Heritage Softail Service and Tyre

The other day I came out of work after a late meeting to be greeted by the the Harley-Davidson sitting there with a flat back tyre.  One of my colleagues tried to look on the bright side by reassuring me that it was only flat at the bottom, but I think this was just trying to make me feel better.

However, I wasn’t really worried, except for the fact that this would delay me getting home for my dinner. After a phone call to the lovely people at the RAC, I settled down for a wait. I didn’t have too long to wait before one their bright orange vans arrived, quickly located the problem, which was a hole in the tyre and proceeded to make a temporary repair.

I had been asked a couple of times whether this was a tubed or a tubeless tyre and I neither knew the answer nor realised that the question would prove to be significant.

It seems that temporary repairs are only for tubeless tyres.

After some searching, the RAC man announced his verdict. It had a tube.

This meant that I could not ride it home, even though the temporary repair was holding up. I would have to wait for a truck to come and take me home.

He also announced that I needed a new back tyre as the tread was on the very edge of being legal.

I settled back down in the office at work and eventually the truck arrived. We manoeuvred the bike onto the back of the hi-tech sliding tipping flat bed and the driver proceeded to strap the bike down. After this was done, we finally set off for home with me in the truck.

Apart from getting no dinner until about 11pm, things were OK. Our RAC membership had covered the costs of both of my rescuers and the bike was safely put away at home.

The next step was a phone call to Robin Hood.

No not that one; the Harley Davidson dealership in Nottingham.

They would come and collect the bike, fit a new tyre and carry out the service that was also due.

The ball park price that we were given during that phone call was a bit of shock. We are looking at about £700.

Oh well, nothing is cheap on a Harley.

The shop van turned up this morning and as I write this, the bike is in their tender care. At some point the phone will ring and my Visa card will go pale.

But the bike will be back on the road.

There is some debate going on in our household at the moment about whether we are going to keep the bike. With my job being almost an hour away from home, a car is a necessity, especially for next winter. My heart wants to keep the bike and walk to work if the weather is too bad to ride, but the well-hidden sensible bit of me realises that walking to Swadlincote from Nottingham is not an option.

Anyway, whether the bike stays or leaves, it needs to be roadworthy.

A Cautionary Note For All Volunteer Managers

A friend of mine, Aussie Volunteering guru Martin Cowling, was interviewed on Breakfast TV in New Zealand this morning about the potential problems that we are storing up as the population ages and as the people who volunteer age with them. His argument applies to us in the UK just as much as it does to New Zealand.

Through the magic of the interweb, you can see the interview here

Martin Cowling on New Zealand TV

Ride Safe
Dave

I’m Getting My Life Back

Tha last few months have been the busiest that I can remember for some time.

As well as my wonderful new job in Swadlincote, we have had visitors over from Denmark, been to Thoresby Hall for a wonderful weekend. Sue has also changed her job, we’ve test driven a Smart car, been to a wedding and handfasting on Dorset and survived Volunteers Week.

I’m amazed at how much of this has been captured here on the blog – although its initial purpose of recording no more than trains and bikes and occasionally, music has been swept aside by everything else.

I still have to write about our Dorset Wedding, but the Volunteers Week adventures are being recorded over at the Volunteer Centre South Derbyshire blog.

Ride Safe
Dave

Discontent in Sherwood Chapter

Although we are no longer members of Sherwood Chapter of the Harley Owners Group, we keep an ear to the ground about what’s going on there.

It is not entirely unrelated to what we are hearing that I have decided to remove the password protection from this post about my reasons for resigning from the committee and for not renewing my membership of the chapter. As I now have no connection with them – and almost six months water is under the bridge, I no longer feel bound by my agreement to remove this post from view.

If you’re a chapter member, would you like to comment on what is going on there at the moment?

Ride Safe
Dave

Wedding and Handfasting

Good evening. This is a very brief post – what would be called a trail on BBC local radio -  for a new series of posts that will start here in the next couple of days.

Mr and Mrs Chuffing Hog have just spent the weekend at the most amazing wedding and the most dreadful Travelodge.

As they say, stay tuned for more news. (Or as I might well have once said on the radio, “Tune in and rip the knob off!”)

Ride Safe
Dave

Test Driving A Roller Skate

I confess that I have never been a big fan of small cars, so when the Smart car appeared a few years ago, I rather dismissed it as a motorised “roller skate”. Certainly I would never have dreamed that I would, one day, be driving one and even discussing how we might be able to buy one.

It took a casual encounter in Nottingham’s Victoria Centre a few weeks ago where an outrageous claim on one of those pull-up banners stopped me in my tracks.

It said 88 mpg.

The banner was next to a diesel Smart For2 car – one of those squat little things with only two seats and, so I thought, space for one Tesco carrier bag as luggage.

That 88 mpg claim made me look a little more closely, otherwise I am sure that I would have walked straight past the company’s display stand.

I actually sat in one and discovered that it very surprisingly roomy and when I opened the boot (for I was getting into the spirit if things by then) I was amazed at the amount of space. I later learned, enough space to fit a tumble drier.

A fat bloke in a small car

I’m not sure whether you have to supply your own tumble drier to verify this claim.

Another of my preconceptions was that the Smart is a purely city car – incapable of venturing beyond 30mph signs. I was assured that this was another error in my education and that it could hold its own in the motorway grand prix.

With no opportunity to actually drive the thing around the shopping centre, we settled for giving our address and other details with a promise that we would be sent a brochure and be contacted to arrange a test drive.

Sure enough, the brochure pack arrived within a couple of days and after several phone calls from the company HQ and from the local dealer, our test drive was arranged for last Saturday.

Along the way, I also picked up on the fact that the diesel Smart had only been launched a few days before my initial encounter in the shopping centre.

At the appointed hour, Sue and I made our way to the Mercedes-Benz dealership (for Smart is their brand). We walked past all the huge, shiny luxury mercs to the Smart showroom area where we were welcomed with a cup of coffee.

The car that we were to take was out with another customer, so we completed the necessary paperwork while we waited for its return. We were given the car for an hour and a half, the keys were handed over and I was introduced to the slightly alien automatic gearbox.

Our first impressions of the car were quite positive, although the demonstrator had been wrapped in some kind of white vinyl and previous customers had been encouraged to write or draw on it. This was a little strange and certainly drew some glances while we were out.

The Graffiti Special Smart and Chuffing Hog

My initial reversing was somewhat tentative, but once on the road, we headed out of Nottingham towards Melton Mowbray. It was while we were on the way out of Nottingham that I spotted that the fuel gauge was showing 3.5 litres of fuel left.

Fair enough, I thought, but when this had dropped to 0.5 litres as we approached Melton Mowbray, about 20 miles from Nottingham, I started to worry a little. So we pulled into a petrol station and put £5 worth of fuel (about 5 litres). We then went out of Melton towards Loughborough and eventually got onto the A46 and headed north as far as Saxondale island at Bingham, before returning to Nottingham along the A52.

This much longer distance was achieved on about 2 litres of fuel and when we got back to the showrooom, we were told that there is a 3 litre reserve once the display hits zero, so we need not have worried. Anyway, they are going to refund our fiver.

The drive itself proved that everything we had been told about the ride, the handling and its ability to cope with dual carriageway and open roads.

The view from the front seat (because there isn't a back seat)

We both loved the car and on our return to the dealership, we started talking about payment methods and finance deals.

There is no great urgency on our part to get one until towards the end of the year. But we would like to have a more economical vehicle to take me to work in Swadlincote each day. Our Ford Galaxy is rather too big and thirsty to do this in the long term.

Although, I must stop being such a wimp because every time it looks like rain, or Carol Kirkwood forecasts showers across the midlands (most days), the bike stays in the garage and I reach for the Galaxy’s keys.

The Smart has already banished my prejudice about “roller skates” and I reckon it would pay for itself in lower fuel bills.

Ride (or drive) safe
Dave

Snouts In The Trough

There must have been several million words written in the last fortnight about the expenses claims of Members of Parliament. Until now, I have not really had anything to add to the clamour that has been going on. However, I will declare an interest. I used to be a district councillor (a long time ago) and I did claim some expenses. I also claim expenses from my present employer and have claimed them from my previous employers as well.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been an avid listener to the Radio 4 Today programme, hearing the news unfold with increasing disbelief. So much so, I have been using the car to go to work on days that, frankly, I should have used the bike simply so I don’t miss the latest instalment.

Perhaps those MPs that have been caught out by the investigative media are the unlucky ones taking the fall for an entire corrupt culture. 

I am not going to pontificate about whether the actions that have been revealed have or have not broken any rules. I am not even going to concern myself about whether the rules were fair and reasonable way – although I am positive that they were not. I am going to comment on the way that those rules have been made.

The expenses that I am able to claim from my place of work are clearly set out and based on decisions taken by our board of trustees.  I wonder whether, if I had been able to decide the rules for myself, would I have been tempted, over a period of years, to push the system as far as I could. I would like to be able to say that I would always stick to the moral high ground, but really, which of us hasn’t pushed the envelope a little. I think most of us will make the odd personal phone call from work, most of us will bring home an occasional pen and who hasn’t spent at least a little time at work avoiding doing what we are paid to do.

Is there any difference in principle between our own actions and what has apparently been happening at Westminster?

Well actually, yes there is. We could be disciplined by our employers for making that personal phone call, stealing that pen or wasting work time. If our misdemeanours at work went beyond the trivial, we would soon feel the heavy hand of the local constabulary.

Isn’t the scandal with the MPs’ fictitious mortgages, duck islands and moat clearance a result the self-regulation that has long been exercised by parliament? The constitutional wisdom is that no parliament can bind its successors, but this has put too much temptation in the way of people who have been quick to remind us, are only human.

I find the spectacle of political parties and their leaders ganging up to force a few scapegoats to throw themselves onto their swords to be an unedifying one. If the system is fundamentally flawed, which it is, a few sacrifices will do nothing to clean it up.

If I fiddle my expenses, my employer would take quick and decisive action. We are the employers of our elected representatives. It is our money that that they are salting away for themselves. We should be able to take some decisive action in the form of either endorsing our local representative, or removing him or her from the gravy train. The only way that we can do this is by a General Election in which each MP and candidate will have to come very clean about their conduct. 

I really believe that the next General Election will be fought on the most local and personal set of issues of any election in my memory. And I welcome this. Maybe I will even re-engage in the political process.

Along the way, the gravy train must be shunted into a siding, derailed and sent for scrap. The MPs’ expenses system must be taken out of their control completely, handed over to an independent, external body with no vested interest, if such a paragon can be found.

The new, strictly applied rules should allow only for reasonable expenses incurred as part of their work. I can’t claim for journeys between home and work, nor can I claim for a second home (or a first one, for that matter). Why should our servants?

Ride Safe
Dave

Sue’s Left Her Old Job

Whose blog is this anyway?

Today saw the end of an era. Sue has now left the Volunteer Centre Nottingham and is, at least for the rest of Bank Holiday weekend, an unemployed layabout. She starts her new job at Victim Support on Tuesday.

Anyway, she invited some of her ex-colleagues to join her for lunch at the Big Wok which is a Chinese Buffet restaurant on Upper Parliament Street in Nottingham. Of course, I was there, although with food on offer, you would expect nothing less.

Sue also made a card which she has left for her team of volunteers. I thought I’d like to share her craft skill and the really nice thought for her former team with you.

The card that Sue made for her volunteer team on leaving the Volunteer Centre Nottingham

The wording on the card reads “To The most wonderful bunch of people I have ever worked with.”

Inside Sue used a quote from Confucius, “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.”

Inside Sue's Card

Good, isn’t it?

Ride Safe
Dave

My Favourite Picture of Sue

A promise is a promise. Here it is.

Sue and the lilac bush outside our room at Thoresby Hall – my favourite picture of Sue (so far)

Ride Safe
Dave

Thoresby Hall Weekend – Part 4

This will, I hope be the final episode in this tale. A tale that Sue is very keen to repeat as soon as possible and one that I finish in the certainty that we would both be very good at being extremely rich.

However since we both work in voluntary sector, we both know that being extremely rich will remain some way off for the time being.

But I’m jumping ahead again. The story isn’t quite finished yet.

Saturday evening saw us dining in the Blue Room at Thoresby Hall. This a la carte restaurant is marketed as the pinnacle of the Thoresby Hall experience and I can assure you that it lives up the marketing. The surroundings are pure Victorian splendour.

Blue Room Restaurant at Thoresby Hall.

This picture was not taken by us, but comes from here. In fact, we didn’t take any photograhs of the interior of the hotel, so maybe Sue is right - we do need to go back.

Perhaps the uninterrupted luxury of the weekend had made me a little blase by the time it came to dinner, but I wasn’t as impressed with the food as I had been the previous evening. It seemed to be lacking a little of the “wow factor” that I had felt before.

Don’t get me wrong, the meal was fantastic, from the immaculately presented starter to my perfectly cooked beef and on to a fantastic dessert, the meal was amazing. The wine was another really good one, chosen by me almost at random from their large wine list. The service was professional and unobtrusive, although they were a little slow getting the dessert menus to us after our main course had been cleared away. We even ended the meal with coffee and, in my case brandy and in Sue’s case the coffee liqueur, Baileys.

We decided not to repeat the previous evenings visit to the Late Lounge and the entertainment, but briefly enjoyed the big band swing sounds that were coming out of the entertainment room as we headed back to the room.

Although Sunday was our last day and we had to be out of the room by 10:00am, it was no anti-climax to the weekend. We had decided that we would stay in the hotel and go home later in the day, so it was off to the Pierrepont Restaurant for another excellent breakfast. Afterwards, we checked out of the hotel and loaded our bags and coats into the car before plunging back into the building and settling down with our books. Where else could this have been but in the Library.

Thoresby Hall Library

This image is from here

In fact, this is almost exactly the view of the library from the chair that I occupied for the rest of Sunday morning.

While we were sitting there, the Thoresby Players, the hotel’s resident actors, arrived an performed a short play about one of the estate’s former the gamekeepers right in front of us in the library. This would have been a great ending to our weekend, but an hour or so later, they returned and performed a different playlet that told the story of the magnificently carved oak plaque above the library fireplace.

I will not recount either story here, but would encourage you to go and see and hear them for yourself.

With a great finale to our weekend, we went back to the Pavilion Bar where we indulged ourselves in lunch, I had a cheese melt hot baguette and Sue enjoyed a jacket potato with prawns. After this, it really was time for us to take our leave of Thoresby Hall.

The journey back to Nottingham took just over half and hour, but brought us a couple of centuries forward into the world that we really inhabit.

Yes, it was a great weekend and this concludes the story. However, there is one more Thoresby post to come on this blog with what I think is the best photo of Sue that I have ever taken. See you tomorrow.

Ride Safe
Dave