Back on the spanners

Alzero said:
Yes, instead of just one boss or supervisor to keep happy, every swinging dick that walks in the door is your boss!
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True that, I headed six service employees. If they knew the amount of disgruntled service customers I had to deal with they would be shocked. And I was a prick when I questioned them about specific jobs, ready to be armed for the return phone calls 🙄

Everyone wants top service for a low price, and now.

Travel rates were the most questioned, “But we are only 10 minutes drive from your office” At midnight maybe….. but I’m paying the guy for sitting in traffic for 45 minutes in peak hour traffic, to deal with your emergency that has to be dealt with immediately. Grrrr 😡
 
I remember working in a GM car parts department with a shop full of customers and this guy kicked off and had a massive rant about us supplying rubbish and his family being stranded on a motorway and it costing him a fortune and ruining his holiday. I could see all the other customers recoiling and I thought how am I going to defuse this, then he got a set of points out that had snapped in half.
I took a look at them and said you didn't get them here, so he went off again on another rant. I bought them here from you he said.
I had the last laugh though because I told him we didn't sell that make of points which was true we only sold AC Delco and his were Intermotor.
The he stormed out never to be seen again.
It was sort of fun in a way.
 
Red did the crank, new rods, pistons, head is done, gearbox done, all new bearings right through. I reckon I put 200,000km on this bike since the mid 1990's, Red found Phil Todds initials on the crank web, thanks Phil! Got new everything except for the clutch plates. Looking forward to wearing lots of tyres out!
 
martymoose said:
Red did the crank, new rods, pistons, head is done, gearbox done, all new bearings right through. I reckon I put 200,000km on this bike since the mid 1990's, Red found Phil Todds initials on the crank web, thanks Phil! Got new everything except for the clutch plates. Looking forward to wearing lots of tyres out!
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That is exactly what I think it is all about: real, everyday, any-day rider bikes. To steal a saying or two from the 70s: 'Keep on trucking', 'Sunrise is only an introduction to a coming sunset'. Those who have spent hours in the saddle across Australia's long, empty roads know the latter quote all too well. Ride on Marty
 
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Exmoor beast said:
I’ve built a workshop and have just got back into it- word of mouth, nothing tearing. I’m only doing it as a glorified hobby but I’m really enjoying it. Mate has over fifty bikes for me to work through so I’m doing one after another- you’ll be busy, trust me!
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I always enjoy seeing how others have organized their workshops - nice one, very neat and tidy! I seem to remember Real Classics magazine did a series on rider's bike sheds back in the day which was interesting and inspirational. I'd be too embarrassed to feature mine which is more a "work in progress"! Still trying to get other household stuff like lawnmowers and strimmers and ladders and decorating materials housed elsewhere so I can have a dedicated workshop. I'll get there ........ one day, I keep telling myself. It's an all too familiar story of "can't do this till I've done that" and so the procrastination carries on. Thanks for posting - it's given me another little kick up the backside!
 
martymoose said:
First cab off the rank, my 1974 3C. Plan is to zero hour it, before a run to Cape York next June.
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I’ve done Cape York on dirt bikes….. and I know of one triple that’s done it.

It’s not a trip for the faint hearted, particularly on a road bike.

On the way up, the main road was so corrugated, in sections, that not long before Jardine River I felt like stepping off and walking …. fuck the stupid motorbike! Lactic acid in the forearms from hanging on was horrible. That sentiment was had by all of us as our intolerance for the conditions grew and tempers rose.

So many electrical issues from the terrain, if it wasn’t taped or cable tied to something solid it broke.

A week and a half later, there were far less corrugated sections, go figure, a truck driver told us it changed like that, depending on traffic 🤔

We went mid June and on the side tracks the bull dust was deep enough to leave our knees dragging across the top, as our feet were washed off the pegs.

Then the puddles, deceptively deep and washouts sneak up on you and you don’t realise it ….. until you’re mid crater at speed endoing it as you came out.

We did it with a mate that had ridden there 4 times, I thought he was exaggerating about the conditions, he wasn’t.

We did up to 500klms a day, If I did it again, I’d limit that to 200klms (depending on conditions) and refresh.

But, fucking awesome!
 
Might pick up a good Panigale and have a crack - sounds like great fun ... NOT!

A mate just did it on a Guzzio Stelvio adventure bike and his many reports all sounded pretty docile. There are alternative routes, no? Maurizio's tale of the death of a guy from another group that they came across almost as it happened freaked me out big time.
 
piranha-bro2 said:
Might pick up a good Panigale and have a crack - sounds like great fun ... NOT!

A mate just did it on a Guzzio Stelvio adventure bike and his many reports all sounded pretty docile. There are alternative routes, no? Maurizio's tale of the death of a guy from another group that they came across almost as it happened freaked me out big time.
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We met up with a group that had one rider on a DRZ400 that had endoed on a washout as he was being loaded into the back of a 4x4 when we arrived, multiple broken ribs and a broken arm we found out later that week, and bike was totaled and that was on the main road 😳



We rounded up bunches of adventure bike riders….. most seemed to ride like they were in shopping centre parking areas.
 
It's an iconic trip; I first read about it in Two Wheels magazine in the early 1970s, written by Dave Sands and a couple of others, before the ferry on the big river crossing arrived. Back then, they used truck inner tubes to float bikes across also, well before Crocs became protected.
 
Vince said:
It's an iconic trip; I first read about it in Two Wheels magazine in the early 1970s, written by Dave Sands and a couple of others, before the ferry on the big river crossing arrived. Back then, they used truck inner tubes to float bikes across also, well before Crocs became protected.
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Yeah, I remember hearing about it - the big tubes, makeshift rafts etc for crossings.
 
martymoose said:
First cab off the rank, my 1974 3C. Plan is to zero hour it, before a run to Cape York next June.
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Don’t let my Cape ride put you off Marty. It’s an epic trip, and a great experience.

Chances are the main road is better now than it was. Have heard there’s a lot more bitumen now than what there was back then.
 
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