Things I Soon Learned The Hard Way

[6r4h4m]

Things I Soon Learned The Hard Way
Or, A Chronological Account of Incompetence In Only Two Journeys After CBT
Presented for the General Mockery and Amusement of All

1 - When the engine dies during your journey, don't assume it's because you ran out of fuel. Even though you're riding home from the dealer, having just bought the bike, and there was only a spoonful of gas in the tank to start with. After parking up and taking a long walk to buy a canful of petrol ... I learned that sometimes the engine dies just because you accidentally rocked the kill switch.

2 - You padlock a bike chain by putting one end link through another, and the lock through the single end link. Not by cramming two links into the padlock. Which would take around 10 minutes to achieve in the first place. Doing that jams the lock so that you have to get your neighbour with gorilla hands to help you squeeze the mechanism hard enough to unlock it again.

3 - An overwhelming reek of petrol while riding is not normal. Pull over and check it out. Instead of just thinking, "Wow, bikes smell more than I realised!" (See also 4 and 5.)

4 - The back wheel sliding around like an angry snake is not normal. Pull over and check it out. Instead of just thinking, "Wow, bikes are a lot harder to control than I realised!" (See also 3 and 5.)

5 - Trust the dealer reviews written by other customers on Google reviews. Rather than just thinking, "Some suckers must have been really unlucky. No business can be that bad!" Instead of learning that items 3 and 4 are being caused by the petrol you bought the other night pissing out of a disconnected fuel hose, directly in front of your rear wheel, causing both a strong smell and a lot of sliding around. All during your first ever commute to work, within the first 10 miles since buying the bike from the dealer whose customer reviews you disregarded. All resulting in a 1½ mile work-out to push the bike to a mechanic, who tells you the hose has popped loose because it was at least an inch too short.

*****
Can I just interrupt my own post here to give a big shout out to everyone at South London Motorcycles in Tooting. Without those guys, I would never have had such an exciting early riding experience! There's nothing like a dealer whose top engineers are dedicated to quality and safety when it comes to getting bikes ready for collection. (Hope this advertorial break doesn't forum rules on spam!)
*****

6 - A warranty doesn't cover the cost of repair if the dealer doesn't do the fix. Even if it's just £20. To claim the warranty, you would need to recover the bike back to the dealer at your own cost. Or as we say in South London, 'Tows before hose!'

7 - Don't park up side-on to the wind. Just because you were two hours late for work, what with avoiding death by petrol slide and then pushing your bike to a mechanic and all that guff, doesn't mean the local wind gods are going to throw you a fricking bone today. You see, the town planners of Croydon have used their powers of concrete soullessness to craft the finest wind tunnels in the land. Sure, there's always a BMW parked in the same space and it's fine - that's because it's a heavy Bavarian bastard, like those people who sunbathe nude all year round in the public park in Munich. But you my old chump, you will return to find your little 125 in a sad puddle of its own oil, having long since lost its battle to stay upright on its centre stand.

...

I'm a month on from those initial hard-learned lessons now. There was a definite moment when I wanted to just go get on a train and leave the damn machine to rot in its own juice. But it's honestly been worth staying in the saddle: the daily journey is so much more engaging than the alternative of dead-eyed cattle transfer by disappointing trains. (Even though the destination is still, unavoidably, Croydon.)

[Oldie]

Nice stuff and lots more to come your way. Soon you will be an expert on reg/rec failures, head bearings, dodgy electrics, oil types, ACF50, cracked plug caps, warped discs, etc etc etc........

You will avidly join in discussion topics on security, tyre choice, power enhancement, chain oilers, next bike, riding in the wind etc etc etc......

You have the makings of a biker, sir

[louisella]

As a new member I can't rate this post yet but had to give it a HUGE thumbs up, really made me smile, please keep posting!

Edit: correct emoji this time!

[Aceslock]

[grr666]

[NJD]

Well written and an interesting read.

I'm sure there's more to come.

[louisella]

[skatefreak]

Great post!
I wish I had chronicled my initial experiences!

I take your dodgy dealer and raise you 1 prime chav idiot who along with a lot of other things, removed the entire air filter assembly, jubilee clipped a beer can on the end of the carb and zip tied a stocking over the end .
And I couldn't understand why the engine was fubar after a could of k...
In pursuit of More powah as I managed to uncover a few threads online involving this character going against all advice trying to soup up this 125 4 t bike :-\

It sounds like you've been through a fair bit but its all uphill from here on in as you gain confidence on the road and can begin to enjoy the ride a lot more

[bigdom86]

i had a number 2 moment when i first got my bike chain and had to browse google images to work out how to operate the lock properly putting one link into the other

[Polarbear]

You aren't the first and you won't be the last to make themselves feel an idiot
____________________
Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[Evil Hans]

[BTTD]

[bigdom86]

[6r4h4m]

Thanks folks. Also, I totally forgot:

https://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn185/idiotboy77/B79083FE-9BF0-4CF2-A7A8-7C2A0ADEBD43_zpsznld9dcf.jpg

…and yesterday, I realised the speedo is super-cautious anyway. I thought I'd been tearing up the highway at 35mph on the way in today. Checked with an app on my phone: top speed 26.5

[Rogerborg]

[col-el rider]

[pompousporcup...]

[Lord Percy]

[Andy_Pagin]

First time I stopped for fuel after getting the Fazer I spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out why it wouldn't start...

... then I remembered the immobiliser
____________________
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa, hey-hey,
the men in white coats are coming to take me away.
Yamaha Vity -> YBR125 -> FZS600 Fazer -> FZ1-S Fazer

[Lord Percy]

Two daft errors of my own:

1. Bike wouldn't start, had no way of getting to work, called and said I couldn't make it, spent hours looking at the electrics, took the whole thing apart, checked HT lead, plugs, reg/rec etc, even called a local garage to see if they were insured to do motorcycle work (they weren't). One last check of the bike... kill switch.

2. Bike started bogging down and losing power on a dual carriageway. "So this is the end," I thought. Forced it a mile or so further, found the next exit onto some kind of industrial estate, started doing laps of the place, delicately working the engine and listening to it to try and figure out what was going wrong. Bike eventually died completely. Fuel needed flicking to reserve .

[andyscooter]

I learnt to keep the remote for my scoot in my hand till I got far enough away from the scoot to stop it being pressed in my pocked

got out from a 12 hour night shift and bike was deader then a dead thing

turns out electrics had been live all night someone could of just pressed the start button and gone off without keys
____________________
gilera runner vxr200 (chavped)
if its spelt wrong its my fat fingers and daft auto correct on my tablet

[Gosties]

As everyone else regarding kill-switch.

Leave at stupid o'clock for work in the morning.

So find bike will not start:-

1) Check side stand and it's not that

2) Check fuel to ensure I'm not inadvertently in reserve.

3) Try to jump start bike.

After all that I walk back up street and push bike into garden then realise that kill-switch is in off position.

Felt like a proper plum.

[Hefty]

[Undinist]

I bought my first bike Brand New and assumed the tyres would last as long as the ones on my Dad's car, i.e. a year or two. So I didn't notice that my rear tyre was bald until I'd bounced along the road on my arse, leaving lumps of flesh everywhere.