Bonding Part 2

The sun was shining and I had nothing urgent to do today so I took the chance to get out on the Classic for a few hours.

I took the gorgeous route through Snowdonia along the Llanberis Pass and then followed the Beeline “fun” route to the Old Stores motorbike cafe just outside Mold to check out their Wednesday bike meet. 

It was a very lovely  route using lots of single track lanes. There were some interesting bikes at the cafe but an enormous queue for food so I jumped back on my bike and headed for home along the A55 coast road. To my shame I ended up at McD’s for burger and chips, which was predictably bland and tasteless!

166 miles all told and 5+ hours in the saddle. It was getting cold by the time I got home but we had bonded very nicely, especially in the last 30 minutes across the island after the blast down the A55.

A frustrating start to life with the new Classic 350

Well, what a frustrating start it has been to having this bike! When I collected it from Rob's it had been sat for a couple of weeks under a cover in the cold and rain. When I started it, it was very sluggish but did eventually start - Rob and I looked at each other and said "new battery".

We made it home ok and then she took up residence in the shed. Each time I tried to start it, things were the same and I actually had to pull the clutch in to take a bit of load off before she would even turn over. I gave the battery a good charge and it was no different. 

So I bought a new battery - no difference.

So I bought a new starter solenoid - no difference.

So I swapped the new battery for a "better brand" as recommended by the forums - no difference.

So I tried using my boost pack - no difference.

So I cleaned all of the relay connections - no difference.

So I gave every earth point a really good clean back to bare metal - no difference.

So I connected a jump lead from the battery earth to the engine earth - no difference.

So I removed the starter motor, connected it directly to a battery and it span freely. Replaced it - no difference.

So (clutching at straws now!) I checked the valve clearances (they were very tight) - no difference.

So I checked that the engine was turning freely and there was no undue resistance  - there wasn't.

So I concluded that the starter motor is stuffed and can spin up when off the bike but not when there's any load on it. I've ordered a new one from Hitchcock's. If that doesn't sort it I can't think of anything else to do.

IT DIDN'T SORT IT!!!!

So I checked every electrical connector I could get to; pulled apart, cleaned and reconnected - no difference.

So I disconnecetd the heated grips controller from the headlight feed circuit in case that was pulling too much power somehow  - no difference.

So I gave up and took it to a bike shop.

I got really messed around but eventually after about 3 weeks they had a look at it and.....

...  found that the earth from the engine to the frame was non-existent and the earth from the battery into the loom was puny and probably partially broken or corroded somewhere so could take "normal" load but not the starter load. They connected a nice meaty old earth cable directly from the battery to the starter motor and BINGO! I still can't understand why my check on that by connecting a jump lead in the same way didn't work - maybe the jump lead is crap. In fact, I've never had much success using those leads so that could be the case actually.

Anyway, finally after about 2 months, she's sorted. I now need to get over the frustration I've felt and try to bond with her after quite an inauspicious start to our relationship.

Panniers and Frames

With the new tank on, I fitted the Hitchcock's Panniers and Frames. 

All fairly straightforward stuff, although a bit of a fiddle to get one of the brackets bent around the mudguard stay. I think the original RE ones used a more straightforward bracket than these Hitchcock remanufactured ones but it was OK once done.

The panniers are copies of the ones that RE used to supply. No idea why they stopped as they seemed very popular. But they seem just as good as the original ones and almost indistinguishable other than the "Enfield Cycle Co" branding on the side (which I rather like actually.)

 

The Chrome Halcyon Green Meanie

I was recommended to use Aberffraw Garage for the repainting of my tank, about a 30 minute drive away to the other side of the island.

Wow, did they do a good job! A brilliant colour match; deep, lustrous finish; barely noticeable masking line against the pinstripe and a very reasonable price.

These are the before photos showing the more modern tank design and badges. Not horrible, but it doesn’t quite capture the “retro” essence for me. (The bike's design is apparently heavily influenced by '50s Bullets.)

I siphoned out about half the fuel to make the tank easier to remove. You have to take off the seat (just 2 bolts) and then one bolt from the back of the tank. It's a bit awkward, with 2 breather / drain hoses; the electrical connector and the fuel line to remove; mostly by feel. The original owner documented on YouTube having broken a connector when trying to remove the fuel line. Anyway, it was fiddly but manageable and will be a lot easier next time now that I know what I'm doing. With the tank off, I removed the fuel cap and drained the rest of the fuel into a bucket temporarily.

I fitted the fuel cap to the new tank, then turned to the underside to swap over the fuel pump/fuel level sender assembly. 

It was very obvious that my painters had painted the bottom of the tank properly, whereas the original RE finish barely covered the primer!

I was a bit perturbed to find that one of the mounting holes for the fuel pump assembly appears to have the remains of a snapped bolt in it. I tried to get it out but couldn't and it's a blind hole and I don't have the right sort of tap to cut a new thread. I wonder if this is the reason the tank was replaced under warranty? The pump assembly has a thick rubber gasket, so I decided to chance it with the one bolt missing but also applied a fairly generous dollop of hylomar blue on the surface. If it leaks, I'll remove the tank and sort it out. (It's not showing any sign of leaking after reassembly, but I'll keep an eye on it.)

With everything swapped over, it was a faily straightforward exercise to put it all back together again. I think it looks great - just enough chrome but not overwhelming. It looks black in these photos, but when the sun comes out the Halcyon Green really pops and sparkles!

I love the new view from the saddle.

Starting to make the Classic 350 mine

I am trying to adopt a more straightforward life and get rid of "stuff" that I've accumulated but has no place in my life any longer; and/or is unlikely to feature in it in the future.

So I decided that I wasn't going to start getting anything for the new Classic 350 until I'd got rid of an equal value of stuff on EBay. I've been slowly selling stuff over the last few weeks and surprisingly have raised over £450, with more to go. This has mostly been surplus guitar and motorcycle bits and pieces.

So I definitely have enough to order the canvas panniers and RE racks from Hitchcocks now and was ready to order them when I had a bit of a change of mind. I definitely will get those, but I know I'll be able to order them anytime I want.

In a previous post I mentioned that I really liked the chrome tank with the original style of Royal Enfield tank badge on my old bronze Classic 350 and that it might be quite cool to get hold of a s/h chrome tank and get it sprayed in the halcyon green colour.

Well, I'd been keeping an eye on EBay and not a lot of suitable tanks were coming up second hand - one in quite poor condition and then one that was off a nearly new bike that had been replaced as a warranty job due to a minor paint defect.  I decided that I REALLY did want to do the chrome tank thing, so took the plunge. I got it for £150, which is pretty good compared to £500 for a new one.

It's turned up and is in really good condition - I can't see the paint defect. So now I'm on the look out for a paint shop to respray it in the Halcyon Green colour. I think it will look amazing once this is done.

I've also been trying to make it easier to get the bike down the entry to the house. I repositioned the handlebar controls inboard by about 25mm each side and hacksawed off the ends, to gain 2" of clearance, which should make quite a difference. I thought the heated grips might be a bit of an issue as they should be glued on, but they just slid along nicely. I may get some short adjustable bar levers as well which will help a lot.

A gorgeous ride out on the Crusader 250

I had spent a couple of days catching up on the winter maintenance tasks on the Crusader. I needed to road test her and thought it would be a good idea to borrow a GoPro and record the  ride.

A delightful ride in the sun ensued...

Old and New

 I thought it would be interesting to compare my previous and current Classic 350s so fired up ChatGPT and this was the result 😁

I do like the chrome tank on the old bronze one, I think a lot of the attraction is that it has the original style of Royal Enfield tank badge. That’s started a thought in my head that it might be quite cool to get hold of a s/h chrome tank and get it sprayed in the halcyon green colour. I reckon that’s a £300 project that would look pretty cool. Maybe when I’ve sold both of the other bikes?

New Bike Adventure

Finally, weeks after “doing the deal”, the time has come to go and collect the new Classic 350 from her temporary storage at Rob’s in Tamworth. The weather this month has been appalling but there’s finally a window of a couple of days when it should be reasonable for a ride home. (i.e. not torrential rain all the way 🤣)

So my bag is loaded up with bike gear and the first step is a bus from Amlwch to Bangor Station. Using my bus pass for the first time, which is just adding to the excitement!

I saw my first spring lambs on the way!

And on to Bangor Station for the big train to Crewe and then a little train to Tamworth 🙂

Almost inevitably, the train to Crewe was delayed by 25 minutes, which meant my 23 minute transfer time was somewhat compromised 🙂. The good news with that was that I got onto the next train that only got me in 10 minutes later than planned. The even gooder news was that I can claim a refund on part of the ticket 🙂

So, at Rob's I could finally see my new bike after a month of waiting! First impressions were that she is in pretty much mint condition apart from the damage to the mudguard and clutch lever that I was already aware of. The damage isn't actually particularly noticeable. I even decided that I like the brown seats - they are darker than I thought they'd be.

After some pub grub, we had an early night and the following morning I set off for Dee's, via Beeline's "fun" route. 

I wasn't expecting there to be so much flooding of the country lanes or to see so much rain. I stopped for a coffee and warm up at Stone after 1.5 hours and then a wee and coffee stop at Liz and Phil's in Whitchurch.

After I set off again, the weather improved considerably and I even had some sunshine!

After a lovely stopover at Dee's, I left on Sunday afternoon for the journey along the North Wales coast to Anglesey. It wasn't half windy along the coast road and for the second part I was really fighting a big headwind. That's when it becomes obvious it's a low power bike, but she managed perfectly well, just not fast.

As we crossed the Menai Bridge onto Anglesey the wind improved, or maybe it was just more sheltered, and it stopped raining. We had a lovely last 30 minutes across the winding roads home. I welcomed her to the island and chatted to her about all the adventures we're going to have!!

The big test when I arrived home was to see if I could get her around the back of the house. I popped the bar end mirrors off for extra clearance and used my castor wheels contraption and we got her in (just!) I think with a bit of finessing, we can get that as a reasonably smooth operation, maybe using the centre stand trolley instead?

A bizarre coincidence!

So here’s a weird thing.

I’ve been loosely following this guy on and off on YouTube since I was thinking about getting my original Classic 350 in 2023. He can go on a bit, but does lots of ride outs around beautiful Yorkshire countryside on his own Classic 350.

Anyway, I was watching one of his old videos the other night, (getting a fix 🤣) and thought “just a minute, I’m sure I recognise that number plate”. It would appear I’ve bought his old bike 🤪. This is very pleasing, because he goes into quite a lot of detail about how carefully he runs it in when it’s new 🙂 I think he had it for just over 12 months, then moved it on for a new “channel bike”, but missed it so much that he bought another one . The first 15 minutes or so of this one is a bit of a rant before he actually talks about the bike. 

Small world eh?

New Bike Time

Some time ago (well, 3 years) in a land far away (well, England) I made a wise decision to buy a new Royal Enfield Classic 350. I had fallen in love with these very wonderful bikes as soon as they first started importing them to the UK and was smitten the minute I sat on one. Eventually, I took the plunge and bought my first ever new bike in 2023. We did about 2000 miles together over 6 months, touring Belgium, the Lake District and Snowdonia. Every mile put a smile on my face. I had found my perfect bike.

Fast forward a few months. My relationship had broken down; I was living in a caravan and the new home I found to start my new life in had a tiny access to the back of the house that I just couldn't fit the Classic down. Sadly, I came to the conclusion that I'd have to move her on.

Fast forward another year and a bit. I have had fun using my 1962 Crusader 250 to tour on (in a limited fashion) but I'm really missing the joy of jumping on a new bike and knowing that reliability probably isn't an issue. My Crusader has never let me down to be honest, but there is always that anxiety lurking when you ride an old bike for a long distance.

For unrelated reasons, I needed to hire a storage container locally, and it struck me like a lightning bolt that I could keep a Classic 350 in it as well 😀😀😀

I also came to a realisation recently that bike restorations have been my "escape" to a happy place when relationships turn sour. Now that I am always in a happy place, the restorations have no particular appeal and so I decided that I could move the Crusader 250 along to a new home, as well as the Moto Guzzi 500 project, and put the money into a new bike instead. Just the small matter of sorting out a couple of outstanding maintenance issues on the Crusader and finishing the Guzzi before Spring then.....

Of course, being me, I couldn't resist some "market research" just so I'd know what was right when it came along. My heart was telling me that I needed a red and chrome model, because they just look SO beautiful and classic. They could literally have walked straight out of the 50's or 60's. But my head was telling me that the "Halcyon" models with painted tanks and mudguards are far more practical in terms of cleaning and polishing. And I really liked the look of either the Black/Red or Green/Black versions.

Anyway, after a month or so of quietly getting to understand where the market was, this morning a little peach (I hope!) was advertised on EBay. Halcyon Green; 2022 model; just under 3000 miles; some very useful extras (bar end mirrors, heated grips, heel and toe gear lever & rack). Otherwise she's totally standard and with full complement of service history, keys, tools etc. I found that my previous bike was just starting to loosen up at 2000 miles so was happy with 3000 miles. The best bit was that she was priced at about £6-700 (about 20%) less than all the other similar age/mileage bikes. Why? She has been a Cat N write off. i.e. 

" ‘non-structural damage’ to the body or chassis. This means the core safety structure of the vehicle has not been damaged but the insurer has deemed the vehicle beyond an economical repair."

I've always shied away from this in the past, but decided to investigate a bit more. The owner was a lovely guy and it appears that the bike fell over, damaging minor things like clutch lever, gear lever, headlight rim, mirror and putting a dent in the mudguard. Replacing that lot was deemed to be beyond an economical repair, so it was written off and sold to a salvage company. The next owner bought it and replaced all of the damaged bits except the mudguard, which still has a dent in it. That's it. But it's now tarred with a Cat N brush which affects it's value. 

To cut a long story short, I decided that it was so cheap that I didn't care if it had the Cat N stigma; made a lower offer and we settled on a very reasonable amount (less than £2000!). I can't believe what good value it is. If the dent in the mudguard bothers me, I can buy a genuine new one, painted in the correct colour, for around £80. So here she is:

A bad point is that she currently lives in Cornwall, nearly 400 miles away. However, by coincidence, Louis (of 2025 Manx GP Adventure fame!) lives 3 minutes drive away and he is conveniently bringing another bike up to the Midlands sometime soon in his van, so can drop it at Rob's place. Then I can collect it from there when there is a decent weather window. How lucky is that!?

I did look at getting the train down and riding her back, and I would really prefer that, but the weather forecast for the next couple of weeks is shocking, so I think I'll probably go with the delivery option. It will still be a nice long first ride back from Rob's once the weather is better.

Immediate future plans? Well, nothing till one of the other bikes is sold, but then I'm not a big fan of the brown seats so will probably change them for black Royal Enfield "touring seats" - like most RE accessories they are very reasonably priced at about £65 each and have very good reviews. Plus they look nice with quilted bands on them :-) And then I'll probably get some of the pannier racks and canvas panniers that I had on the other one - the panniers aren't the most secure or practical things in the world but they just look gorgeous!!

So now the long wait begins......

UPDATE 28/1/26: Louis has checked the bike over and it's all as stated, so it's moving to his place for now till he can do the delivery to Rob's 😃 His quote: "Youre gonna be happy with this."!

A Return to the Manx Grand Prix

After the Royal Enfield Owners Club Rally, the next big adventure was a return to the Isle of Man for the resurrected Classic TT. I took the Crusader there in 2023 when she had about 300 miles on her after the rebuild and she behaved impeccably so I had no real fears this time, although I guess I was a little anxious about the oil consumption issue that had become worse on the last journey. 

So now with a little over 1000 miles on the clock post-rebuild we set off from Anglesey, initially heading across to Dee's in Wirral before continuing on a couple of days later to Liverpool and the new ferry terminal.

We took things slow and steady along the A55 taking in the gorgeous coastal views  along this route, breaking the journey at Bodelwyddan Services for a coffee and a cheeky Greggs pastie!

A couple of days later, we set off nice and early to rendezvous with Rob and his mate Louis coming up from Tamworth. Although I got to the meeting point in good time, Rob and Louis were somewhat "punctuality challenged" - we rolled into the check-in just as it was closing and were last bikes on board 🤨. Just to compound things, an over-zealous security guy stole my (fortunately only half full) camping gas canister.

Anyway, all was well and after a super smooth crossing, we made our way up to Peel Camping Ground and had the tents up before you could blink! 

It was the first time that Rob and I had been back there since the "Tempest of 2012"! We learned our lesson from that and pitched tents in the shelter of a big hedge on the boundary to shelter us from the winds that can whistle down the valley.

The following day was a race and practice day. We watched some practice from Ramsey and then made our way around the island via Ice Creams at Laxey to Creg ny Baa to watch the race. 

Apparently, I did an impression of melting in the sun while having 40 winks at Laxey!

The following day we took a ride out to the Calf of Mann and had an excellent lunch while watching the motorcycling world go by in the sun. 

We headed in to Douglas and then decided to go our own ways to do a customary lap of the circuit. The poor Crusader was struggling up the steepest parts in 2nd gear and I felt like I was being very mean! But we took a breather at Windy Corner, where the views across the mountains in the sunshine were simply stupendous.

Most of the racing on Wednesday was postponed due to bad weather on the course but we did manage to see a bit in the evening session. We headed back to Shearer's Wall at Braddan only to find that there was a housing development blocking access. How very rude - me and my family have been watching there for years. Hopefully it will be accessible again once construction is finished. So we headed just a little further around to Braddan Old Kirk for the lightweight Classic race and then to Braddan Church for the Sidecar parade.

Thursday started off a bit wet so we chilled in tents reading and drinking coffee, then headed out later in the day to the Manx Motor Museum at Jurby. I've been there a few times now but there's always something new and interesting to see. This time it was Rob being squeezed into and out of a Bonneville Land Speed Record car!

Suddenly it was Friday and our last day. Tents were packed away; not a trace was left and we headed down into Douglas to enjoy ice creams and last minute shopping before trying to catch the Classic Senior race before we needed to check in for the ferry. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas and it was postponed twice before ultimately being cancelled due to rain. A real shame as it was the one race that Louis really wanted to see - well really he just wanted to see the Norton Rotary on full chat down Bray Hill, but it was not to be.

What it did mean was that we only just made check in and were pretty much last on again!

So the lads headed back to the Midlands and I headed back to Wirral after what had been a really lovely break. We didn't watch much racing but we'd all agreed that wasn't really what we were there for - it was all about being on the Island with lots of other like minded people.

A couple of days later, I headed back for home again along the A55, dodging most of the showers but fighting gusty winds for the second half of the journey. This beautiful rainbow pretty much summed up how I felt about the whole week.

And so we arrived back on Anglesey, with more souvenirs on the flyscreen after just less than 500 miles. I am so impressed with how the Crusader has dealt with the last couple of weeks, clocking up almost 800 miles. She has now been "de-oiled", cleaned and put into hibernation for winter; with some well earned maintenance and improvements planned ready for more fun in 2026.