Riding down the A303 for an afternoon ride on the Kawasaki Z1000SX (just for the fun of it -why not?) and I ended up with my first puncture. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

When it happened the bike immediately leant to the left to match the camber of the road. I just thought that the road surface had changed so I tried to correct it, but couldn’t get the bike to stand fully upright. I changed lane to see if that made a difference and noticed that steering was sluggish, but acceleration and breaking wasn’t really affected.

I pulled over just outside Micheldever and as soon as I stopped in the lay-by and went to put my foot down, noticed it went fully flat. Now I’m not the tallest guy so i knew that either by some miracle I’d grown another inch (unlikely) or I had a flat tire. Checking the back wheel proved I had indeed got a flat…

A quick call to breakdown later, an hour waiting by the side of the road, and a 35 minute ride home on a flatbed and that was the end of my one-way ride.

Big shout out to Ravenscroft Motor Company Limited for the speedy recovery, and for taking the time to fit a plug to the tire so I can at least go and get a new tire without having to call for another recovery.