Servicing, new tires and a bit of admin

I was in at BM Motorcycles in Ringwood (Melb) only two weeks back, buying better bike jacket and pants for the rigours of a crazy ride through Asia’s wet season. Conversation turned to what I’m up to, and Chris asked about how recently the bike was serviced.

The truth is I was uncomfortable about setting out to Darwin without servicing in Melbourne first, having just bought the bike not two weeks earlier. While Neville, who sold it to me, is fastidious with his bikes and clearly my new (10-yo) baby had been well looked after, 5,000km of desert is a lot of opportunity for something to go wrong.

But despite all that I hadn’t even asked about servicing, because I know the lead times to book in would have made that an impossibility.

Chris took a call while he was talking with me. “Sorry mate,” he told the caller, “the absolute soonest we can squeeze you in would be 6-8 weeks.” Yeah, that’s about what I had expected. But I couldn’t possibly have waited that long, with wet season bearing down on me. So I was just going to run the gauntlet.

Chris put the phone down from that (late afternoon) caller, and after finishing the scan of the diary on the desk, looked up at me and asked “what are you doing tomorrow?” Without missing a beat I replied “I guess I’m bringing my bike here for a service?”

So 24 hours later I had a new chain and sprockets, new brakes, and a host of other improvements that really with a little brutal honesty weren’t in the “optional” category for my trip. Thank you, BM Motorcycles!

I’d had a similar story booking a service and tires in Darwin. The same “6-8 weeks” had been quoted on the phone then, too. It might seem a bit of overkill to service twice in two weeks. But the key issue is tires – and this won’t be the last time I need them replaced on this trip, if I get as far as planned. Anyway Cyclone Motorcycles is the MBW servicing agent up here, and in that one breath they’d said “can’t possibly help until late December” and also “unless you could come in Wed 16 Nov and would be happy with a really minor service?” Of course that would work! It would work perfectly, in fact.

So I’m sitting right now in Besser Cafe a km or so walk from Cyclone Motorcycles, waiting for them to fit the tires and give the bike a once-over.

On a different topic, I’ve had a few tech difficulties with this blog. Many thanks to Cam for helping out and patiently working those through with me – I’m hopeful we’re nearly there. And thanks, dear reader, for your patience, too. I’ll get there in time. Even as I sit here at Besser, we’re getting ever-closer to a wrinkle-free setup. I knew there’d be challenges given prep time, but its been hard work making progress on tech while also focussing on the ride.

I’ve come to understand that some had subscribed to the diary, but those subscriptions might have failed. I believe that’s rectified now. So if you want to subscribe again, then now would be the time to make that stick. Thanks for your patience.

I’ve also had trouble loading photos to the posts, and lost some of the richness of the story with photoless text. I’m hopeful that’ll be sorted.

While I’m sitting here in the cafe I’ve also had a video call with my beautiful 3yo niece, and a call from an old friend who’s praying with me through this trip. I do feel loved!