21st October 2008

Bought a New bike - Well Ex-Demo fully loaded with extras

All seemed straight forward, Book a flight to East Midlands Airport on Tuesday... met by Julie (Wendy's Sister) who lives in Cannock With her Husband Pete pick up the bike and ride down to Exeter to visit the Family and Grandkids - then ride the coast road to Portsmouth and the ferry over to Le-Havre before taking the 360 mile ride south and home...

Was met by Julie who drove me to the shop to collect the bike. Overnighter in Cannock then rode down to Exeter to visit the kids and grandkids overnighter with Billy, Lissy and Oakley, spent the morning with Ray Becki, Emilly & Daniel.

Set off from Exeter for the Ferry in Portsmouth, Stopped off at the Moto Guzzie Dealers in Wareham to check if I could change my Speedo to KPH through the system computer (very complex and way too functional, you can program the ECU with it if you have a dealer code : ) anyway they changed the Speedo for me and off I rode to do some shopping and visit my old work friends in Poole and then off to Ringwood (Bransgore) to visit some pals (Mondo & Joy). On the way back from Bransgore down a new forrest single lane road (Read track) the bike lost power and ground to an unexpected holt. Pitch black mega windy and raining. My mobile had packed in and I was just 2 hours from boarding time for the ferry.

I walked down the road to a house which turned out to be very nice and friendly, let me phone Mondo & Joy and push the bike onto their drive for safety. Stayed overnight at Mondo & Joy's and the next day got recovered to Wareham to discover that the bike model had been subject to a recall notice to remove a relay which was superfluous but if not removed could prevent the starter motor from disengaging once the starter button was released.

Needless to say mine had not been removed and yes on this occasion the starter motor had remained engaged for about 10 miles, during this time it had become an electrical generator until the sprocket had been sheered off. This would have been fine until I stopped but no the starter then fed the electric current it had generated back into the bikes electrical system and blew a few main fuses grinding the bike to a holt.

Bummer, but it came with free breakdown and the dealers was only 30 miles away so the problem was quickly diagnosed under sniggers of should have bought the bike from us kinda stuff. I eventually convinced the jobs worth Workshop manager to take one of the starter motors off one of his three new Stelvio's to get me back on the road so I could continue my journey home. Cost me £120 to convince him, Still I guess he had no reason to bend over backwards to a passing biker and I saved the hassle of having to come back in a couple of weeks once my bike had been repaired under warranty.


Daniel, Oakley, Emily LANG


Raymond, Emily, Becki & Daniel (Emily's 2nd Birthday)


This is where the bike was secured overnight


Off to the Van


Mr Christopher who kindly helped me


Moto-Guzzi Dealers (Charlie furthest right)


Finally and 2 nights late at the ferry port


Arriving in France - Le Havre