Missives from the 6th Floor

This time, it's the motorcycles.

My Trophy needs a chain, a front tire, and an oil change. The oil change, I can do myself - no problem. But I can't mount and balance tires, and from looking at the service book, removing and installing an endless chain is a serious bit of work involving removing the swing-arm.

I'll admit I was spoiled while living in Chino Hills. Not only was the local Triumph dealer awesome - my ride from the house to the dealer was too.

There are three shops in the greater Seattle area who claim to work on Triumphs. One's about 15 minutes from work - but they had the Trophy 3k miles ago, and I was underwhelmed with their workmanship and attention to detail.

There's another in Redmond - about 20 minutes from work, and the third I know of is in Lynnwood.

There's an independent shop just a few miles from my house who I'd be happy to give my money to - but my last two attempts to get him to work on my bikes have met with "sorry - I can't reliably get parts for Triumphs, so I'm just not going there any more." Oh, and did I mention he's not open on weekends?

So I'm either going to have to figure out a ride between the shop and work, and have the work done on a weekday, sacrifice a weekend day, or convince the local guy to do it, in which case I can work from home and Dawnise can get me to and from the shop.

I miss Tom and the crew at So Cal Triumph.

And so do my bikes.