Part two – Putting things back
So, a few days after dropping off my wheel, the spoke man texted to say my wheel was ready, great service. I didn’t want to wait till the next weekend so drove an hour each way one night after work to retrieve my wheel, woohoo! The next day I delivered the wheel to a local motorcycle shop with instructions to fit my new tyre and tube. Picking that up again after work I set to work putting things back together. It all went really well, I got the rear wheel back on, and started refitting the oil tank, man, was it tricky trying to get the three bolts lined up! I struggled for nearly half an hour before I decided to try again in the morning.
The next morning I managed to fit the oil tank in about 5 minutes, funny how that happens!
So, now my bike was back together I could finally take Jen out for a ride. The weather looked great, but strangely, my passenger seemed somewhat reluctant? I think perhaps I shouldn’t have told her about my test ride, where after riding in more of a ‘sporting style’ I nearly lost the bike turning into our driveway! The front wheel skidded out on the gravel sitting on top of the seal but I managed to save it somehow, hmmm, time to replace that front tyre.
I hate taking the front wheel off these bikes, I’m always worried the thing will tip over, but by using the mudguard stay as a front stand (it’s designed for this) it seemed pretty solid. Regardless, I got the new tyre fitted the next day and immediately refitted the front wheel and got the bike back to normal.
With my new front tyre, some testing was required, luckily there was a bike meet on at the Vintage Car Club the next Saturday afternoon. I rode down and listened to the guest speaker, a really interesting guy who’d been to the Bonneville salt flats and done some speed trials, his fastest run was 325 km/h would you believe, crazy.
Unfortunately, with the chatting afterwards, I was a bit late heading home, although it was sunny when I left the sun quickly disappeared and it got quite dark really quickly. It takes me a good 45 minutes for the journey and for most of that time it seemed like it was very nearly nighttime. I am acutely aware how bad the standard lights are on these bikes so I was feeling like it was getting close to the ‘very sketchy’ stage. Next item on my shopping list is some LED bulbs.
However, I made it home without incident and the bike felt way better with the new front tyre, it did feel a bit ‘tippy’ at times before, but that seems to have been cured. On a smooth piece of tarmac I just can’t believe this bike is 80 years old, it’s so smooth and feels so solid without any undue noise or clatter.
