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Beware - Diesel Danger
MOTORCYCLISTS always used to stop for each other and diesel has always been a menace to bikes - this concerns both subjects.
There have been times when I've stopped to rearrange luggage, put on a warmer jacket or just to look at the view and been inundated with well meaning riders checking I was okay.
Often if riders didn't stop they would toot and give the thumbs up, enquiring if I was alright.
Being old school' I still stop where possible - most bikes are now too technical to do anything to without a workshop that looks like a NASA control room, but the least I can do I ask if they have a phone and if someone is on the way.
In the brief hot spell of last year, while rushing back to the office for a deadline, I noticed a young lady standing next to an obviously dormant bike.
I honestly couldn't stop, but I did think she must have been baking in the full leathers that were zipped up to her neck.
Once my office task was done I set out on my travels again beneath a noon day sun that was lifting the road surface, I was stunned to see her standing in the same spot still fully zipped up in roasting leathers.
I pulled up and handed over a bottle of water, which she gulped down in one glug, same for the next bottle - luckily I'd loaded my tankbag with bottles.
She'd been instructed to stay with the broken bike and wait for a recovery truck. The unusually hot weather had caused an overload on services, and there were no shops for a few miles in either direction.
So she'd waited and baked, as she'd only been wearing underwear beneath her leathers and hadn't wanted to remove a top layer in case of unwanted attention.
Us blokes really do have it a lot easier.
My latest stop' involved a rider whose bike's security system had gone snap, crackle and pop, no way of fixing that by the roadside.
While the recovery driver loaded the bike into his van he told me of a growing cause of bike failure - diesel.
Seems a lot of drivers with diesel cars (like me) are putting diesel into the bike out of habit, something worth remembering.
I'm now even more paranoid about getting the appropriate fuel in the correct engine, considering the delay and cost that the wrong fuel can cause, it's worth taking extra care when filling up.
6:16pm Tuesday 10th June 2008
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