16. Wow! this year has flown past...

I can't believe its October already, for me it will soon be time to put the bikes to bed for the winter, and before I get any "Fair weather biker" jibes remember I have ridden bikes all my life in all weathers but these days I don't need to, I am lucky in that I have other forms of transport to use in inclement weather conditions and we all know what road salt does to our beloved motorcycles don't we? So Doris will be saved the worry of getting a rusty frame this year at least, I know some of you use your machine all year round and that's good I will say be careful though as even at this time of the year falling leaves can be as slippery as snow.

I did say "nearly time to put the bikes away" so what is (are) my other machine(s)? at this moment in time Doris shares the garage with just on other bike and that is my faithful old Harley Heritage Springer funnily enough she is also a '99 model, I have had Harriet for about ten years now, other bikes have come and gone but Harriet remains, If her throttle cable hadn't of snapped it would have been Harriet I'd have ridden to Valencia but then I would never have bought Doris...fate as they say.

Harriet and I have been to France a couple of times and we did a tour of France and Spain pulling a trailer a couple of years back, she has never broken down on me, been dam reliable and even though I spent some money on her for cam shafts, hypercharger, twin choke mikuni straight through pipes etc etc I still wouldn't part with her if I could avoid it,

Two old girls together

Over the last week I have been to work on the front brakes on Doris, I could pull the lever all the way in so it touches the handlebars, so first thing check pads, hmm they look brand new still, so take master cylinder apart replace seals fill up with new fluid and bleed and what do you know? I have a brake lever again, feel a little more confident now.

My handlebars are looking a bit crowded now as I have the sat nav, 12v axillary power outlet and a phone holder on them but all of this is necessary if you want to do some serious touring. 

I am still hunting luggage for her though,I realise that having proper hard side panniers is far more desirable then just chucking a big bag on the back seat but! as a lot of you are finding this luggage is as rare as hens teeth as the stopped making it for the Divvie years ago, but i wont give up just yet as I have a lead at the moment more in that later, for the time being it's clean and polish time for the bikes.