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I was hopeful that the refusal of the Harley to go from neutral to first gear might be down to a clutch adjustment issue. Nope. I reset it several times but when I started it up it still wouldn’t do it. I’ve been working in fits and starts as I’ve been pretty consistently wasted with plague weakness. It’s not fun and it makes doing *anything* a Herculean task. I forced myself to do an hour, which turned into a few hours, on the bike. If it’s not clutch adjustment, maybe the clutch retaining ring wasn’t seated right, (the posts into which it fits got a bit bashed when I stripped it the first time). I had that spare complete clutch basket, and I know what I’m doing this time, so I thought I’d just whip my clutch off, move the clutch plates and such to the new clutch, then refit it. That all went quite smoothly. I rebuilt the new clutch, put it in the chain with the other piece that you fit as a unit.

It wouldn’t go on. I spent a fair while wondering what the hell I’d done wrong this time that I didn’t previously. I managed to wedge it back on in the end but the connecting chain was straining taut. It’s supposed to have an inch of play that you take out with an adjuster. I’m guessing the clutch is from a later model and is slightly bigger. Too big. Then I had the problem of getting the two pieces and the taut chain off as a unit. The stator is behind the front cover, so the magnets make it tough to get off normally. Like that is seemed almost impossible. I tried several levers to prize it off, but I was scared of damaging the mating surface for the gasket. In the end I squeezed a claw hammer in to give me leverage. I got the clutch off but in doing so snapped a little lever I hadn’t realised I was pressing against. A small part of the gear selection mechanism called a detent arm.

And then the fun really starts. It’s a small, cast, arm. So, difficult to weld. Harley don’t make the part any more. I found one place in Japan that would make the part to order. One. On the whole of the internet. They charged me £36, which was fair. Then emailed me back two days later saying the part was no longer in production and refunded me. I scoured the internet, not one single source for a new part anywhere. I found other posts asking different forums where they could source it, without any good reply. I tried Harley breakers. Nothing. The single solitary source for it was a rip-off American breaker on eBay. I can either wait for someone to kill their bike and strip it down to sell for bits, or buy off the rip-off. £173! Gutted. On principle. And it’s my own stupid fault in the first place. Doubly aggrieving.

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.

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.

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.

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.