Germans...

... or specifically German Engineers really do say what they mean! My motorcycle (German as it happens) has a neat feature that counts down remaining kilometers when the petrol level
drops below one quarter. I had the pleasure of seeing it in action this morning when, on the way into work, petrol was getting pretty low and by the time I arrived at my office it had only 2 kilometers in the tank. As an optimist (others may use more colourful descriptions) I took that as 2 kilometers and a bit extra... you know, a little bit extra just in case. That evening the first thing on my to-do list was getting to the nearest petrol station.

Luckily, I thought, it wasn't far... literally down the road. Unluckily it was a pretty long road which turned out to be 2.5 kilometers. As I approached the 2 kilometer mark and within sight of the petrol station the bike slowly lost power and gracefully glided to the road side. It was amazing... as the counter rolled from 1 kilometer to 0, at exactly the same moment, the bike ran dry.

I put the side stand down, put my helmet and gloves into one of the panniers before I stated to push. I knew this bike was heavy but after a hundred meters it started to get very heavy, and got even heavier and heavier with every step. After negotiating a major junction and two sets of tram lines I made it to the petrol station where I one last obstacle to scale, a short but sharp uphill ramp into the station. After a final big push I was in.

Never again will I second guess anything this motorcycle tells me! I've learnt the hard way that there are no if, buts or maybes... it tells you the way it is and that's that, ignore it and you will be sorry! I'm off to re-read the user manual...