It was a lovely morning; sunny with a slight chill in the air. I had a good ride to work planned, cutting across country on some of my favourite roads and it was all going really well. I'd dispatched a few slower vehicles and was making good progress as I enjoyed riding the Ducati. When on song, there isn't another bike I'd want to be riding.
Joining a National speed limit area, basically a 60mph zone, coming out of a village, I was powering up when the bike just mechanically shut down. The fuel light had been on for about 10 miles, but I knew the bike; I should have been good for another 15-20 miles before I was looking at pushing it. Repeated prods at the starter yielded nothing and so I parked on the side of the road and called the recovery service saying I'd run out of fuel.
It took just under an hour and the AA man arrived with fuel, a few prods of the starter and still nothing. This was getting worse. I updated work with my progress and called up Moto Rapido in Winchester as it would appear that the fuel pump wasn't priming, just to ask if I was okay to bring it over. Then waited for the recovery man with the trailer.
Another hour passes and just after I'm joining by a work colleague who stopped to make sure I was okay, the second recovery van arrives. Now getting the bike into a safe location (which meant pushing it up the hill you see above) this guy was happier to try and sort the problem. So after taking off a panel or two on the side of the road, the problem persisted and it was on the trailer she went.
Just after 14:00, I finally arrived at Moto Rapido, dropped the bike off and explained the problem. Carolina was there waiting for me and after grabbing a nice lunch together (best part of the day by far) we headed home.
I got a call that evening just before 17:00 to say the bike was fixed. Have to admit I was genuinely astounded that they were able to look at it, let alone fix it. That was first class service right there. Turns out my fuel filter was blocked, possibly from a combination of when I had the tank resprayed a few years back and putting in some contaminated fuel when coming back from Germany with my mate Pete. By all accounts a blocked fuel filter is pretty rare.
Either way, a bill of £180 is a lot lighter than I had feared and I get her back on Saturday, so in the meantime, the FireBlade and I have some catching up to do.
I got a call that evening just before 17:00 to say the bike was fixed. Have to admit I was genuinely astounded that they were able to look at it, let alone fix it. That was first class service right there. Turns out my fuel filter was blocked, possibly from a combination of when I had the tank resprayed a few years back and putting in some contaminated fuel when coming back from Germany with my mate Pete. By all accounts a blocked fuel filter is pretty rare.
Either way, a bill of £180 is a lot lighter than I had feared and I get her back on Saturday, so in the meantime, the FireBlade and I have some catching up to do.
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