The Black Bullet 1.1 - Miles Covered: 23.5

Bugger, I've broken it. It's nearly 60 years old, lots of owners i'm sure, but I'm the idiot who broke the bloody carburettor. All I did was clamp it in a vice to hold it when it crumbled like a stale easter egg. It's old, I see now, and the grey metal they made things out of in the 50s isn't steel but I didn't think of that at the time.

I had studied exploded diagrams of these carbs on the net, sourced an Imperial toolkit, set aside time from a busy work/family schedule, run through the process in my mind, step by step, and gingerly prised the carb off the bike to take it apart in the shed and clean it. It's hard to see what I've done wrong but take one look at the immediate result of my careful attention and right just doesn't describe it.

Perhaps this is what all vintage bike owners are supposed to feel like. Desperate to get out there, flies in the teeth, but stopped in their tracks by what is basically a pile of old crap, at least by modern standards. I'm not sure I'm up for this now. I feel Canute-like, trying to hold back the tide of entropy.

I can't leave it here though, defeat has a bitter aftertaste that never goes away. I feel a call to Hitchcocks coming on.