{"id":10200,"date":"2014-08-10T11:58:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T10:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=10200"},"modified":"2014-08-10T11:59:34","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T10:59:34","slug":"dodging-the-downpour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=10200","title":{"rendered":"Dodging the downpour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday I left work, jumped on the Daytona and headed south on a bit of a marathon:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A46 from Cov to Warwick<\/li>\n<li>A429 south (Wellesbourne, Moreton in Marsh, Stow on the Wold, Bourton on the Water, Northleach, Cirencester, Kemble, Malmesbury, Hullavington)<\/li>\n<li>A350 south (Chippenham, Melksham, Westbury)<\/li>\n<li>A36 south (Warminster, Longbridge Deverill)<\/li>\n<li>A303 west\/south (Mere, Sparkford Vale, Stoke sub Hamden, Marsh, Claypitts)<\/li>\n<li>A30 west\/south (Honiton, Exeter and beyond)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I spent all of Saturday in the Exeter area, and, at the end of the day, as I was about to leave, decided to check the weather.<\/p>\n<p>Tropical Storm Bertha sounded mean and moody and was forecast to hit southern UK all day Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>My original plan was to break the journey overnight, and continue home on Sunday, but Tropical Storm Bertha changed my mind; I decided that not only was I going to head home straight away, I was going to use the *gasp* motorway.<\/p>\n<p>I hopped on the Daytona, switched on the ignition, engaged the clutch, pushed the starter button and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>She didn&#8217;t start.<\/p>\n<p>The engine turned over, the ignition tried to catch, but the engine couldn&#8217;t pick up and fire.<\/p>\n<p>If I hadn&#8217;t refuelled at the Murco filling station on top of the Blackdown Hills, you would have thought the bike was out of fuel &#8211; which she wasn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>I tried again. I tried again several times. On the ninth attempt the engine fired up and, with the aid of a little right-hand action, roared in to life.<\/p>\n<p>She settled back in to idle on a normal tickover.<\/p>\n<p>Blowed if I know.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I headed northwards, picked up the M5 and, in the deepening gloom, headed towards home (just under two hundred miles away).<\/p>\n<p>Some time later, just west of Chippenham on the M4, I stopped to refuel at Leigh Delamere services. After tanking up, I&#8217;ll admit I was a tad nervous, but when I pushed the button the Daytona fired up normally.<\/p>\n<p>I got home about 8.30pm, a little damp after having passed through two relatively brief downpours.<\/p>\n<p>But when I woke up this morning and saw the monsoon-like deluge hammering down from the sky, I was very glad that I changed my plan yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, the Daytona?<\/p>\n<p>Fired up normally this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Dirty petrol, maybe?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday I left work, jumped on the Daytona and headed south on a bit of a marathon: A46 from Cov to Warwick A429 south<\/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-10200","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\/10200","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=10200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}