The beginning

On the 21st of June at 8pm I was stood, on hold to the bank whilst Cal frantically rewired his trailer in a farm courtyard. 2 hours drive from home I was facing the very real prospect of having to unload my as yet unpaid for bike and go home empty handed and defeated. The bike in question is the Honda NSR250 MC28 SE.
I came across this bike a month earlier on eBay and had put a low bid in, you know, just in case. Unsurprisingly I was outbid and all was forgotten until a fortnight later when the seller emailed me with tails of wow from a line of crap ebayers and as a result was prepared to take the hit and sell it to me for this low bid. Well the chance to own the much talked about MC28 with its smart card and digital PGM4 ignition for the the price of an MC21 was not going to be missed!
 I met my good friend and colleague Cal at work where he had kindly offered to help me, with the use of his trailer, to go pick up this new bike as I had no trailer of my own and the bike was unregistered. This had been quite a faff to organize as we were both very busy and this had been the only day of the month that we could have reasonably made the trip.
This is where I was to make my first mistake. two weeks before we had driven down to the BMF show at Peterborough and Cal had had a satnav, not today however. Not to wary though, I had a satnav on my phone and it was pretty good as well.
The day was sunny, the trailer was hitched and we were on our way to Ashbourn with plenty of time to get there for 1700. Much chatter was made and scenery taken in as we were guided on our way by the satnav. As the miles war on however it became pretty clear that the phones batter wasn't going to last the journey. It wasn't going to last the next 5 minutes in fact and neither of us had a charger. by this point finding Ashbourn wasn't going to be a problem but finding a farm in an area you don't know was, but more importantly I was going to struggle to make the online payment I had planned to when I got there.
Mercifully we found a Sainsburys that after a run about served up the charging lead we required. The journey from here on was short and uneventful. We met Alan only 15 minutes later than planned. The bike was run up and we poured over it before agreeing the sale. A formality as I was taking that bike home even if it was a total lemon!
I went about transferring the money to Alans account where it became clear that my wonderful phone app wasn't going to let me do that so I called the bank who were more than happy to do it over the phone. All done, all we had to do was wait for the funds to transfer. So we loaded the bike and went for a wonder round Alans grotto of imported Japanes bikes. Two barns full of NSR's, RGV's a couple of TZR reverse cylinders and a rather out of place looking thundercat along with various parts.
Checking his laptop the funds hadn't transferred yet and he joked how it had taken half an hour once. We laughed and Cal pointed out that the lights weren't working on his trailer so he would have to leave me behind if that happened. Oh we laughed.
More time was consumed by looking at various oddities including some rather special titanium expansion chambers from a GP bike of the past and a complete RG500 side fairing that couldn't have weighed more than a fag packet.
Still the funds hadn't transferred.
Apologizing for holding everyone up I rang the bank back.
"Sorry sir but fraud protection have flagged this up for a security check so the funds won't go through till tomorrow as they have now gone home" Explained the chap on the other end of the phone.
I explained my situation, to which he was surprisingly sympathetic and offered to cancel the transaction and try it in smaller chunks.
By now over an hour had passed and it was starting to become clear we were going to run out of light. Cal borrowed tools and set about diagnosing the wiring fault that had been plaguing his trailer. I spread apologies liberally to both of them.
A few security questions later and the first half was going though. Well it was until a security check was mandated. A long list of questions that I could vaguely answer later and it had gone through. As I was put back to the original operator I had been talking to earlier it tuned out he had been busy. This chap (that I sadly forgot his name) went about finding someone who could put this transaction through so canceling that previous half a transaction before he put me through to someone else.
She had some questions for me. Possibly the most vague questions I have ever received. Lists of names were read to me in heavily accented English and I was asked if I knew any of them. The same was done for place names only if I had lived there ever. This went on for 10 minutes before I was informed all was well and she even held me on the phone until the money had cleared my account.
Oh the relief!
Hours had passed, Cals fault diagnosis had taken him deep into the rear light cluster of his car, poking relay boxes with a continuity tester. I proudly strolled into farm house and told Alan to check his bank account. nothing. The money had left my account but we were now waiting on his to accept the money!
It was now getting dark, Alan was packing his things away (what a trooper for sticking around this long!) but on the plus side we were gradually gaining lights. First indicators then followed by the rest as Cal bridged a faulty relay box taking power directly from the cars light cluster all the time getting less and less frequent updates on the lack of funds in Alans account.
Wiring bodged, we considered our options for what we would do next. If the funds weren't there the bike was going nowhere. That's fair enough, nobody wants to get scammed but as the minute hand started to creep up to 10 we were facing having to organize this trip all over again. Despair was entrenched as Alan came outside "The funds are in, now fuck off" he said with a smile.
Oh the relief! Saying our goodbyes (well we had been there long enough to make friends!) we set off, for the nearest chippy. Fed and hydrated we made the largely uneventful two hour journey home finally getting back for 0100.
I owe Cal allot more than half a tank of fuel and some chips and Alan was a saint to wait for so long, he would have even offered us dinned if we weren't so busy pinching his tools! Thank you to them both.
And so it begins, the project NSR.