THE GOOD BUCK

Everything is going a bit mad here due to the fear of the Covid-19/ Cornona virus.

We’ve got idiots fighting in the aisles over toilet paper. We’ve got selfish, greedy, morons stripping the supermarkets bare of anything they can lay their hands on. People are actually stockpiling water! There is a tap in every house. I went into a spring water bottling plant yesterday, usually I’m in and out. I was there 3 hours queuing behind lorries. The guy said they usually send out about 40 loads, yesterday they were sending out 120.

The last time I saw a toilet roll on a shelf was a week ago. There were 3 packs of 4. Because I’m not a selfish, greedy, moron I took one of them.

I’ve had a few minor developments.

The back brake binding issue was just the anti-chatter spring thing fouling. Since I’ve taken it off all is well. My new spring arrived today. I’ve bought some specialist grease as well, so when I strip the calliper to fit it I’ll give it another clean and a grease.

I was having issues with the ugly bar muffs. They worked great on bikes with a fairing, but on my naked bike they were being forced onto my handlebar levers by the wind pressure.That was not good. I adjusted them as best I could, as they do work great at stopping your hands from freezing.

After the debacle with the Triumph Sprint (Triumph leaving a known weak part to fail, and the previous owner selling it on, as it was about to fail) I bit the bullet, bought the part, fixed it, and sold the bike. I say that like it was a doddle. The sale was a nightmare. It was the same noob who broke it. I don’t want to go through it all as it’s boring and infuriating, but after he’s asked me to take the advert off eBay (ie, he’d agreed to buy it) he came around to look at the bike. I had to take him for a test ride, then he wanted his mate to come around and take it for a test ride, then, after several hours of messing us about and winding me up, he finally agreed he was going to have it.

I had already spotted about the cheapest bike going, so I was desperate to sell to be able to buy it before anyone else snapped it up. Happily we’ve had nothing but rain and gales for months, so nobody was stupid enough to buy a naked bike. Except me.

I was in a rush, so once the pushy noob had bought my bike I arranged to go and view/ buy it as soon as possible. I usually start at ungodly o’clock on a Saturday, with an early-ish finish,usually, so I said I’d go down late in the afternoon.

I’ve learnt some valuable lessons in the last week.

For a start, my plans are useless in the face of reality. I had planned to sell the Honda VFR750 and part-exchange my Triumph Sprint for a Triumph Street Triple (Striple) at a bike shop. I thought they’d be able to give me a good price for mine as they’d already inflated the price of the Striple. Ha! They offered me £1,700 for my bike. Not even.

So, change of plan, sell both bikes privately and buy a Striple.

There is a book called Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s supposed to be expressing spiritual enlightenment through observation of ordinary life with a motorbike. It’s twee, home spun, anecdotal, badly written rubbish.

So, a perfect template for this blog.

It’s just I’ve been trying to make small, but fundamental, changes to my driving attitude. Which has made me reflect on what is wrong in the first place.