Month: May 2009

Two weekends on the trot that the sun has been shining and with the bike back and nothing to stay in for I decided to ride out again. This time Yorkshire and Cumbria.

The Sun had bought out the 1 litre sports bike crowd and a few more HDs than I remember being in the UK, must be a fashion thing. Still, the roads that appeal to these riders are not those that a GSer looks for, so my sheep trail single tracks were almost empty, apart from an intrepid cyclist or two and the gypsy caravans gathering for next weekends Appleby Horse Fair.

Pics to follow.

Well at least I’ve been able to salvage something and unlike my marriage, where the silence has been deafening and I’ve just been written off, with my bike I’ve been inundated with documents, call centre conversations, discussions with a stream of people behind glass, who profess to be customer service centric but aren’t…yet I’ve finally got back on the road. 

North Wales yesterday, just me and my bike.

Great Orme is a large rocky outcrop. It’s home to a Bronze age mine, a funicular tramway and these…

Tea was taken in a converted railway carriage in Bets Y Coed, along with a salad with cheese, 

“What sort of cheese?”. 
“Welsh cheese”, 
“Yes but what sort?” 
“Dunno, it’s just Welsh”. 
Ah national pride and staff that can’t give a toss.
“I’ll have that then please, but can you add extra Welshness”.

Great Orme has switchbacks that are tighter than a bankers tax return, not many of them, but tight enough to require a stop and three point GSA turn when confronted by a car coming up, as you go down. Pay a pound to the man then on to the rock face road that sinuously hangs above the sea, in a tight one way road of contours. Again, as good as anywhere I’ve ridden, just not very much of it. Britain is compact, which is good as you can comprehend it and bad because it doesn’t challenge your boundaries of comprehension in the way vastness, or extremes, do.
On the summit of the Orme is a Bronze age copper mine…surely that will be a copper age mine then…(I know…just playing).

Good to be back riding, I will sleep the deep sleep of the satisfied and pleasantly tired.

First ride in over six months should have been the 20 minute trip between the dealers and the test centre. Unfortunately the dealer removed my GPS mounting for some reason, so I was riding on a single visit recollection from a different direction.
One and a half hours later and over an hour late, I arrived.

Now unfortunately at VOSA test centre, I asked if I could take pictures for my blog. Big mistake.

I’m not sure what secrets I could have revealed, but I was told in very strong terms that I could not mention what took place during the test. What official tosh. There’s a guy that measures things, weighs things, measures other things then passes or fails you. 

One thing for GS riders and this is a biggie, if you ever need a VOSA test, you know how we have two front mud guards? Well, the one nearest the tyre IS NOT A MUD GUARD, okay. Remember it’s a finger protector, or after market add on to keep sheep or monkeys off. It can be for anything else, but it’s not your mud guard. The beak is your mud guard. Get this wrong and you will fail, because the mud guard nearest the tyre doesn’t have an edge rim radius of 2 millimetres, but your beak does. Yep I know it’s rubbish, but we pay taxes so a man can look and measure that. Also on a GS, for the hazards to work when the ignition is turned off, you need to turn it on, activate the hazards, and THEN, turn the ignition off.
Anyway, I passed, so I now have another certificate I can present to whoever is next in the list.
To be honest, the guy today was quite pleasant, but only once the test had finished, it was as if chatting could in some way influence his decisions, as if by bantering back and forth the tape measure or scales would have been mysteriously biased in my favour. It’s that sort of bureaucracy that ticks me off.

Cycle power.

Still no engined locomotion, just two legs and a razor blade that’s called a saddle. Start out nice and easy, after all, this is the first ride since, well, since I can’t remember when, about 5 years ago. Certainly the cycle has remained in it’s packing all the time I was in the USA, because even with the best intentions to get fit, use the bikes, there was always something else to do.

So, 20 miles. Starting from city suburbs the first issue is traffic, lots of it, I’m wearing a hi vis jacket, but if drivers can’t see a huge motorcycle sometimes with lights on what chance a cyclist. Then there’s the roads, cyclists confined to scuttling in the gutters. Finally, I’m starting out with a twisted knee, so pain will be my partner, even on the flat bits.

Okay get ready. If you ever think of moving back, or indeed moving over here and want to bring your bike/s, don’t, it’s a nightmare. Today, having spent a couple of months dealing with customs, custom’s website, shippers (who were shiite beyond belief-here’s a tip, get in touch with Globe Busters the bike travel company they can help-I found out too late), then the DVLA, driver vehicle licensing authority and their website and their call centre, BMW Motorad and their customer help call centre and then their useless un-friendly homolgation department, the VOSA a vehicle testing authority and another government web site and call centre, I finally got back to a point where I was in front of someone, or not as the case turned out to be. VOSA have a centre where you take your bike because BMW don’t have a certificate of conformity for my bike, or any US bike I believe. There you will join a queue of truckers, if you happen to be in Liverpool region. Two girls are at a counter. You will get to the front and they’ll look at you blankly when you say the word “motorcycle”. You will then be sent to find Phil. Once found, Phil will tell you to fill the form in, which you should have from the VOSA website. I had it and I filled it in for Phil. Phil will then send you back to rejoin the trucker queue. Now remember you’ve already been here once and they looked stupefied, so it won’t feel promising. You’ll get to the front and say, “motorcycle sva test booking please”. Now at this point it’s worth recalling the millions of pounds of tax payer’s money that you have seen spent on this technologically slick and integrated system designed to simplify the collection of data critical to maintaining the well-being of the road system. You will recall the number of people that batted you round the call centre, once you managed to cascade through the endless options. You will no doubt recall all the time doing the work yourself, because despite all the man power that is employed to help, the best they could ever do was direct you to a tosspot of a website, where you couldn’t quite find anything that fits in with your specific requirements and therefore required another session with the call centre at VOSA, who then tell you the DVLA are the people you needed in the first place and “have you seen their website or been in touch with the DVLA call centre?” and you say, “not yet,” but know all they will eventually do is refer you back to the person who is currently speaking to you at VOSA after having been through their call centre options, the joy of being passed from pillar to post and the obligatory refer to our website/call them back scenario, at least twice,…so do not be surprised when the same two counter attendants look at you and say…”We don’t do bikes. You need to speak with Anne”. That’s right, WE DO NOT DO BIKES, YOU NEED TO SPEAK TO ANNE”. So, at the end of these millions of pounds of bureaucratic fiasco, annoyance and ignorance, there’s Anne, just Anne, the only person capable of sorting out several months of anxiety and stress…just Anne. “So can I speak with Anne please?” “She’s away on indefinite sick leave”. And that’s where the whole system goes completely and utterly arse up and finally farts in your face. Anne is away and all those millions, all those call centres, the whole mechanics of government stop. I was less than impressed. I passed on my lack of being impressed to the two girls as effectively as possible, without causing offence. A few calls were made and now my bike is booked in for its test next Monday. It appears Anne is not indispensable after all. So that’s all sorted out, done and dusted. Not so fast. That would just be too simple wouldn’t it? Monday is the day the BMW dealer, who currently stores my bike, is closed. I am allowed one ride to the test centre and then another to a suitable place for any modifications if it’s not passed. But if the dealer is closed, I’ll need to get the bike on Saturday and ride it somewhere. I called in at the police station. “You will be riding illegally and will be fined if we stop you”. So there you have it. A smooth integrated system, that falls to pieces when one person falls ill and can’t be fulfilled anyway unless you have a car and bike trailer. What a complete load of Taurus turds. Come over as a tourist with your bike, that’s just a snip in comparison, although you will be charged and have paperwork to do which will make a Nicaraguan border crossing seem like a picnic and a bargain. Just don’t bring your bike over with the intention of registering it here, Customs don’t want you to do it, the DVLA will hate you, BMW Motorad won’t even speak to you, VOSA won’t know what the hell you are talking about unless Anne is there and the Police will be looking to issue you with a fine and penalty points if they can, and as if this isn’t enough, they will all charge you money while taking the piss, for example, a question on a form today…what is the weight of your battery? Who knows that? I asked if they meant a battery that was fully charged or flat? Well they started it!!!!