Motourama Part 16: Phoenix’ First – And Second – Breakdown

Hello family, friends and followers! It’s time to see what’s wrong with Phoenix.

As the clonking sound from Phoenix’ engine was getting hard to ignore, we drove her to Honda Arher in Krakow, the very next day. We made sure to get there early, so they would have as much time as possible to diagnose her problems. As we arrived, we were told, that the mechanic had his day off that day, but that he would come in to have a look anyways. The first sign of just how epic this man was. While we waited, we went to work ourselves, and disassembled the speedometer gear to clean it out from the shredded teeth. The task was not less tedious than the last time, but we got it done quicker, as it already had become a routine.

Taking off the front wheel with the help of one of our favourite tools: a Liftstick purchased from Louis in Germany

Picking routine

The mechanic came not long after and got right down to business. By using a long screwdriver as a stetoscope, he tried to locate the source of the clonking by placing the tip on the engine case at different locations, while listening through the handle. As we had feared, he also thought that it might be the cam chain tensioner. Ordering a new cam chain tensioner would have taken 8 weeks, which would have ruined our trip. Luckily for us, Adrian was a mechanic wizard and had the bike done in less than 48 hours. He replaced a spring in the tensioner and tightened it up again. He said it might hold for a thousand, maybe ten thousand kilometres. Let’s see how that goes. The speedometer gear had also been replaced, so Phoenix was ready to stride in all her glory once again.

To celebrate, we went on a road trip to the Auschwitz Museum, despite the rainy weather. This proved to be a folly, as Phoenix decided to have a lie down, just before we got there. Esben made a right turn, where a cyclist was going straight ahead and when Denise got to the turn, the cyclist decided to slow down a lot, forcing her to perform an emergency brake in a turn. Not a good idea on wet tarmac, ’cause the front wheel slipped away under her immediately. Luckily nobody was injured seriously, but Phoenix did not think it was fun, all bend up and twisted at the front legs. When Denise pointed the handlebars straight she showed a serious tendency to go to one side. One blinker, that was now hanging down looking sad, was fixed on site.

Sad blinker, fixed with electrical tape in a jiffy.

Eventually we got to Auschwitz, but it turned out that we had to wait 3 hours for a time slot to get in, and with the museum packed full of tourists from a fleet of tour busses, we retreated slowly back to the Honda workshop instead. We had to laugh at ourselves, as Adrian came out to meet us with a confused look on his face. As we told him what had happened, he looked at us and then the bike with a serious expression. ”Do you have 15 minutes time?” came across his lips. Hell yea we did! He fixed it in 10. Our hero of the day. An absolute legend of a man.

Adrian in the workshop, working impressively efficient. So efficient, he is a blur!

Thank you Adrian!

Until next time, a toast for mechanics like Adrian.