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Re: My new steed

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drumwrecker:
One ride  I can remember on that 250cc BSA C11 was to Margate to see my mum who was in a convalescent home. It was the dead of winter with snow on the ground and my riding gear consisted of an overcoat, short trousers, long socks and a balaclava hat. I must have woollen gloves as well. I was freezing. Blackheath to Margate and back in a day about 120 miles, not bad then.
does anybody else remember bikes for a certain journey?

Costas:
Am sure many do.
Recall very well my trip towards Helsinki in 2000 with my blue XX,  simply cause when refuelling at a station just after Rovaniemi, forgot my cloves, returned after 5 kms and less thay 5 minutes only to discover fuel station closed and no one around to ask. Had to ride the hole trip back in mid september with temps close to 5 degrees using two pairs of schoks as cloves, not that they provide any protection only the illusion. At list it was not raining. Paid for the new RUKKA gloves close to 200€ , only to loose them aboard the boat fm Venice, presumably forgot them on the bikes seat.
Hmm , on another trip that lasted longer than expected in Italy, rode the distance from Vicenza to Venice port and its not aa long one with the summer costume , it was only september (again) and caught a cold that lasted 20 days. Terrible trip back on rode on high fever. Not recomemded.
That was a synopsis of bad rides in cold or relativeley cold whether. 

Phmode:
I remember the ride back from passing my test. It was only about 7 miles but it had been an 'eventful' day. I rode round and round an urban block in Warrington waiting for the examiner to leap out in front of me to do the emergency stop.

On about the third circuit a girl flagged me down and I was so twitchy I stopped dead with the front wheel locked solid. Nearly shit meself! The eejit examiner had stepped out in front of the wrong scooterist and she ran into him, poor girl. She had only just passed her test about a month earlier.

I was sent back to the test centre, a real bag of nerves by now!

Eventually another examiner came in, asked me some questions and told me I had passed. I never did do my official emergency stop.

On the way back home the road crosses the M6 and I couldn't resist the temptation to do a couple of junctions of the motorway. On the way back the 2 stroke motor seized; OK, I seized the 2 stroke motor. Had to call my dad to tell him I had passed and ask him what to do about the motor. Being the excellent father he was, he told me he would come and meet me at the exit but that meant I had to push the bloody thing up and over the viaduct over the Manchester Ship Canal  >:(

Totally knackered, I was so relieved to see dad in his works van parked on the bridge waving cheerily to me.

When I fianlly got to him, he turned it on, kicked it twice and it burst into life  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

'That's what you do!' He quipped, got back in his van and rode off with a cheery 'Well done by the way!'

Brian (who never really knew whether he should have laughed or cried but he had no strength left to do either  :o )

tiggerwood:
Riding down the old A34 towards Newbury on my six-month and one day old Yamaha SR500, the engine began missfiring and then ceased just South of the M4. Plenty of petrol but no sparks. No passing cars, no mobile phones, so I was reduced to pushing. Six miles later I reached my brother's bedsit and sanctuary. The following morning an aquaintance loaded the bike into the back of his LWB Landrover pickup and took bike and I back to Coventry. The dealer was sympathetic but Yamaha made no gestures of goodwill as the warranty had expired both its time and mileage. I traced the fault to a duff HT Coil which was replaced with a spare Lucas item from a car.

The Yamaha dealers was two doors up from my flat. I used to while some Saturdays away doing bits of diagnostic work before working my way up to rebuilding the gearbox on a Triumph T150V which had been blown up by its previous owner: the mechanics disliked british iron.
Nobody wanted to buy the T150, so it became my third bike. It's high oil consumption was cured by turning the middle piston so it faced the correct way (not my error). Most eventful of my Triumph  journeys was a Sunday night return from parents in Poole, Dorset on an unseasonably cold March Sunday evening. The snow started falling as I left Newbury. No cars passed me as I plodded slowly Northwards. When I got to the top of the Oxford bypass, I found some nice men in blue uniforms who kindly let me through the barriers with which they'd closed the road. They  refused to let me travel on and directed me to the Travelodge where I spent six hours in a bedroom costing £50 with no breakfast (expensive for 1980) before travelling on to work on the Monday. 

richtea:
1. Pushing a Suzuki 125 down the A34 to Winchester (holed piston, no 2 stroke oil. Again.  ;D). It was flying just beforehand - 70MPH downhill. 3 mile push, first bit uphill, but thank goodness Winchester is in a valley.

2. Winchester to Manchester on Laverda Mirage to see my girlfriend (now wife), but hit snow just below Chipping Norton. Stopped, went for a piss (cold fingers an zips really don't work well together), considered the the options, turned round and went back home. Probably my worst ride ever - cold, tired, depressed. I know exactly where I went for that piss - I won't ever forget it! Disappointment on many levels when you only see your girlfirend once every 3 or 4 weeks...  :'(

3. Winchester to Wimborne. Laverda again. Snow again. Managed to get across the New Forest, parked in a layby just beyond Ringwood, and then couldn't get back out even in 2nd gear - too slippery. Abandoned Laverda and walked the last two miles. F*** the bike, get somewhere safe.

4. Rode down through France through Alpine pastures, through Switzerland without a permit (fingers crossed all the way), and then into Italy for the first time (on a Laverda of course), having just come through 8 miles of Mont Blanc Tunnel smog, to find even rusty cars race in northern Italy. We were incredulous. Laughed all the way down Aosta valley. Got accosted (as opposed to a-Costa'ed) by the Polizia. Guns, etc. Well scary to a UK lad. They just wanted to look at the bike. Winner!

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