Don’t you feel a pillock when….

[lancashirelad]

You’ve just taken delivery of a new to you bike & no matter what you do you can’t get it to start, so you ring a mate who has the same model & is a retired mechanic, he says some are slightly reluctant to start, his isn’t though, it’s switch on, choke out, petrol on & it should fire up, then I had a light bulb moment I hadn’t switched the petrol on, as my last few bikes have all been FI bikes, I’m not used to doing that, well that’s my excuse & I’m sticking to it, so I walked back into the garage while still on the phone, turned the petrol on, & it fired up first press of the button

[daveuprite]

You are not alone...

I constantly amaze myself with how pillocky I can be, as an almost daily exercise.

There was some bike, years ago - a Suzuki I think, but I really can't remember what it was - where I tried again and again to start it before realising that you had to pull the clutch in first....

[Cornishman]

I’ve got a car where the startup procedure would be more at home in an aeroplane that on a road vehicle.
Reset electric cut off switch;
turn fuel pet lock on;
advance the ignition;
open the hand throttle;
turn the low speed jet adjustment 1 1/2 turns anti-clockwise;
pull the same adjuster to operate the choke;
press the starter button.
Somewhere during the process you also have to turn the ignition key, that’s the bit I often forget.

[Billy Bananahead]

As a despatch rider in the Smoke i had to call up the controller to tell him that i couldn't get to my next collection because my bike had suddenly packed up.
Dickhead me had only gone on to reserve and someone else picked the package up instead. Doh!

[johnnyboxer]

You’ve just taken delivery of a new to you bike & no matter what you do you can’t get it to start, so you ring a mate who has the same model & is a retired mechanic, he says some are slightly reluctant to start, his isn’t though, it’s switch on, choke out, petrol on & it should fire up, then I had a light bulb moment I hadn’t switched the petrol on, as my last few bikes have all been FI bikes, I’m not used to doing that, well that’s my excuse & I’m sticking to it, so I walked back into the garage while still on the phone, turned the petrol on, & it fired up first press of the button

Drain the carb after every ride though
Don’t leave petrol in a TTR carb for more than a week

[Sanqhar]

Many years ago I commuted on a BMW K75.
Coming home one summer Friday afternoon I passed a girl on a Puch Maxi moped at the side of the road together with a man (her father) and his car. I turned around and went back to them. Quote "...the bike just stopped!". They were trying to start it using the pedals like a kickstarter. I got on the bike, on its centre stand, and just pedalled like crazy. I soon flagged, summer early evening and full leathers taking its toll, it didn't start.

Taking a rest we got chatting. She had only owned the bike a week and was mystified as to why it broke down. Probing further it seemed her daily round trip was around 16 miles. Eureka, 16 miles 5 days and a tank holding half a gallon.

I switched the fuel tap to reserve and it started.

Haven't most of us been there done that (together with the inadvertent hitting of the kill switch).

When it's you saying you're a pillock it's OK when it's a beginner it's just part of the learning curve.

tom

[Yoyo]

My favourite was to run the bike to the reserve then forget to turn the tap back after I filled up, next time I ran out I'd turn the tap only to find it was already on reserve, you'd think I'd have learned after the third time!

Sent from my ELE-L29 using Tapatalk

[Brenhden]

Some classics here.

Mine was trailering my DR650 to Glasgow to start a tour for the castle comp we had here. Parked in the works carpark and unloaded the bike. Wouldn't start, ran the battery out trying, then started bump starting in front of the foyer. Only after 20 mins remembered I'd turned the fuel tap off for the drive.

[lancashirelad]

Years ago when I was competing on car rallies I was doing an oil change on the day of a rally with the expensive Castrol GTX my navigator called round to see how things were going then left, I carried on filling the Escort with the oil only for it to appear around my feet as I hadn’t replaced the sump plug

[Elmer J Fudd]

I once decided I needed to move my bike at the time (GPZ500s) forward a bit in the garage as I needed more room to get the back wheel on after doing a winter clean and rebuild....so I pushed the bike forward off the centre stand....clunk...down onto the swing arm as there was no back wheel.

My morning routine has become:
Up, shower, coffee on (pod machine), get dressed and back down to a nice coffee...well mostly.
The other day I filled the water, put a pod in and pressed the button, then headed off to get dressed. Came back to a lovely coffee aroma, but the coffee was all over the kitchen as I hadn't put a mug under the spout....