hurt when it hits you. But it did. It felt like little spears attempting to dig into my skin. When I say, incidentally, rain, I don’t want you to think summer shower. This was torrential rain. This was an inch of standing water on the road. This was me fording streams.
Finally, I got home. There was 2 inches of standing water on the gravel in the garden. There was a good 2 inches up against the wall of the house. Thunder / lightining. Incidentally, where’s a really bad place to be in a thunderstorm? On a bike.
I squidged, dripping, into the garage and halfheartedly put away the tools which I’d thrown in there. And then remembered my uniform… ‘drying’ on the line. I continued to drip my way round the garage (wet, but not in a good way) and then wheeled Cherry in. I took my bag off the back of the bike. My mobile phone was sat end down in about an inch of water. Fortunately the MOT certificate was in a plastic sleeve (not just a pretty face, see), the phone however was less happy. I switched it off as I took it in the house, it switched itself back on. I took the battery out. I went outside, it continued to rain, I debated taking off my bike helmet, but instead decided to concentrate on making my uniform for tomorrow dry, so I pulled it all, stuck it inside, and I know no-one will believe me, but as I shut the door on the washing machine and switched it to spin, the rain stopped. I walked outside, yanked my helmet off and informed the universe that it was very funny, just this once, before coming inside and setting up a ‘drying room’ in my lounge using fanheaters so as to have bike gear for tomorrow.
I still rock though. Even if I am somewhat damp.
