Everything Is Difficult.

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 me so hard I ended up laying on the floor, sweating and panting. I actually googled “Can you catch covid again straight away?”. Distressingly, you can. It was so intense I thought I must have it again. Then it passed, and now I just feel the normal amount of crappy. So, I’m calling it. Long covid. Absolutely super.