Successes

We’ve just had a week long freeze in the weather. Worse, it snowed at the start of it, so it the pavements and the back roads around our house remained frozen into rutted ice sheets. The first day, when it was fresh snow, I was forced to ride in on my pushbike. I just couldn’t risk the motorbike. I made it in, but it was well scary.

I was off the next day. I had been looking at a decent E bike, quite wide tyres, but it was in Scotland. Then I spotted a local E bike, £50 cheaper, 7 hours less driving, and with 4″ wide tyres!

It’s a BEAST!

I was so confident riding it that I got cocky and went over the park and over a hill. Unfortunately the kids had made an ice slide of the path on the hill and it had been snowed over. I came straight off. But after that I was zipping back and to to work (avoiding the hill) without a worry.

It’s a weird sensation, you set the level of assist, start pedaling, then the motor accelerates the bike away. The downside is after only about 15 miles the battery was nearly drained. It says you can freeze the battery to reset it’s capacity to hold a charge. I’ll give it a go. But the only time I’m going to be using it is when it’s too snowy/ icy to use my motorbike to get to work. That’s less than a 6 miles round trip, so the battery is sufficient, really. A new battery is £180, and I’m not going to be using the bike, so it’s kind of pointless.

The main thing though is that I can relax now. Up until now I’ve been getting anxious every time the temperature drops in case I smash up my motorbike or break bones on my pushbike. Now I don’t care. The E bike charges over snow and rutted ice with barely a wobble. Cool.

My bits for the Harley finally arrived today. I fitted the new petcock/ filter and the new detent clip. Then I set the gears to the exact setting. I rebuilt the primary side and gave it a go. I’ve got neutral and I can shift through the gears! That job is done and dusted. I think the petcock/ filter must have been at least partially to blame for my final problem. It just felt so much better. An instant, lively response from the throttle. It still dies as soon as you take choke off (on tickover) but I think I can just adjust the intake screw on the carb, and the tickover speed to sort it. That is, as far as I know, the very last job. Then I can MOT it and ride the bloody thing.

I hope I like it, lol.

Later,

Buck.