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
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