Toby's journal

Gnngrghh.. A middle-aged bleached-blonde woman in a suit and an urban 4x4 rammed into me this evening. While I was stopped at a red traffic light on the A1. Not really much damage done, but still.. what annoys me is that she didn't seem to think she'd done anything wrong. You know, like it was my fault for being in front of her.

She was about 20m behind me when I stopped at the light.. she slowed down to stop, but it was like she was aiming to stop ON the line, rather than behind me - like I wasn't there.

Chalk up another point for accurate stereotypes..

If you want something done properly.. do it yourself.
Today is the first good day we've had in a while that's coincided with being on a weekend when I'm around.
I've just spent this entire morning pulling the Hornet into lots of components, testing each one, the interactions with each other, etc.. and eventually discovered what I believe is the problem, and have fixed a bad earth on the coilpack that was causing it to attempt to ground power through the assorted sensors instead of properly back to the battery.

I'm somewhat worried/annoyed that two seperate visits to a garage, and about half a grand of cost by said garage, failed to detect or fix something like this. Hmph. I'm sure they *created* this problem themselves, since it only manifested itself after the first visit for a service.

Anyway.. hopefully this will be the last problem I'll have, and will be able to enter spring with some confidence the bloody thing won't break down in difficult places.

During the earlier part of winter, when my bike was being quite unreliable, it was freezing cold, and the roads were unsafe (ice, or slippery grit) and I lost a lot of confidence on the road. The fuse-blowing incidents didn't help either.

Even though it's been fixed and reliable for a few weeks now, I am only just regaining my confidence. I think it helps that it's warmed up a bit, and the rain has washed that nasty grit off the roads too. It's funny, but I'm also feeling a lot more perky too. I put some of this down to the brighter weather and longer days, but I can't help but feel like some of it is due to being able to enjoy my petrol-powered freedom again, without paranoia. Is it wrong that that makes me happy?

I seem to keep having grief with my bike.. I don't quite understand why, since I look after it, it has a good service history, a decent previous owner, and is relatively young, and a good make. Bah.. anyway, current grief is thus: It keeps blowing the ignition fuse.

At first I thought the problem was only occuring once the bike warmed up, and thus was probably the thermo-fan.. However the other day it blew the fuse even when cold or cool a couple of times, so there goes that idea.

It sounds like a wire has worked loose.. somewhere.. and annoyingly, that particular fuse covers a lot of items - starter, CDI, fan, even the horn I think.
I hate diagnosing intermittent problems. I hate them even more when I don't have a garage, and it's freezing outdoors.

I had the bike serviced a couple of weeks ago, and the problem appeared shortly after, so I'm suspecting they screwed something up. (Or rather, forgot to screw something up enough, and now there's a loose connection somewhere..). I'm taking it in to them on Thursday - I'm hoping they don't try and claim it wasn't their fault - although it is hard to tell. I mean it is possible that something just randomly went wrong..

Bah.

Saturday morning, lusciousa and I went to the Araki exhibition at the Barbican. We arrived way too late to meet latexiron and the others there, but anyway.. I had not realised the depth and breadth of Araki's work, and came away feeling amazed. More so than with the Diane Arbus exhibition, I have a craving to take photos and attempt to create art.
Now that I have more options for unnatural lighting, with the wireless flashgun, I'm hoping I'll have more opportunities to do so during winter.

Carrie & I set the world speed record for consuming Wagamama's food, then I went home to pack, and headed up to Cambridge on the bike. (Which is now starting fine, after the major service.)

This was not without drama though - as an accident occured up the road from me, and then the car involved caught fire, and as the glass and tyres blew out, people in cars were franticly trying to reverse up.. Eventually the police and fire crews arrived.. put it out.. took photos.. eventually moved it aside.. cleaned the road.. took statements.. etc etc.. meanwhile I'm standing by the side of the road in the cold and dark. Meh.
( photo of accident )

Eventually we were allowed to move on, and I arrived in Cambridge quite late; well after 8pm I think?
robinbloke's party was great - You'd never believe he was a penguin in disguise!

Crashed out at feanelwa's place afterwards (where I'd left the bike), had lovely lunch at Indigo in Cambridge on Sunday, then I cruised back to London before the light faded. No drama this time, so the journey didn't take much more than an hour, although it was cold on the road. I need to buy a balaclava. (Balaklava?)

Good weekend. And I'm particularly glad that the bike seems to be back to its good old reliable self, even in near-zero temperatures.