Saturday
morning dawned wet and windy, which was a shame as I was collecting the new
bike and hoped to get some miles on it. Then the realisation set in that I no
longer had shiny aluminium and chrome to worry about cleaning, so it was off
to my local Triumph dealer, Jack Lilley, to collect it. The salesman Geoff was
apologetic that even though it was an SE version, the special equipment hadn’t
actually arrived from Triumph, so the bike was minus the top box and heated
grips although the tall screen was in place.
Don’t worry
about that said I, I just want to ride the thing. Of course, the minute I set
off the heavens opened but I carried on regardless with a mile-wide grin, a bit
cautiously I admit as I remembered a story about new tyres and wet roads not
mixing very well. I eventually had to stop when the puddles in the Surrey lanes
grew to the size of lakes, fortuitously adjacent to a rest area complete with
burger van. One large cuppa and a veggie burger later, the rain had stopped
enough for me to carry on. I got home about an hour later, impressed that my
seven-year old Revit jacket had not leaked, and that the new bike was filthy
and covered in mud.
Old habits
die hard though, so I could not resist giving the bike a quick wash down before
putting it away in the garage. Sunday was equally crappy weather, but I still
managed a gentle ride around for a couple of hours, explaining to LF that I had
to run the engine in on the first weekend, as we intend to be riding to Holland
next week. Hopefully. Anyway, I was feeling
so rebellious when I got home that the bike got put away dirty, now that’s a
first for me. All-in-all an enjoyable weekend; first impressions are how nice
to ride a bike where everything just works – no more looking around to see what
just fell off!
Oh and just
as a postscript – Geoff the salesman tells me that my old Thunderbird was a
star of the small screen, having appeared in episodes of ‘Miss Marples’, or
some such crap series. Still didn’t increase it’s trade-in value though!
