Embarrassing? Oh yeah...

[gamgee]

we all do stupid embarrassing things, just last thursday i went for a blat over the southern motorway, got stuck behind some stupid sacked out old ford fairmont or something, they were doing about 60km/h (if they went any faster the bumps made them hit the ground) so first chance i got passed them, anyway, that was all fine, came to the end of the motorway filtered through, *glug*glug*splutter*splutter* stop... shhhhit I ran out of petrol right at the front of the que, just as the light turned green, quickly flicked it over to reserve cranked the petrol through and started it up, by which time the stupid ford had roared back past me, damn it!!!

[Paul in NZ]

Took a bike out for a test run from a dealer; - I won't mention which one - went up and down the driveway before pulling out onto the road, got too excited and went straight across the road and binned it opposite the shop.

Well yes - pretty embarrasing but not unique...

In their hey day most of the british factories were regularly approached by folks volunteering to demonstrate the reliability of their products by riding them to places like South Africa, India, Around the World etc etc and all the factory had to do was supply a suitable bike free of charge... hmmm...

Most of these doubtless worthy offers of ,free, promotional activity were politely declined but every now and then something would spark some interest and a deal would be struck and a machine made availiable.

Triumph prepared a special machine for one such worthy. On the appointed day the adventurer arrived at the factory and luggage suitable for an extended adventure was loaded onto the machine and pictures were taken, speaches made and manly handshakes exchanged as the intrepid pilot engaged low gear and headed down the factory driveway on the path to glory....

He managed the driveway but failed to negotiate the turn at the bottom and went straight across the junction and into the ditch on the other side, much to the consternation of the marketting dept that had invested some coin into the venture.

It seemed the rider had neglected to mention that he had never actually ridden a motorcycle before....