The big problem about trying to make running modifications to a bike you sometimes need to use, is that you sometimes need to use it, and last weekend that's what happened.

It was set against a background of the rear tappets on  the Cyclone needing a dose of looking at and its back tyre that would be taking the piss on a 300 mile round trip, and combined with incorrectly diagnosing the re-emergence of the Shovel's slipping clutch as a blocked return from the primary, leaving me with an oil-line too damaged to refit as-was and too short when trimmed. It would have been easier to work on the Shovel if on the bike lift but the partially dismantled Victory was already there and logic dictated that having reassembled it to take it off the ramp, I'd be as well to tax that and take it to Talgarth, which is what I did.

Slightly more pragmatically, it also meant I'd have a bike that I could take to the people who've offered assistance with some fabrication work, 'cos I don't do vans ... 'cos I haven't got one. And because there's a 120/70x21 front end with my name on it sitting in an attic in Surrey: a wheel, tyre and a front mudguard that has the Vegas' rib beaten down it's centre which will bolt straight into the front and allow me to pick up the original; 90/90x21 next time I'm passing.