a mini adventure.....:)

[rictus01]

Yesterday morning I ventured forth from my place to get a new MOT on the bike….

It all began Tuesday, 3 hours back breaking work to clear the snow from the front and down to the ice covered road, finally managing to get the bike into the road, however after doing that I wasn’t in a fit state to ride anywhere and as the road itself was covered by a 2-3 inches of sheet of ice I new I’d need my full concentration to attempt it, so it was left for the following day.



Wednesday morning saw the sunny out brightly, after leaving it a few hours to melt threw what it could I made me way out to the bike, started first stab of the button, then the first obstacle; the frozen ridge into the nearest of the two car tracks down the middle of the road.
Gentle prodding with the front tyre proved that wasn’t going to get me far at all apart from sliding the tyre along it until at some point it would have me facing the wrong way, so gentle rolled the bike back to the starting position, dropped a few psi from both tyres and shunted it around until it was facing the direction I wanted to go, lined myself up and a brief spurt of power popped the front over the 10 inch ridge of ice into the car track, I had expected it to be slush and have a modicum of grip; but alas this proved not to be the case as although it was surface slush, that was sitting on sheet ice still.

The front wheel travelled over the car track and thankfully caught in the deeper snow between them, a lot of wheel spinning and pulling the bike about finally got me facing straight down the road, ahead of me was about half a mile of sheet ice (gulp!), both feet out and sliding from side to side I progressed at, lets said a leisurely pace along, fortunately the 404 is light enough to catch (you can hold a bike up with you butt cheeks, given the right stimulus) and the ice ridges deep enough the stop it sliding to wide.
At one point I became aware of a line of cars behind me (I’d been trying to ignore the Muppet following right up my ars*) but being a considerate kind of soul I stopped and waved the cars on at a place where they could all pass by, I couldn’t get off the track bit as the bike would have gone down, but the cars could have easily passed me I gauged.

At this point “Muppet man” lays on his horn, after once again waving him on (to no effect apart from more noise); so carefully I put the bike on it’s stand and take out my stick, a slowly walk over to the cars driver window ( no not that kind of stick, a walking stick… ),
“you can’t stop there” is the greeting I receive.
“well actually I have, but only to allow you and the rest of the cars behind to pass as I won’t be going fast up this bit, you can pass me here by moving to the far right of the tracks without going off them.”
His reply was “can’t you get you bike off the tracks,”, I proceeded to explain what I considered obvious; to him that the bike doesn’t stand up by itself and going onto sheet ice under snow where I couldn’t see it wasn’t an option and his car would only have to edge over slightly to get passed, this resulted in a blank look from the driver, so having tried to do what I considered “the right thing” I went back to the bike.

I started off again; as the car hadn’t move he was still behind me and again following perhaps 3 foot away, so a couple of stabs of the rear brake sliding the back across the road a bit encouraged him the back off.

A good 10 minutes later I made it to the main road which had been gritted and was fairly clear; I turned and thank the driver for his indulgence…..
The main roads were fine; in fact it was hard to believe the rest of the world wasn’t in the same ice bound hell as my little corner of it. Apart from a few overtaking places which were filled with snow (and I left well alone) a gentle ride followed.

I arrived at the MOT place and had a well needed fag, and so the bike was taken in for its test, a few minutes later Steve (the tester) comes back out and says “it’s a fail mate”, Bugger I think, but as I’d checked it over on Saturday I though it couldn’t be much, “OK what is it” I asked, “rear wheel bearings are shot.” Is the reply I get, as I had checked the free play it the wheel previously, I went to have a look, sure enough the wheel wiggled alarmingly; which it wasn’t doing before (one of the list of things to do was to re-grease the rear having already done the front, but having a new rear sprocket on the way, I was waiting to do both together).

I asked Steve if they had the bearings in stock and we went off to the office to check the book, surprise surprise it isn’t listed ( I’ve a feeling that’s going to be a common problem), so he said he’d have to take them out and match them, as they weren’t busy he could do it straight away at £25-30 fitted, I thought what the hell I wasn’t going to be doing it anytime soon in this weather anyway, “go for it” I told him.

Steve got the bike on a paddock stand and pointed out the plate was kind of small and to have a word with Jane; and started work, I wandered back to the office to get the plate guys number, phoned him and arranged the new plate to be dropped off in 10 minutes at the garage where I was….cool.

Walked back to the service area and Steve pipes up, “nothing wrong with your bearings mate, the back axle nut was loose”.

I’m leaning over his shoulder as he puts a good turn and a half on the axle nut! However the result isn’t what either of us is expecting, the wheel locks solid…………. “that’s not right” says Steve, “Er…. no”, so he takes the axle out and finds three spacers, after a few attempts he finds a workable solution by rearranging their position, it would seem the previous owner had fitted the right spacers, the wrong way round and barely nipped up the axle nut; so as not to lock the rear wheel, we concluded that probably all the sliding side to side I’d had to do had loosened it just enough to be a problem.

Anyway everything is done up and all’s well with it, the plate man arrives and I duly hand over my £10, Steve is holding a screw driver at this stage to fit it, when I suggest it could be fitted with a little double sided tape….., so he kindly does, but this introduces another problem as it covers the fitted reflector, so he sticks on an adhesive one to the corner, job done.

So in total he spend about an hour on the bike, total bill £29, for a fresh MOT, not charged for his time and effort on the axle problem or fitting the plate or even the reflector ( recommendation here Essential Rubber , http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1075/29231.php).

Cheers Mark.

Sounds like a major expedition at the beginning!

What is it with tosser cage drivers. They just have no idea how hard it is to ride in certain conditions.
I went down the motorway a couple of Fridays ago in freezing fog. I sat in the slow lane at ~60 whilst idiots BMW & Audi drivers went past me as though I was standing still. Idiots!

Yet another glowing endorsement for Essential Rubber.

Did you go on a little rideout after or just head home?

[Stu]

Nice story Mark 'Steve' could have been anywhere, but with 'Jane' I knew where you were
My Wednesday was my first day on the bike in this snowfall. I wheeled it out of the garage and carryied on pushing it onto the road & then along that road to the next road which was a bit more in use & parked up on a black bit, thinking this was tarmac. But it definetely was not as it was slippy underfoot and selecting first gear with the clutch fully engaged was enough to spin up the back tyre & skip sideways I then carried on down that road on the snow with a bus right behind me but nice enough not to pressure me a I rode down in first with the engine idling (gawd I'm such a speed merchant )

Nice story! I guess the danger of buying 2nd hand machines is the fact that you can't know the exact history of it. Still, you found it out now, and its sorted before it became a more painfull and more expensive problem

So, essential rubber - they are great (have plugged a tyre for me before and where very nice and gave lots of good advice). What else do they do then apart from tyres and MoT's? Can i take my bike there for, say, an oil change? To get the clutch looked at?

Matt

Mark - most of us know you have your eccentricities - but to go from yours - Crystal Palace - to Essential Rubber - Hackney - in the snow , to get an MOT you could have got done at say Infinity round the corner ? ---well , im guessing you wanted a trip out in dodgy conditions to test the supermoto ....when did you get it anyway ? good deal ?

Either that or you really hate Chas bikes, FWR, Phoenix (POLSKI SPoken here !) , Metropolis (err everyone hates them , agreed ), Dongles whatever they are called nr Jambos and many many more.....im sure youll have your reasons...

[rictus01]

Yes Paul, forfilled the need of a couple of days stuck at home thanks...

Matt they'll do almost anything, give them a bell and they'll let you know how busy they are and when it can be done, all at very reasonable rates to.

Cheers Mark.

[rictus01]

Originally Posted by pete m

Mark - most of us know you have your eccentricities - but to go from yours - Crystal Palace - to Essential Rubber - Hackney - in the snow , to get an MOT you could have got done at say Infinity round the corner ? ---well , im guessing you wanted a trip out in dodgy conditions to test the supermoto ....when did you get it anyway ? good deal ?

Either that or you really hate Chas bikes, FWR, Phoenix (POLSKI SPoken here !) , Metropolis (err everyone hates them , agreed ), Dongles whatever they are called nr Jambos and many many more.....im sure youll have your reasons...

Pete, I got the 404 about three weeks back, yeah by all accounts a very good deal, brought some of the fun back to riding for me and much easier on the knee, as to Essential, several years ago I was asked to give them my patronage by a friend, and since then I've done so when ever I can, they're good guys and genuinely try to help you out, that's worth a little distance to me.

Cheers Mark.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by pete m

Mark - most of us know you have your eccentricities - but to go from yours - Crystal Palace - to Essential Rubber - Hackney - in the snow , to get an MOT you could have got done at say Infinity round the corner ? ---well , im guessing you wanted a trip out in dodgy conditions to test the supermoto ....when did you get it anyway ? good deal ?

Either that or you really hate Chas bikes, FWR, Phoenix (POLSKI SPoken here !) , Metropolis (err everyone hates them , agreed ), Dongles whatever they are called nr Jambos and many many more.....im sure youll have your reasons...

Well FWR is crap - Mark's last visit to them to have a chain riveted resulted in he and I sitting at the side of a road waiting for recovery when the link they riveted failed after < 100 miles as we pulled away from some lights.........

I also believe they once forgot to bolt the front brake calipers on another bike of his after having the wheel off for some reason.

Essential really IS that good - and its a straight road from FWR to Essential through the City, so the roads were clear, so its well worth the little bit of effort to get there.

Twice I have gone to Essentila when I had lumps of metal in my tyre - well it wasnt leaking so take it straight there and get a proper repair rather than a side of the road one, and twice it turned out I had gotten lucky - and twice they didnt charge anything for their time.

Which is why, although they may not be the cheapest for tyres (and if not its only going to be £5 or £10) I will continue to go there.

Nice story Mark! I have to add that whilst it was definately an adventure you are a true mentalist.

How are knobblies in the snow and ice? I was gagging to get onto a local field on Monday but hadn't got the rear wheel on and couldn't do it.

[rictus01]

Originally Posted by teriyakimonkey

How are knobblies in the snow and ice? I was gagging to get onto a local field on Monday but hadn't got the rear wheel on and couldn't do it.

no idea mate, I've a supermoto so it has road rubber on. made life interesting.

Cheers Mark.