A luddite speaks:
So, I've been taking the poo-coloured Fireblade to work for the last few days, having resurrected it from under a tarp in a dried-out mudhole in the garden.
Now, yesterday I couldn't be arsed to ride it all the way to work (100-mile round trip and quite tiring on the return leg), so I took it to Pewsey and left it at the railway station while I jumped on the train.
Imagine my surprise, not to say extreme irritation, when - on my return yesterday evening - the stupid remote control widget wouldn't disarm the immobiliser which would both enable the engine to start and stop the BLOODY ALARM from shrieking at me. I received some very odd looks from the other commuters...
I soon realised that the battery had expired - several minutes of frobbing the little button like buggery and the little indicator light barely glimmering were a pretty good indicating of this diagnosis.
Girding my loins (which is a dodgy thing to do in leather trousers), I set off for the local Kwik-E-Mart in the hope of purchasing a replacement battery for the remote control wossname; and was duly overjoyed to find that they did, in fact, have exactly the right battery. The shopkeeper even lent me a little Phillips screwdriver with which to dismantle the stupid thing. I replaced the battery, frobbed the button, and lo! it worked!
I gleefully set off for the station car park. Gleefully, that is, until I reached the stranded motorcycle and found that the stupid effing sodding remote control doohickey was about as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot. Bugger.
Being a lazy sod, I couldn't be bothered to walk to the shop again, so started grubbing around on the tarmac for a suitable object with which to unscrew the remote control again, eventually finding a ring-pull from a beer can. After a struggle (the duration of which far exceeded that which would have been required to get to the shop and back again) I succeeded in re-opening the transmitter. I wondered "Perhaps the battery is in the wrong way round?". Nope. Bugger. Again.
I then had a brainwave. I tried to call a chap named Gary, who lives in my village and who (handily) runs a taxi firm. DQ had never heard of him. So - obviously - I phoned the pub where he drinks and got his number that way. Great - he could come to the station to collect me, and I could then get the AA to drag the recalcitrant machine home again! He'd be there in 25 minutes...
...which gave me time to fiddle with the remote thingy again. After a while I got to thinking and idly wondered whether - for some odd reason - the transmitter needed to be reset when a new battery was inserted. So, guessing wildly, I took the battery out, pressed both buttons and - keeping them pressed - somehow shoved the battery back in. The light lit up, the receiver on the bike made a horrid screeching noise and the sodding thing disarmed. Grrr.
So I then had to wait for Gary to turf up and humbly apologised to him for a wasted journey and paid him the fare (he's a nice bloke and a useful man to know, after all), and buggered off.
And got home to find that the left footpeg was hanging on by about 2mm of bolt thread; I thought it felt a bit wobbly.
Walking has never seemed such a sensible idea...
Now, yesterday I couldn't be arsed to ride it all the way to work (100-mile round trip and quite tiring on the return leg), so I took it to Pewsey and left it at the railway station while I jumped on the train.
Imagine my surprise, not to say extreme irritation, when - on my return yesterday evening - the stupid remote control widget wouldn't disarm the immobiliser which would both enable the engine to start and stop the BLOODY ALARM from shrieking at me. I received some very odd looks from the other commuters...
I soon realised that the battery had expired - several minutes of frobbing the little button like buggery and the little indicator light barely glimmering were a pretty good indicating of this diagnosis.
Girding my loins (which is a dodgy thing to do in leather trousers), I set off for the local Kwik-E-Mart in the hope of purchasing a replacement battery for the remote control wossname; and was duly overjoyed to find that they did, in fact, have exactly the right battery. The shopkeeper even lent me a little Phillips screwdriver with which to dismantle the stupid thing. I replaced the battery, frobbed the button, and lo! it worked!
I gleefully set off for the station car park. Gleefully, that is, until I reached the stranded motorcycle and found that the stupid effing sodding remote control doohickey was about as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot. Bugger.
Being a lazy sod, I couldn't be bothered to walk to the shop again, so started grubbing around on the tarmac for a suitable object with which to unscrew the remote control again, eventually finding a ring-pull from a beer can. After a struggle (the duration of which far exceeded that which would have been required to get to the shop and back again) I succeeded in re-opening the transmitter. I wondered "Perhaps the battery is in the wrong way round?". Nope. Bugger. Again.
I then had a brainwave. I tried to call a chap named Gary, who lives in my village and who (handily) runs a taxi firm. DQ had never heard of him. So - obviously - I phoned the pub where he drinks and got his number that way. Great - he could come to the station to collect me, and I could then get the AA to drag the recalcitrant machine home again! He'd be there in 25 minutes...
...which gave me time to fiddle with the remote thingy again. After a while I got to thinking and idly wondered whether - for some odd reason - the transmitter needed to be reset when a new battery was inserted. So, guessing wildly, I took the battery out, pressed both buttons and - keeping them pressed - somehow shoved the battery back in. The light lit up, the receiver on the bike made a horrid screeching noise and the sodding thing disarmed. Grrr.
So I then had to wait for Gary to turf up and humbly apologised to him for a wasted journey and paid him the fare (he's a nice bloke and a useful man to know, after all), and buggered off.
And got home to find that the left footpeg was hanging on by about 2mm of bolt thread; I thought it felt a bit wobbly.
Walking has never seemed such a sensible idea...