Month: February 2020

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. That meant on Saturday I got up a 03.50 hours, went to work, home for 14.00, on the train for 15.30, arrive at 18.10. Then view and get home. Long day. On the bright side, the train picked up in Warrington, next stop London. So that was good. Then I had to negotiate the tube, easy as it turns out, but worrisome beforehand. Another train and I was in St Albans right on time. The guy seemed genuine enough and a nice bloke. And he picked me up from the station. As everyone does in these situations, apart from the rip-off copper who sold me the broken bike. Should have known. Anyway. The bike has an alarm, starts on the button, sounds lovely and is in great condition. And, surprisingly, is so small I can actually put me feet more or less flat on the floor! Usually I’m on tip toes, which is less than ideal if you’ve got slippy boots or it’s blowing a gale, but it’s just always been the case so I never thought about it. So I bought it. I’ve not taken any pictures yet, but it does look just like in the advert. I took a bulging sports holdall stuffed with clothes, waterproofs, and my bar mitts (they are ugly but keep your hands from freezing). I put the lot on and waddled on to the bike. It turns out, with the route I took to avoid all the roadworks, it was a 188 mile ride back.  That was bracing. And it […]

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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. I tarted them up, got them listed, thinking one would sell then, buy the Striple, sell the other. Suddenly I had two people interested in the bikes. Typical, but I could always push-bike for a few days. A guy came around to see my Triumph while I was at work. I left it chained to the house and left the key with Wendy so he could start it up and see there was nothing wrong with it. Apparently he did. Then stopped it. Then started it again. After a few goes it wouldn’t start again. I  got home to a dead bike. I thought he’d drained the battery, my initial google said that it’s a big ol’ engine and it drains batteries. Fair enough, I ordered a new battery, while I put the current one on charge. The next day it still wouldn’t run. And it was making a horrible noise. Like something was rattling around in the engine. I did a lot more google research and found the early 1050cc engines were known to have a flaw, this disc that only allows the starter motor assembly to spin one way. Called the sprag clutch. I found a video of a 1050 with sprag clutch issues and it was the exact sound. The guy who sold it to me knew the sprag was going and sold it on quick. I’d never even heard of a sprag clutch so he got me good. I had to tell the guy who wanted it that it wasn’t for sale, then text the guy who wanted the Honda and tell him the same as I needed it for work. I found a video on replacing the sprag clutch, which helpfully listed the parts you’d need and their numbers so I could order them off the Triumph site. £385 for the parts. £16 for a workshop manual. £40 for a battery. Oh yes, the pain keeps coming. Today was my day off so I thought I’d strip the bike down. Then I got an email saying my battery and bits were arriving today. Bonus. It was fiddly getting the fairing off, and a royal pain trying to prize the engine covers off without using any force, but the job itself was suspiciously straight forward.   Stripped it down to there, and didn’t need to go any further. As the guy on the video said, Triumph have never stated that the replacement is and upgrade, or recalled and […]

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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. The mistakes: Do not try and impose your will on the universe. Accept the situation as it is, do not say “should/ shouldn’t”. They should be doing 50mph/ indicate, they shouldn’t get in front of me then brake… We probably all know someone who spends their life perpetually angry and/or upset because the arbitrary rules they impose on life aren’t respected by people or events. This is bad.   Ego. It’s not about me. Remove self from the equation.  When someone dives into the minimum safe gap you’ve left to the vehicle in front, don’t take it as an insult. Don’t risk crashing thinking “you’re not pushing in in front of ME.” If you remove self, it’s not a personal challenge or a slight, it’s just the gap has been decreased so you need to roll off the throttle for a few seconds until it opens again. Over the course of a whole day it’s unlikely you’re going to lose more than a minute or two but everyone gets home alive and keeps their job. Also, if you accept, and expect, people pushing in you don’t get yourself into a state about it. You can either spend the whole day angry and tense or relaxed. The external situation remains virtually the same, but you can choose how you react to it. Instead of being a victim of external forces you are a passive observer of them. Taking control of the situation by not trying to take control.   It’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely the way to go. Of course none of this applies to motorbikes. I swear, I didn’t even know what road rage was until I got a car licence. On a bike slow traffic is just a mobile chicane. Traffic jams are a stationary chicane. No-one cuts me up or holds me up. They may try to kill me with oblivious U turns in front of me, or pulling out without looking, or changing lanes as I’m overtaking, but that doesn’t give me rage, just wakes me up. You see what you’ve done now? You’ve got me on to motorbikes. After my initial reservations, I now concede the Triumph is the better bike. ABS brakes, bigger engine, and now I’m getting used to the gearbox, oodles of ‘go’ on tap. I think I was shifting up too quickly. It has a huge spread of speed for each gear. If you want to accelerate, on the slip road joining the motorway for instance, leave it in each gear longer and it will fly. And although I’ve […]

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