I came, I saw, I rode home again

My dear ol' daddy turned up last Friday to give me a lift to pick my bike up, so on Saturday morning we buggered off. Dad drove as far as Wee Waa and I drove the rest of the way. Dad's got a Hyundai something-or-other. His phone's a Hyundai,too. He's a real team player, my Dad. I gotta say that his car is a pretty nice thing to drive - quiet, comfortable, goes around corners OK. It could do with about a squillion more horsepower, though. Anyhoo, we stopped the night in Walcha. The people of Walcha are solar powered. After Dad snoozed off at about 9p.m., I went to the nearest pub. There were two people in it, counting the barman. Apparently the other pub was just as quiet, so I went back to the motel.
Before Dad snoozed off, he wanted to watch Dr. Who, so we did. It's the first episode of the new series that I've managed to catch and it's certainly different from the old ones. Matrix-style special effects, references to conspiracy theories and ethnic cleansing, it even showed the Doctor as being capable of blind, unreasoning hatred. Much more grown-up. Still good, but. Really good, in fact.
So Sunday morning we rock down Thunderbolt's way to Gloucester, then down Buckett's way through Krambach to Taree. First thing we spot in Taree is the bike shop where my bike is and lo and behold, there's a car in front. So I ring them up to see if I could pick the bike up on the Sunday. The female half of the proprietor couple answers the phone - yes she's there; no, I can't pick the bike up because the door is locked. I don't like to bitch about businesses by name, but Fineline Motorcycles can get fucked. Their idea of service is pathetic. Three months they had that bike, total number of times that they contacted me to let me know why it wasn't ready yet = 0. Total number of times they rang me to make sure that I received the bill they emailed me = 2, within two hours of each other. Not only that, but they didn't even send me a proper bill, it wasn't even itemised, just Parts = $x, labour = $x and miscellaneous = $x. No telling me what the parts were or what their individual cost was, let alone what 'miscellaneous' was. They didn't even tell me what their hourly rate was. When I sent them a very courteous email asking for an explanation I got one, OK, along with a very terse demand to fax confirmation as soon as I'd paid.
When I was nine years old my parents bought a service station/ workshop in a little country town in Victoria and I've been in the mechanical repair trade off and on ever since. I have never heard of a reputable business that carries on like this. This behaviour is straight out of the Shonky Brothers manual. So after this phone call Dad and I looked around Taree for another bike shop. We didn't see one so we took the scenic route to Port Macquarie where, at 9 a.m. Monday morning I gave the gentleman at Rock motorcycles a fair sized chunk of my hard earned for a new helmet. He nearly sold me a new BMW also - if I had a spare $27,000 I would have taken it. It had all the stuff essential to a good motorcycle; horsepower (167 of the buggers running around it's paddock), it was pretty and it was shaft drive (chains are for race bikes and for towing tractors - they're just stupid on a road bike). It also had some less than compulsory things that would be fun to play with - ABS brakes and 'on-the-go' electronically adjustable suspension.
And it does 300+ kilometres per hour. Handy.
Anyhow, back to Taree and pay for the bike, round the back to pick it up and the mirrors don't match. Apparently the sexy little chrome ones are aftermarket jobbies and they don't make them any more so they put a genuine (ugly square black) one on. Nice of you to wait until after I'd paid for it before telling me. Cunts. Oh and you'd think that in the three months that you had it, you could have found the time to wash it. And you could have kept it dry somewhere so that it didn't form that powdery white growth on the crankcase behind the cylinders. I can guarantee you one thing, anybody I know who wants to spend money at Fineline motorcycles is going to have to do so over my dead body.
But enough of those umm... people. After I picked the bike up I said goodbye to Dad and shot up to Gloucester for lunch. It started drizzling just after lunch and didn't stop raining until I was pulling up for the night at Gunnedah. Next morning it didn't start raining until Wee Waa, but then it came down all the way home. 830k's, 600k's of rain. Gee it felt good to be riding again, though.