Houston, We Have A Problem...

I have been in Jakarta for a couple of days and Bumblebee had been resting next to my neighbour's Beemer GS1300 over the time. After I settled down, I thought that I might have a short spin around the condo after the brood has gone to bed.

And so I sneaked out of the house and then walked to Bumblebee with the swagger that only a biker possesses. And uh huh, I couldn't get the bike to fire up.

"Houston, we have a problem..."

 
The bike felt like it was going to start up but then the engine would rumbled back to silence. I checked the carb, the fuel gauge (to ensure that it was not at a locked position), etc. The only recent change that I have made to the bike was the installation of the LeoVince exhaust but it was working beautifully the last time I had it on the road.

All my previous bikes had started at the first ignition consistently, so it was a tad disconcerting that this very new bike was having problem starting, and at 2,500 km on the odometer only.

And that was when I glanced at the odometer and found that it was registered as 2,630 km on the odometer.

"Surely that rather big tank can't be good for just 130 km per full tank?", I wondered aloud as I checked the tank.

And sure enough the tank was empty. Looking through the external tank carefully, I found that the hard plastics on the left and right sides, which made the tank looked bigger, were purely for looks.

And the fuel gauge at the engine  should be turned to 12 o'clock ("on" position) while 3 o'clock meant "off" and 6 o'clock meant "reserve".

I had inevitably turned mine to 6 o'clock as I was riding, which meant that there wasn't any reserves for me to get the bike out to a petrol station.

So I hopped in my car and went to pump some petrol into a lubricant bottle; afterwhich I fed the precious liquid into Bumblebee. I pressed the ignition button again and voila, the bike came alive with a roar.

"Houston, we have lift off..."

You could be sure that I'd be looking closely at the odometer from hereon, and a visit to the petrol station every 100km would henceforth be a common norm for this bike.

"Fuel on the go? But is that RON97?"