First Outing of the Year

 

First Outing of the Year.

 

I had checked over the Buell the previous day. It had been any distance for weeks. I was also rusty from encarceration and knew I had lost the edge on dicing with traffic and filtering. This was an outing to Jack’s Fish and Chips in Bagshott meet up with fellow members of  our local LE owners club and then on to John’s home a few miles away to enjoy the takeaway and listen to hear his presentation on Riding in Thailand. Those who know Jack’s on a Wednesday lunch they do pensioner rates and is always busy with motorcycle clubs so a good choice to meet up and what bikes are of interest today. John was there on his Valiant and Antony in his car a Fiat 500. 

There was a good collection of bikes including a little Ducati desmo single, a Harley 45, a Norton Dominator, a Gold Star and riding in a new Brough. It sounded new, the exhaust was modern it needed a retro exhaust note to go with it looks. After about an hour we collected our take away and went back to John’s place in convoy.

John did a very good presentation covering his travels and experiences on his two trips that were several years apart. The changes were quite dramatic from dirt roads to perfect tarmac and the increase in commercialisation and tourism. His first trip was done on a Honda 250cc trail bike which was more than capable of coping with the conditions. The second trip was on a Honda 500 with some luggage capacity as he was travelling on his own.

A very pleasant couple of hours were spent before it was time we went home as Antony and I went for the M3 to compete with the traffic and I was able to have a go at doing some filtering on the approach to a roundabout. It didn’t take long to get home but I could have without the couple of squally showers on the motorway. Really great to do be doing something normal again.

Just an update with the van as I have now fitted the driveshafts and wheels and got rid of the old chassis. I had my angle grinder die and had to buy a new one before I could complete the sectioning. A passing scrap merchant saw the bits and kindly took it away saving me a trip to the trip.

 Inspired by my trip out I wheeled my LE out of the garage checked fuel, oil and water, turned on the petrol tap and the choke before priming the engine with three  kicks the ignition on and it fired up second kick. This has now prompted me to charge up my Valiant battery and get that one running.