Shipping Day!

  Slough, United Kingdom
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Jim: So we finally made it to the shipping date. Everything was going according to plan then the night before we were due to take the bikes Chris's bike wouldn't start because his ECU had malfunctioned. So instead of setting off first thing (Pat: which was just as well due to the fact Ben and myself were working on Ben's bike into the early hours of the morning), we had to head to the local Yamaha dealer to see what we could do. After waiting around for about two hours whilst the very kind mechanics worked on the bike, we were beginning to get pretty worried. If the result of this was a new ECU that would mean delivery times, big expense, and a big kick in the nuts for the start of the tour. Plus, we were supposed to be on our way to james cargo at Slough. Then out of the nervous silence that had settled in, we heard the bike fire up. A big relief. It was nearly as good as hearing your mum say that dinner is ready. Job done. So we thanked the guys at Webb's Yamaha, who have got us out the brown smelly stuff quite a few times recently, and got on our way. Well, nearly. Ben left his documents behind, so we had to kill another couple of hours and then, we were on our way. Finally after too many hours of talking, planning, drinking, it felt like the tour was happening. After that, everything went smoothly. James Cargo made it all stress free. Coffee, payments, advice, shake hands, walk to the pub. Due to a pretty useful mix up we were able to enjoy a few of the fine public houses in Slough, including a beer with a mental drunk who was just 'happy to be alive'. Chris started getting aggressive after half a lager double tops so we thought it was best to leave. Mum Clarke kindly picked us up, and after a long boring drive and a KFC refuel the day was done. Awesome. Bring on the 28th.