Baby is sorted

Well, my beautiful blackbird is back home after her nose job, and she looks fantastic!! Took her to Azzy paints in Douglas and he was able to plastic weld the split in the fairing, and re-sprayed the complete nosecone. He has done a fantastic job and I cannot see where the damage was at all, she looks as good as new. I promise that I will be more careful in future. Blackie gets taxed tomorrow as the Isle of Man Gov have reduced the tax on large bikes from £96.00 a year lastyear, down to a more reasonable £60.00. for this year. This change followed a public outcry, it ended up costing more to tax a bike than it did for a similar engine size car....no sense at all. My tax ran out in November and I did not renew it as I was not using the bike due to my arm injury, and also because of the horrible weather over the winter months. Hopefully the weather will start improving now that April is on the doorstep, and I can get out on the bike a bit and put a few miles on her clock. Chris and I are off to Northern Ireland in May for the Northwest 200 road races, and on our return I will have a pair of new tyres fitted for my trip in June.......the clock is certainly ticking folks....not long to go.

My baby feels the pain!

Well, last week I was told that the bloke I was going to see in Norfolk, in order to sort out the loom of my blackbird, has packed in doing servicing etc to concentrate on his business selling bike spares. So, to a degree, I was in a bit of a fix, as I really need the wiring loom sorting as failing to do so would lead to all sorts of trouble in the future.

In his wisdom, Mr Honda, on building the Blackbird, put a connecting block in part of the loom in order to carry out tests when new, the problem being, that when the bike is completed, this block is not used again so is just taped over. However, the block is just behind the foot peg, so at some point, water will find its way into the block and start a slow process of shorting systems out. At this stage things get VERY expensive. On speaking to John in Norfolk, he told me that the job was easy and just involved cutting off the connector block and soldering the 10 wires that went into it together, and that was it, problem sorted.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, my soldering is crap, there I've said it. The upshot is that Rob spoke to a mate named Brian, who said, "No problem, I'm on my way round to sort it."

At this stage I was about 1 hr from going to work, so, rush into garage to move Blackie from winter hibernation, and strip the rear bodywork off in order to get at the block. BUT, in my haste, I let Blackie hit the door frame - result - a 4" crack in the nose cone. Oh No!!!

Well, Brian duly turned up and within 30 mins the job was done, block off and wires soldered and bike back together. A trip to Norfolk saved and outlay, nothing.

Next day, a trip to the repair and paint shop with Blackie...cost of repair to nosecone...£150.00, gulp!

Blackie going in on Monday for her nose job, hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me.

I promise that I will look after her, and pamper her from now on, she knows I love her to bits.