Thursday (I think it was Thursday) I was jollying to work on the Ninja.<\/p>\n
I’d just left the M6 at junction 2, and dropped down from 6th gear to 5th gear, to maintain speed but add a bit of extra power to the back wheel (for that left-right-left and then the join on to the M69 for three hundred yards before the roundabout).<\/p>\n
On the change down to 5th gear the clutch ‘clunked’ which is slightly rarer than hens teeth, because the clutch\/gearbox on the Ninja feel as if they have been sewn together with love and adoration by the most talented sewing fairies in all of the seven universes.<\/p>\n
I didn’t need to change again, because the lights changed, and I stayed in fifth gear down to the next roundabout (Asda), where I had to drop from fifth through fourth and in to third gear.<\/p>\n
The clunking got bigger with each change.<\/p>\n
After the Asda roundabout I changed up to fourth until I was approaching the big roundabout by the Walsgrave Hospital.<\/p>\n
Down to third (clunk) and in to second (CLUNK!).<\/p>\n
And that was it; locked in second gear and unable to apply any clutch.<\/p>\n
The cable had snapped clean through.<\/p>\n
The engine cut out.<\/p>\n
I managed to stop, switch the ignition off, and get the bike in to neutral, put the bike on its stand and dismount on to the central reservation.<\/p>\n
I waited until there was a break in the traffic (I was stationary in the right-hand margin of lane three on the approach to a busy roundabout), and then walked the bike over to the left-hand margin of lane one, in to a safe position.<\/p>\n
I got my phone out and rang the RAC, who said they’d send someone out within the hour.<\/p>\n
Then I went on to FB, and to the Warwicks & West Mids Bikers Group, where I typed: “Does anyone know someone in Coventry who could supply and fit a clutch cable to a 2003 Kawasaki Ninja ZX9R?”<\/p>\n
Almost immediately there was a “Nooooo” from the guy I bought the bike from, but that was followed by a name – Andy Clark.<\/p>\n
Andy and I got in touch through FB.<\/p>\n
The RAC man arrived – just an RAC patrol, not a recovery vehicle – and announced he couldn’t fix the problem and the bike needed to be recovered to a garage. Well der.<\/p>\n
Andy said he’d be able to supply and fit the cable, but it would be a couple of days for it to be delivered.<\/p>\n
Eventually the RAC-contracted recovery lorry arrived. The ramp was lowered, we pushed the Ninja aboard, where she was well secured, and off we went.<\/p>\n
The lorry driver (bless him) took me straight to work and then took the bike on to Andy’s workshop.<\/p>\n
An hour or so Andy rang to give me the bad news: supply and fit of a new clutch cable would be \u00a338.<\/p>\n
Wow. Is that all?<\/p>\n
I caught the train home that night, and used the Daytona for the next couple of days.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday I caught the train to work (carrying all my biker gear). That lunchtime I went up to Fletchampstead Highway, Coventry (nice and close to where I’m currently working) and met Andy.<\/p>\n
I gave him \u00a338. He gave me the key to the Ninja. And then I had a nose about and asked him about his business.<\/p>\n
You can hire space in Andy’s workshop. You can hire the use of ramps (there are a few!). You can hire tools. And if you get stuck, you can hire Andy to help out – or (do what I would do and) get Andy to do the work in the first place.<\/p>\n
This whole concept is an an interesting idea if you’re looking to save money and do big mechanical jobs on your car or bike yourself.<\/p>\n
And if that’s not good enough, Andy’s prices (as evidenced by the Ninja repair) are extremely competitive.<\/p>\n
So if you are in the Coventry area and you need a motorbike or a car mechanic, or if you want to hire a car or motorbike ramp, or if you want to hire space in a workshop, or if you just want the services of a very reasonably-priced mechanic, I suggest you drop Andy a line<\/a> (tell him I sent you).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thursday (I think it was Thursday) I was jollying to work on the Ninja. I’d just left the M6 at junction 2, and dropped down<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}