If it ain't one foccing thing, it's another...!
My new Starter Relay turned up yesterday and, as soon as I'd got it installed, there was no sign of the Error 12 and it started on the button!
Unfortunately I didn't have the time to do a check ride yesterday, but it seemed ok.
So today, despite the ongoing lack of a sidestand (it was supposed to have been delivered by Hermes on either Friday or Saturday, yeah, right) which meant that I had to get my girlfriend to help hold the bike up whilst I got on (I've got short legs and can't get my leg over [snigger] and get it off the centre stand).
Everything was fine until I was on my way out of Portsmouth and, whilst I was stopped at traffic lights on the roundabout at the bottom of the Mile End Road, the engine suddenly cut out.
I pressed the starter and it fired ok, but then, about 100 yards short of where it changes to the M275, the engine died on me entirely and left me stranded against the kerb of the central reservation as traffic on my left prevented me pulling over that way.
Unfortunately, I was now stuck, because I couldn't get off the bike without the side stand and, even if I could, since I was loaded up with panniers and top box full of stock (I was on my way to a Market), I wouldn't have been able to get it onto the centre stand
Fortunately, another biker was not far behind me and saw I was in trouble, so pulled up behind me, got off and directed traffic to go "underneath" me, then gave me a hand to get the bike across the road and into a bus stop on the non-motorway side of the road and then lift it onto the centre stand.
I tried the starter again without any luck and when I switched off and back on again, I couldn't hear the pump priming.
So I lifted the tank checked the fuel pump connector was securely in place, the breather pipe wasn't kinked and, because something like this had happened years ago when I first got the bike, I flicked the Kill Switch a few times as a duff KS had resulted in a similar situation.
Thankfully, when I tried the starter again, it fired and, by leaning the left pannier against a litter bin, I was able to remount and ride on.
Of course this did mean that every time the bike went over a bump or I was buffetted by a bit of wind, I was paranoid that it was going to cut out again.
Fortunately that didn't happen and someone helped hold the bike at the market when I arrived so I could park up and the ride home was uneventful, so, with any luck, the new side stand will arrive tomorrow and I can get back on and off properly, then do a proper check ride
Oh and a PS to this: The Market was in Rottingdean near Brighton.
Whilst I was riding back down the Bazehill road towards Rottingdean, there was a guy standing by a car on the side of the road who appeared to be staring at me and seemed to be shading his eyes or something.
It wasn't until I was about 100 yards past him and about to turn a corner that I suddenly thought "Hang on, was that a FOC-U salute?!"
So if it was, and it was you, my apologies for not responding, but I was worrying about whether the bike was going to keep running and the gravel and pot-holes in the road!