At that time I was actively looking to buy a new bike (see Part One) and I casually commented on Facebook. I thought it was a throwaway comment but it racked up quite a few comments, generally along the line of "Not another one!", and one that would rebound on me. They say that you should be careful what you post on social media because once it's there it can't be deleted, now I understand.
On the evening of my birthday bash a couple of old friends (in that I've known them for years) ask what bike I'd bought. I sheepishly try to fob them off with a "I'm only looking" story, but as I say, they are folk who've known me for many years and they can see through my charade. "Don't tell my wife," I plead but I know the genie is now out of the bottle and that bottle would be downed before long.
Now, it may seem as though I'm scared to tell my wife that I've thrown away another £800 on a motorcycle but the truth is I have a pretty poor history of buying vehicles and wanted to at least be able to start this one before revealing it to my beloved.
"You haven't bought another bike, have you?" she enquires with that you-wouldn't-be-that-stupid look on her face.
"Erm... Well.... (it's no use) yes" and then I recite my carefully prepared spiel about how it is an educational exercise to improve my qualities as a hunter-gatherer type, to reduce the time I spend parked on the sofa drinking beer, getting fatter whilst watching I'm A Celebrity X-Baker. I'm warming to the task now and starting to believe my own hype.
"And once I've sprinkled it with magic fairy dust, I can take my eldest boy on camping trips and we can bond over our road trips and tell each other ghost stories as we toast marshmallows over the campfire."
"And thirdly (yes, that's right, there are at least 3 good reasons), it comes with a colour-coordinated top box and panniers that I can put my tools into and use it for work. I'll cut through the rush traffic and get home earlier to spend more time with my family." After the inevitable "how long were you going to keep this a secret from me" type questions, she shrugs her shoulders and mutters, "Alright then."
So now the lights are green, I can get a bit more serious about the project. To give you an idea of how serious, I do something very rare indeed: I clean the garage. Not just my normal moving things from one place to another kind of clean, but a full-on throw things out, sweep the floor, arrange my tools, plug in a radio and a kettle type of clean.
The following day I again struggle to push the Tranny up the ramp into the back of my van. Something is definitely not right with the area around the rear wheel. I open the garage door and push my new baby into her new home. I'll continue with the parent-infant analogy for a bit longer. I undress her ready to change her nappy for the first time. So I strip off all the plastics, remove the headlight fairing and leave her there naked. Not a pretty sight.
The day after there is a package waiting for me when I get home. Inside is the regulator/rectifier (RR) that I ordered off eBay. It is from a breakers in Essex and comes from a Honda CBR600F. The Transalp forum came to my rescue here as I'd read a lot of posts where members were complaining about faulty RRs, and one member, gravelrash, insisted that the RR for the CBR is far more reliable than the original fitment for the Tranny. The two units look identical apart from a green earth lead that needs to be bolted to the frame. No problem. The mismatch between the connector blocks on the new RR and the existing wiring loom however was a problem. It is a measure of how much my early success had brought about a fundamental shift in my approach to the project that, rather than panicking and thinking it was beyond me, I calmly applied some logic to the situation. "You've got 5 wires on this side and five on that side. The colours of the cables match, so snip the cables and rejoin the appropriate connectors." To test my handiwork, I use small household electrical connector blocks. The engine starts first time and I take the voltage reading at 3000prm: 14.8 volts. Bang on! Thanks gravelrash.
That means with help from the world wide web, I have overcome hurdle that for the past 33 years would have had me reaching for the phone. I am beginning to feel that I can actually do this and, what's more, it's giving me a warm fuzzy feeling.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, thinking that it will give me inspiration. I soon realise that I enjoy the parts about motorcycle maintenance and riding across America, but the ruminations on philosophy leave me a bit cold and uninterested. I see this journey from idiocy to intelligence as an existential exercise, as well as an educational and edifying experience. Perhaps it's because I'm getting seriously middle-aged and, as such, I need something to do in my shed/garage/loft. Or maybe it's just because I'm not clever enough to understand what he's on about.
With the RR rectified (can you see what I did there?), I move on to the next pressing problem - the grinding sound coming from the rear wheel. My first port of call is the rear brake caliper. I've always been wary of doing anything with brakes. It is mainly because the brakes are the primary safety feature of a motorcycle and I want to be sure that they're working properly. I once rode my Ducati 996 and coming into a bend where I had to stop, I gently squeezed the brake lever and then without warning the lever pinged towards the bar. Luckily I was going slow enough to be able to come to a stop using the gearbox and the appalling Ducati rear brake. I looked down at the front brake calipers and the brake hose was flapping in the wind while the remaining brake fluid spilled out onto the tarmac. The next corner I would have come to, I would usually take at about 60 mph. It is an off-camber left hander and I normally approach at 90ish and then scrub the excess speed off. If the front brake had failed here, I would have had a major accident. I had a car accident on this very same corner in the late 80s, where I slid on a wet road and ended 50 yards inside the adjacent field. The next day I went back to get my totalled car towed out and saw that I had missed a concrete-reinforced ditch by less than a metre.
A sobering thought! So when I get my hands on the calipers I want to make sure I get it right.
