White elephant?

Hi all,
Feb has been a very slow month for my bullet-eering...
I had problems with bike more or less all through out the month.
Started off with one ride Feb 6 nearby and met some friends.
Sunday mornings are a great time to ride - 1) less traffic. 2) Weather is great. 3) Weekend seems longer when you do more things :).

My cousin had warned me that Bullets are white elephants - take a lot of time and money to repair and maintain... Jan was great - not much cost and a lot of riding... Feb though.... lets not talk about it :)

Sometime mid week - Feb9, the bike didnt start. I tried to call the mechanic, but as always "I will be there at 5. I cant make it today. I will come in 10 minutes. Try and start it yourself" etc etc and the weekend was gone!
The mechanic showed up on Tuesday 15th Feb and said that it would work fine, but needed a new sparkplug. It ran for a while and then I figured I can get a new sparkplug and ride it for a while, so off to JC road it was and found this really neat shop called Sandhya Auto Parts where I bought 2 spark plugs (with my luck, the first one wont work), a tool kit, and a bike cover... all this for 480Rs (60 each spark plug, 180 for tool kit and 180 for the bike cover)

Came back home, tried the bike cover and it worked!!! (I had bought another one for 300Rs and it was too small :( Luckily I have used it for the kinetic honday we have) I then tried to fix the new sparkplug, but realised that it had a female thread, whereas the spark plug cap also had a female thread... I see some smiles on guy friends :P... so I wanted to return them and get the right ones, but instead of going to the store, thought I will check with the mechanic who was closer. Off to his shop and the moment I opened the spark plug from the box, I realised that MICO puts protective unscrewable caps, that made me think it was a female instead of a male thread... stop smiling boys...

Put the new sparkplug on, didnt want to tighten it on too tight incase I break something, turned on the ignition and DABBA DABBA DABBA DABBA - workinngggg!!!! However, there was a lot of leaking sound, so I figured it must be the un-tightened spark plug, so I tightened and TUSSSS - so I loosened it, tightened some, loosened some, tightened some and NOTHING!
I finally called the mechanic on the phone and he said it SHOULD work, so I wanted to show him the sound that comes when I try and VIOLA it started! I took it for a ride and realized it was back firing a lot, so I rode it directly to his shop and showed him.
He said maybe just some small problem, ride it around and it should be fine...
Nice evening round to 3rd block jayanagar and as I go over a speed bump it STOPS! No lights, no horn, no indicators, NOTHING. Cant start it and too late to push home, so left it at a friends house and pushed it back home the next morning.

Oh no - its Thursday - I need the mechanic today! Got busy at work, forgot to call him another day and its already Saturday. He shows up at 6 and says that the battery is dead. Get it recharged and it will be fine.
The battery guy says that its dead and I should buy a new one, so CHA CHING - 1400 Rs towards white elephant :(

Back home, it was dark already, but I wanted to get the bike running Saturday so that we could ride Sunday morning. Connected the battery, turned on the ignition, kick started and it started to run. I saw smoke coming from below the seat so I turned it off and came to the other side of the bike and saw smoke from the battery wire! Turned off the ignition and saw that the wire had melted - NO BIKING on SUNDAY :((((((

Talking to the mechanic Monday, Tuesday and 6 times on Wednesday, he finally showed up, said all it needs is insulation tape, and DABBA DABBA DABBA started off again. Changed out the fuse box, added more insulation and its working fine.

Rode the bike to  basketball and then in to work today. Was fun, though there was more traffic than I would have liked :)
I went to Sandhya Auto Parts during lunch, got an ammeter (so that I can see if the bike is charging the battery or not when its running and can trouble shoot easier), got fuses for a total of 240 Rs and getting the ammeter clamp fabricated at a trusted machine shop and will get it fitted today.

I haven't spent a whole lot of money, but TIME is money, so I have to say that the bullet has been a white elephant for me so far :).

More to come in a bit :)

Bike rides - Jan 2011

Started off the year with a bike ride to Indiranagar. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the bike was in reserve, so I ran out of fuel and had to push the bike (these 350 cc bikes are HEAVY) for a bit, before I was helped by a down slope. 300Rs later, I was all set to ride to Indiranagar. Met Thau and his new "army" green bullet along with Doss and his 650 Ninja. Rode back via MG Road to home. Found that I had difficulty shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear and later found out that the clutch had to be pressed in completely for bullets. Also realized later that I need to release the clutch slowly while shifting gears.
When I went out for a ride in the evening, I realized that the lights had a loose contact and weren't working, but got the switch to a position where the lights worked.

Gave the bike for servicing on the 3rd and got it back on the 5th. Got the gear shifting to work a little better and the electricals of the bike seem to have also gotten fixed. 400 Rs for the service was worth all that I got done on the bike.

Short rides near home every evening helped me get used to the bike more each day and our 30km ride on Sunday the 9th to chandra layout, yeshwanthpur, cunningham road and back home, after a stop at lalbagh road for helmets was pleasurable. Ramya liked the backrest with the cushion and was comfortable.

The following sunday was a 20 km ride to Nagarbhavi to meet some friends after a short stop at BSK SLV for Idli Vada. The mp3 player with splitter, like we did in the US was also enjoyable, though I could not hear the music too clearly.

More rides closer to home followed each evening after work and longer rides on Friday evening towards MG Road and on Sunday to Giri nagar and then Koramangala were great since we were riding in the morning, when there was not a whole lot of sunshine out yet and the weather was pleasant.

Thau, Doss and I met up for the republic ride.
A nice early morning ride to a temple on Kanakapura road 20km from home, followed by dosa/ idli at Sukh Sagar and hearty breakfast at Maiyyas helped fuel us for a 70km ride on nice road (ring road to main NICE to tumkur road and back)  to back home.

500 Rs for changing out the speedometer and the worm gear that readys the speedometer ended my biking in Jan.

I logged about 300km on the first month and had 5 wonderful rides with the Bullet.

Feb rides details coming up.

New (old) bike

Re-realizing that I enjoyed riding a bike in Texas, made me want to start riding again.
I had a cruiser (Honda Shadow 650) in Texas and have always thought that the cruiser is more of a classy bike, where you can enjoy the scenery as you ride, so when I started looking at options of bikes to get here, it narrowed down to one of two bikes. The Bajaj Avenger OR the Enfield Bullet.

I had ridden a coworker's Avenger and found the ride to be comfortable, the seat being well paded, back rest for the pilion, good location for the foot pedals etc, but felt like it was too small a bike (engine-wise).
One of my cousins had an old (1992) bullet and was heading out of the country to study further, so I thought this was a perfect opportunity for me to borrow the bike and start using it.

I got the bike home on the 30th of December and was determined to start riding it from the 1st of Jan, as we have a belief in India that if you do something on the first day of the year, you do the same all throughout the year. (I think the black eyed peas on Jan 1 in the US is similar to the Indian story).

As you might know, bikes didn't have "self start" in '92, so it was all lower limb strength that helped start a bike (another thing I really like about older bikes). After about 200 kicks and a sore right knee and sore right soles, I decided to call a mechanic home, to get him to start the bike. One of my cousins however said that I should give the bike to Tirupathi!!! I was upset initially, but later realized that Tirupathi was the name of the mechanic that he was suggesting. As expected, Tirupathi started the bike on the 10th kick (kicked it 5 times, did some wiring work, kicked it 4 more times, adjusted something else and VIOLA). He took it to his shop and mentioned that I could pick it up the next day at 4.

Tirupathi mentioned that nothign major needs to be done and he would like to do a general service when I have some time on the bike and that I could ride it 500 km without any problems as is. A short ride around Jayanagar and Gandhi Bazar with a friend on a 650 Ninja ended my 2010 :).