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In Which I Have A Day Of It

October 31, 2007 by Mike

Punta Urbano

There's less 'bike' in this blo- I mean diary than you might expect, or be looking for. That's because, while I love riding the thing, I don't pretend to understand it. The wheels on the bike go round and round, yes, but I have no idea how.

I am not one of nature's mechanics.

My boast -- not something I'm proud of -- is that I can barely fill the petrol tank.

So today has been something out of the ordinary.

When I reached the campsite at Punta Urbano last night, I was ready to flop.

I checked in at campsite reception, was told the shop was closed, the cafe was closed, the restaurant was closed and town was six kilometres away.

OK. Put up the tent, catch 40 winks, perhaps, ride into town or around the salt marshes to the nearby regional capital, Huelva. The local football team are almost as bad as Norwich City at the moment, and have somehow contrived to score even fewer goals than us. I'd be able to empathise with the local fans.

But... I couldn't switch the Bonnie's alarm off. I pressed and pressed the remote control. Nothing. The lights were on but the reassuring beeeeep never came. Gingerly, I extracted the same remote control from its hiding place and tried that. Nothing.

The Datatools System3 alarm on a Triumph Bonneville is *loud*. As the residents of the La Bota campsite discovered when I was forced to wheel the bike out of the way of the entrance, 30 metres or so to a parking space.

WHEEEnyeeeWHEEEnyeeeWHEEEnyeeeWHEEEnyeeeWHEEE.. you get the idea.

That was last night.

All my mechanical training had let me to suspect that maybe, after a good night's sleep, the alarm would work again. Perhaps it was just tired. You, dear reader, are right to uspect that this was not the case.

And so it is that I spent this morning on the phone to Leyton at Metropolis in London, where i bought the bike, someone in the service team at Norfolk Triumph, where I've had it serviced, and Simon at the website-less Triumph dealer in Sevilla.

Leyton was an absolute superstar. Buy yr next bike from him. The lads at Watton had some great suggestions. But there was only so much help and information they were able to provide to me, all fingers and thumbs as I stared blankly at fuses and wires and unplugged plugs and Phillips screws and clips and gizmos and widgets.

(Every time I tried something, of course, the alarm would go off. 30 seconds of WHEEEnyeeeWHEEEnyeee. If I'd been staying somewhere with this going on in the background, I'd have shot someone. I am grateful to the other campers that they were more relaxed.)

Simon is British (a relief to be able to explain my woes in English) and told me the best thing would be to hire a truck and transport the bike up to him. Only 99 miles. Oh, but tomorrow is a bank holiday. Good luck. He, too, was brilliant, and reassuring, and more patient than I could have hoped for.

I arranged a lift into Huelva in order to track down transport.

And then.. and then.. nearly 24 hours of sweat and panic and swearing and off-and-on blaring alarm later, one of the campsite staff kindly pointed out to me and his colleagues that this had happened before. More than once. And wasn't it usually because of interference from that huge radio mast over there?

I turned the corner and followed his pointing hand. There, tall and proud, stood a huge bleedin' radio mast. And even I, the technical doofus, knew that radio interference is often the cause of problems for remote-control alarms. It had been my first question last night. "Are there any radio signals that might be interfering with the alarm?" Ana, the receptionist (" I have lovely long hair, no?" is a direct quote) had told me, No, there aren't. But then I'd spent all morning in broad daylight without spotting the mast either, so I can't be too harsh. And besides, her hair *was* lovely.

I wheeled the bike, WHEEEnyeeeWHEEEnyeee, down the hill and out of side of the radio mast. The alarm switched off first time and I was able to start the bike with a Triumph-ant ROARRRRR.

I rode back into the campsite, tracked down the man who'd pointed out the mast and told him I loved him. I think I meant it. He looked slightly worried that I meant it, but could see what a relief it was for me.

And then I took the bike out for a spin, to recharge the battery after so many false alarms.

And within three miles the pannier frame that has snapped and been repaired five days ago.. snapped again. (I almost snapped too.)

And it took me two hours to find a welder prepared to do a repair any time before the middle of next week. But I'm a glass-half-full kinda fella and sometimes, just sometimes, the world is too. The weld may be firmer than before -- Jorge added an extra iron bar across the snap. I spoke to Metal Mule and they're going to check the pictures and try to work out what's what. And then Jorge refused to take any money for his work -- and the sun continued to shine.

The glass is half full.

Comments

By steve | November 7, 2007 9:24 AM

Once again, Mike, I read your blo - er, diary - and am transported away from inner-city Birmingham with ahuge grin on my face. Thanks. Steve

(and congratulations on slipping 'Pyongyang' into your journal. did you win a bet for that??)

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Have A Day Of It

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