I’m broke at the moment, Completely broke. I haven’t got a pot to urinate in. For months my bike has required nothing more than petrol, a little oil and the occasional chain lubing to keep it going and now that I am poor, November has been a disaster…
Saturday 4th November, 6.45am across Blackheath following a fireblade at an ever so slightly illegal speed, start braking hard for the roundabout in the middle of the heath, changing down blipping the throttle as I go, when suddenly… my bike sounds like a motogp bike - which was good, for a moment. The scraping sound that followed as two halves of a rusty Bandit exhaust hit the road surface wasn’t so good. It was freezing waiting for the recovery man to come and have a look at it and provide a temporary fix.
Last Friday coming home from a day shift. Left Lambeth at 6.30pm, made good progress to the Medway Towns through the late rush hour traffic in the pouring rain and high winds, decided that I needed some cash so went to my local garage to get some… went to their parking area put the side stand down except, much to my embarrassment and shame (and I am only guessing here because I can’t really understand how it happened) I appear to have missed the sidestand put my foot on the floor at a funny angle, on what appeared to be an oil slick caused by someone changing their oil without bothering to catch the old stuff, losing my footing, and dropping my bike on the nearside smashing both indicators and scraping some more paint off the bike. I also wrenched my shoulder trying to stop it going, but obviously failed. It still hurts today…
And then this morning… leaving work nice and early at 6am. Making excellent progress down the A2 at Falconwood, when out of the darkness on the wet poorly lit carriageway I spied a lump of concrete cunningly left there to dent Bandit front wheels. Due to my slightly excess speed and the wet, very bl**dy wet, conditions I hit the concrete lump, dented my lovely wheel, hit my testicles on the tank (which I can assure you hurts in a very, very big way) but somehow managed to keep the bike upright with me on it.
I am now going to bed until the new year. I will then be mostly searching e-bay for a new front wheel.
Moan over. Thank you and goodnight.
John
