On late nights, brass monkeys and flat batteries

Greetings, and for those hardy souls off to the Brass Monkey – bastards, I can’t make it this year due to unforeseen circumstances and I hope you have a crap time standing round that bonfire drinking beer telling lies, and I don’t wish I was there, really I don’t. If you’re going and want to rub it in my face, we’re closing at six from now (Wednesday) until Friday night for anyone who needs anything before they go.

For those of you who are thinking of parking their bikes up over winter, you your battery is quite likely to be as flat as the road to Timaru when Summer arrives. The easy solution is a battery minder, and we carry them in stock, priced at around $149.00. Simply plug it in and forget it and when you come in from a ride hook your bike up when you get home and you’ll always have a full battery.

If you do end up with a flat battery and if, like me, you’re too old to run down the road and jump on your bike jump starting your bike with jumper leads is the best solution, but there are a few things you need to consider. Once your bike is going leave it connected to the other vehicle with both vehicles idling for a few minutes. This is especially important if the battery was really flat to begin with. If you use a car charger, charge on the lowest rate you can because a bike battery may well fry if current is pumped into it at the rate car batteries can handle.

And if you’re planning to park your bike up over winter and are coming up to time for a service, get it done before you park up. Bikes like being serviced and repay you with running at their best, so getting your bike serviced a couple of thousand of Ks early is ultimately a good thing. Second come summer the workshop goes ballistic and we hate telling customers to go away and finally old oil is filled with contaminants, including acids and moisture. Leaving the delicate internals of your bike in contact with old oil for several months is not going to make your bike feel happy and that unhappiness may well be voiced in mechanical problems down the road.

That’s pretty much it for this week. If you’re heading to the Brass, have one for all of us here at Street and Sport and we’ll see you when you get back.


Later, David Thompson
www.streetandsport.co.nz

Email from 29 April 2009

over the weekend I met up with some friends at the Dux, and as I was getting ready to go, one of them said "now you be careful out there". That kind of comment is on a par with "Oh, but motorcycles are so dangerous" and the other classic "it's not you, it's the other people on the road" - do I look stupid? (OK, don't answer that please, it was a rhetorical question). I'm not going to get on The Beloved and ride carelessly - hell, it took me a long time to find her and the thought of damaging her scares me almost as much as the thought of hurting myself. And I know motorcycles are dangerous - do people think I wear an expensive helmet because it makes my bum look small? (definitely don't answer that one). "Oh, thank you for telling me - I had absolutely no idea they were dangerous, I think I'll give up riding now and buy a Volvo". And if you're really worried about how other people put me at risk, then do us all a favour and either buy a bike or walk. The less cars on the road the safer I am, so thank you for your concern for my safety, put your words into action by keeping off the road.

It reminds me of a quote by Sir Walter Scott: “One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum". I know motorcycling is risky, but I want to live not stagnate.

Greetings and welcome to my new blog. People keep telling me that they want to be able to post responses to my emails, and in an acknowledgment of the world of Web 2.0 welcome to my foray into the world of blogging.

Workshop. We're lucky to have Stefan working with us for a few weeks, and in case you don't know him, Stefan is the guy with the radical Rocket with the 3 into one and pod filters. It's meant that we've been able to get on top of all our work and can start working on bikes other than Triumphs, so if you need to have work done on your bike and want it done properly, we have 3 top mechanics in the shop. We also have some serious skill and experience in suspension setup and performance mods, so if you want to get more from your bike we can quite probably help.

Upcoming events:
This Sunday 10 May, Round one of the Bears Racing at Ruapuna. Always a good day's racing and a chance to watch the Daytona 675s show the Italians how to go fast.

Have a go day, Saturday 16 May, Levels Raceway, Timaru. If you can brave the straight line between Christchurch and Timaru, next Saturday is a have a go day. It doesn't matter what you ride, how well you ride or how fast you ride, having a blat on a race track is always fun and a good chance to practice braking and cornering. Give us a call on 03 366 2201 for more info.

The rally season is pretty well behind us, with the Brass Monkey the next item on the agenda. If you're planning to go, we're going to have a big winter sale at the shop on Thursday 21st of May. For Brass Monkey newbies (myself included) we'll get a couple of old hands to run through what happens, what to bring, what to watch out for etc.

Thinking about rallies, it brought to mind the community aspect of what it means to be a motorcyclist. In the 21st century we live in a world where marriages often don't last, typically we move house every few years so we never form neighbourhood bonds, we change our jobs every couple of years and communal and social activities are losing popularity. It's an innate part of the human condition to seek communal identity, yet we have created a society without community. Unless you're a motorcyclist.

We all know that connection to the complete stranger filling up at the gas station, and we've probably all wandered across to chew the fat before carrying on our separate journeys. Most of us still wave or nod to the rider heading the other direction and most of us have riding buddies that we enjoy riding with and having a cold one with at the end of the ride. There is no doubt that motorcycling is something that has created a sense of community, and one much deeper than car drivers or even specific brand of car drivers experience, but why?

I think partly because what we do has an innate risk attached to it there is a sense of "sharing the danger", something like what soldiers in battle would experience. There's also the reality that sometimes riding a bike is not all that comfortable (a nice way of saying "bloody miserable"), and again the person riding the other way knows what you're experiencing including the perverse sense of pride that comes from doing the ks in crap conditions brings. But they also know that feeling of ecstatic exhilaration that only a motorcyclist experiences when they ride a windy road well. Or the sense of connection with the environment that only comes from being in the wind, through smelling the forests and paddocks, feeling the warmth of the sun of the chill of the shade.

Riding a bike is something special that only people who do it will ever understand, and most of us have a sense of oneness with each other, however fleeting. What we have is something that very few people enjoy in the 21st century - a sense of community, and it's that sense of community that means most weekends you'll see a bunch of riders out together, or sitting in a pub or cafe sharing a meal or a drink and why rallies are so much fun. Just another reason why I love riding bikes so much.

That's pretty much it, stay on the road and don't leave your bike in the shed this winter - it deserves better.

David Thompson
www.streetandsport.co.nz