THE GOOD BUCK

I’ve had some anxiety and some tiredness since my last blog but nothing to write home about. I did an easy 8 mile run yesterday and today set out for a half marathon to set a starting distance for my weekly Long Slow Run (LSR) today. Wendy needed to go and get bloods done and was looking very washed out so I thought I’d go with her. That meant I had to set off a nippy pace. I did an 8.05 first mile which was a bit too fast for a foundational LSR, then got a bit faster,7.55 7.40s, then a few 7.30s. That’s way fast for me for a LSR, especially as I’m just returning to training. I looked at my time at 9 miles to see what it would take to get a sub 1.40. Roughly sub 7.30. I nearly killed myself 7.18, 7.23, 7.21, 7.21 but I scraped it in at 1.39:58. I’ll take that. 10 minutes off my best, but I didn’t set out to run fast. It was supposed to be LSR. And I put the maximum effort in at the point where I was wanting to slow down, so good effort. When I got back Wendy insisted on going on her own after all. So that was unnecessarily hard for nothing. I don’t appear to have done any physical damage and I’ve not triggered any long covid (so far), so it’s all good. Now I have to get a plan and stick with it. Gradual, carefully planned gains are better than stupid, impromptu flat out efforts. I’m still struggling a bit to find motivation to do my bike. I had two proper jobs left to do on the Harley. Fix the grinding/ refusal to go from neutral to first gear and sort the ‘needs choke to run’ problem. I read up on both. The first seems to be clutch adjustment. Read how to do it properly in the manual. Slacken all the tension off the clutch cable, adjust the clutch, then tension the cable. I did it the other way round. It’s made a big difference to the clutch. It flicked into gear with the engine off, but my battery didn’t have enough juice to start the engine so I couldn’t give it a live test. I am hopeful though. The battery going flat again lead me to a small side job I’d been putting off, swapping the regulator/ rectifier unit. That is probably why the battery isn’t recharging. I took my old one off, snipped some wires, put the new one on and… it doesn’t fit. Super. It’s about 1 or 2 millimeters too wide to fit between the down tubes of the frame. The reg/rec has an electrical component and the frame around it is just a finned radiator affair to cool it down. I think I can grind off the excess without affecting the unit. The battery is on charge. I can test if I’ve fixed my gear problem tomorrow. Then […]

It’s only 3 days since my last blog, but bloody hell! After that sudden bout of long covid smashed me halfway through my last blog I’ve had two terrible days. So much anxiety. It felt like I was barely holding back a full blown panic attack. I had to settle back into long disused management techniques. Just think about the next 30 seconds, break everything down into the next immediate task, accept overwhelming fear and keep on keeping on. Then I was getting bouts of weakness so bad I didn’t think I could walk from my truck to the office. And through it all was the mental fog, the complete absence of drive or enthusiasm. I didn’t really notice the last until today when it lifted and suddenly I was “Next job! Next job!” All fired up and keen to crack on, back to my usual restless and obsessive self. It was such a joy it’s hard to describe. I teared up at one point. The anxiety was so bad I’d started to think I’d gone loony again and it was going to an ongoing thing I was just going to have to accept. So the relief today was incredible. Even if it smacks me again tomorrow I can remember it’s just slamming me in bouts, it’s not necessarily permanent. Today I sent off a stress email to work, went the shop, removed the broken heater element from the cooker and went to town to get a replacement (they were out of stock so I’ve ordered one off Amazon, I’ll fit it tomorrow.) cleaned inside the oven while it was open, went to the barbers (also stresses me out) and got my haircut, went for a 6 mile run to burn off any excess anxiety, and played with my Harley. And, so far, (22.00) I’ve not had any covid flare up. It’s like it’s just gone away. I’m expecting it to come back, but I’m taking it as a sign that there is an actual end in sight, it’s not going to drag on forever. I felt OK last week, to be suddenly battered with it again was worrying. And, now I think of it, I still had the mental fog/ depression of thoughts last week. It’s only today, now that it’s lifted, that I remember what it’s like to be me, normally. Getting anxious again now it’s bedtime. I’m scared when I stop the anxiety is going to come back. Or that I’ll wake up a wreck tomorrow. In fear of fear. The saddest state. I’m going to suck it up and crack on. Later, Buck.

I think I’ve got long covid again. I was hoping it was just a difficult, slow, recovery, but some days are fine, some hours are fine, and I think I’m imagining it, then it hits again. That’s a very covid feeling. I am lacking in mojo, and I’m not getting frantic from doing nothing. That in itself is a worrying sign. Usually I’m either obsessing over bikes, running, or doing dozens of jobs while I avoid doing the thing I should be doing. I had 4 days off last weekend and didn’t touch my bike. Yesterday was my day off, my parts have arrived for the Harley and still I did nothing. Admittedly I woke up with a crap headache that just got worse, but I just couldn’t face doing anything. When the headache finally cleared (about 19.00) I felt so (relatively) good that I cleaned the bathroom so I wouldn’t feel the day was a total waste. That left me feeling weak and knackered. Today I got up, walked to the shop, then sat in the kitchen feeling wasted and wanting to go back to bed. I forced myself into the shed. I took the tank, air filter, and carb off. As usual, little things to make it tricky. I got it done. I thought my new carb was jetted for 883, so I popped it open (again, unforeseen difficulty. Brand new carb, brand new screws, that had obviously been tightened with power tools. I had to use an electric impact driver tool -sure there’s a proper word for it, but my brain is fried- to get the screws out. One of them just stripped. I had to saw a slot in the brand new screw to get it out.) After I’d got the jets out I noticed the ones in the new carb were actually bigger than the ones in the up-jetted old carb, so (after checking in the manual) I replaced them. So that was a waste of time, effort and one screw. The new carb had the VOES (Vacuum Operated Electrical Switch) pipe blanked off with a rubber cap, so I left that on, didn’t connect the VOES pipe, and blanked off the pipe from the tank (screwed a screw into the end of it). In theory that should have sorted the fuelling. I put everything back on and fired her up. So that’s a big yay. Then I added the all important sticker. It starts and runs (on choke). I still have to replace the reg/rec but that’s not a big job, if I can force myself to do it. Then I have to take it for another shake down test run and see what else needs sorting. I’ve got a bad feeling about the clutch/ gears. Everything is such an effort at the moment though. All I want to do is sit and scroll through my ‘phone. I got halfway through this, musing over whether it’s slow recovery or long covid, when it smashed […]

In a manner no way typical of me I realised I had a few hours before I started my shift to register our flight details and print off the boarding passes as I was finishing at midnight, up early and out for the airport by 08.45 the next morning. That was a flap. Then it wouldn’t let me print off the return flight boarding pass so I had to download and register with the app to get an electronic boarding pass. I’d run out of time so I had to do that at work. I got it all sorted. Just. Then midnight finish, 01.30 before I got to sleep, up at 07.00, not the best of starts to the day. We got to the airport and, because we’ve always stowed our bags in the hold, had no idea about the restrictions for carry on goods. Wendy had her perfume, hairspray and such stolen off her. We got held up as the bags were refused by the scanner for carrying liquids, etc. It was massive stress. We sat waiting for our flight, it was a bit late boarding, that’s how close we were, when Wendy came over proper poorly so we had to come home. To be honest I was doing it more as a stressful chore I’d already paid for, than as something which I wanted to do. I’m still not feeling 100% most of the time, and if Wendy was too poorly to do her museums and art galleries and such it was just going to be a waste of time. It cost us a lot. A lot. Flights, accommodation, airport parking, race, etc. All non-refundable. The final insult was the travel money. £704 to buy 800 euros. The next day I had to change them back. £582.69. A day. Robbing bastards! Anyway, that didn’t happen. We got home and Wendy is recovering. No harm done. Then I had to know. How would I have done on the marathon? The next morning I got up and into my kit. I set out to see what would happen. I surprised myself by doing an 8.06 first mile. It felt easy. I was doing a 5 miles there and back, then an 8 miles there and back. After the first 10 miles I was 10 seconds off an 8.10 m/m average pace. Not too shabby, considering. I was already thinking about trying to drag back the 2 minutes to make it a sub 3.30 marathon. Then at 16 miles reality hit. An 8.30 mile, 8.29, then it dropped off a cliff. 8.43, 8.43, 8.58, 9.09. That took me to mile 21. Half way through, my pace had dropped to 9.41 m/m, I was in misery and my body had had enough for the last couple of miles, I quit. Of course, being a there and back I still had to get home. So technically I did do a marathon, but it must have took me at least an hour and a […]

When I got the long bolt and improvised a way to disassemble the clutch off the bike (in the workshop manual it say “do not attempt to disassemble the clutch off the bike”, so that was nerve racking) I realised it wasn’t the clutch inner that I’d broken, but the clutch pressure plate. *blubbing intensifies* So, £120 for clutch inner, £80 for new clutch bearing, £70 for a 6 ton press to separate then rejoin the inner and outer, and £140 for a complete clutch assembly (that I bought after panicking about the inner, and before committing to buying a press, then learning I needed a new bearing to do it) that I don’t need. Bought the £49 clutch pressure plate. Fitted the new clutch plates, pressure plate and spring and refitted it on the bike. While I had the clutch side engine casing off I fitted my new clutch cable at the same time. Then refitted the engine casing. I fitted the clutch cable to the handlebars and tried it. Nothing. The lever was solid. I took the engine casing back off, and took the clutch mechanism apart again. Same. Reread the book. Not doing anything wrong. The clutch mechanism has a triangular piece. That fits to the bottom piece. It is three identical sides, a ball bearing in a groove on each side. Identical. But, what it doesn’t say in the book, if you twist the triangle it pulls the cable through and puts it under pressure, so when you pull the clutch lever there is movement. If you don’t twist it, it is already at it full range of motion in the direction the cable pulls it. It took me about 4 strips and rebuilds to suss that out. So not intuitive. Then you have to adjust a spring loaded screw mechanism in the engine casing (through an inspection port) to get the correct pressure on the clutch. What I didn’t realise it you have to hold the mechanism in with your fingers while tightening or you get a false feel of pressure. Harley’s, man! Everything has to be basic and idiosyncratic. A perfect example is Top Dead Centre. Any Japanese bike, you remove a cover (and spark plugs, obvs) fit a socket to a nut and turn the engine over until a line on the flywheel aligns with one on the inner casing. Harley? Jack the back end up, rotate the back wheel in 5th gear to turn the engine until the straw you’ve placed in the spark plug hole raises fully. So, everything was back together. New clutch plates, pressure plate, and clutch cable fitted and working. I really thought all of the above was going to be a doddle, so I’d confidently booked it in for it’s MOT again. It was a world of unnecessary pain but I got it done in time. I thought I’d best take it for a spin around the block to test everything out. I got about a hundred […]