Roger

Here’s a little addendum to my previous post this morning. After writing it I finally received a message from the testing station near Paris that deals with the approval of imported vehicles. It said that they cannot help me until I have approached the local office of the DREAL who will decide on what visual and other tests will be required to approve the bike.

Now, I’ve already been fobbed off by the DREAL and it’s interesting that I should therefore be referred back to them so I made contact afresh this morning. And what did I encounter? More obfuscation.

Someone who is closely involved in the process asked if my bike is from China and when told that it is, replied that that makes it ‘difficult’. So it’s obvious that what is happening is a concerted strategy of imposing barriers to Chinese electric bikes coming into France, and possibly all Chinese electric vehicles for all I know.

It was implied that I wouldn’t be able to get approval for a single bike – although this is the point of being able to homologate a single vehicle for personal use – only the whole series, which would be a very expensive process. I was asked to submit my request with full details by email, so this is what I’m going to do. But seeing French bureaucracy operating in full flow in detriment to the interests of the individual is certainly not a pretty sight 😐

Well, it looks as though my (short) foray into e-biking is soon to come to an end. This morning the supplier sent me a label to be attached to the bike for shipping back to their warehouse. It’s with a very respectable shipper – Kuehne & Nagel- so it’s serious and will have been quite costly to arrange as it’s going all the way back to Chelmiec in southern Poland, of all places.

I’ve now got to pack the bike ready for shipping. I don’t think it will have to be totally stripped the way it was when it was delivered – components like the luggage rack and lighting will be able to stay on but items like the pedals and handlebars will have to be removed so they don’t stick out. I’ll shortly be leaving to drive to Leroy Merlin to buy a roll of bubble wrap and although I was planning to service my Savannah today I think I’ll then move straight on to packing the bike up ready for shipping.

I’ll be sorry to see it go and I’ll be telling the supplier that if the manufacturer does decide to get this or a similar machine (the DA03 which has rear suspension) homologated to let me know as I’ll be in line to buy it. I would also add that I think their current strategy is incredibly short-sighted. From the information I’ve received it looks as though homologation would cost less than 2000€ which would be a very small price to pay to legally open up the whole of the market in the EU.

With their bike selling for less than a third of the price of the local competition they would almost certainly clean up, but there’s no cure for stupid. For now all I want is to see the money I paid for the bike to arrive back in my bank account. I’ve also been appalled by the attitude of CDiscount who have refused to reply to any of the registered letters that I’ve sent to them and after spending thousands of euros with them over the twelve years that I’ve been in France they’ll definitely be getting no more business from me, that’s for sure.

Although CDiscount, who I paid and who own the web site on which I bought my electric bike have not, to their shame, responded to the three registered letters that I’ve sent to them, the German shipper has. They offered me a refund of 10% if I then dropped my claim, which I rejected as derisory, confirming that I would accept nothing less than a full refund of my total cost.

Shortly after they came back with an offer to send me a return label for the return of the bike which they would then refund in full once it had arrived at their warehouse. This I accepted while pointing out that the bike had, of course, been fully assembled after delivery and asking whether a shipper would accept it in that state. I also added that I don’t now have the original carton which I had to cut in order to remove the components of the bike from it.

I knew that this would give them the opportunity to insist that the bike would need to be disassembled and packed for shipment and they proposed a date of 14 June for the transport to arrive at my front door. They also asked for details and a photograph of the package. They probably think that it will be difficult, impossible even, for me to meet such a deadline at which point they will say that it will therefore be impossible for them to take back the bike.

But what they don’t know is that although I have none of the bike’s original packing material, I do have two enormous sheets of very heavy cardboard that my new large bed base was delivered in and although, unfortunately, I’ve been throwing away vast quantities of bubble-wrap and gave away almost a roll that was left over after I’d finished packing for my move, it will be a simple matter to acquire more.

It will not therefore, be that difficult for me to package up the bike for shipment, aided by the fact that I did a video of its unpacking and know exactly how it was packed into its original carton. So it looks as though my plan is coming together and if for some reason the German shipper does not play ball when they get the bike back, I’ll still have the option of claiming off CDiscount who it was I originally paid for its purchase.

It’ll be sad in a way to see the bike go as I do like it and have enjoyed riding it. However, it has already taken up enough of my time and I now have other priorities to direct my attention towards in the form of for starters my aircraft and developing my garden, so it’ll be a relief when I’m rid of it and have the money I splashed out for it back in my bank account.

Yesterday I pulled the Savannah out of the barn where it has been standing for many months and gave it an initial wash to remove all the dust and bird poop that were covering its horizontal surfaces. But before I could do anything I had to cut a passage through the long grass that had sprung up in front of the barn through which to pull the Savannah out, using my electric strimmer that I’d taken with me. It looked all the better for it but afterwards there were still signs that it had been standing for a long time and it’ll need a lot more work to bring it up to scratch again.

Although I’ve not flown either it or the X-air for some time I’ve occasionally started both of their engines and after I’d removed the Savannah’s engine cover and checked it over it started easily and ran very smoothly. Before I take to the air in it, though, I’m going to give the engine a full service – new plugs, oil and oil filter – and I won’t be tempted to take off until I’ve done so. I’ll also need to deal with some patches of light surface corrosion here and there but I can do that while I’m flying it.

Unfortunately, while I was washing the aircraft down I noticed some straw sticking out of a side cavity in its horizontal stabiliser. When I pulled it out it turned out to be a nest of tiny baby birds. The barn is home to lots of tiny finches, which is where all the bird poop comes from, and I’d noticed what must have been the mother flitting around earlier.

I couldn’t leave the nest where it was so found a hole in a breeze block and placed it in there. I don’t know if the mother saw me do it but even if she did I hate to say it, but I doubt she’ll return to her nest and her babies will survive 🙁

Today is a special day for our small group of neighbours. It’s the day on which we all get together, about twenty or so of us, for a meal in the open air. It’ll be cooler than it should be for the time of year but luckily it looks as though we’re going to be spared a day without rain for the occasion.

We all bring along various dishes for us all to share and I was busy yesterday cooking my contributions. I made a quiche as well as some spicy potato salad together with some lovely plump chicken legs (called ‘pilons de poulet’ here) and some spicy chipolatas in my air fryer.

I’ll be leaving soon and taking them along with me together with some wine of course, and it’ll be most enjoyable getting together with all my neighbours again and finding out what everyone’s been getting up to. Always interesting!

This week’s main priority was to get my car serviced (Tuesday), have two new tyres fitted (yesterday) and get it through its biennial CT (equivalent to a UK MOT) today and I’m glad to say that the mission was successfully accomplished without a hitch. Amazingly, I’ve now had my Kia Sportage for ten years almost to the day and aside from having to have a second-hand engine fitted when it’s (expensive) Bosch fuel pump failed and destroyed its engine (I was lucky to get hold of a very cheap replacement in San Sebastian in Spain), it’s been incredibly reliable.

The tester was very complimentary about it (I doubt he’d have been if he’d seen it a couple of days ago before I’d thoroughly cleaned it inside and out) and he was disappointed when I told him that this would almost certainly be the last time he’d see it. I’ve used it to help me fetch and carry heavy and dirty stuff to do with my house build and other stuff in my old house and I intend to continue doing the same with the work I’ve now started in my garden. When that’s finished, though, it’ll be time to pension it off and get a newer car.

But that wasn’t all that happened today! The postman delivered my long-awaited new bed linen for my new bed. It’s taken a long time to come because I think it was made to order. It’s the biggest bed I’ve ever had (I ordered a smaller mattress and when the supplier replaced it they said that I could keep the ‘wrong’ big one for free!) and getting the duvet cover onto the enormous (to me) new duvet was a nightmare in itself. But ultimately I got it all together so I can sleep in it for the first time tonight and the results are shown in the photos.

The room is still very sparse as it only has the bed in it but you don’t think that I’ve gone… errrr… too yellow do you? 😀

Not a great deal of sunshine today but at least it stayed dry enough especially, for me to get outside and plant the trees that arrived yesterday. But first I did a little indoors job, finishing off my wall décor in my bathroom. I’m very pleased with the result and think that the bright colours nicely offset the otherwise plain gloss white of the walls.

The two little figures were on the wall of my old bathroom back in England but although I brought the starfish with me, I didn’t know that I had them until I came across them when I unpacked an old box that hadn’t been opened since I arrived in France twelve years ago. I think they go nicely. I’ve had to drill four small holes in the tiles but I’m not worried as I doubt the ornaments will be removed in my lifetime 🙂

I was then able to get going with the work in the garden, starting with replacing the apple that had been broken off with the new tree that arrived yesterday.

Then I moved on to replacing the two weedy little cherries that were bitten down to sprigs only a metre high by the deer with the new trees that also arrived yesterday. Here are the two trees that I took out.

And here are the two new trees that I replaced them with.

This is where I transplanted the old trees to, over on the left hand side of the garden. It’s up to them now (and the deer I guess) as to whether they survive and prosper or not 😐

Finally, a couple of shots of the new tree group showing the new apple, the two new cherries and the original plum that has also been given a bad time by the deer and has had quite a bit of bark and some low branches that produced some fruit last year, gnawed off.

I think I’m going to have to provide some protection for all the trees as although there’s plenty of other food for the local deer at this time of the year, they only have to hit the trees once to do an awful lot of damage and I don’t want anything to happen to the new ones, which are of excellent quality compared to the two original old cherries.

Taken all round, I’m finding things to be very annoying and frustrating at the moment. Although I’ve kept myself busy doing one or two small jobs indoors, almost everything that I’d like to be involving myself with is outside. I’ve had the materials that I need to clean and service my aircraft ready for weeks now, but aside from only one or two days when it’s been dry long enough to do the work, we’ve been subject to days of rain or constant drizzle making it impossible.

Luckily I found time between the showers to thoroughly clean my car inside and out as this week it has to be serviced (today) and have two new tyres fitted (Thursday) in preparedness for its biennial CT (equivalent to a UK MOT test) on Friday.

I’ve also taken some initial decisions in respect of my garden. Before I moved onto the land I was given two small trees to plant on it for my birthday by my good friends, a plum and an apple. Neither has really done that well in the intervening period. Last year the plum produced four or five fruit that I had to pick and eat because they were beginning to be attacked by birds and although the apple produced a bit of blossom it didn’t result in any fruit. And then to top it all, a few weeks ago it was broken off almost at ground level, probably by a deer.

I bought two small cherry trees two years ago and was most disappointed when they arrived because although one was a meter high, the other was only half that when both had been promised by the on-line supplier (Willemse) to be a minimum of 100 cm in height. Neither has yielded any fruit and because they were so small and weedy both have been eaten back to a height of about 50 cm by the local deer and will probably end up being unfit for purpose and useless.

So the decision I took was to replace both of the cherries as well as the apple, and the new trees arrived a bit earlier today. And I am delighted. Once again I bought them on-line but this time the supplier, Planfor in the Landes, has come up trumps and supplied product which more than exceeds my expectations. The trees were a bit more expensive than those I bought last time from Willemse, but not that much more, and are of far superior quality being a guaranteed three years old and 160-180 cm in height. They have also come in bigger pots because of their extra size.

Here are a couple of general shots of the three of them after they’d been unloaded off the Geodis delivery truck.

The apple is called Reine des Reinettes, which is one of my favourite supermarket bought types being both crisp and sweet and as shown in the following pics, it has come with quite a few fruit already on it. The cherries haven’t, of course, and it’s really the wrong time to be planting them but I’m hoping that I’ll get away with it while it’s still cool and wet.

I’ve already given the pots a good watering after their journey as they were despatched four days ago. They should be OK, though, as Planfor specialise in shipping their products all over Europe but in any case, I’ll try to get them into the ground as soon as possible.

Just to keep those who are following this saga in the picture, today was another interesting day. Getting helpful information out of French bureaucrats is like getting blood out of a stone and if you let that be the deciding factor, you’d never achieve anything.

It appears that the man from DREAL was not giving me all the information I’d asked for after all. He said that it isn’t the role of DREAL to do what manufacturers ought to do when it comes to obtaining a Certificate of Conformity ie homologation, for vehicles like my bike. I’ve delved deeper into things today and it appears that that isn’t the whole story – DREAL do have a role to play.

A vehicle for which approval is being sought has to be inspected and if necessary, subjected to tests at an approved testing centre (as you might expect) but no-one in an official capacity has told me who or where they are. But I found them myself today. I’ll not say any more about that for now but it appears that procedures have been laid down and when they have been followed and the results determined, these are then forwarded to the DREAL for the issue of a Certificate of Conformity.

Usually it’s manufacturers who do this for a proposed series of vehicles that they intend to market but it can also be done for one-offs that meet the relevant regulatory requirements both by manufacturers and individuals who have either built a one-off or imported a machine from another country as I have. So it appears that all is definitely not lost after all as far as my bike is concerned, which I think falls into this latter category ie meets the regulatory requirements for a vehicle of its class.

For the most part, the class of two and three-wheeled motorised vehicles is dominated by motor cycles (Category L3) and search as I might, I couldn’t locate the relevant paperwork to initiate a request to start a Certificate of Conformity project for a bike like mine. So I have sent a message to the testing body that seemed to me to be the most relevant and now await their reply.

If I’ve read the relevant material correctly, ‘creating a new dossier’ costs 85€ and for a motorcycle the total testing and approval programme comes out to around 2000€. This is more than I’d like to pay but I think it would be a small sum for Dakeya to pay if it opened up the whole EU market for their bikes. I also think that as electric bikes like mine are not subject to tests for eg emissions and noise, the cost might be quite a bit less, but I’ll have to wait and see.

The very helpful man at the DREAL sent me a reply. He said that he didn’t have detailed information on my bike’s actual model but he told me the category into which it would fall. Which it does.

From the research that I’ve done, which has been pretty detailed, I also know the features that it must have in order to be classed as a ‘Cyclomoteur’, whether powered by an internal combustion engine or an electric motor. Which it has.

I’m therefore pretty much convinced that if my bike was subjected to inspection, it would be granted approval.

I’ve therefore just sent Dakeya in China a detailed proposal for me to act on their behalf to submit my bike for test. This would require them to pay for the cost of the inspection (whether the bike passes or not) and indemnify me for my expenses and the cost of my bike if, due to the delay presented by the test process, I am unable to recover it from the seller if it does not pass.

So yet again I’m waiting for another reply. I never give up until I know all hope is lost 😕

I know I said that I wasn’t going to spend any more time on registering my bike but I thought I’d have one more roll of the dice. I contacted the DREAL for Nouvelle Aquitaine, a government department that can help out with this kind of problem and received a reply the very next day.

In summary this said that it’s not their role to undertake the tasks that are the manufacturers’ responsibility and that as my bike has been imported, it has to conform to local regulatory requirements including having a Certificate of Conformity granted to its manufacturer. Their advice was that I should seek to annul the purchase with the seller, which I have taken steps to do.

But in the meantime, I thanked them for their reply and sent them the following message.

“.. overall I think that this is a good, well-made bike that is fit for purpose and meets regulatory requirements. It is also at a price at which many people could afford to use it for short journeys instead of their cars, as I want to, which is not true for competitive products that will inevitably always remain as minority products for enthusiasts.

Could you advise me, if I wanted to act on behalf of the manufacturer, how would I go about securing a CDC for this product and what costs would be incurred? I ask because I am not familiar with the French registration system and any advice you can give would be of value.”

So now I’m waiting for a reply.

Sadly, it is now more or less certain that I’ll be unable to register my new bike, meaning that it’ll be illegal for me to use it on French roads. I received a message from the registration authority yesterday after my third attempt to do so, when I had been confident that I’d submitted all the documents that were needed. But I was wrong.

The message said that I’d only submitted a declaration from the manufacturer that it conformed to regulatory requirements whereas what was needed was a copy of the official Certificate of Conformity issued to the manufacturer for the machine by an agency of an EU member state’s government confirming that it did so.

So, as I suspected might be the case, Dakeya, my bike’s manufacturer, needed to have applied to the appropriate French agency, for example, to sell the bike in France and for the agency to have checked that it conformed, possibly tested it and issued the relevant certificate. My guess is that a hefty fee would have been involved somewhere along the line which is possibly why the manufacturer hadn’t done so.

It may be that the process is more straightforward than I think it might be – after all, it can’t be as stringent as obtaining type-approval for a new motor vehicle – but I don’t have the time or motivation to take the matter any further as I now have other priorities to attend to. Like servicing my aircraft and getting them back into the air and getting the interior of my house ship-shape.

I’m disappointed that it’s come to this but French bureaucracy is so intractable and it’s not worth spending any more time and effort. I’ve now requested CDiscount, the web site through which I bought the bike, to arrange for its return for a full refund and I hope that they’ll cooperate without making a fuss as I’ve been a pretty valuable customer of theirs over many years. But we’ll just have to wait and see what transpires from here 🙁

By Jove, I think I’ve got it! I’ve looked all over my new bike in an attempt to find a frame number and up until this evening my searches have yielded nothing. But as readers probably realise by now, I don’t give up that easily.

I got back onto the internet this evening to see if I could eventually crack the problem of how to register a Speed Bike and found a reference that said to do so, you must provide the bikes unique identification number which I guess is then used in a similar way to a motorised vehicle’s VIN number. So I set off looking to find where this unique identification number comes from and found that you seem to be able to apply for one which must then be attached to the bike by something as simple as a sticky label or by engraving it on the frame.

This immediately made me think of bikes I had when I was young that all had frame numbers stamped on them and quite by chance I then happened upon another web site on which you can register your bike in France as an anti-theft measure. The process naturally uses the bike’s frame number and helpfully it offered a little pop-up screen showing the usual places where frame numbers are located.

So that encouraged me to restart the search for a frame number on my new bike and lo and behold, on the last place I looked by lying on the floor and looking up at the bottom of its frame through which the pedal spindle passes, there I found a number.

I could hardly believe it. Why hadn’t either the manufacturer or the seller in Germany, with both of whom I’ve discussed my registration problem, told me about this and why didn’t they include it on the bike’s paperwork? I had to lay the bike down on the floor to read the number but as far as I’m concerned, this is the unique VIN that the registration authority is seeking to register my bike in France.

I’ve already resubmitted my registration application so now I’ll have to wait another two weeks for a reply. But this time I think I’ve cracked it, I really do 😉

I’m still trying to get my new electric bike registered as required in France to legally use it on public roads. My first application was rejected but although I don’t know for sure, I think it was because the delay receiving the manufacturer’s Certificate of Conformity that hadn’t been included with my application was too long and the registration authority just closed my file as a result.

Now there’s a new twist. As far as I am aware, bikes like mine cannot legally be used in many countries (the UK included) and France is the only one that requires them to be registered in order for them to be used legally on public roads. This is because they are treated under similar laws to cyclomoteurs and motor scooters with engine capacity up to 50cc.

As a result, I’m now being asked to provide a VIN number for my bike but because it doesn’t have an internal combustion engine and, presumably, because no other country that allows them to be used asks for them to be registered, bikes like mine do not come with VINs.

I’ve just pointed this out to the registration authority and asked what on earth I can do to satisfy the legal requirements as surely I can’t be the first person in France asking to register a bike like mine. The whole process has been a bureaucratic nightmare right from the very beginning and to be honest, I’m getting a bit sick of banging my head against a brick wall 🙁

I’ve spent literally the whole day, more actually as I didn’t finish until this evening, assembling a base for a bed for bedroom 2, what’s called a ‘sommier’ down here. It was inexpensive but I thought that as I’d sourced it from Conforama it would be of reasonable quality. But some hope. The manufacturing quality was appalling. Several of the long allen-headed screws that hold the main framework together didn’t line up with the inserts they had to screw into and it took a long time to get them to go together as I didn’t want to drill out the holes through which they passed for fear of weakening the assembly.

One of the inserts was also missing, so I’ve had to email the supplier to try to get one sent to me ASAP and I also found that one of the white-painted legs was heavily scratched when I unpacked it. It also crushed a bit when I tightened the securing screw so I may have to add some filler under the head of the screw to improve its appearance. I’ll have to touch up several areas with white paint anyway where the coverage is poor so it won’t require much more effort to make it look better.

Apart from the problems with screws not lining up, assembly required much more time and effort than I’d anticipated and my guess is that there will be some purchasers who’ll give up before completing the job. The instructions were almost too small to read without a magnifying glass and parts labelling was non-existent. I had to dis and re-assemble parts I’d put together three or four times after I’d realised what was required and the manufacturer also had the bright idea of chucking several different types of screws all together in one plastic bag. Oh what fun it was finding just the two of one type I needed at one point from among the 150 or more that were in the bag.

Despite all this, it didn’t look too bad when I’d finished. The mattress for it is due to be delivered in four days time but in the meantime I threw the duvet and pillows onto it to see how they’ll look when the bed’s ready to be used.

I’m very pleased. If I said that I’d painted the wall to match the duvet cover I’d be lying. It was pure luck. I couldn’t even remember having a duvet cover and matching pillow cases in these colours until I unpacked the bedding that I placed in storage when I moved out of my old house and I can’t for the life of me recall when they were last used. It could be years and probably is. I’ll certainly hang onto them for now though, but may end up buying a new, better ‘sommier’ for this bedroom and moving this one into bedroom three where it will get much less use. But it’ll do for now 😉

Today was all about my ride-on mower. I needed the repair that I’d done to work because although today was a good day to be working outside (sunny all day, temperature 22 degrees C) and tomorrow will be similar, I really need a break. And if I could get my grass mown today, that would be possible tomorrow. I’ve been going non-stop for several days and loading and unloading stuff single-handedly to move it round to my house from storage has, quite honestly, taken a bit out of me.

I started by cleaning off all the dried mud and other debris that had collected on the underside of the deck and was surprised by just how much had accumulated. No wonder the deck was so heavy – it was far lighter to manhandle afterwards.

This was the deck after being cleaned and ready to be mounted back on the mower. I’d lubricated what I could but major things like bearings were sealed of course. I thought that it all looked pretty good after the repair.

It took me longer than I’d expected to get the deck installed. I’d forgotten how the cables and springs went and had to find a Youtube video that showed me and it didn’t help that my ride-on mower lifting mechanism is still in storage. But I was super relieved when I’d finished and was able to test it out, with the result that even with its old, worn blades, my ride-on is now cutting as well as it ever has and considerably better than it was up to recently.

I finished all the grass at the back so with a bit of luck I’ll get the break I want tomorrow. If I do, I think I’ll have earned it 😉

By way of summary, in order to use my new bike on public roads here in France it has to be registered and conform to various other legal requirements. For it to be registered it has to have a Certificate of Conformity signed by the manufacturer to confirm that it meets the necessary standards of roadworthiness and safety and it didn’t have one. So I set about researching what the regulations and standards are, produced a Certificate that I believe met them and sent a copy off to the manufacturer, Dakeya, in China for them to add their official stamp and return it to me in order to try to get the registration through.

Then it all went deadly quiet and despite further messages from me it seemed to be impossible to get a response from Dakeya. This seemed weird because what I’d done was to help them out and would, if successful, also be of value to them by making all of their bikes of the same model legal for use in France. In the end it got to the point when on Tuesday I sent a registered letter off to CDiscount, from whose web site I’d purchased my bike, saying that if I couldn’t register it I’d be looking to return it and would seek a full refund from them.

So, of course, what happened was the vey next day I eventually received a very nice reply from China saying that they were very grateful for the information and suggestions that I’d provided and that they had carefully read through all of the paperwork I’d sent. And attached to the email was the Declaration of Conformity that I’d submitted to them, officially stamped and dated.

I immediately uploaded a copy to the French registration web site and now await a response. It’s been a few days and at least my application hasn’t been thrown out again, so with a bit of luck it’s now going through. I guess I’ll have to wait a little while longer to know for sure.

Have you noticed how just when you need your car for a special reason, that’s when it always lets you down? This year it was the same with my ride-on mower. Just as the grass began growing furiously and needed to be cut before it got too long, my ride-on stopped cutting. Luckily only a smallish area was left at the back and I was able to finish it off with my ‘débroussailleuse’ (brush cutter) but that was only a short-term solution as the grass was only just getting into its stride and was going to continue growing at a fast rate, especially with all the showers we’ve been getting.

I had the possibility of another temporary solution while my ride-on is out of commission in the form of a self-propelled rotary motor mower which I put into storage nearly three years ago when I moved out of my old house. This, however, was always going to be a desperate lifeline as it was never reliable when I was using, or trying to use, it regularly. Once it was running it was a good worker but getting it started was always a frustrating business.

Anyway, I removed it from storage and it spent last night in my living room before I took it outside to see whether I could start it and keep it running for long enough to cut my grass front and back. This is it before I tried to see if I could remove, strip and clean its carburettor, which I suspected to be the source of the starting problem.

After checking, cleaning and re-gapping the spark plug the ruddy thing would not start. I couldn’t remove its carburettor because it’s held on by what appear to be 9.5mm bolts (I guess they are an AF size but the spanner(s) I need are in another tool box that’s still in storage) and one of them is impossible to get to anyway, so all I could do was remove the carburettor bowl (which was perfectly clean) and blow up into it the best I could.

After reassembling everything I kept pulling on the starter cord until I got a blister on my right index finger (even with gloves on) and just as I was about to give up and consign the machine to the ‘déchetterie’ it started out of the blue. I kept it going long enough even with a restart to refuel until I’d done the grass in the front by which time I thought it time to have something to eat and a cold beer before starting on the grass at the back. But it was not to be because I could not get the damn thing to run again no matter how many times I pulled on the starter cord.

When I’d dismantled my ride-on to investigate why it had stopped cutting I’d found that the problem was more serious than I’d thought. The spindle of one of the cutting belt pulleys on the cutting bed is mounted in a bracket which evidently is subject to considerable load because over time not only had the hole in the bracket been extremely ovalled by the bolt that forms the spindle but the bolt itself had actually sheared off. When I measured the thickness of the metal bracket I found it to be 5mm which gives some indication of the extent of the load it is designed to take.

My searches on the internet turned up that I could buy a complete new cutting bed, bare so I’d have to transfer over all of the parts from my old bed, for just over 250€ and I’d seriously considered doing that as my mower has been really good and trouble-free the whole time that I’ve had it and a new bed would, I’m sure, keep it going for many more years.

However, I thought that if I cut out the damaged section of the bracket, I could weld in a new piece that would, after drilling, make the bracket virtually as good as new. I’d ordered a small piece of 5mm thick steel which arrived today so I thought that as it was fine and I’d taken my welder out of storage in anticipation, I’d get cracking straight away today so I’d know sooner rather than later if a new cutting bed was actually going to be needed.

The next couple of pictures show the damaged section of bracket that I cut out. It’s standing on a piece of white paper on the repaired bracket because I didn’t take a picture before starting work.

The next couple of shots show the repair that I did. I’m no welder by any stretch of the imagination and it took me a while to weld, grind off the excess and repeat the process before I eventually got to what I thought was an acceptable result.

Once I’d cleaned up and cleared away I turned up a can of matt black spray paint in my ‘abris’ (tool shed) so although I didn’t have enough time to do a proper job, I rubbed off several areas of surface rust and gave them a coat, including the drilled and finished repaired bracket.

And finally, a couple of shots of the repaired cutting bed ready for the belt pulley system to be reassembled and the bed remounted on my ride-on.

It looks as though we’ve got a couple of dry days coming up with afternoon temperatures of 22 and 23 degrees C respectively, so with a bit of luck I’ll be able to put everything back together and try the repair out on my grass. I just hope that it works OK because I don’t fancy stripping and rebuilding the machine again. I’ve ordered a new spark plug for the old machine and if that doesn’t solve its starting issue I think that it’ll be time to send it off to the rest home in the sky for elderly mowers, especially as I don’t really have enough space for it anyway 🙁

Our home before our divorce was big enough to accommodate our dining room furniture but since then the houses I’ve lived in have not been. After coming to live in France coming up to 12 years ago, my last home in Plazac was much too small and the dining room table and chairs that I’d brought with me from England were never used as my living room was far too small.

So they’ve been unused for the whole of that time and have been in storage during the construction of my new house for the best part of three years since I moved out of the old place. But no longer! Since I finished my new cloaks cupboard which represents the last area of interior storage that I’ll have, I’ve been gradually removing stuff from the storage space I’ve been hiring over that time and yesterday that included my dining room table and chairs.

Here’s how my living room looked this morning. Yes, that is a lawn mower that I want to use to cut my grass while my ride-on is out of commission. It needs to be indoors until I can strip and clean its carburettor as I’ve no room in my ‘abris’ while my ride-on is in bits and it can’t be left outside because we keep getting passing showers.

But my dining room table and chairs have found their permanent home at last, permanent during my lifetime anyway. They fit perfectly into the space I planned for them, even including the table centre extension, and all that now remains is for me to bring the two matching floor cabinets out of storage to join them, which were too heavy for me to also bring over yesterday.

It’s been a tiring job because I’ve loaded several car and trailer loads single-handedly over the past couple of days and I didn’t think for a moment how much effort would be involved in putting it all in cupboards and on shelves, mainly because there was no place to store it all in my old house and much of it remained unpacked in boxes for all the years since I arrived in France. But it’ll be worth it because little by little everything is falling into place and my new house is becoming the home that I wanted. At last!

My new e-bike needs to be registered as a Speed Bike in France and has to carry a registration plate on its rear. I sent the necessary paperwork off the day after it was delivered – uploaded it on line actually, it’s a good system – and soon after received an acknowledgement and the news that it was being processed.

Then it went quiet, until two days ago when I received a message saying that my paperwork was incomplete and that a declaration of conformity was required. I thought that I’d sent a copy of the necessary CE certification, as had been provided to me by the seller, but it seemed that this was not enough. So yesterday I began to investigate and my searches initially came across the following web site which gave the clue as to what was required.

levelomad certificats

So I dashed off messages to both the supplier of my bike and Dakeya in China and it soon transpired that neither could supply any such document. This I found to be somewhat surprising, because it means that none of the bikes that they are currently supplying into Europe can be used legally on public roads and anyone doing so would be subject to stiff penalties.

But it’s more complicated than that. The two Dakeya models, the DA06 that I have and the DA03 that has rear suspension, in common with all similar high power bikes with a top speed exceeding 25 kmh, are not subject to the same legislation as standard e-bikes. Instead they are subject to cyclomoteur legislation.

I therefore embarked on a quite lengthy project to delve into the legislative requirements and firstly found that Dakeya, as well as needing to have a ‘Certificat d’Homologation’ for the bikes they are selling in Europe, also need to make certain small changes to the bike kits they are sending out in order to allow them to conform when they do have one. I then went on to review the legislation and the legislative requirements and created a ‘certificat’ for them which I believe will meet the standards set by the authorities.

I’ve sent it to Dakeya in China together with the list of modifications they need to make to their kits in order for them to conform and am now awaiting a reply. This isn’t just about being charitable because I need this paperwork to register my bike and I’ve asked them to stamp and sign the document I’ve sent and email it back to me.

On the other hand, they need it for all the bikes they are selling into Europe to be ridden legally on public roads so it would be worth quite a bit to them and I’ve suggested that if my proposed certificate does meet the requirements of the authorities, they might like to consider compensating me for the time and effort I’ve put into it 😐

I was supposed to refit the belt that drives the cutters on my ride-on mower yesterday so I could mow my grass before the rain started again today (which it has done) but couldn’t because I’d found that a bolt holding a pulley had sheared clean off. I tried to buy another locally without much expectation that I’d be able to and sure enough I couldn’t, so after I’d downloaded a parts list and ordered one on line that’ll take several days to arrive, I decided that I’d take the opportunity to go for a bike ride.

My first mistake was that I didn’t put my warm jacket on and soon regretted it because while I was out it became much cooler and more cloudy and the wind cut through the top I was wearing like a knife. But by then it was too late and I had to keep going, so lesson learned. On the road from my house leading to Fleurac I’d noticed a turn-off to the right that I’d gone down previously on my old e-bike but had then turned round on because it had become too steep down-hill and I hadn’t fancied the drag back up again. This time on my new bike with its much greater power, I thought I’d give it a go.

And what an experience it was! Like many such tracks, it led off-road into open country consisting of woodland and rough open spaces. These ‘chemins rurals’ are open to the public but are not supported by the local communes and are used by farmers, hunters, off-roaders and adventurous bikers, much like I was going to become although I didn’t know it. After descending a few hundred metres, quite steeply in places with heavy braking, I came to a cross-roads with signs indicating that if I continued straight ahead I’d eventually arrive in Plazac, but if I turned left, I’d get to Plazac via the ‘short route’.

So given how chilly it was already becoming, I decided to go left. The surface was mainly dry but it was fairly evident that when wet it had been used by heavy farm traffic and/or some serious off-roaders because it was fairly heavily rutted and some of the ruts had become hard set like concrete making riding a bit tricky to say the least. But this was only the start. For the first hundred metres or so after I’d turned left the surface was fairly level and it was just a matter of dodging from side to side to stay out of the main ruts. But then the track suddenly took a steep roller-coaster-like down-turn and I stopped, wondering whether it might be more prudent to turn back rather than continue as the surface continued to be heavily rutted.

Predominantly, there was light woodland on both sides so there wasn’t an option to leave the track on either side – I’d just have to press on and make the best of it. But what the heck, in for a penny, in for a pound, I decided to continue. And what an experience it became! In some places the track had been cut away by traffic to leave narrow platforms at the sides and these might have been a good option to take. However, most of the ruts were so deep that if you rode off the platform you’d fall into them, and in many places the height difference between the edge platform and the bottom of the adjacent rut was 30 or so centimetres, so not something you’d want to do.

And all the while by that time the track was going down and down and at that point I hit the wet part where there was still standing water and thick mud as well as the ruts. Obviously I wasn’t having to pedal at all and in fact the challenge was to stand up out of the saddle on the pedals. Luckily I was wearing my walking boots and I decided that the best way to overcome the mud was to do as I’d been doing in some of the heavily rutted parts, which was to hang my legs out to either side in case I started to fall in either direction and move ahead under power. This was OK on the less steep bits, but there were several very steep stretches in which I almost felt that I was taking my life in my hands!

But all things must end and as the track began to level off and I turned a bend a house appeared in the front of which there was the beginning of a road with a proper hard surface. It was also less steep and I was able to continue downhill in a far more controlled way just with modest continuous braking. There were several more houses on each side of the road, one or two quite new, and eventually I got to the bottom of the hill at a junction which I’d passed by hundreds of time on the road leading up from Plazac’s market area to Fleurac, and what an experience it had been.

But it wasn’t over because now I had to get back up to Fleurac. I could have just turned left and headed for home but despite the cold I decided not to. Instead I continued right into Plazac, turned left into the centre of the village and continued on to return home via Rouffignac. I didn’t take a note of the time or the distance but it was undoubtedly the longest ride that I’d done so far. And certainly the coldest. I’d been thinking about taking my new bike off road and had been wondering where would be suitable for the first time. I’d thought I’d take it fairly gently initially to get the feel of it and I certainly hadn’t thought that I’d be trying to do anything anywhere near as extreme as I just had done. But you’ve got to live a little, haven’t you. Life’s too short for pipe and slippers 😀

Today I finished the new cloaks cupboard that I’ve been constructing in my house since last month. It’s appearance is deceptive as it belies the number of hours that I’ve put into it, partly because I do not have access to a workshop with automatic tools and have had to rely the whole time on simple hand tools and partly because a bespoke build of anything always takes much more time and effort than just assembling a kit bought from a supplier such as Brico Depot.

The images below show the space as it was handed over to me by the builder of my house and the transition to what it has become today and I am very happy with the results.

You my be wondering why this is a milestone for me and this is the reason. I see a distinction between ‘projects’ and ‘jobs’. A project consists of a series of tasks carried out over a period of time in order to achieve a final result, so decorating my house’s interior was a project as was installing my kitchen. A job is a ‘one off’ that can be carried out in a day, or maybe two, so mowing the grass I see as a job.

I’ve been working virtually non-stop on projects in order to complete the interior and exterior construction of my house since last June and this cloaks cupboard is the very last one. All that’s left are jobs – bits of tiling in the kitchen and ‘cellier’, applying beading around the interior door frames, painting the shutters – all things that I can more or less do at my leisure, without pressure and it’s a great feeling as it’ll give me more time to take on more pleasurable activities, like flying and riding my new e-bike.

But first I’ll have to mow the grass for the second time and before I can do that I’ll have to refit the cutter belt on my ride-on mower that somehow managed to jump off its pulleys last time. And as I look forward to getting out into the fresh air I noticed this morning that after being in my garden for about three years and never having borne fruit, my little apple tree that had a trunk with a diameter of 2-3 cms has been bitten off about 10 cms above the ground and the two cherry trees reduced to mere twigs. So everything in the garden isn’t lovely after all, far from it… 🙁

I did a video of the ride I did yesterday from my house to Manaurie, a small commune near Fleurac, and back.

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Wind noise affected some of the sound unfortunately, but I expected that and I’ve already ordered some wireless mics for my Go-Pros.

At about 2 or 3 kms from here there’s a chateau – Chateau du Peuch. It’s more or less downhill all the way from my house and in summer when the tourists are here you often see middle-aged couples who have hired or borrowed bikes struggling to get up the slope which is quite steep in places. It’s a wonder there aren’t more heart attacks!

I would never have attempted it on my old electric bike but hit the hill yesterday afternoon. Going down was quite an experience as after the recent rains there was a lot of loose gravel on the road surface, but coming back up was exhilarating.

There’s a flattish bit at the start in front of the chateau entrance and then it’s more or less up-hill all the way with windy bends in places that I had to slow down for. Otherwise I hit 40 kmh in places and never went below 37 kmh – with no pedalling! This bike is totally amazing 😀

My new Dakeya e-bike arrived as expected yesterday afternoon and I assembled it in my living room. By the time I’d finished it was beginning to get darker outside so I only had time for a quick test ride, down to Victor and Madeleine’s and back, before returning and putting its battery on charge.

I have a motor-bike licence and used to ride a lot when I was younger, much younger, so whizzing along under power was an experience that I’ve become unaccustomed to after all that time. And it was a bit scary, but fun scary, to be doing it again after so long. The main reason was that if you set the ‘pedal assist’ level to the highest setting and open the throttle the bike takes off like a scalded cat!

I was out again this morning, this time with helmet and gloves on, but the air was a bit chilly and I didn’t go too far before turning back. Knowing what to expect I felt a bit more secure, although it’s going to take a week or so to get used to the bike’s functions and operation before I’ll feel fully in control. Even so I hit 47 kmh (just under 30 mph) on the way back to my house!

The first picture shows the bike in my living room before going out again this morning. The others show it in its natural environment.

I’ve now got to do all the tedious bureaucratic stuff to get it registered and insured before venturing out over long distances on the open road. I’ve also ordered some elbow and knee pads to be on the safe side, so in the meantime I’ll only be doing short local trips around the immediate area until I’ve sorted everything out. But I have to say, I already love it 😀

At last the doors are on my new cloaks cupboard.

I’ve been waiting weeks to use that title 😀

That’s the worst bit over. Now I’ve only got to build the internal shelving system but that will just be a bit tedious and time-consuming as it’ll only be all about cutting and screwing together lengths of 18mm white melamine board.

Tricky one this. I don’t want big gaps between the doors of my new cloaks cupboard so I’m now trimming the door widths down to get the fit I want. Quite time-consuming.

My new cloaks cupboard is now painted and ready for the bi-fold doors to be mounted. That’s for tomorrow as I’ve had a sound bar for my Panasonic TV delivered today and I want to install that and get it working during the rest of the day today.

I got the ceiling coving above the new cloaks cupboard up, undercoated and top-coated yesterday and I’m very pleased with the results.

All I have to do today is paint the walls and woodwork green and I’ll be ready to hang the doors.

Bad news about my new e-bike though. UPS have put the delivery back to Monday afternoon, so disappointing but not a disaster. But at least I’ll be able to press on with the cloaks cupboard over the week-end without being distracted and I also hope to be able to cut my grass, which is now beginning to get a bit long.

I’m glad to say. For a change. The side walls/wings of my new cloaks cupboard that I’m building are now more or less perfect, ready for painting, which I’ll do later today in the form of a sealer-undercoat. I now realise that I didn’t help myself with my initial choice of plaster which I grabbed at Leroy Merlin because it was nearby and convenient, when I picked up the metal edging pieces.

I knew at the time that it was labelled ‘Enduit pour joints de plaques de plâtre’ (mortar for plasterboard joints) and I thought it would be suitable. But now I think it actually wasn’t. While using it I found that it was drying very quickly and I had to keep wetting it down and also it seemed to consist of rather large grains. But the worst thing was that it always seemed ‘sticky’, which made it difficult to get a smooth surface as when I trowelled it, it tended to lift back off again.

I think I was lucky to get it as smooth as I did and I now realise that I should really have bought ‘Enduit de lissage’ (smoothing mortar) which would have made the job far easier. Anyway, after rubbing down the original plaster and finishing off the bad patches with ‘enduit de lissage’ I’ve now got surfaces which I’m very happy with. Here are the results after I’ve undercoated everything.

To be honest, it’s been a rough ride but I couldn’t be more happy. The other good news concerns my new e-bike, which I was expecting to be delivered some time after March 11th. The good news is that UPS have now informed me that it’ll be delivered this Friday afternoon, March 8th.

And here’s a good picture, at last, of what’s coming.

I can’t wait for it to arrive. It has received very good reviews because it’s a well-built machine. Unlike some others of its type it has metal mudguards, rather than flimsy plastic, and a good, strong rear parcel carrier which’ll be very handy for popping up to the shops 🙂

All we need now is for it to stop raining…