Scooperman! – February 2017

The sunny side of the classic world, with the VJMC’s Steve Cooper

Okay, it’s well and truly shed season now. Lots of us are beavering away in wooden boxes, brick edifices and the like.

If you are very fortunate there will be at least some heating and if you’re truly blessed the bike working area is attached to the house – which means you enjoy the benefits of a strategically placed radiator or two.

That was the set-up this column enjoyed until four years ago when a house move dictated a slight change of tack and logistics. The down side is that the spannering area no longer has piped heating; the plus side is that it’s substantially bigger. And what do I do? Yes of course, fill the damn thing up with more bikes stupid or what? Like many similarly afflicted, I have enough assignments to last me into the middle distance but I don’t have enough space to swing around the proverbial cat. Thus is the nature of the life we choose to lead.

And then when I found I needed to re-home nine substantial boxes of pre-owned, pre-loved motorcycle ephemera (or junk in the words many a long suffering significant other) stored off-site, insipient panic set in. Where the hell do you store such priceless items ready for use on some future projects? Well of course as is often the case the answer was hiding right there in plain sight.

Some time ago a good mate (thanks Andy K) donated some of his factory racking to muggins here and it was speedily re-erected across the back of the garage, shelved accordingly, with the lower portion used to store this columnist’s sundry machines and work-in-progress. And of course following the old adage – that nature abhors an empty space – the whole area was rapidly filled with sundry tat.

So with the arrival of the storage chests a plan was rapidly hatched for a total rethink of parts storage. Come a cold winter Sunday it’s sort out time. Heavy bulky stuff positioned securely on the lower shelves, lighter stuff above and every container neatly labelled so I actually know what I have. Four hours’ work revealed that (a) I’m a hoarder, (b) I have more parts than I thought, (c) I don’t recall buying half of it and (d) I really don’t need to acquire anything else until this little lot is used. Stock taking your stash helps formulate plans which in turn prioritise the next job. Oh and with all that lifting and sorting I had no need for any kind of heater?

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