As some of you will know know I was travelling home from our wonderful club Christmas Dinner and Quiz night when unnoticed by me (until I was home and went to unpack it that is
) I had 'lost' my right side Touratech Zega pannier. The bloody thing literally just fell off. I never heard a thing, felt a thing or notice the GS handle any differently. Luckily for me I had just passed "Lefty" and his camel train and fortunately he stopped and picked it up off the road. Following a couple of phone calls I had the pannier back in my possession. I mulled it over, during Christmas and New Year what I could do with it, but essentially gave it up as a lost cause and started pricing up a new one. That seriously did my head in! Someone suggested try my insurance company. For starters I discovered I have a $400 excess 
. All this brings me to say that ultimately the pannier ended up with Goldie (I'll thank John Whiteman, but I don't know whether Goldie does 
).Goldie as most of you know is a panel beater extraordinaire. He showed me these things called dollies which don't look anything like I expected which, admittedly came in all different shapes, sizes and names, but there the similarity ends with the dollies I had in mind
) Goldie even showed me at least one type of hammer which he uses with these dollies to bend and/or straighten metal. He threw an aluminium marine welder into the mix and "hey presto" I have a shiny usable pannier again just in time for the off-road riding season. The icing on the cake for me was Goldie's two crow bars. When he looked at the panniers on the rack he could see that they were sitting somewhat skew-whiff, as a result of my last stack, and like a true proffie, got stuck into the rack with the crow bars until it looked symmetrical again.I guess this is the beauty of a club such as ours. It is full of great people with a whole lot of resources which occasionally we are able to draw on to make our motorcycling experience more enjoyable.
Thank you Goldie for your time, the stories, your friendship and your expertise. Long live the BMWMCCWA.
Cheers
Patrick
