I was a cool hard biker
18 years ago a 16 year old me used to do my paper round on my Kawasaki AR50 which in case you don't know anything about motorbikes is the best motorbike ever produced, capable of around 200mph and way better than a fizzie.

Everyday I would whizz around the paper round deliver all my papers, yet on the ride home it would start to struggle and the engine would die. I could just about keep it running in first gear but only if I stepped of it and walked along side it and let it run on tick-over (any throttle and it just died). It never went wrong before or during the round and after I got home and got ready for school it was always fine again to ride to and from school only then break down again on my paper round the very next day.

This went on for so long that I eventually got so used to it that I could ride it home from my paper round standing on the left hand foot-peg, in first gear and still make pretty good time. But it remained a mystery until one day I was reading up on changing the jets on the carb and came across a section in my Haynes manual about the air intake. On the AR50 it was under the seat. Everyday after my paper round I would have to ride past the local secondary school who were bitter rivals to my own. In order to look like a cool biker and not a spotty 16 year old oik I would take my paperbag off and stuff it under my seat and in doing so blocked the air intake. Stepping off relieved the pressure just enough to let enough air in so it could run on tickover.

So instead of looking cool I got to push my bike past groups of jeering school kids, every day, for months.
( Peej, Fri 6 Nov 2015, 14:49, 1 reply)

what a spastic, eh readers?

(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Fri 6 Nov 2015, 16:10, closed)