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  It's about the things we... fix?

  Gary 23:01 on October 20, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), BT2009 (24), Damage, France (12), Gladius (7)

  Things always look better the day after that night before. That night you feel nothing but despair; there’s no way we’re finding a Suzuki dealer, no way we’re going to get the parts we need for the bike, are we even going to get home?

  I woke after a night of troubled “sleep”, I had a horrible feeling in my stomach as I was still unsure how this would all play out; we didn’t have those spares yet… We got ready and rode two-up to where we had researched the Suzuki dealer to be the night before. We found it within minutes as it was literally one road away from the Etap. Now we had another problem; how do you ask for a spare clutch lever and a spare brake lever in French? Well, you find a Gladius in the showroom, point and make grunting noises until an English speaking motorbike racer comes along to help translate. Props to the dealer, they promised that if they couldn’t find the parts in stock they would take them off a showroom Gladius for us, there was now no way we were leaving the dealer without the parts we needed.

  

  We found our way back to Gen’s Gladius first time, it seemed lady luck was finally siding with us again. I removed the clutch lever and as expected the bike started up first time as the kill switch was no longer being pushed in by the bent metal. 10 minutes later and I had replaced both the clutch and the brake and we had a fully functional bike once more, we taped up the broken indicator and we were pretty much good to go.

  

  We have now been stuck in the middle of a foreign country with a broken bike and managed to come out the other side on top, but we’re not going to forget quickly that without the help of our French friends the problem may not have been solved as easily as it was…

  

  We managed to get back on the road around 11:30 and though we took it very slowly today with several good stops, we still managed to knock off almost 200 miles and arrived in Orleans way before dark with plenty of time to find a Premiere Classe.

  Cumulative Miles: 3,073.9

   

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• 

  Oh, Shit.

  Gary 21:10 on October 20, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), BT2009 (24), Damage, France (12), Gladius (7)

  We pushed hard yesterday, to do the very thing we never wanted to do on this trip… race to a pre-determined destination. There were plenty of places we could’ve stopped at before it got dark but we both decided to push ourselves and get to Clermont-Ferrand, we could make life easier for ourselves on the remaining days by having less miles to ride if we did this. Little did we know then that this would turn out to have the opposite effect.

  When we got to Clermont-Ferrand it was about 19:15 it was pretty much dark (pictures were taken the following morning) and we were both fairly tired and cold from a long day of riding. All we had to do was find the Premiere Classe and settle down for the night, we’ve done it several times before, how hard could it be? On this particular night, very. After riding around for a while with no luck we stopped outside a McDonalds to steal their Wi-Fi and find out where to go and as we were backing the bikes out the spaces I heard Gen struggling so turned round only to watch her drop the Gladius, I was too slow to help her. We picked it up and found the brake lever had snapped, though this sucked it wasn’t the end of the world and Gen wasn’t hurt so we carried on looking for the hotel.

  

  We took yet another wrong turn at a roundabout and I knew we needed to turn round so I tried to find somewhere to do so. I should never have taken us up that hill, I knew it was a bad place to turn but I carried on anyway, Gen keeps saying it’s not my fault but I can’t help but feel responsible when I’m the one leading her. Crunch the bike goes down and all I hear is a long, never ending scream, it was horrible. At this point I’ve already turned and am facing down the hill, as anybody who rides knows you can’t park a bike facing down a hill so I’m stuck there listening to Gen crying in my headset and I couldn’t do a thing to help her.

  

  I eventually managed to get the bike up and over the central gravel island and facing up the hill just as the first car (and the most important of the night) would pull over to help. Gen had got herself out from under the bike and the lady who had stopped spoke English (thankfully) and asked if we needed a doctor etc, she was very nice but eventually we said we were ok and she left us. What the hell do I do now? The Gladius wouldn’t start (same kill switch problem we had at home), we are 1,000+ miles away from home, we don’t speak French, we still have nowhere to stay and I have a battered, bruised, crying Gen, we were in trouble.

  

  I started looking around for a better place to put the Gladius, we were still in the middle of the road with hazards on at this point and I though the best thing to do would be to at least get to a safer place. just as I came back from this hunt another car stopped to help (not another one…) but this one was different, we had seen this one before, it was the English speaking lady who had just picked up her daughter and was heading home. It turns out this English speaking lady was an English teacher (I kid you not) and she lived ~600m up the road, she told us where to find hotels and she even told us there was a Suzuki garage around and most importantly she offered us her garden to store the bike.

  

  I pushed the Gladius up the hill (do not try this at home) and down the road to the lady’s house and she then drove me back to Gen and my bike. I rode my bike there while she took Gen in the car. We were offered drinks and were given all the info we needed to find the hotels, garages and our way back to her house in the morning. We both owe this lady and her family everything and we will be ever grateful to them for their kindness that night, decent people do exist.

  I rode us two-up and we found an Etap hotel one road along from the first road we tried that evening.

  Cumulative Miles: 2,881.8

   
• 

  Poor top box...

  Gen 17:48 on October 3, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Adventure (30), BT2009 (24), Damage, Luggage (4)

  After some master detective work (phoning the hospital) I managed to find out how Gary’s mum was and that his dad had recently left. Finally we managed to contact him and it turned out that he was actually at Gary’s house so we could get in! We rushed off to go and get Gary’s V5 but on the way my top box decided to jump off its fixing plate on to the road, luckily there were no cars behind me and my top box (and a potentially expensive insurance bill) were spared, however it is now covered in scratches, poor top box.

  

   
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  A Lovely Ride, A Broken Bike.

  Gen 20:04 on July 15, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Damage, Gladius (7), Mechanics (2), Ride Report (4), Suzuki (11), SVF 650 (4)

  It’s Thursday 9th July and Gary decided to organise a little trip to get some more miles under my belt; around 50 miles of country roads with a few stops and a practise on some gravel. We also invited Mikey along for the ride. I won’t go on about it too much; I was a little shakey, still nervous round tight bends and couldn’t open her up because of the amount of revs I’m limited to, but all in all it was a nice ride. The gravel was a little bit scary but I managed it ok, we had a run in with a crazy Bandit lover who was admiring Mikeys bike a little too much!

  

  After our ride we decided to join our friends at the local pub for a pub quiz. Just as I put my bike on its side stand and went to get off, the bike decided she loved me too much and came with me, side stand pinging back up and to my complete horror she was on the floor (admist a lot of swearing and throwing of gloves by me). Thankfully Gary and Mikey were there in seconds to pick her back up. We checked her over maticulously; broken clutch lever, a scratch on the mirror and a scuffed handle bar, not too bad really, much better than I was expecting!

  

  About two hours later around 23:00 Gary and I go out to make our way home. I Get on my bike and turn her on, pull in my poor broken clutch, press the ignition and nothing… Dead. Well at least we know that my recovery works, I paid for it in my insurance premium (Carole Nash) so why not use it?! I’m making good money sense, right?! We tried everything we could think of to get the bike working but she just wouldn’t start so we had to call them. When he arrived, the recovery man couldn’t get her started either and so loaded her into his van and took us home.

  Come Saturday after purchasing a new clutch lever, costing £20.30, we removed the old one and replaced it, she worked again! At least the experience gave Gary a chance to show off his manly mechanical skills, well done

  Zuki is fine again; all ready for the next ride!

   
• 

  Check those tyres!

  Gary 20:02 on April 5, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Damage, Ducati (3), Monster (3), Preparation (23), Tyres

  I went out for a ride with a good friend of mine today; we had a nice run from Wimbourne to Verwood and back again. On the way back we stopped at Knowlton Church, Ben told me he had noticed something on my tyre while riding…

  

  He certainly had noticed *something* alright!

  Not knowing much about the technical side of bikes I thought at first that a stone or something had managed to get stuck between the rear mudguard and the wheel itself but after doing a bit of research it seems that the tyres have literally just worn down. I’m glad I found other people online that had experienced the same problem; apparently your tyre can look fine one minute and then you go out on one good run and it can look like mine does now. Despite my obvious lack of knowledge and the fact it seems like a fairly common rookie mistake, I get the feeling I’m still going to feel pretty sheepish explaining this to the mechanics tomorrow.

  Looks like I’ve got a bit of work to do before planning this trip, it’s probably best if I at least know how to check the wear on my tyres before setting off on a 3,000 mile trip…

  *Embarrassed*