Let me cast my mind back...back...back. Oh yes, I'm there now.
I passed my Mod 2. Hurrah.
Which meant that I am now a fully qualified bike rider, with all thanks due to Biketrain Wales.
So, with some trepidation I stopped the restoration activities and got round to trying the beast.
Fully kitted up I approached The Beast for the first time as a qualified rider. I wheeled her out into the sunshine, climbed on, stand up... choke in... press the starter...and a rather pathetic whimper of the engine.
Tits.
After a month in the garage the battery had had enough. I got online and solicited opinions.
A quick check of the voltage with a multimeter showed that it wasn't dead, just resting. So I called Garn Motorcycles and they had an Optimate in stock.
Onto the Varadero 125 and I was off. They had just resurfaced our road and the bike felt a bit sketchy, so I popped into the garage to check the air in the tyres. In the rear there was... no air.
Arse.
I filled it up and very calmly rode to the garage - a fantastic hill over to Blaenavon - where the culprit was a 1cm long piece of slate. We get a lot of that round here.
If you get the chance to go to Garn Motorcyles, go. It's a proper, proper bike shop. Four mechanics who actually know what they are doing and a great selection of old bikes. They were really friendly and let me hand around and generally bother them while they replaced the tyre.
All sorted, I went home and plugged the Optimate in, finding out in the process that the panel was attached by just the studs. I left it to charge overnight and had a cup of tea...
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