Electrical Storm Ending in a Tea Cup

Flat

So, a weekend without riding. Shadowfax sat on the drive with the steering lock applied (works on opposite lock to Dilbert's) and having had a deep clean and a moment to check on the net how to remove his panniers (for more cleaning). Then, on a Monday morning with an important meeting to prepare and buy sandwiches for (tough life being a civvy) I sat astride my steed, selected neutral, and pressed the starter button.

"Chrrrkkkkk...kkk...kkk....ch". (Well, you try spelling this one, why don't you?) Anyway, no starter. As I had my ear plugs in I couldn't hear from where the noise was coming: whether starter motor - assumed attached to the engine or solenoid, assumed near the battery. On de-kitting it sounded solonoidal.

I determined to find the battery. I unlocked both pannier locks and tried to lift the rear seat as I'd seen Mark do at MSG's but just couldn't shift it. Frustration. The Sun became warm and I took the jacket off.

Next, I thought about a side skin panel; found my hex-keys and removed the RHS one. Ah-ha, the battery. Behind it was the noisy object, a square thing obviously handling 30A ignition circuit and obviously "kkkk.kkkkk-ing" due to low voltage. Turning on the lights confirmed the battery to be flat. 3 freaking days in my hands with barely 120-miles done and it's flat. Sure, it'd rained and the morning had been a dewy one, but what could have shorted to cause this? Anyway, I was now running late.

I didn't fancy the obvious of using Dilbert for the day as I had to pop over to Nikki's in Oxford that evening and would just rather do that sort of trip on Shadowfax - and she seemed eager to meet him in any case.

Dilbert to the rescue. I de-cloaked Dilbert, wheeled him back and fetched jump leads from the Lanny and connected it all together and did the Defib trick on Shadowfax so as he snarled into action. Then, it was a case of keeping the engine going and using no lights in to work. Once parked up I sparked Shadowfax up again to be sure he'd made some charge - no problem.

After a gruelling day of working I kitted up and returned to the machine. Bob's ST1100 had gone (early for him) so my backstop of digging him out for some juice (should we need it) evaporated. Keys in the ignition and he turned over without a falter. I used the spare key to open his luggage for the helmet (good stowage for it and saves rushing to fit a top box where Dilbert's just doesn't look right on him) and put in the ear plugs, donned gloves, and prepared for the ride to Oxford.

It was late enough to have seen the worst of the traffic and the entry to the M3 was busy but not congested. I eased easily up to cruising knots and soon found my stride among the evening commuters while keeping the screen just below eye-level to avoid the worst of the wind-in-yer-face and more importantly keep the rear-seat elephant away.

Turning onto the A339 toward Newbury caught the stiffening Westerly wind from a different angle and made progress a little more violently. Once in the countryside beyond Basingstoke's ring there were sufficient speed restrictions and other traffic to keep speeds sensible - a nice bimble, in fact. But, once on the A34 North I gave in to the will of the screen button and played with it full up to fully down and every setting between to keep me occupied. The speed I found best was 80 to 85mph with the screen just beneath eye-level, but for the final leg from Didcot I dropped it all the way down just for effect. To be honest there are advantages and disadvantages to all the screen's settings but where the higher it is the higher the fuel consumption, and given I'm as tight as a duck's arse I prefer the lower options.

On arriving at Nikki's I was feeling a little fatigued - partly from a long physical weekend of to-ing and fro-ing, but also from playing with the elephant again (and I'm not on about me playing with my trunk while riding, either). It was nothing a welcome cup of cha couldn't sort, anyway.