Sunday 16 June 2013

Silver Lining



With only a couple of weeks to a riding holiday in France the theft of my bikes couldn’t have come at a worst time – except, if it had happened the night before, obviously.

As I won’t get a decision/payout from the insurance company for at least another month I needed wheels, and quickly. Norman had offered a loan of his spare Skorpion, I have another one myself, and another friend offered his Kawasaki. All good options, but all three bikes are off the road at the moment, would need to be got ready, taxed and tested, and if there had been any sort of problem I might have had to cancel the trip.

So, I started looking for another bike. Before all of this happened I had been considering getting myself a new Triumph Tiger 800. I really like the look of them, and one of the guys coming on the French trip can’t say enough good things about his, but sadly a brand new bike is a little out of my reach at the moment. I contented myself looking at older second-hand ones instead.


I spotted a promising 2005 model in a small town in the Scottish Borders about an hour away from me, so got a lift down to have a look. This was a well set-up bike, complete with touring luggage and a range of sensible accessories like heated grips, a Scottoiler, Bagster leather tank cover with matching tank bag, Touratec engine bars, and radiator and oil cooler guards. Best of all, it had all the necessary paperwork.  

The deal was done and I rode (wobbled?) away on my new toy.

First impressions were favourable, but then again its basically the same machine I am used to, being a 955i engine in a different package, although I do need to sort out the seat height as it’s a bit too tall for comfort (I have short legs!) and getting on and off once fully loaded could prove *interesting* to say the least. Luckily there are a number of options for this and the seller showed me how to lower the actual seat and drop the suspension a bit as well. If that’s not enough I can also drop the forks in the yokes. It shouldn’t be too big a problem and will be sorted before I leave.

5 comments:

  1. Nice looking bike. Seems to have all the good stuff. Now you need to bolt it to the garage floor, chain a pitbull to it, install 24 hour video survelliance, and electrify the garage locks...thieves are just so maddening.

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  2. You better believe it. I spent all day Saturday installing more locks, ground anchors and reinforcing the shed doors with steel plate. All very worthy, but only an inconvenience to folk who come prepared with the right tools. All you can really hope to do is slow them down enough that they give up or have to make enough of a fuss that you or a neighbour comes out to see what is going on and spooks them.

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    Replies
    1. Well done you in sourcing a new bike, at least it's something you were seriously considering getting and not a knee jerk reaction to buy anything for the trip.

      Make sure if you haven't already to replace the hinge screws with coach bolts that you can put a nut on so the hinges can't be uncrewed. As you say make it inconvenient with as many chains/padlocks etc.

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    2. The problem with doing all of this is that 'just popping out to the shed for a moment' becomes all but impossible. It now takes about five minutes to get all the locks etc. off.

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