Craiga Blog

This trip was planned by the CADAM group to visit St Omer in France for a taster weekend, the plan was to visit a few nice towns, cemeteries, first world war trenches and monuments.

Our trip ended early as we got just over the Belgium border, we had only travelled about 50 miles and got to a small town named Poperinge on the N308. When coming out of a corner, at no more then 20mph, the bike just cut out, it rolled to a

stop just outside the local bus/train station car park. I tried to restart the bike but as I hit the starter buttonnothing was happening, no starter motor, no clicking, nothing. All the lights on the display seemed normal, but it just wouldn’t start. As I was trying everything I could think of Gary and Mick pulled over to see what was up. We tried a few things checking the stand switch and gears, even tried bump starting it, all with no joy, so I told the guys to carry on and that I would phone for help and hopefully catch them up later on. I have BMW Assist on the bike, which is lucky, as this was the 3rd time I’ve had to use them  - this wasn’t the first time the bike wouldn’t start.

Last August the bike had the starter switch replaced due to the same sort of issue, but it seemed to be more due to heat, if the bike was moved into the shade it would start after a while. Though this wasn’t the case on this occasion, but I did move the bike into the shade just in case!  After a phone call to the BMW helpline, and trying to explain where we were, they advised that as it was a Saturday, and just after 12pm, that all the BWM dealers were shut and would not open again until monday. They told me the bike couldn’t be repaired, and as we had told them we was returning on sunday, the only option was to be recovered back home. I wasn’t pleased, but then I also didn’t want to be stuck in Belgium, they did offer to find a hotel for the night or to take us to St Omer but I figured  we still wouldn’t be able to get back to the Euro Tunnel, that it would be best to get back, we were lucky we didn’t get stuck somewhere a lot more remote.

After a few phone calls from BMW to find out what the best way of returning us back was, it was decided that we needed to get to Dunkirk and pay for a ferry back to Dover. Due to good old health and safety we weren’t allowed to push the bike onto, or off of the ferry, so the only way was for the recovery vehicle to take the bike onto the ferry, unload it and drive off, then at Dover the recovery vehicle to meet us on the ferry, load the bike up, and get us home, simple, yes…? Aahhhhh, noooo…

After 1&1/2 hours or so a Belgium recovery vehicle arrived to take us to Dunkirk. This was a small van with two seats and two recovery people. They immediately began to check the battery over before noticing there were two of us and then having loud shouting conversation in French between themselves and saying they were not told there two of us to recover.

They had a trailer with them and said they would take us to the Port. I had to push and steer the bike on to the trailer up a steep narrow ramp. The recover guy yelled at me not to step on the trailer, then yelled at me to get on the trailer whilst he and Alexa pushed it. The other recovery person watched. Then they opened the back of the van and I had to sit on a wooden box surrounded by jump leads and tools, whilst Alexa had to sit on her knees to fit in.

In the back of the van we could not see a lot, after half an hour on the road we were thinking we must soon be at Dunkirk. We turned into a car park, the van stopped and the recovery people got out. They opened the back door of the van, said to go into the office and jumped into another vehicle and drove away. We had no idea where we were, or what was going on. We went into the office where a demand for €120 was made. After calling my contact William at BMW Assist he said not to be concerned this would be arranged and we would get to the port. The office person, after more phone calls, said their recovery service would take us to the port and to wait for the recovery people to return. We asked where we were and found we were in Ypres.

After another half an hour the recovery people came back and said the guys father was on route to take us. While we were waiting, sat next to the trailer on the ground, we saw what condition it was in, covered in moss, cracks in the tyres, broken bits. The motorcycle was strapped firmly on but the condition of the trailer was concerning. Finally the recovery man’s father arrived and they moved the trailer across to another vehicle, an old 4×4, with 2 seats. The wooden box was moved into the back for Alexa to sit on (I did offer the front seat but she didn’t want to sit next the nasty old man hehe!) The old guy asked how to get to Dunkirk.

Having never been to Dunkirk we had no idea! We agreed to go down the autoroute and look out for signs to Dunkirk and the Ferry Terminal. The old guy went very quickly down the autoroute and so missed several turnings and took a long time to get there. Finally we did arrive.

Having missed the 4pm ferry, though we would have probably made it if we had gone direct from Poperinge, the next crossing was not until 8pm. We bought our tickets and went successfully through check in and passport control. Advised again by the ferry company they could recover my bike but we needed to board by recovery vehicle unload the bike, secure it and have another recovery vehicle to get off, we were all set.

Having not had a toilet break or anything to eat or drink (except sharing our emergency jam sandwiches!) we went into the terminal for a comfort break. Whilst in there I was phoned by the office of the recovery people (the lady who had demanded the €120) she said the old guy could not wait, we were fit and able to push the bike on ourselves and he could go home. Explaining he had to drive us on as per the Ferry’s regulations she did not agree and I advised her to ring BMW Assist as they were arranging this transfer. We went back out the trailer again and the old guy was on his phone. He said he was not told he would have to wait this long and would not be paid. After more phone calls he did stay, but not after stressing us out at getting this close to the ferry that we would be stuck, especially as the temperature had really dropped outside now.

Finally the ferry came in and we were loaded on first. The old guy rushed off as soon as it was off the trailer. The Ferry staff were great and strapped the bike down and we went off relieved to have got on! We were met easily at Dover by the UK recovery van (SOS Motorcycles) thanks to BMW Assist for arranging this for us. We arrived back home at midnight. The motorcycle was collected the following Wednesday morning and taken to Cannon’s in Braintree.Although this was a stressful day we were grateful to the support and attention from BMW Assist, the ferry staff and the SOS recovery guy in the UK.

The really anoying thing was I went out to look at the bike on Sunday, the day after we got back, and hit the starter switch with the palm of my hand, and guess what? It bloody started! I wasn’t impressed. So now every time I tried it, it started, no problem, so Cannon’s would have a real job now finding the fault.

After 2 days at Cannon’s, and them not being able to reproduce the fault with no errors on the diags, they replaced the complete starter button cluster. They told me then, that last time, they had only replaced the actual starter micro switch, inside the starter/kill switch, last August. So I’m hoping that now it is fixed, but I can only ride it and see, and hope!

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