An illogical attachment to lumps of metal

The contents of my tool box are like a biography of my biking life over the past 30+ years:

There are some almost antique tools that my dad gave me. They are are a reminder of the Saturday mornings when as a young boy  I would get to spend some precious time with him 'mending the car' - a weekly ritual of checking the tyre pressures, checking the oil and giving it a polish.

There are some cheap and nasty tools that I brought as a teenager for my first moped. I think a lot of them came from petrol stations and they were ham-fistedly used to bodge repairs that more often than not required taking into a shop to have put right again.

There are some slightly better tools that I brought when I was a student. Me and my mate with whom  I shared a house for a couple of years  had a garden full of crappy old little bikes that we had fun trying to fix up. We probably spent as much time messing about with them as we ever did studying.

Then there are a succession of more obscure tools that I brought over several years to fix specific problems on specific bikes that I have owned.The bikes have long gone but the tools remain. Often they were panic buys made when I discovered that I needed them half way through some job with the bike in pieces. As a result their cost was often disproportionate and it would have made more sense to have taken the bike to a professional mechanic. But that was never the point.

Then there is the most recent batch of tools brought in the past ten years when I first got into Harleys and I had to supplement all those metric tools with imperial sizes. Most high street stores simply don't stock imperial tools these days, and you are met with a blank glaze of you ask for a 5/16 hex bit socket in Halfords. So these tools were often hunted down on the internet - and sometimes ordered from the 'states.

These tools are not precious. They are of mixed quality. All of them at the end of the day are just lumps of metal - often rusty. But they are mine. Or they were. The other night some bastard got into my garage and stole them. I've already started, but I know it's going to be a pain to replace them. And I am never going to be able to replace the memories they evoked ...

Low tech is good tech

I always felt that the Luddites had a bad press. Naturally - after all I ride a Harley. 

But seriously, the Luddites weren't just fighting the introduction of new technology (and a horrific new factory system) simply because it was new - but because they saw that  the changes in their industry were going to make machines more important than people. But this isn't a post about radical movements in the nineteenth century - it's about the triumph of unnecessary gadgetry over common sense on modern motorcycles. 

One of my bikes has been running rough for some time. Spitting, spluttering and back-firing even more frequently that Harleys are prone to do. Then I started getting scary looking warning lights flashing at me for no apparent reason. 

So I replaced switches, checked and re-checked everything. Took it to a mate with a bike shop who did much the same. All to no avail. Then riding home the other day it finally spluttered and died - and I couldn't start it again.

Resisting the urge to launch a Basil Fawlty-like assault on the all too-inanimate object - I tried to work logically through the possibilities: The engine was turning over and there was a spark - so the electrics seemed ok. Next I checked the fuel. I pulled off the hose from the fuel tap (or 'pet-cock' as the yanks call it) and sure enough, petrol splashed everywhere. So all the ingredients for a running engine seemed to be in place.

Then I saw that a much smaller rubber tube going into the fuel tap looked perished and split. I remembered that this must be the vacuum line that connects to the carb and effectively  keep the petrol automatically flowing whilst the engine is running - thereby avoiding the need to turn the fuel tap on and off when you park up the bike. 

A light bulb moment: I connected everything back up and with a bit of contortionism, contrived to squeeze the little rubber tube whilst trying to start the engine - which promptly burst into life - only for it to die again as soon as I let go of the tube.

With the help of a pocket knife I trimmed-off the perished  rubber and replaced it. The bike is now running sweetly and no more scary warning lights that presumably had come on because the bike was momentarily cutting out whilst I was riding.

Weeks of worrying, replacing parts  and needlessly fucking about in the garage - all because  the manufacturer deemed it  beyond the wit of owners to manage to turn the petrol tap on and off. As we have managed to do for generations. 

Now don't even get me started on electronic instruments and diagnostic codes....

The wrong trousers ?

Much to the amusement of my family I brought myself a new pair of waterproof trousers this weekend. They are the fluorescent green/yellow hi-viz kind issued to workmen - prompting the derisive calls of 'you look like a council  bin-man'.

I have no snobbish qualms about this - being classed as workwear they seem hard wearing and being classed as safety equipment they are VAT free. I've had expensive purpose made motorcycling waterproofs, I've had dirt cheap ones,  and I've had military surplus ones. They all leak at some point and it's more a question of when and not if they will let you down. So I have no embarrassment about how I may look in them.

I remember reading somewhere that hi-viz is the new ubiquitous everyman uniform. Much as the Victorian middle class didn't notice what their servants looked like, and much as  those sepia photos of workers pouring out factory gates reveal a sea of indsitinguishable flat caps and donkey jackets,  so today - ironically - hi-viz has become a guarantee that you won't be noticed. In fact for anyone wanting to perpetrate an armed robbery I would suggest a hi-viz jacket as the perfect get-away costume. Chances are you will be take on the anonymous  persona of 'street funiture'  - and no witness will be able to give up a discription.

My only concern about my overly leary new trousers is that they could be taken as some sort of endorsement of the latest Euro-inspired bollocks to compel motorcyclists to wear hi-viz gear. Another misappropriation of state power for our own good and another insidious shift of responsibility to the rider to make himself seen and away from the car-driver to ensure that he looks where he's fucking going.

So to restore karmic balance to my purchase of these hideous over-trousers I would ask everyone to sign  the e-position here to oppose the latest misguided proposals.

HD - 'return to core brand values' ?

It's just  been announced that Harley Davidson has struck a deal with the unions - the International Association of Machinists and the United Steelworkers - that will keep open their plant in Kansas City Missouri. 

At a price - under a new seven year agreement the workforce will be cut from 685 full time jobs  to 540 with a further 145 'flexible 'positions - albeit for unionised labour.  

It looks as if the Moco has pulled the same kind of blackmail on the unions there that it did to the workforce after the 2007 strike at the much larger plant in York Pennsylvania - sign up on the company's terms of they will pull out of the city altogether. The same stunt was also  pulled last Autumn  at the historic headquarters plant in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The financial problems that precipitated the most recent shenanigans - the first losses in a quarter for 16years - resulted largely from problems in the credit and financial services market. And some dumb decisions like the bizarre acquisition of the super luxury performance MV Augusta brand. And maybe just a few too many branded cuff-links and cheque-book covers.

None of this is really news. The HD brand-personality of an iconic union-made product for the American working man has been wearing thin for years with the emphasis on a recreational lifestyle brand with all the branded products that go with this. 

But the fact that this has just happened at the plant where they make the Sportster and Dyna models is particularly telling - and not just because I own a pair of Sportsters.

I would have to say that of all the HD ranges, these two models are the truest to that now largely bullshit brand-personality that has been contrived by the MoCo over the years. They are basic,  no-frills motorcycles simple and accessible to work on and customisable  for the ordinary enthusiast. They are also probably the least glamorous and most neglected models in the HD range - despite the fact that the rest of the range - with the exception of the big tourers  - aren't much more that factory copies of the kind of customised machines that people have been knocking out of their garages at home for years. Only with cringe-worthy silly names like FatBoy, Crossbones, Rocker, Heritage and Streetbob for aspirational types who want a bad-ass accessory of the shelf.

So rather than continuing to push out a plethora of these models with just tiny differences in the paint work or different combinations of parts why not just re-emphasise the 'pure and raw' appeal of the  Sportster and Dyna models backed up with a range of custom-goodies that can keep the owner-enthusiast hooked for a lifetime of ownership ?  Perhaps a return to core brand values for HD might not just have an emotional appeal - it might even make good business sense too.

Fuel and penions

With a petrol tank on my bike the size of a thimble I have my own mini fuel crisis quite regularly. So I filled up a jerry can at the local petrol station for my own emergency supply ‘just in case’.

I then felt kind of guilty about it – like I was a victim of the hysteria that seems to take grip at the mention of ‘fuel strikes’. Contrary to the predictions we haven’t yet seen the breakdown of western civilisation because of the two-day strike of oil workers at the Grangemouth refinery.

This hysteria seems to blind many people to the perfectly reasonable position of the Ineos workers. Think of the issues at stake:

• Big companies expected to take care of their former employees after a lifetime of service with a full salary pension? Outrageous and outdated.

• Thinking that a company making profits in excess of £50million per day, with a chief executive worth £1.3 billion, should be able to afford such a scheme? Ludicrous and unreasonable.

• Workers who work 12hour shifts 365 days a year having a basic wage of £30k pa – rising with overtime to £40k? Over-privileged and outrageous.

• Unions taking limited strike action after prolonged negotiations have broken down? Selfish and irresponsible.

The pension issue is a time bomb for most of us. A whole generation now faces insecurity at the end of their working lives that was unkown to our parents and grandparents. Many have had to come to terms with this and suffer the lesser of two evils with private pensions. Some of us who work in the small business sector have always had to accept it. In the oil industry there is a group of workers who may just be able to use their industrial clout to defend what so many others have lost.

Good luck to them, even if it does mean a bit of inconvenience for motorists (and bikers).