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Old Born Yet Again (+ Some Events) Chris Johnson
(from TUG April 2014)
Having become a Born Again Biker at the end of 2000, and joined EAMG in 2001, life on a motorbike plodded on quite happily, despite a relocation to Sydenham early in 2007, until the start of 2011. At that point the old Johnson health started to take a nosedive, and the last EAMG outing I was able to go on was in April. I finally admitted to myself that I was not going to be riding again for a while and SORNed the bikes. Fast forward to 2013, after three operations, chemotherapy, and a whole bunch of other personal violations which were summarised by a two inch pile of documents from the NHS, and things were looking better. I had a backlog of trips abroad with my wife Mary to get through, as well as trying to resurrect my business, but as August approached it was clearly time to get back on the road again. The FJR was straightforward, but the Fireblade was by then ten years old, and its Meta alarm had died. It turned out that it had an encapsulated battery which had perished of old age and alarm replacement was the only option. An expensive home visit by an alarm technician cured that, and I also learned that the Meta 375 was providing him with good business, since they were all falling like flies in winter. If you have such an elderly alarm, and take your bike off the road over the winter, then even if you keep the battery on trickle charge you should turn on the ignition for a while periodically, since it is only when the ignition is on that the alarm battery is charged. It will delay the inevitable for a while. I then had two bikes at my disposal again, but the rider had to be brought back into roadworthy condition. Cue a series of rides down into Kent and Surrey. I have spoken scathingly about the dull roads south of the Thames before; they have not
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