Was coming down the A40 bout 1.00pm after a lil blast round Denim way, heading to the ace Just past the target round about was confronted with a wall of grey smoke and the stink of oil. Bout 100 yards up in the right hand lane was a late model estate that had obviously blow its engine but was still driving, the same time as seeing the offender i noticed i was now in a half meter wide oil slick. i moved over a land and slowly tried to filter up to the car (whilst trying to avoid using brakes to hard) as i got nearly beside him he changed over a lane in front of me briefly showering my pride and joy, me and my new leathers in a fine mist of oil and forcing me to ride thru the continuing oil slick. he drove straight past the greenford turn off and any chance of pulling over till after the fly over until nearly Perivale. When i did get beside him (on the inside as he was staying in the middle lane now) i started gesticulating ( making slashing of throat signs and pointing to pull over) then sped up, he pulled over another lane, contemplated pulling into the bus stop i was pointing at but carried on.
this pisses me off. oil leaks should be part of the mot, cant tell you how many customers shrug their shoulders when i lecture them. thinking of one particular customer whos gear box was leaking badly just laughed and said i know, i have been topping it up regularly(home mechanic) and full time fireman. wounder how many people or body's he has cut free.
this wasnt even a lil leak the whole contents of the engine was being jettisoned. i was amazed really at the amount, obviously hot oil spreads a lot further but it was like a 2 foot wide shiny slick for a good 3-400 mtrs till i got past
I get the impression that oil slicks on roads are a great deal less common than they used to be back in the day. Or perhaps it's just me.
tbh apart from the usual stuff you see in the middle of a lane when it rains ive not uncounted any thing to bad and certainly never been right behind one in progress before. it must be getting better in general though given the volume of cars on the road is ever increasing
I was walking down a quiet lane in Gloucestershire years back, and could smell a diesel slick. When I got to it, wow, the entire road, for about 200 metres, was covered in diesel. I can only assume someone had put the wrong fuel in their car and decided to jettison it at the side of the road, it would have took many gallons to cover the area it covered. Being on a hill the diesel simply spread out. It was tricky just to walk on. I walked down the road to find a house or phone box. Inevitably half a mile down the road I could hear a bike coming, then I heard the crash. I ran back to help the rider, who was thankfully in one piece, but neither of us had a phone so all we could do was wait for a car and flag them down. Called the police and waited. And waited. While I'm at the top of the road stopping cars, I could hear cars coming up the hill crashing into the scenery. It took the police over an hour to arrive, by which time there was carnage, one car that weaved past me as I tried to stop them just pirouetted down the hill and into the trees, and there were 4 damaged cars at the bottom, plus the bike.
The old bus garage in Kingston was notorious for buses jettisoning diesel as they left after having had their tanks topped to the brim. I was going round the one-way system and hit one of these lines of splattered diesel while in a gentle curve to the right. Both wheels let go and then gripped again. Luckily, I was on a great-handling bike, which twitched but didn't spit me off. What was it? A Ducati 450 Desmo...
No bubbles to burst. I always used to admire the 70s MZ with it's stubby low bars, big square cylinder and alloy levers. It was rather like a lightweight BMW. I've always felt the Ducati saved me but maybe you saved the MZ. If not, that only reinforces my esteem for the bike.
... soft long travel suspension, engine-speed clutch, quiet silencer, neat alloy castings everywhere, rather old-fashioned design ... yes, just like a BMW. I used to say this, but people wouldn't agree.
well now you've discovered someone who does. I didn't find the design old-fashioned, I thought it functional and purposeful, rather than stylized.
