I did however get my red custom bike back over the weekend. This meant driving a 792 miles round trip in 3 different countries and crossing the Irish Sea on a ferry!
My red bike is now three years old and was in need of a little bit of work, so while I was on my tour of the USA, it went back to Waterford Harley-Davidson in Ireland where is was built. The main thing that needed to be looked at was a starting problem. The bike has a large engine at 1800cc / 110 Cubic inches, and being a v-twin with a lot of compression and a heavy starter motor, the battery was never really big enough to start the bike properly. But, there isn’t room to put a larger battery in the bike, so I have always struggled to start the bike especially when it is really cold.
Waterford H-D therefore took the top of the engine off and installed a decompression system that reduces the compression on the first few turns of the engine thereby needing less power to crank the engine over. It works and the bike is now much easier to start. The twins carbs were tuned and a few paint dings were touched up, along with a few other bits and pieces.
The bike was ready so I drove from home (A on the map below) to Waterford which means heading west across a good deal of southern England, over the Severn Bridge (B), right across Wales where I got a ferry to Ireland and on to Waterford (C)....
I did think about riding the bike back, but only for about 3 nano-seconds as the weather forecast was dreadful with rain and snow forecast. I therefore jumped in my car and took the trailer. This was crossing the Seven Bridge....
Driving onto the ferry....
The ferry was pretty big, so I went outside on the sun-deck (they have got to be kidding calling it that!) and took a few pictures....
Famous across the world for its crystal, Waterford is the fifth largest city in Ireland. Sitting on the River Suir, it’s history can be traced back to 914 AD when the city was founded by Vikings....
I stayed in the Tower Hotel, so-called because it sits opposite Reginald’s Tower, said to be the oldest civic building in Ireland....
I walked around the centre of Waterford and noticed a Merry-Go-Round and Christmas tree in the town square, no doubt both fenced off due to imminent removal post Christmas....
I spend most of the day at Waterford H-D chatting with the guys and some of the customers. The ferry back wasn’t until late at night so I had plenty of time. Lenny the Dealer Principle was on good form and we sat and talked about all sorts of issues for a long time. This is their workshop....
The ferry back across the Irish Sea left late in the evening and docked at one o’clock in the morning. I had to wait until every other car had driven off the ferry as my trailer was too tall to exit without lowering the ramp inside the boat so I could leave by the lorry exit....
It was a long drive home through the night and I was tired when I arrived a 7am. I unloaded the bike later after the sun had come up and finally I had a bike in my garage once again....
All I need now is my Road King back!
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