Today was the Shropshire Goes Green event, a climate and sustainability festival organised by Shropshire Council, and as I had a couple of hours spare I hopped on the SR/S to ride over and take a look. Not the warmest of starts at 10C, with the feeling of autumn in the air, but nice and dry for a quick ride out to Atcham on the B4380.
But, as I was coming off of a humped Zebra crossing I gave the bike a bit of gas, and without much fanfare the bike just started coasting. I pulled up, and looked down to see the bike's drive belt lying in the road, snapped in two.
It appears that the traction control wasn't able to intervene quickly enough to prevent the torque of the motor over-powering the belt when the rear wheel regained friction with the road surface. On the plus side, unlike a snapped chain, the belt didn't do any damage to the rest of the bike. But it did leave me stranded, and unable to get to Shropshire Goes Green. So after a phone call home, a rescue mission was despatched and I eventually got back to wheel the bike into the garage and start watching YouTube videos about changing drive belts. Of course the first one I come to is Sam Baker (New Zeroland) describing the exact thing I'd done. Dammit!
