Jolie-Laide

I like this French phrase. Translated literally, it means 'pretty ugly', but Merriam Webster gives the accepted meaning:

good-looking ugly woman : woman who is attractive though not conventionally pretty

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beerholder and all that, and perhaps I am just getting old, but there is something special about a woman who does not conform to all the conventional rules of beauty but nevertheless provokes the gut reaction of "wow, yes". All those tanned, blonde, perky-breasted 20-something starlets - well, yeah, OK. But the Regency knew all about the positioning of the (fake) beauty spot, and the rule of the Golden Section demonstrates that the most pleasing proportions are never in the exact centre of the rectangle or line. Fibonacci knew a thing or two.

OK, I'm digressing. I had a very interesting conversation this morning in unlikely circumstances.

I had parked the XT outside the supermarket to use the cashpoint. Two chavmobiles (a 205 and a Fiesta, exhaust cans the size of dustbins, massive bass units, tinted glass) were parked driver-to-driver while the occupants had a chat. As I climbed back on board, the driver of the one facing me shouted something at me. Fully-helmeted, I didn't hear what he said, but I'm not one to back down from a challenge, so I got off again and walked over. I asked him what he had said.

"I said 'how old is the bike?'"

"1994, first registered 1995. What about it?"

"It's beautiful, man. What a lovely old bike."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's great to see a bike like that still being used on the road. I love it."

He wasn't taking the piss. In fact, I retract those chavmobile comments above, because the pair of them were nice lads, about 20, clean and tattoo-free, and seemed very pleasant and polite. I told them a bit about the bike and why I liked it so much myself, and they seemed to understand. I told them they had made my day, and departed.

Now be serious. Have a look at this (pic taken the moment I got home) and tell me with a straight face that this is a beautiful bike:



No, thought not. The wheels are rusty, the engine is covered with oily muck, some of the body plastics are missing and it hasn't been washed in six months.

I was convinced for a while that they were taking the mick, and then I realised something. It was exactly the same reaction I have at bikes from the 50s and 60s which are tatty but in working order and regular use. There's a guy I sometimes meet at rideouts and events who rides a 1950 Norton 16H, tatty and rusty but sound and well-used. I love to see it, to ride alongside it, to listen to it. It's a proper relic, but somehow keeping a relic in working order is putting two fingers up to the planned-obsolescence culture of rampant consumerist trinketry, and I like it. What gets me going is a working bike from my own childhood or teenage years, and when I do the maths it's the same for these kids. I guess they were born in the early 90s, so their reaction to the XT is the same as my reaction to a bike from, say, 1955.

Which is exactly the same. They probably drooled over bikes like this in magazines, and Uncle Emlyn had one and he was really cool, and all that. Just like I did over the Bonnevilles and Tigers and Commandos of my youth.

Nothing really changes, I guess.

But I don't have that excuse. I think my reaction is something like the 'jolie-laide' idea. You know, when something is so bad, it's good. Who would have a pale green motorbike, still less one where the designer's idea of colour co-ordination is to mix it with lilac? A lot of bikes in the late 80s had these migraine graphics, and it looks dated but correct on a large sportsbike. I think Yamaha were a bit late to the party with their trail bikes on this one. By 1994, a lot of bikes were being dressed in plain colours. Yes, it's naff. And I like it naff, thank you.

It does pose a problem, though. When (if) I ever get round to restoring/refurbing the XT, do I go for a plain colour and less plastic - better-looking, almost certainly, and easier and cheaper to do - or do I go for the back-to-factory approach and wear myself down tracking obscure parts in even more obscure colours down on eBay? These green ones are pretty rare, it seems. A search for XT600E in Google Images produces hundreds of XTs, but hardly any of them are green and lilac. And from the reaction of these lads today, maybe it will be worth keeping it as standard as possible.

Decisions, decisions - but it's a nice day here, so I am off for a ride.

And first rideout of the year with MAG tomorrow. Excellent.

Fun with switches

A year ago, I had a bit of a problem with the XT. It would start and run OK, but as soon as I switched on any electrical item (like the headlight or indicators), the engine would die - in fact, all electrics died, including the dash lights. Turning the ignition switch off and on again cured it, but clearly it wasn't a good idea to have this happening in heavy traffic. I bought a new switch from the acknowledged XT guru David Lambeth ('Custardgrub' on eBay), and all was well. I had to destroy the old switch to get it off, and inside it was a wreck, with dirty contacts and as loose and floppy as a nonagenarian's wedding tackle. A year later, almost to the day, it started happening again. Additionally, it was doing some rather silly things like passing current when it was supposed to be 'off'. Taking the key out and having the ignition light still glowing tells even a numpty like me that something is wrong.

My understanding of electrics is fairly limited (I understand the Smoke Theory, and the water-in-pipes bit makes sense, but advanced fault-finding is usually trial and error. Mostly error. In this situation, my guess is that the switch is making poor contact, and so it will allow the small current required by the engine, but when a bigger load is added to the circuit it gives up. Technically speaking.

This time, work patterns meant that I couldn't sort out a new switch straight away, so I decided to make my own. A look at the wiring diagram, couple of lengths of wire, a few connectors, a fuse carrier, some heat-shrink, and I was in business.



The 'ignition key' was a 20A mini-blade fuse. It worked brilliantly, if I say so myself. The system is robust, foolproof and simple. It has two-point-five drawbacks:

• The 'ignition key' is tiny and easily lost. If you drop it on the floor in the dark, it can take several minutes to find it, even with a torch. Don't ask. And it isn't as easy to find in a jacket pocket as a bunch of keys.
  
• Switching on and off is fiddly and time-consuming.
• The bike is nickable to anyone with a suitable fuse about their persons.

The last one is only a point-five disadvantage because a) who carries a 20A fuse with them on the off-chance? b) the bike is not a desirable target, far from it, and c) you'd have to know the bodge was there in the first place.

Anyways, I reckoned that a year wasn't a very good service life for a thing like an ignition switch, so I contacted David to see if there had been a problem with that batch. He replied that he hadn't had any problems with the switches in 20 years of selling them. However, he offered to send me a new one if I sent the old one back with ten pounds. That seemed an exceedingly fair offer, but I was unwilling to take him up on it, as I was only 99% sure it was the switch. He's a very helpful guy, and I don't want to abuse his good nature. I don't rule out an unrelated gotcha which could account for the symptoms. So I bought a new one at full price, and I am going to send the old one back to him for inspection. If he finds it is faulty, I am sure we will come to some arrangement.

New switch fitted, and the XT is going like a good 'un.

But I am keeping the little harness - just in case.

Winter is icumen in ...

Lhude sing o-fukkit!

I've been commuting on the XT recently, and the Sprint has been waiting patiently behind the house. In fact, it hadn't moved a wheel for about three weeks until last night, when I wanted to take it to the Triumph Owners' club meet. The brakes were sticky and the head races had gone rather stiff. The first was easily solved with a few hard stops, but the head races kept me threepenny-bitting the roundabouts until it eased itself. That's an item on the 12k service which will be due soon, so perhaps I will see to that properly when I tackle the big 'un.

The run out and back was in the dark and, bloody hell, but the Sprint headlights are dreadful! Dipped beam isn't too bad, with a decent spread, although there is a gap in the straight-ahead position, like a missing tooth in a smile, so you are constantly riding into a black hole. The main beam, however, is strong straight ahead but has nothing to the sides, so if the road bends or you lean the bike (neither being infrequent occurrences), you lose everything. I have adjusted the lights patiently (you need to take the effing bodywork off to do this, grrr), but they are still poor. How poor? Well, the XT is a trailbike with a small headlight, more for legality than actual night riding, and the XT's lights are actually better then the Sprint's. That's how poor.

My run to the pub takes me through a small village and I noticed a tractor with some kind of brushing attachment behind it coming the other way when I was going to the pub. On my way home, I realised what it was: for the space of about a mile, the road was covered from edge to edge in a thin layer of field mud, damp and very slippery. I dread to think what it was like before the clean-up. I kept the speed right down and made it without incident, but it made me think that in a situation like that the XT is much the better mount. As this is Wales, and a rural area, and with more of the same rapidly approaching, I think it's time to give the Sprint a good clean and polish, and put it away for a while. It's a main roads bike, happiest on a charge and with a long journey in prospect. The XT is happiest on back roads, at lower speeds, and on a bad surface gives a lot more confidence. Sliding it around is fun; sliding the Sprint is an underwear-changing experience.

And if I drop it, it will suffer less damage and be fixed cheaper. Not that I plan to.



Go to bed, one of you.

Getting a grip

I have a long journey over the weekend, picking up daughters 1 and 2 and D1's partner, and then taking them to the other side of the country for D1's graduation. And then back. Earlier this week I gave the car a good clean, as it had been used in true estate car mode for ferrying kitchen units to the house and piles of unwanted junk to the tip, and it was filthy. And as the car would be transporting a new Doctor Nowhere and her entourage back to her modest garret afterwards, I felt it incumbent upon me to make the best of what I had.

Part of the process was a quick check of all the usual, and I picked up that my rear tyres were on the legal limit. So today I rose early from my slumbers and visited ATS. £160 later, the Mundaneo had two new boots.

I had been considering winter tyres for the car after last winter's performance of Salchows and triple toe-loops every time it froze (a phenomenon I initially ascribed to the Ford's lousy grip and over-intrusive ABS, but which I later discovered may have conceivably been caused by virtually-bald front hoops), but for some reason winter tyres are all at a premium this year and not covered by any special offers, and were prohibitively expensive. Rosie has fitted a set, however, and I await her comments with interest.

ATS did the business, and I now have new Pirelli P7s on the front, looking very meaty, and the half-worn Michelins on the back. Plus a big hole in my bank account.

If they had been bike tyres, I would have paid the money willingly and been looking forward to scrubbing them in, and then reporting back on speed of tip-in, front end feedback, wet surface grip, squaring-off and all sorts. As it is, they are just car tyres, are phenomenally boring, and I resent every single penny.

Bikes are great, but cars are practical. When you have to get four adults 350 miles away and back in a weekend, nothing else will do. Any bike in the world, or train, or plane, or bus would not have the convenience and modest cost of a bread-and-butter Ford Mundaneo: you and your luggage, door-to-door, and 50 mpg full-loaded at the legal speed limit. The car has now achieved the status of appliance, much the same as my dishwasher. I keep it maintained, and as long as it keeps working I never think of it. I will keep it until it dies, and then I will get another. I like it, inasmuch as I like any machine that does the job it was designed to do, and does it well, but I don't love it, and if it was stolen tomorrow my only regret would be that I lost a few CDs in the process. And those tyres.

My journey to work tonight will be on a ratty old trailbike worth a few hundred quid at most, but I am looking forward to it already. If anyone stole that, I would be doing life for murder.

Just call me Mr Upholstery

Actually, don't. It just sounded like a good title for a post.

The new seat cover is on the XT (previous post), and the seat is back on the bike. The bike hasn't been started for about six weeks (New Bike Honeymoon) and was a little slow to turn over, but was soon chugging away like a champ. Chain oiler filled, and a little turn round the garden just to remind it of what it is supposed to do. It's a fantastically relaxed and roomy riding position compared to the Sprint, or even the Bonnie.

The upholstery thang started with my third visit to Homebase to get a working staple gun. The garage pixies have hidden my 'proper' gun, so I went looking for a cheap substitute to get this job done. The Homebase 'Value' model at six quid was such good value that it didn't work. Not at all. So I took it back and got a much posher 'light duty' model, still trusting the Homebase brand. This turned out not to work either. Three clicks would bring three absences of staples at the business end, and then the fourth click would produce all four staples, or sometimes more, mashed together in a nickel-plated pretzel. So I took this one back too. I had unfortunately lost the receipt, so I had to accept a replacement rather than a refund, and I went a little further up the Homebase range and got the 'heavy duty' model. There were other staple guns there, but they were expensive and wouldn't handle the small staples I needed to use. This one worked, after a fashion. Staples actually come out of the end and stick into whatever you were resting on, which is good. However, even at its most powerful setting it wouldn't bang the staple into the seat plastic hard enough to lie flat. But needs must, and I had a job to do.

The back part of the seat is a nice square shape, and the cover went onto this no problem.



I got perhaps two-thirds of the way to the front, stretching as I went, and it was looking great. The front part of the seat, however, is a bugger of a shape, as it turns through nearly 90° and climbs up the back of the fuel tank. Great for when you want to move forward and boss the front end about, but not so good when you want to cover it with a non-stretchy material.



Eventually, with a lot of swearing and an old hair-dryer, I got it all in place and reasonably flat. I then went round the whole thing with an extra row of staples. Since none of them were lying flat, they can't be gripping the material very well, and I figured that an extra row of insurance would be a good idea.

Well, it doesn't look too bad. The back half is great, and I'm happy with it. The front part is a bit baggy and has a few wrinkles, but which of us could not say that these days? The hair-dryer didn't help to smooth it out (I was hoping for a heat-shrink effect) but perhaps a few miles being pressed into shape by my elegant form might do it. Anyway, here's the final result:



And here's a close-up of my wrinkly bits (parental guidance advised):



Even as amateurish as it is, it smartens the bike up a heck of a lot, and has turned it from a complete shed to a partial shed.

Winter? Bring it on.

The XT seat saga continues

I posted last December about how the XT seat had split and the foam had absorbed a lot of water: sufficient to freeze solid and provide a very unpleasant experience for the buttocks and gentleman's bits when ridden into town.

Having sold a couple of things on eBay, I decided to go for it and get a new seat cover. Winter is on its way, and soon the Sprint will be more of a liability than a pleasure. The XT will soon be called back into daily service. Ebay seller Custardgrub came up with the goods for a few shillings (679 of them, to be exact) and it has been sitting in my garage for the last week or two while I get on with more urgent matters. So far, I have only taken off the old seat cover, which was more than embarrassingly tatty; it was a disgrace. I always value function over appearance, but even I was getting ashamed to be seen on it. As you can see from this pic, the gaffer tape had grown since last winter (compared to the neat couple of strips in the original repair), and hadn't lasted well.



So I set to with an old screwdriver and removed the original seat cover. This took about ten minutes, and was far easier than it should have been. The staples holding it on were rusty and most snapped as I prised them out.



So I was left with a plastic base - in remarkably good nick - and a piece of shaped foam. I was lucky, in that the foam was undamaged and still in its original shape; I can't imagine how much a new bit of foam would be. The foam, as expected, was completely sodden. I squeezed a few cupfuls of water out and left it in the sun for two days to dry out. It has been in the garage for two weeks since then, and finally appears to be dry. I suppose I could put the new cover on even if it was damp, but that would seem to miss the point.



I have gone for a pale grey for the new cover, as the original lilac colour was not available. I reckoned that black would shout 'replacement' too loudly, and whatever colour scheme I choose when I get round to restoring the bike, grey will fit in unobtrusively. I'm going to start the upholstery work this afternoon, and will post the results (unless they are embarrassing) in due course.

Chain Reaction

I mentioned that the MoT tester had advisoried me that the drive chain was well buggered on the XT. He was not wrong. Here is one end of the old chain next to the new:



It's a full inch shorter, which translates to about 1.5% of the total length. The manual says the chain is dead when it becomes longer then the original by ... 1.5%. It is sloppy and full of tight spots, so it definitely needed doing.

The gearbox sprocket was badly worn too:



New one on the left, old one on the right. The teeth were getting badly hooked. I'm glad he told me about it when he did, as I don't think I would have given it a proper inspection for a while. After all, it's only 4500 miles since the old one was new.

I have been wondering why the set has only lasted as long as this. Many people get 20-30,000 miles out of a chain, and even with a big thudding single I don't see why it shouldn't have lasted for 15,000 or so. It was lubed every week until I fitted the Scottoiler, although I admit that otherwise it was neglected. As the sprocket is as badly worn as the chain, I don't think I can blame a poor quality chain. (The rear sprocket showed no signs of wear, but then it has three times the number of teeth as the front, so it lives an easier life.)

There's a new set on there now. Let's hope this one lasts a bit better. Some family turned up just as I was finishing off, so I didn't get the chance to give it a test ride. I am looking forward to that, though. The last time I replaced the chain, it was like having a new bike.

Rejoice, I Say, Rejoice!

I took the XT for its 14th MoT test yesterday. Passed with two advisories - play in steering head and shagged chain. So it's beers all round at Nowhere Towers.



But what I want to know is - how come a brand new chain is buggered after only 4000 miles?

3rd International XT Meet - Suzuki 1, Jack Russell 0

I was supposed to be working this weekend, but I had booked two days' holiday so that I could attend the 3rd International Meeting of the XT500 Club and the Yamaha Thumpers Club, organised by my friend Alun. I missed the first one in 2009, but I went last year (pics here, report here) and had a great time.

Reading over last year's post, the experience was remarkably similar. It was held at the same place, Baskerville Hall Hotel near Hay-on-Wye, the house where Conan Doyle wrote the famous dog story.



Great ride up, great company with visiting Belgians and Germans, enjoyable Saturday ride-out, good barbecue on the Saturday night ...



lots of late-night drinking round the fire-pit ...



some inspired lunacy from the Belgians ...



Someone tell them the Vikings were Danish ...

and a great ride home. I was cold, just like last year, and I got cramp in my sleeping bag, just like last year. In fact, for a truthful report on this weekend's activity, you might as well read last year's post and change the dates. So what was different?

It was the first time I had properly used the tent I got last August, a Vango Beta 350 (eBay bargain), and the expense was fully justified. Although it took longer to set up than the small one I took last time, the room inside, and the way you can stand half-upright to put trousers and boots on, was well worth the effort. Old gits need room.



It poured down on the Friday evening and the Saturday evening too, but the tent stayed dry inside. It was bloody cold like last year, too. The new sleeping bag, a Vango Nitestar, is supposed to be a three-season bag, but it was only on the second night, when I had managed to close up all the little ventilation panels in the tent, that it came close to getting me warm. But both bag and tent were a country mile better than last year's choices.

The Saturday ride-out was, a little disappointingly, scheduled to cover the same ground, and visit the same locations, as last year. However, a small bit of drama put a stop to that. We were riding along a narrow single-track road north of Abergavenny, passing some farms between high hedges, and we were doing a sensible speed - no more than 20 or 30 mph. Suddenly, a rider's arm went up in the air - a sign for everyone to stop - and then I saw, five or six bikes ahead of me, a bike on its side in the ditch. It seems that a small dog (a Jack Russell) had run out of a farm gate and run alongside the bike for a few yards and then turned under the bike's front wheel and had been run over. The bike had gone down and slid along the road and into a ditch, and the rider with it.



By the time I got there he was standing up, but didn't look good and was complaining of chest pain. Alun the organiser and I are First Aiders and we checked him over and decided that a visit to A&E would be a good idea, so one of the ride marshalls was sent to get a van to transport the bike back to the camp and the rider to hospital. The dog, meanwhile, was being taken at high speed to the vet by a very anxious lady, the owner of the farm. Easier than explaining to forty motorcyclists why her dog wasn't under proper control, I suppose.

(We learned, later on, that the rider had a broken foot and bad bruising of the chest. The dog didn't make it, sadly, although its end was quicker than that of the original Hound of the Baskervilles. The rider was on a nice, unrestored Suzuki GT750, and had only joined us for the day. He had told his wife he was going off to price up a job, but came with us instead. I bet that took some explaining. Damage to the Kettle was fairly superficial.)



"It'll polish out ..."

Lunch was partaken in the Skirrid Inn ...



... and ice cream was had at Llanthony Priory, just like last year.



On return, we lined all the XTs up together (lesser bikes were excluded for the purposes of a photo for the archive). 28 bikes, and strict size order was enforced, so from the left we had:

• XT225 Serow (as ridden by Lois Pryce on her American north to south adventure)
• XT350 in well-used but fair condition
• XT500, all versions, and a couple of heavily modified supermotos
• XT600, three - mine, and two much newer ones
  
• XT660 Ténéré, only one and highly desirable in a lovely milk-chocolate colour
  

That's mine, third from the right.

Pics of some of the more interesting machines will be the subject of a separate post.

Although the true XT500 owners rather sneer at the 600 (electric start, four-valve head, monoshock and modern *cough* styling), I have received a formal invitation to the Belgian equivalent XT meeting in September. I am seriously considering doing this one. It's a long way for a little'un, but I am confident that the bike is up to the task - the rider less so. It would be a lot of fun. I think I need to think about this, and perhaps do some more garden visits to build up my Brownie Points with my accountant and leisure services manager.

The XT didn't miss a beat, and managed an average of 63 mpg. Over the last few weeks, it's just going better and better. It stomps along at 60-70 mph, and feels like it could go on for ever. I love this bike.

Motrax is no more ...

Two winters ago, I invested (in the Gordon Brown sense of 'spent some money') in a pair of Motrax heated handlebar grips. I fitted them to the XT at the beginning of what turned out to be a very cold winter, and they were a boon and a blessing. With the tasteful lilac handguards keeping the worst of the wind off, and the heated grips providing a modicum of warmth to the palms of the hands, it made riding in ~zero temperatures quite bearable. I'd recommend heated grips of some kind to any rider that rides through the year.

The Motrax grips were easy to fit and not too cumbersome. They increase the diameter of the bars by a little, but it's barely noticeable:



The grips come with a controller which allows two heat settings. One press of the button gives full heat (the red LED on the right) and another press gives half heat (the green LED on the left). Pressing a third time turns them off. Full heat was warm, no more than that, and I never used half heat, but it made a big difference to general comfort and control. (By contrast, the heated grips on the Honda had four settings, and anything above two was like gripping a Fukushima fuel rod.) In all, feeble but better then nothing. Mounting the controller on the Renthal bars was a challenge, because the brace got in the way, but I managed something that worked:



The Yamahaha's electrics aren't the strongest at the best of times, and I was concerned that using the grips (and in winter the lights would be on too) would test the charging system to the limit, but in fact they only draw a couple of amps and there was never a problem. A couple of weeks ago, they stopped working. A little investigation revealed that the controller was at fault: with the ignition on (they are wired to a switched live on the igniter box) the red LED was flickering and the box was buzzing like there was a wasp in there. I took it off and dismantled it, but there was nothing in there but a circuit board and two miniature square boxes that might have been relays. 'No User-Serviceable Parts Inside'. I put it all back, to find that it was working fine.

This often happens.

I emailed Motrax in case they were able to supply a new controller, and got this reply:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email.

We are affraid that MOTRAX no longer exsists as a brand. Oxford bought the name, however it will not be distributed. This means that there is no longer a warranty on the MOTRAX products.

As a gesture of good will, if you would like to return the hotgrips to us, we would offer you some Oxford Hotgrips at 50% of the RRP.

We are sorry for any inconvinience caused by this.

Thank you,

Helen Gessey
Customer Services
DD: 01993 862 335

Oh dear. Motrax is no more. Purveyors of miniature indicators and aftermarket tat to the discerning sportsbike owner, their catalogue provided many hours of harmless fun while attending to other matters in the smallest room.

It's a shame, but not a disaster. I won't be taking them up on the offer of a pair of Hotgrips, as the present ones are pretty much Araldited to the bars, and I only wanted a new switch, so removing and replacing them would be a little 'inconvinient', and returning them impossible. But since they have worked faultlessly for the last week, I think I will just leave them as they are. Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing the race cans, and I won't be needing them for a few months. If and when I ever get round to renovating and refurbishing the XT, new bars in a slightly less garish shade are a top priority, so I think I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Unbridled Filth

Or, as we in the trade know it, old chain oil. I was trying for a post title that didn't contain 'Scottoiler' yet again. I suppose it will get me a few hits from one-handed Google users.

Last weekend, I posted that I had given up with the 'freebie' Scottoiler and had ordered a new one. Two new ones, in fact. They came a couple of days later, but today was my first day off work, so I took the opportunity of a sunny afternoon to fit one to the XT. All the plumbing was already in place, so it was just a matter of fitting the new RMV, priming it, and checking the flow rate.

I have found quite a neat location for the reservoir:



The advantage of having it here is a very short run from the reservoir to the chain - the tube is about 16" long in total and visible for all its length, so I can see that the oil is getting where it is supposed to be. The reservoir takes up some of the space where the toolkit should go (yes, a 15-year-old trailbike which still has its original tools, call Norris McWhirter), but since the toolkit is hidden behind a panel that needs an allen key to remove it, it is not an issue. I could not have used the tools on the road anyway, unless I carried tools in my jacket to unfasten the ... you get the picture. The bike has a topbox, and I will carry any tools I need in there from now on. The rattling should keep me awake on long runs.

With the side panel in place, the reservoir is almost hidden, which is neat and keeps it away from prying eyes and fiddling fingers.



And the delivery nozzle delivers the oil at a rate of 1 drop per 40 seconds to exactly the right place on the chain.



On the drive, it works well. Tomorrow, a test ride and then I will fit the other one to the Bonnie.

I would have test-ridden the Yam today, but my shopping list of milk and a newspaper suddenly grew as Anna added a big bag of potting compost and a massive roll of bubble wrap to the list. And then decided she would come too, as there were some things from Homebase that she needed to look at. Oh well.

That switch again

I am happy to report (and touching every wooden object wthin reach as I do so) that since I replaced the XT's ignition switch it has run perfectly. Of course, the petrol filler key is the same as the ignition, so I am now carrying two keys round with me. One has a green marker ("unleaded") and one has a red one ("fire and sparks"), and of course most of my riding these days is after dark, so I have had to attach a small LED torch to the keyring as well, so I can see which is which.

I dismatled the old switch and, not only were the contacts filthy, but the spring that keeps the moving contacts touching the fixed contacts was as sloppy as an old sock. I'm surprised any electricity flowed through there at all. That annoying buzz from the headstock area at certain engine speeds has gone too, so maybe that was a symptom as well.

So, HERE'S HOPING that the problem is fixed.

Three ... Two ... Ignition ...

I have now changed the ignition switch on the Yamahaha. What a beast of a job!

It involved taking off the clocks (which I hate, as those bloody wires never seem to want to go back in the same place) and the top yoke. Then the fun started, as I tried to separate the old switch from the yoke. The switch is attached (heh, was attached) with two security bolts. These are designed to be tightened to a certain torque value, and then the head of the bolt is designed to snap off. So if you want to take the switch off, there's nothing to turn. David Lambert, who supplied the new switch, advised in an email to tap them round with a small chisel. Well, no chisel I have is small enough for that, and the half-inch one made no impression at all. So I attempted to drill them out. At this point I discovered that the bolts are made of the hardest substance known to Man. I wrecked two drill bits before resorting to brute force 'n' ignorance, and knocked the mounting lugs off with a cold chisel and then turned the bolts out with a pair of massive Mole grips. Surpisingly hard work.

The new switch went on without a problem, and the bike was back together in no time. I now have a lovely crisp clickety-click switch, and everything seems to be working perfectly. The slight brightening of the headlight when I touched the brake lever has gone; in fact, now the headlight dims very slightly, which is what I would expect. Road test tomorrow, assuming the rain holds off. (We're going out to the step-daughters for a meal tonight, and I need to be clean for that, so playtime has been curtailed in favour of a shower and shave.)

These security bolts are a laugh. They are meant to make it hard for a thief to remove the ignition switch and thereby steal the bike. But that, of course, is utter bollocks. The wires from the switch go to a block connector behind the headlight shroud, which is easily accessible with nothing more than popping the plastic off its lugs. If you know which wires to bridge at the connector, the bike is yours. All these bolts do is make it bloody difficult for an honest owner to carry out some basic repairs. They have been replaced with nice, simple Allen bolts. If anyone gets close enough to find that out, they will have nicked the bike already.

Electrickery 2

Electricity is evil. It is doubly evil when confined within a motor vehicle. The reason for this is that electricity is the cause of proportionately more intermittent faults than any other system. If something rattles, you can find it and tighten it. If something corrodes, you can strip, repair and refinish it. Even fuel faults (which can be little buggers if they feel in the mood) are usually amenable to logic and careful diagnostics. But electrical faults are thoroughly wicked little monsters who disable your ride, and then disappear. Have they gone, or are they still there, waiting for you to reach that dark, fast stretch of rush-hour A-road before stranding you instantly without power or lights?

I mentioned recently that I had experienced a misfire on the XT and had turned back and dug the Triumph out of hibernation to complete the journey. Yesterday, I got out the multi-meter and checked everything. Twice. Nothing wrong. The battery is reading 12.6V, the alternator is delivering 14.4V at fast idle, reducing to 13.2V if I switch on the lights and heated grips. In other words, fine. I took it for a 5-mile ride (up the hill, so if it conked it would be easier to push - I'm not 18 any more), and it behaved normally. I rode it slow, I rode it fast; I lugged it and revved it; I let it run down to nothing in a high gear and then whacked it open, waiting for the gulp and cough that I had the other evening. Nope - it ran sweetly and well.

I took it out to the shops this morning. Same thing. So now I am in a dilemma: do I use it for work tomorrow, as the problem has gone away? Or do I play safe and take the Triumph on the grounds that the gremlins are just hiding and waiting for their next chance to do me some bad?

The only thing I can guess is wrong is the ignition switch. I know the contacts are a bit iffy. Sometimes increasing the electrical load (like switching on the lights) will kill everything, and only switching the key off and on again will cure it. Perhaps that's it.

I have now got a new switch on order from David Lambert, and I will fit that when I next have a day off. In the meantime, I think the Triumph needs a bit of a run. It's dirty again, after all.

Yamahaha

Just to report: I have gone back to bike commuting after spending this last couple of weeks of Global Warming in the car. The Triumph is in the garage, oiled up like a mud-wrestler and silent. Meanwhile, the scabby old Yamaha is doing the business, and getting me to work in record time. I am fond of that bike.



Rain and wind, rather than snow and ice. That'll do me.

Enough Already!

I seem to have written about nothing else but this 10:10 crap for the last few days. So:

The lawnmower developed some serious problems, and the Lawnmower Man came to collect it on Saturday. This left a space in the garage, and heavy rain was forecast, so I decided to put the XT in the garage out of respect for its age and general decrepitude. Except that I couldn't, because the front wheel wouldn't turn. I got it in there by lifting and dragging in the end.

On Sunday I took it for a ride, and it was very sluggish. I pumped the front brake a few times and then stopped after a mile or so. I burned my finger on the front disc. The front brake was dragging like mad. So I went home. By now it was pushable, but only just.

Yesterday afternoon, I took off the front brake caliper (it needed levering off with a crowbar) and cleaned it up. Although there is no corrosion on the pistons, they are very stiff and sticky, even after a thorough clean and a pushback with a G-clamp. However, the bike is now rideable again, with a front brake that is only 'slightly' sticky. I may need to overhaul the caliper. (This is the 'new' second-hand caliper that I got in Swansea last year.)

That is all the motorcycle news for the present.

Thank you.

Dilemma

I am now in a quandary.

My XT trailbike, which was my bike of choice over its stablemates (a Ducati GT1000 and a Honda Pan European) for two years, is now sulking. Regular readers (hi, both of you) will remember that I got the Triumph to replace the Honda as a touring bike, and I fully intended to keep the Yam as my daily driver. When I got the Triumph I expected to use it a lot for the first few weeks until the novelty wore off, and then I assumed I would put it in the garage and keep it for the next big trip.

Of course, it hasn't happened like that. I rode the Triumph a lot, and then I kept riding it a lot, because it's a nice bike. I took the Yam out every week or so, just to keep it turning over, but when it came to a choice, it was the Bonnie every time. It's got to the point where the Triumph feels natural to ride, and the Yam feels awkward - the clutch lever is just slightly loose, and the brakes aren't quite as good, and I miss the way the Triumph picks up its skirts and razzes off down the road to a booming soundtrack. And, of course, it's shabby. That was the point of it - a bike I could ride in any conditions, that didn't need polishing or preening, that would always just be there to be used. But now the torn seat cover and the rusty rims are starting to look ugly rather than scampishly charming.

I had a shopping mission to accomplish today, on Anna's instructions. When the list grew to beyond rucksack size, I realised that I would need to take the Yam as it has a top-case. Of course, it handled the task without any drama, but when I was riding home I was struck by a thought: if the Triumph had a reasonable luggage capacity, I wouldn't use the Yam at all.

I'm scanning eBay for a set of Hepco and Becker panniers to go with the rack I fitted a while ago, but nothing has been on the site for many weeks now. The plan was to get them when a pair became available, in time for the next longish trip. But I am now wondering whether to bring that forward by buying the panniers new, and then retiring the Yam.

I couldn't sell it: there's too much of me in there, and it would be like taking your old teddy-bear to the tip. And I doubt if I would get more than a few hundred for it anyway in its present state ('100% maintained, reliable but shabby' doesn't sell as well as 'uncertain but shiny'). So what to do? I have had a long-term plan for a while to take it off the road at a suitable moment and give it a full or partial restoration. Perhaps that moment has come.

XT Meet

Apologies - it was a joint meet between the XT500 UK mob and the Thumper Club of Great Britain (devoted to all single-cylinder bikes, not just XTs).

I loaded up and set off on Friday afternoon. I haven't got any panniers for the XT, so it all had to go high - sleeping bag, tent, odds and ends in the top box and personal stuff in a tank bag. To start with, it handled like a pig on stilts, but I soon got used to it being a bit top-heavy and it didn't give me any problems.

The journey up, to Baskerville Hall Hotel near Hay-on-Wye (where Conan Doyle wrote that book), was wet and cold, but I was grinning all the way. There's just something about setting off on a trip, however modest, that excites something deep down. I'd opted for an open-face helmet and goggle-style sunglasses for this one, as I knew there wouldn't be any high speeds, so all the passing motorists could see me smile too.

The weekend was in a field next to the hotel - pretty rough and damp, but we got a fire going and things warmed up. There were a few from the UK, but many from Belgium and Germany. I had brought a few cans of beer with me and these ran out disappointingly quickly. But then one of the Belgian guys came to the rescue with a bottle of Duvet, or Duvall, or something - by that time, I wasn't interested in spelling stuff. All I knew was it was 8.5% and went down very well. Later, we repaired to the bar for food and more beer. By 11 pm I had had enough, in both senses, and went back to my tent.

The night was very cold (frost on the grass in the morning), and I didn't sleep much. I can say with a degree of authority that the dawn chorus in Clyro starts at 3.30 am and is very loud. I dozed a bit and at about 8 am decided I ought to show my face. Unfortunately, as I moved my leg to get out of the sleeping bag, I got a sudden bout of cramp. I straightened my leg violently to relieve it, and ripped the zip right out of my sleeping bag.

The entry fee of £15 included breakfast, lunch and a barbecue on the Saturday, which seemed to be stonking value. We had a ride-out which went by Abergavenny bus station (millions of bikes) and then to the Skirrid Inn, where we had lunch. In the afternoon, we came back to Hay over the mountains, stopping for an ice-cream at Llanthony Priory. We had an excellent barbecue, helped by the fact that the organisers had catered for about twice the number that actually turned up. The cold and draughty night that I had anticipated following my fight with the sleeping bag was much improved by the loan of a blanket from Tom, one of the German contingent.

This morning, I struck camp and made my farewells before the hard work of moving all the wooden furniture back the hotel started, and I had a very wet but pleasant ride home.

Lessons learned:

1. Camping is a young man's game, and does not suit bad backs or cramp-prone legs
2. Yamaha XTs are great for short journeys but cane your arse after 50 miles
3. Don't take cookset and fuel to a meeting where you know there will be food and drink
4. Yamaha XTs are very happy at 50 mph, and feel as if they will carry on for a week
5. When kept to said modest speeds, they will return between 60 and 67 mpg (compare with my usual 52 for haring around locally)
6. And the well-worn but still relevant: lay out everything you think you will need and leave half of it behind.

I know this, intellectually, but I never manage to follow it. I always bring back heavy and bulky stuff that I never even took out of the case.

Thoroughly cold, uncomfortable and enjoyable weekend, all in all. The next one is In Belgium in September. Hmmm.

I might. The XT didn't let me down this time, after all.

2nd International XT Meet

I didn't manage to get the first one last year (Anna's health not being too good at the time), but I am going to the second one this weekend. It's an international meeting/rally for owners of the Yamaha XT. Most will be the original (and best?) XT500s,



but they are being kind and allowing newer models like my XT600E along to make up numbers.



There will be some hardcore treffers from Germany and Belgium, along with a lot of Brit owners. Camping for the weekend, lots of pop and crisps and party games, and a mass ride-out on Saturday. The organiser is a friend of mine called Alun, and if it's a good as last year's it should be an excellent weekend.

It's at Baskerville Hall, near Hay-on-Wye, which is a fantastic location. I have already done a dummy-run on loading up the XT with all my gear, and it seemed to cope. I am really looking forward to it. The run up to Hay is only 100 miles or so, but it will be a chance to get away with the XT in the same way as I did with the Pan last year. I was on the point of going off on the XT last Autumn, but decided on the Pan - wisely, as the XT had a few reliability issues that I only discovered later. I have done a lot of work on it since then, and (touch wood) I don't think it will let me down.

Should be fun. If I can update the blog from there (i.e. if the hotel has wi-fi), I will.

Three of a Kind

Couldn't resist this one - I think it's the only time I have had three bikes on the premises at the same time.

I think they look rather fine. Like having a good workshop: a tool for every occasion.