THE GOOD BUCK

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.

I’ve been window shopping bikes for a while now. I know, I know. I love my VFR750 and it’s wonderful and will run for ever, etc, but the grass is always greener.

I was looking at bikes I’ve had before and for which I have a nostalgic fondness. In spite of the actual performance of some of the bikes. But they are all old, old bikes now. My VFR is 25 years old this year.

Then I was looking at the new (-ish) Triumphs. They do a rather nice naked (no fairings) 675cc triple. And the odd thing is, they are really up there on the reviews. Class leading, indeed.

I’ve completed day 26 of my run streak today. A minimum of 2 miles every day. I will accept 1 mile at a desperate push, but so far I’ve stuck to a minimum of 2.

The idea is that running every day is the quickest way to regain my fitness, stamina and, hopefully, strengthen my weak running muscles that caused the IBTS.

Before I got the IBTS I was trying to go for a sub 3 hour marathon, and I was fairly fit, so I was knocking out lots of PBs. More or less at will. I went for a 10 mile one and near killed myself. I got it, but when I checked back it was only a few seconds faster than when I was run streaking. So, I know it’s the way to go.