13 December, 2010

All done up with a red ribbon – Day 26

Odo 609

One of the tales my Mother used to tell of travels in India: While negotiating for a pass to get into a restricted area she asked “Did the British leave you with all this red tape?” to which the proud response was “No MemSahib, they left us much red tape, but we have invented much much more of our own.”

I've noticed a recurring theme in electric vehicle blogs of travails with registration authorities. I had no problems at all however I've had plenty of issues with the registration people not liking the dinoburners that have shared my life.

Recently they introduced the “take a ticket” system a the local RTA. It's got its good and bad points. One used to just sit there for an interminable wait. Now you've got a ticket with a time stamp on it so you sit there knowing exactly how long they've left you cooling your heels. Now I work in a call centre and if anyone has to wait more than 20 seconds to speak to a consultant heads begin to roll. Last time I was in the RTA it was 48 minutes. But now I've got it sussed. I now pop in, collect a ticket, then go shopping and pop back on my way home. Works a treat. But I digress...

Today the bike ran faultlessly and got me where I wanted to go in that Zero Fuss way that it does. However I was late back to work after lunch. I ran into a bee at 80 km/h. It was bad. Not as bad as when I ran into a flock of ducks at the end of the main straight at Eastern Creek on a CBR1000. Bad and distracting. As it slammed into the space between my temple and the helmet liner my concentration went to pot. I did manage to extract it without getting myself stung. The helmet took the bullet for me.

Another small milestone. I've covered 600 km, which is the distance that I drove to pick the bike up. From now on the bike is reducing the total distance driven on the car.

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