clutch was engaged . But a postie bike has an automatic clutch , and only engages when shifting gear or stopped . Once the revs build up , a postie bike will normally leap away from the start like a rabbit , well maybe a slow rabbit , but not this time , there were plenty of revs but no forward motion . I stared at the clutch housing , it seemed fine . The problem was internal and seemed terminal .
We loaded the bike into a ute , and I spent the morning riding shotgun , listening to Pink Floyd , and chatting . We negotiated a long sandy track up and down steep dunes , so steep at times that a rubber strip had been laid over the sand by someone to aid traction . At the bottom of a hill were the rest of the group , exhausted ,
lying on the ground , panting , and recovering from the arduous climbs and soft sand .
Somehow my choice of vehicle had turned out to be serendipitous . We were on a beach somewhere in West Australia , overlooking the Great Australian Bight . I was looking forward to not riding any more sand , then the ride leader came to me suggesting I could ride the beach , on a bike left behind by a rider who had abandoned the ride . He suggested that riding on the beach was an experience not to be missed , but time was of the essence as the tide was coming in .
We dragged the abandoned postie bike off a truck and kicked it into life . I set off down the beach , staying as close as possible to the shoreline , where the sand is firmest , being careful not to get swamped by the breaking waves . The bike had not fared well in its owner ’ s accident ; the handlebars were bent , and the steering was skewed , and I had to fight the bars so as not to be end up in the water . I lost ! My arms were too weak to fight .
The bike was swamped by a wave and the engine died , helped by the postie bike ’ s horizontal cylinder layout . A liberal dousing with Water Dispersant and the bike fired up again , only to succumb to a flat tyre . I had unnecessarily reduced the tyre pressures to gain traction on the sand , and now was faced with fixing a flat on the beach with the tide rapidly advancing . Fortunately , I was well practised and there was no shortage of help and spare tubes at the ready , and we left the beach just as the tide was lapping at the tea trees on the edge of the shore .
The plan was to camp at Israelite Bay , so named because of the local indigenous practise of circumcision . Think back now to when a GPS was a small handheld device , with an LCD screen and very unreliable , in this instance in a group of twenty odd riders , and only one GPS .
Darkness was rapidly approaching , and another interesting feature of the bike I was riding was that the headlight was missing , presumed broken . By the time it was dark , my only choice was to follow another rider at close quarters and navigate by the dim glow of his feeble headlight . Eventually we found a campsite in an abandoned telegraph station , a building rapidly being consumed by incoming sand dunes . I was thankful for the shelter and a solid surface on which to dismantle my bike and find the root cause of the lack of progress . I laid the bike on its side and carefully removed the clutch housing .
The clutch retaining spring had let go , meaning the clutch plates simply
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