First Ride!

It has taken what seems like a lifetime to get my first ride out on the bike. What with having my eyes operated on six weeks apart and not being able to ride for a fortnight after each one, plus the knee injury.  It seemed like I would never get out and have a go.

Today with the odometer showing 75594.5 I set off for the first ride.  Wow!

I mean that in a sorta good way. 

You forget how basic it is to sit on the bike rather than "in" like on the Rocket.  It felt strange to be up high!  

With the tank refilled from the can I had about 5.5 litres in it.  The funnel has a mesh filter to catch the rust and crap I got out before.

I set the tap to prime to get some fuel through.  It took a few goes on the starter to get it to fire. 

Eventually rather than kill the battery I attached the dbPower 600A unit and switched that on.  

Suzi fired up.  Still in the garage.  I had to switch off as it might have appeared the garage was on fire.

Abus Granit off and I pushed Suzi out onto the drive.  I ran indoors and got togged up in bike gear as quick as I could and back outside. 

Claire came out to have a look. She doesn't have great memories of the Kettle. Her last long ride was to Montlhéry and the 2001 classic bike event. She was put off by comments from one or two of the French Triples Club members.  The bike was perfectly fine back then!

I started her up again. I was in a hurry to get away before I smoked the entire street out!  

Screen capture from YouTube video.

I did manage to take a short video on my phone -  https://youtu.be/0n4rierbQeM. Uploaded when I got back to YouTube.

With the suggested (by Phil) drop of two-stroke in the fuel tank it always seemed that smoke might be the result!

It was!!!

All the way into Hythe I could see the smoke behind in the badly setup mirrors.  Another job before it goes out again!  Set the bloody mirrors up properly. 

Up Hythe hill I left a quite dense cloud of smoke.  Pity I had no rearward facing camera!

I decided to fill the tank with unleaded at Tesco at Cheriton.

From Hythe there was a constant smoke screen. Onto the A20 and finally the M20 for a couple of junctions. 

Although it will just be for fun, I wanted to note the mileage to get Fuelly calculating how many gallons to the mile I get from her.

I kept it to about 3500 revs that showed to be about 60 to 65 on the clock.

The odometer and trip meter both worked. The trip meter is connected inside it's just the reset that doesn't. A shame but at least something works.

One problem that arose is that the tick-over is stuck at 3000 revs. I'll need to check on that when I get it out next. I expect that adjusting the idle won't be too difficult as there is a knob/adjuster between the right and centre carburetor. 

In the end I filled the tank with 99 unleaded  squeezing in about 13.5 litres but not filling to the very top. 

I noted the mileage 75603.4.  Later on I will put that into Fuelly as a start mileage. With the trip not able to be zeroed I need to use odometer readings instead.

The ride back was at the head of a slightly less toxic blue cloud. I guess the drop in the tank was more diluted!

I went along the seafront from Seabrook to Hythe. Top gear seems to be about 2000 revs at 30mph. A little notchy at that speed.

The high idle was a bit of a problem but I got home in one piece. 

Not the longest first ride but given we are still in lockdown it was enough.

Still lots of work with rags and solvol to do to clean up some of the chrome towards the rear of the bike.

At the end of today the odometer shows 75609.3. A whole 14.8 miles at the head of a cloud of smoke.

First ride end mileage