Last Thursday I had an entire afternoon to myself. It was a perfect time to take the motorcycle out for a few hours and explore. I’m negotiating another London contract at the moment, so I thought it would be the perfect time to find out what it would be like to ride into London on a motorcycle. The train is one of the biggest pains involved in working in London. So I left Wantage and headed down the A34 and M4 and really made good time.
When I got to the Reading services, I put my left foot down to shift down into first. The gear lever wasn’t there. I was going about 60, so I couldn’t really look down. When I pulled up to a stop at the services, I saw that the bolt holding my gear lever in place had fallen out and my gear lever was only held in place by the kick stand. This gear lever, by the way, is the same one I posted about a few months ago that I repaired myself (not so well, I guess).
I took the bike into downtown Reading looking for a bike shop. The bike would still start in 6th gear, but it sounded terrible and very wobbly. I headed to a motorcycle shop near Caversham bridge that I knew of when I worked in that area?but that shop is now closed. I ended up riding around for an hour before finding the Reading Honda dealership. They were able to look at the bike right away and fixed it while I walked down the road for lunch. It was really great service.
I need to put a list of Honda dealerships on my PDA for these occasions.
