No, it’s not Tennis and it’s not Cricket. And it’s been a long long time since I ever had regular contact with the Wimbledon & District Motorcycle Club, but I still see a few old-time ex-members down the pub now and again. I’m sure one of them plays the trombone…..Anyway, the Club is giving me a problem.
I’m one of the proud owners of the solid steel, heavily chrome-plated, enamelled, individually numbered machine badges that were made back in the 1960s.

A Very Nice Badge

I still vaguely remember all the financial analysis carried out by the club and solemn questions asked before we took the plunge and ordered a batch, at huge expense. We examined the fiduciary implications of that expenditure three times more thoroughly than any bank ever examined sub-prime mortgages before they bought eleventy-eight billion pounds worth of debt that the borrowers could never repay.

And the problem the club gives me?

I’d really like to fix this badge to my TTR250 for the Cape Town journey. Somewhere where it’ll have pride of place. But it’s heavy. And just about every bit of bike that something can be attached to, will have luggage of some sort attached to it.
And what’s more, it might disappear, or be otherwise removed, and I definitely wouldn’t want that to happen.

So what to do??

If Rustus McCrankpin still writes his advice page in the club magazine, ‘The Windmill’, I’ll ask him. Maybe he has a column on the internet now.