MAYDAY! Flaming ‘67
I was riding my Honda 67 to Big C supermarket today to buy a couple of badminton rackets. It was about 4:30 so the roads were chockers with bikes. I was at the lights with about 50 bikes behind me, when I sensed something was up with the bike.
I glanced around and saw a little smoke. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, and looked around at other bikes to see if there was a clapped out Honda Cub 50 carrying a tonne of steel next to me, and there wasn’t. I put my foot on the brake, and revved the engine hard to see if the exhaust would puff smoke… bad idea.
You see, engaging the back brake engaged a spring attached to the brake lever, which is attached to a switch, which powers a wire, which reaches a bulb at the back of the bike. A wire which, was already overheating and ready to ignite. This was because the rear bulb area had been fiddled with when a mechanic changed my rear fender.
My bike is powered by the magneto, and not a central battery, and the more you rev, the more power is supplied so stuff like the lights and horn, and as we all know, more electrons means more friction. Frictions leads to heat, and heat leads to fire. And insulation and electrical tape BURNS.
I heard a couple of Vietnamese dudes behind me yelling something in Viet and I looked back and my revving had all but ignited the wire and I had plumes of acrid smoke billowing from under my seat.
Luckily I was at the front of the lights and I just dumped into first, opened the throttle, and set a new course towards the curb screaming MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
I turned off the ignition and jumped off that bike like Divine Brown jumped off Hugh Grant and thought “great… My bike’s gunna fucking explode in the middle of this street, and burn to the ground.”
The smoke dispersed, and I glanced at where the smoke had come from. Sure enough, it was the wire leading to the rear bulb and it was a smouldering matt of thin copper wire and melted plastics.
Within 2 minutes, a guy had pulled his bike up next to me, and was watching me. I pointed to the wire, and did the universal sign for fire which is, while flailing hands you say “WHOOOOOOFFF!” and look up.
He produced a cotton sack filled with tools from where, I’m yet to figure out, and we were removing the seat to expose the wiring lead to see how far the short had gone. As it turns out, about 20cms of wire had melted and was now exposed, begging to touch metal and start all manner of shit.
This didn’t phase my new found friend who went back to his Honda Wave and pulled some scissors out. I mean, he had scissors in his motorcycle. I was beginning to like this guy. He was unmatting the exposed wire from the melted plastic and we then ran the bike to see if anything would catch fire again. It was clean, and no smoke. Good news. Proceed to logical step two… Rubbish.
He spun on his thonged feet and looked down, and plucked a pink plastic bag from the curb and flicked out the remaining couple of beans from the bag, and proceeded to insulate the wire with this plastic bag. After a few minutes of jostling this bag around and ramming it into place with the scissors, we started the bike up again and no fire, no sparks, no harm, no foul.
On goes the seat, and on goes the handshake and that was the end of our acquaintance. He gestured for me to get back on the road with a smile, and I obliged.
The bike made it to Big C and home again without the mildest hiccup or explosion. Which got me thinking about Australia.
If your bike broke down in Australia, you could easily stand on the side of the road for an hour waiting for a m’bike towtruck and no one would help you. You could push that thing without anyone offering to push it with you (them on motorcycle, with foot jammed on the pillion peg pushing you, as they do here). This has happened, everytime my bike has stopped, or I’ve needed to do some roadside mechanics, there’s ALWAYS…. AALLWWAAAYYYSSS someone stopping and a small crowd gathers to help or watch. I’m not talking about isolated events, or “my friend got helped”. I’m talking about every single time.
Wouldn’t happen in Oz! I won’t even be a wanker and ask “why” or “where’s the Aussie brotherhood?”. Skip those steps altogether. It’s not culturally, philosophically or medically relevant.
The Great Australian Dream is to move to Vietnam. Sure, you’ll be away from your friends and family, but you’ll gain an entire country of brothers n sisters, and a rubbery looking Uncle who goes by the name of Ho, who doesn’t complain if you don’t visit him much, but when you do, it’s free and he doesn’t wanna blather on. And you can guarantee that you’ll always win the argument “My uncle could kick your uncle’s ass” because he most likely already did. Just don’t try to wake him up. He’s resting.
Woot! Your own private Viet McGyver! Thanks for the chemistry/pohysic lessons btw…
I had to google pohysics, and came up fairly blank. Have you invented a new natural laws hypothesis SamC?
Oi. You’ve already got an uncle!
I know, but you didn’t become a pastry chef in France, only to decide to leave the French pastry industry to go home to start a revolution against the French. You understand, right?
So its a cooking thing?
Yeah Mooner, you’ve got a point… It’s not like our family to have any kind of falling out over something such as food or cooking.