I have a not-very-consistent tradition of going out for a New Year's Day ride when I am home for New Year's. Here's my motorcycle story:



I need new brakes. Replacing the pads on my bike is pretty easy. It's almost as easy as replacing brake pads on my bicycle. So, I called the local Triumph dealer here in North County; North County Yamaha Triumph. Notice which manufacturer is listed first. This is a foreshadowing of what is to come.



Disclaimer: the only guy who I let work on my bike is Matt Capri, the owner of South Bay Triumph/Aprilia in Lomita. Matt is a magic man with bikes; no one else comes close. But, Lomita is a little far to ride for a set of brake pads, so I use these clowns - North County - in Escondido for simple shit like tires, chains and the occasional part.



I called the parts guy on the phone.



"I need a complete set of brake pads for my 1995 Triumph Trophy 900." Note: a complete set is one set of pads for the back and two sets of pads for the front (I have dual rotor fronts, as do all modern Triumphs EXCEPT the pseudo-retro model Adventurer and Thunderbird).



He looked it up and told me he needed to call his rep to see if that guy has them. He called me back a few minutes later. "Yes, I can get those in tomorrow." Cool! That's New Year's Eve. I can get the pads and then put them in and go for my ride the next day. The next day I went in there and asked for my parts. The girl behind the counter brought out two packages; a set of rears and one set of fronts.



"OK, where's the rest of it?"



"Uh... this is all we have." The manager was there and he apologized. They confirmed the order and they confirmed that the order should have had 2 sets of fronts. So, I am annoyed. Not only will I have to ride on New Year's Day with my getting-nearly-worn-out front pads, I'll have to come back to get the other set this Saturday. I fucking hate motorcycle parts guys who don't know their own inventory.



I came home and put the rears in. No problems, they worked fine. They rub on the rotor a little but new pads always do that.



I went to the neighborhood NYE party and managed to not get too drunk. I wake up about 8:30 AM the next morning and thought, "Hey! I'm not hungover! Let's go for a ride!" I got dressed, fed the cats and went out to the garage. I smack the door opener button, the door starts to open and at about the 3/4 point the opener starts FREAKING OUT so I hit the button again and stop the motor. It turns out a tensioning spring in the chain drive broke so now the door won't open. What's worse is the big springs on the door aren't strong enough to hold the door open on it's own.



I curse for a while and then took some measurements. I've wanted a roll-up door for a while anyway; this is a good excuse to replace the old door and the opener. I realize the storage cabinets along one of the walls are too tall to allow a roll-up track clearance. Shit, now what? I resign myself to having to move that cabinet to a different location in the garage. I drive over to the Loewe's to get the garage door lowdown. I ask about opener parts; they don't sell individual repair parts. Then we talk about new doors and installation. These clowns won't guarantee installation for 3 weeks ("but they've been usually getting to them in 2.")



"Well, 2 weeks is about 13 days too long, man. My garage is unusable right now. It's dangerous!"



So, I said, out loud, in the parking lot, "Fuck it! I'm going for a ride!"



I came home, propped the door open and the bike out, fired it up and rode to Julian for lunch and then came home, washed it and put it back in the garage. I put the car in the driveway in case the door decided it didn't want to even stay 3/4 open anymore. It was like that all this week.



I had a guy come yesterday to give me an estimate on a door and an opener. We talked about the clearance issues and he gave me a heads-up on what I need to do. His door price was OK but his opener price was too high. I thought about it and decided that since I had to move one of the storage cabinets on the left side and remove one of those crappy shelves Dad and I are going to remove when we do the shop bench soon I decided to forego the door for now and just buy a new opener.



So, I did that today. It took all day but it went very well and works fine so I am happy. I was able to use the mounting locations and some of the existing hardware from the old one and that made things go much easier. The door itself is not square in the frame but I'm not worried about it; in a few months I will replace it with a roll up door anyway.