As we left things last time, I’d made a rash decision. Rather than incessant fiddling, trying to make things perfect, I was going to just take the Dart to Cambridge Motorcycles for an MOT, so they could tell me what needed fixing, and then I would spend some time enjoying the moment, rather than trying to make things better for the future. As such, I did what needed doing to make it safe (or safe-ish – more on that later) and give the engine the best chance of surviving the journey. I’d already run the engine for a few minutes in the garage, so I knew that the carburation was surprisingly OK. Lights, horn, indicators were all checked and present and correct. Brakes, suspension, throttle response, were unknown and would be discovered on the journey to the test centre.
Insurance was brilliantly easy. Take a bow, Footman James. Exactly how it should be. I had a really informed and pleasant conversation with a real person, who understood that insuring old bikes isn’t always as easy as “market value”. They weren’t the cheapest, but I don’t care – they got my money on the grounds that they were so easy to deal with, and made the process actually pleasurable. I look forward to renewing next year already. Well, not that much. But you know what I mean. Right then, insurance was done, so it was time for the MOT.
Good news: It only went and passed first time, with just a couple of minor advisories. Electrics all work. The noise is just beautiful. It’s brilliant at pottering through country lanes at 50-60mph on a sunny day. The mirrors work beautifully – this may not seem much of a cause for celebration, but after years of TRX850s and the Triumph 675, this is a lovely change. It put a bigger smile on my face than any bike since the first TZR250.
Bad news: The suspension is awful – there’s no damping in the forks, and the rear spring rate seems to be set up for Dani Pedrosa on a crash diet. Brakes are a bit wooden. Tyres are appalling. There’s a definite whine in fifth gear. It’s very small – no way I could do the run down to Burgundy in a day.
Right then, MOT in hand, what’s the best thing to do, given the known bad points? A long ride up to Holt, to meet up with James, and drink beer:
The ride was the best I’ve had, in years. Yeah, I knew all about the bad points, but I didn’t care. I wanted to get back to the days when I rode the CB250RS, and didn’t care about having 12 clicks of rebound damping rather than 13 on the rear, or 32.5psi in the rear tyre rather than 31. Just riding to enjoy the process of riding. I loved it. It genuinely was a bit of a revelation in that regard – I could go out and just ride for fun to meet up with a mate in the sunshine rather than worry about whether I’d prepared perfectly for the ride, in case of, well, in case of what? A breakdown? So what – it’s happened before, it’ll happen again. No problem.
The suspension and tyres really do need something doing though. The ride home on Saturday morning was in the damp, and while I didn’t care about the weather, the tyres definitely did. Now, finding a 16″ tyre these days isn’t that easy, but a bit of searching around found that Continental had a fitment for scooter tyres in that size so that’s what went on the front. The rear is a reasonably standard size so again, a Conti went on the back too. Normally I’d have used Bridgestone tyres on a small bike, but I’ve had such good experience with Contis on everything since the TZR days that I’m going to give them a go. The suspension, I’m going to have to fiddle with a bit I reckon. First thing is to check the fork oil – I doubt there’s any in there if I’m honest. I’ve got some 5w oil in the post so we’ll see if that makes an appreciable difference. The manual calls for Agip automatic transmission fluid, which, safe to say, isn’t easy to find out here in The Fens. Other than that, the only thing I’ve done is to tidy up the contacts for the idiot lights after the indicator warning light stopped working on the way up to Holt. Did I care? No. Not a jot. I just gave arm signals where I thought the traffic conditions merited it as I thought that the indicators themselves had packed up. So if you were driving around Norfolk last Friday and wondered who the idiot was giving hand signals as well as indicating, it was me.
And that’s really it so far. Part of me found it really difficult to just go out and ride when I knew there were known faults with the bike. But somewhere along the line, I’d forgotten that it’s OK to take a risk. Not so much because of the outcome of that risk, but more the shame at having to explain that I’d made a bad decision. We all make bad decisions.
Talking of bad decisions I’m booked into a trackday at Cadwell Park next month. Do I take the lovely state of the art Triumph? Nope. And if it all ends unexpectedly, so what.
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