One day one photo - 19: Welcome back to the fun Honda Monkey motorbike

Honda Monkey at Ditchling Beacon

This was the celebratory photo I took of my motorcycle at Ditchling Beacon earlier this month on my first ride down to Brighton. It was one of the few times recently when the Monkey started without any problems before things went downhill significantly and I had to do a few rounds with breakdown services and motorcycle mechanics. I'm glad that the problem is now fixed.

It's nice to be able to ride my Honda Monkey without worrying that it wasn't going to start. It's just great to be back with the fun Monkey, as opposed to the rather sickly monkey over the last couple of months.

Throughout last summer, through the winter and spring my motorbike had started without fail, and without the need for a trickle charger or jump leads. Then I had this dodgy period where the motorcycle just seemed to become more and more difficult to start. It totally failed to do so a few times, with the battery losing charge at an ever increasing rate. I became more familiar with the breakdown recovery service than I would have liked. The bike even failed to start on one occasion after I had left it parked for 2 hours during my orchestra rehearsal - despite having left it on trickle charge for the whole day before going out on it.

When it comes to that, things become quite stressful and you realise you can't take the bike anywhere. Also, it won't do for someone to just say "you need a new battery" or "it's the tracker that is draining your battery". 

Thankfully a good mechanic had the presence of mind to check out the underlying cause and pinpoint the problem to a faulty rectifier. So that has been replaced, as has the battery - with a good quality Yuasa one. So now I am a happy rider. 

I can't say how relieved I feel just to be able to start the engine and be greeted to the sound of the rumbling of a healthy engine. I imagine my Monkey is also very happy to have properly working innards too!

So I look forward to doing some more trips to interesting places before winter sets in.