Set off for the Ace in torrential rain, water flowing down the road made sitting at traffic lights seem a moving experience, similar to snowbording in a whiteout with wind driven snow:)
Arrived minutes later at the Ace Cafe in North West London just in time to have our entry procedure thwarted by the departure of fifty or more Yamaha FSE-1s. Humbled, we entered the car park by way of a deep puddle.
We ate lunch with the advent of brightening skys and an intention of riding in a post prandial westerly direction. The sight of a small boy blowing bubbles in the car park lifted our spirits as we consumed our sausage sandwiches.
A mixture of FSE-1 riders and bearded 3%ers added to the frisson.
The skies darkened as we used the toilet facilities and upon firing up the beast rain began to fall. A pre flight check showed up a disparity in rear light intensity, misdiagnosed as a previous replacement of a Hi-intensity rear light with standard issue so a call in at Halfords near Hanger Lane was in order.
Upon arrival at Halfords further checks revealed a blown brake light and a seized switch on the rear brake! After purchasing a new pair of Hi-intesity rear bulbs I made a safety based exective decision to head for home and resolve the problem, no-one in their right minds would ride a bike that can`t indicate a braking manouvre as a whole generation of motorists are no longer familiar with hand signals.
An abortive call at Infinity Motorcycles in search of a Fog City insert was the only beak in our ride home along the A460, left at Ikea and a dice with a Vauxhall Zafira as the famous Wembly arch hove into view.
Home and it was the work of minutes to replace a bulb and freee up the defective switch. Alas by then we had lost our Mojo and the thought of setting of for yet more adventures was subsumed by our desire to replace the worn (pound shop) non slip mess on our pillion seat with a better product from Maplins!
All in all an eventfull 90 minutes by anyones standards…
Unless you know better!