James Burleigh
Well-known member
A few weeks ago at a work-related off-site training I met a female work colleague (we'll call her "Lara") who told me she had just bought a motorcycle--a Yamaha SR 400. She had been looking at a larger bike, she told me, but the fellow she works with who is my friend, colleague, and riding companion (we'll call him "Jor-El"), talked her into the smaller starter bike. I suggested we all go riding some day; she agreed. It happened yesterday.
In our final email exchange Friday to finalize meet time and location for our Saturday ride, Lara said she'd be there if she could get her bike started. Apparently it has (only) a kick-starter (how last century--how early last century, actually; I have never kick-started a bike myself, and I told her so).
Our meet location was a coffee shop in Berkeley next to campus--10AM (plenty of time to sleep in before dragging my kiester outta bed and interrupting dreams of Scarlett Johansson rubbing my...neck, and whispering "Poor baby. Poor, poor baby...." ).
I got there first, ordered a coffee, put my $30 rubber fake combat boots up, and waited for the other two.
Jor-El showed up moments later on his Aprilia Tuono. He marched past me to order a coffee. I said after him: "No sign of Lara yet! But she emailed me yesterday that she'd be here if she can get her bike started."
He stopped in his tracks and pulled out his phone, then read aloud, "Can't get bike started. Come by if you want to help get it started." He texted her back saying we'd be there after we had our coffee.
Great. Little did she know that her chances of getting it started with our help would increase by maybe .01 percent. This would be the blind leading the blind: "Okay. This looks like where you put the key. What do you think? Should we give it a try?"
We finished our coffee, over which we described all the ways and times we'd dropped our bikes (at least three for me in the last 8 months
), and headed on over to Lara's house. She was standing in the driveway as we pulled up. No sign of the bike.
"Where's the patient?" I asked. She pointed to a small, shiny black object next to us in the driveway. Good thing it warn't a rattler or we woulda got bit.--"Okey-dokey. Let's get started." Jar-El and I put on our serious Motorcycle God visages.
Jor-El straddled the thing, fooled with all the switches, buttons, and assorted gizmos, and kicked it over a few times: no dice. A couple indicator lights came on on the dash, but the horn didn't work. "Must be the battery."
No problemo. I pulled out my jumper cables. Jor-El picked up the bike and set it down next to mine. We'd have this baby running faster than my bike hits the ground when I forget to remove the disk lock.
"Where's the battery?" We all looked at each other and scratched our heads. "Probably under the seat!" someone volunteered. Right! Of course. They're always under the seat.
What followed this was much bending and craning and figuring out how to lift the seat (we did find the "cute" tool compartment), a problem that was only resolved upon retrieval of the user manual. Astonishingly, we had to remove two 3-inch bolts to remove the seat. But the battery wasn't there.
"Wait a minute! What's this? You don't suppose that's the battery?"
It was. And it looked like it belonged in a laptop computer. We pulled it up and disconnected it. It was about the size of a paperback novel. And I'm not talking War and Peace here; no, nor even The Brothers Karamosov. More like On the Road, which of course was ironic....
There was no way to attach jumper cables. Well, you could, but only with the "battery" separated from the bike, and then you'd have to disconnect the cables to re-install the battery on the bike. We were disgusted with Yamaha's design decisions. What with those 3-inch bolts and so-called battery, it was starting to look like Jap Crap to us master mechanics.....
In our final email exchange Friday to finalize meet time and location for our Saturday ride, Lara said she'd be there if she could get her bike started. Apparently it has (only) a kick-starter (how last century--how early last century, actually; I have never kick-started a bike myself, and I told her so).
Our meet location was a coffee shop in Berkeley next to campus--10AM (plenty of time to sleep in before dragging my kiester outta bed and interrupting dreams of Scarlett Johansson rubbing my...neck, and whispering "Poor baby. Poor, poor baby...." ).
I got there first, ordered a coffee, put my $30 rubber fake combat boots up, and waited for the other two.
Jor-El showed up moments later on his Aprilia Tuono. He marched past me to order a coffee. I said after him: "No sign of Lara yet! But she emailed me yesterday that she'd be here if she can get her bike started."
He stopped in his tracks and pulled out his phone, then read aloud, "Can't get bike started. Come by if you want to help get it started." He texted her back saying we'd be there after we had our coffee.
Great. Little did she know that her chances of getting it started with our help would increase by maybe .01 percent. This would be the blind leading the blind: "Okay. This looks like where you put the key. What do you think? Should we give it a try?"
We finished our coffee, over which we described all the ways and times we'd dropped our bikes (at least three for me in the last 8 months
"Where's the patient?" I asked. She pointed to a small, shiny black object next to us in the driveway. Good thing it warn't a rattler or we woulda got bit.--"Okey-dokey. Let's get started." Jar-El and I put on our serious Motorcycle God visages.
Jor-El straddled the thing, fooled with all the switches, buttons, and assorted gizmos, and kicked it over a few times: no dice. A couple indicator lights came on on the dash, but the horn didn't work. "Must be the battery."
No problemo. I pulled out my jumper cables. Jor-El picked up the bike and set it down next to mine. We'd have this baby running faster than my bike hits the ground when I forget to remove the disk lock.
"Where's the battery?" We all looked at each other and scratched our heads. "Probably under the seat!" someone volunteered. Right! Of course. They're always under the seat.
What followed this was much bending and craning and figuring out how to lift the seat (we did find the "cute" tool compartment), a problem that was only resolved upon retrieval of the user manual. Astonishingly, we had to remove two 3-inch bolts to remove the seat. But the battery wasn't there.
"Wait a minute! What's this? You don't suppose that's the battery?"
It was. And it looked like it belonged in a laptop computer. We pulled it up and disconnected it. It was about the size of a paperback novel. And I'm not talking War and Peace here; no, nor even The Brothers Karamosov. More like On the Road, which of course was ironic....
There was no way to attach jumper cables. Well, you could, but only with the "battery" separated from the bike, and then you'd have to disconnect the cables to re-install the battery on the bike. We were disgusted with Yamaha's design decisions. What with those 3-inch bolts and so-called battery, it was starting to look like Jap Crap to us master mechanics.....
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