Testing times

So, Ginny had her MOT and failed!!! Apparently, her headlight was out of alignment. How that occurs, I have no idea. However, the fault was rectified and the re-test passed. Good for another year. That was completed a few days before Catherine and I went on holiday, so there was no chance of actually getting out on her, and since we got back, the weather has been pretty shite too.

Besides the MOT, I also had to renew the insurance. Plenty of searching for quotes turned up nothing better than the company I was already with, so I renewed with them.

Ginny's service was also due, not due to mileage but to time. As she is out of service contract now, I decided to go to an independent garage, rather than the official dealers I have been using. The guy, Mark, is an ex Motorrad mechanic, who went solo. He services police bikes and  bikes owned by police motorcyclists, so that sounds like a decent enough recommendation in itself. He was originally recommended to me about 5 years back. I used him for fitting some tyres but this is the first time under his spanners proper. It's Ginny's 36k service, a big one, which, even at an independent, comes at a big cost. I booked her in for 30th of April, and he'd told me he'd need 2 days. Beside the service, I asked him to carry out the recall work on the footrest circlips, to check a possible water pump leak, and investigate the overheating problem I've had since the last big service. Grizzly's mate Fox (I think they must all be named after animals in Ireland! 😂) said he thought it had not been re-filled properly, so there was possibly an airlock. Mark reckoned that was highly likely, as he's come across this before. He says there are 3 drain plugs but one is difficult to get to, so some of the main dealers only use 2, which leads to air getting trapped. When he undid that plug, rather than coolant escaping, it was air. Well sussed Fox. He replaced some o-rings on the water pump but has asked me to keep an eye on it. It might even be a problem with the pump itself. If so, that's a warranty job. I have the BMW extended warranty, and Mark recommends keeping that, so I'll be renewing that before I head off  in June. I picked Ginny up this morning and am now looking forward to some decent weather. Fingers crossed. 🤞🏻

That's about all the news for now, except, I have been investigating/planning a trip to Italy and Spain, for World Superbikes, in September. I have routes mapped out and hotels booked but as yet, I/we are undecided if we will do it. Watch this space for that one.

Bye for now.

Waiting for Spring and Summer

Ginny has been SORNed since the beginning of December and I got my 3 months tax refund as a result. 2 and a bit months on and I have to start thinking about re-taxing her. She'll be 6 in March, and being that age means her annual test is due, so although I might not normally get riding again until April, I have to tax her from 1st March and get her up to my local MOT centre, Ryders Motorcycles, for when that runs out on the 17th. Add to that, it's also insurance renewal time. If my car insurance is anything to go by, I can expect a big jump in premium. 😟

For those who have been following recent posts, you'll know that I am off to Europe in the summer, with Paul and Phil. I'd got the hotels booked (it's always good to get something booked early, even if I change later on), when Paul announced he'd be cutting the trip short by a couple of days! Consequently, I've had to change the hotel bookings for the couple of days after the Assen MotoGP. One of the bookings, I was able to just cancel one of the rooms. On the second, I found a cheaper alternative for one room, so cancelled the whole thing. Knowing who was going to be where and when, prompted the booking of the channel crossings. There was some talk (not sure now if Paul went down this route), of coming back on the ferry, rather than LeShuttle. Ferry is cheaper but takes longer. We were all going out on the shuttle anyway, so Phil and I decided to stick with it coming back. As I say, not sure if Paul is tunneling or ferrying back now.

I had pretty much got everything sorted for week 2 (Phil and I in Germany), what to visit along the way, etc, then a couple of weeks back I had this message, through Booking.Com messaging, from one of the hotels, saying they needed to verify my credit card, and giving me a link to click on. This seemed strange, so I contacted both the hotel and Customer Services. Customer Services said the hotel shouldn't be asking that, advised not to use the link, and confirmed my booking was still valid. The message said I could lose the booking if I didn't comply. I didn't get a response from the hotel. To be on the safe side, I located another hotel and booked that. If it all turned out to be OK, I could always cancel. Then, a week or so later, I got the same message again. Once again I contacted Customer Services, this time though, I cancelled the booking. I've still had nothing from that hotel in response to my message, so not sure what's happening. You'd expect the messaging internal to Booking.com would be secure, yet they do advise to be vigilant against unusual messages! Anyway, I have the repacement hotel booked, so all is on track again. Only 140 days to go!

That's all for now.

Till next time.