Petrol

I was due to go to town to buy a few bits and bobs... It's a sunny day so I decide to take the bike and ride to a slightly further away supermarket, just for the fun of it.

On the way I check my trip meter, it says 117km.  I have no idea how many miles (or even km) I get to my tank of petrol, so decide to top it up, to give me an idea how far my £11 has gone so far.

At the petrol station I have the usual fumble, as it's all quite new for me - in which order do you take off your gloves, helmet, open your petrol cap (and then reverse the process)...?  I kept on doing things like sitting on the bike ready to go only to realise I'd put my keys in my pocket, so would have to remove gloves, fish it out, etc.  Anyway.

£5.32 is all I manage before the tank is full, full, full!  So I spent about half of £11 on 117km so far?  Fine.

So, I fill up okay and discover that the petrol cap, in fact, just clicks back into place.  If you align and press, the lock pings back and it's secure...  Or so I think.

I ride on to the supermarket, buy my bits and bobs, then get back to the bike, repeat ill-timed repetition of gloves, helmet, keys, backpack, zipping up coat type of thing, and then notice petrol pissing out of the tank, through the engine, and onto the floor.

Cue imagination of large explosion (see above).

The petrol seems to be coming out from under the petrol cap.  The tank was, I confess, probably somewhat over-full.  What the hell do I do?  I run back into the supermarket and grab a load of paper roll destined normally for jam spillages, and run back to the bike and mop up the petrol.  I stuff some under the cap and it stops the flow for now.  I clean every bit I can find, every drip, and in the progress manage to rip a side-plate off.  One of the plastic ones that says 'Lexmoto'.  I say rip, but actually it came off in my hand - it had cracked next to the screw and was only held in place by two other plug-like fittings. 

I sigh deeply.

So, with a pocket full of tissue, I set off.  Half way to town, the tissue I wedged in is pissing out petrol again.  In alarm I pull over and mop it all up again.  Stuff more tissue in.  I just need to get home I reckon.

Almost home and the petrol has stopped.  I did turn the petrol cap a bit to the left, almost like screwing it in.  Not sure if that helped, but the petrol definitely stopped.  I rode around for half an hour just to check everything, but it was all fine.  I retuned home.

One of my neighbours came over to say hello.  He owns a big red racing bike.  Big and red.  He likes the bike though and the look of reminisence comes over him as he tells me how he started on two strokes, moved over to four and is now on a big v twin.  At least I think that's what he said.  I know the difference, in theory between two and four stroke engines, and that a v-twin is a two cylinder engine where they are shaped like a 'v', but as to the advantages and disadvantages of each, I'm still unsure...  Still, it's nice to talk to a local biker and be kind of accepted into the fold, as it were.