My exercise for the day

I have a motorbike parked in the shed.

It's in the shed because I hardly ever ride it. In fact, I think I've renewed the registration on it twice since I last rode it. So, yesterday while tidying the shed up a bit, I decided to charge up the battery and give the engine a bit of a run.

It actually took until this morning before the battery had enough in it to turn the starter, and it took quite a while before it finally started to fire. Once it was running as smoothly as I could get it I went upstairs, grabbed my gear, and went for a spin.

One of the reasons I hardly ever ride these days is that I had an accident on the bike a couple of years ago. I was able to get back on and ride home (I was not even a kilometre from home on my way to work), but boy was I sore the next day. Hitting the road and sliding for twenty metres tends to do that to you.

Anyway, because of that, Donna doesn't really like it when I ride the bike. She didn't look very happy when I rode out the gate and said I was just going down to Wello Point and back.

Imagine the look on her face when she saw me walking up the driveway without my bike.

No, it's not what you think, I hadn't fallen off again. I'd got just over a kilometre away when the bike started to misfire as I was coming out of a roundabout and accelerating away. I was coming up to another roundabout (a big one) and I thought I'd turn back there, but when it misfired again going down a hill I decided against it. I didn't want the bike to stop on me as I was cranked over going round the roundabout, otherwise I probably would have fallen off.

So I pulled in to the side, went to turn around, and that's when it stopped. I knew there wasn't much fuel in the tank, but I didn't realise it was that low.

It's winter here now, but walking home in a big heavy motorcycle jacket, in the sun, in a hilly neighbourhood tends to warm you up a bit.

Luckily we had a tin of petrol in the shed for the mower. The bike is now back in the shed.