Yamaha MT-01 – Bent Rim Blues II

Ok.

Today I went to the garage thinking I would leave the MT there whilst they had a look and got back to me, but I waited and to cut a long story short,

The garage still deny that the alloy was bent when the bike was sold to me. I am still 100% sure that I haven’t hit anything that would do this kind of damage. But in the end we both agreed to get the wheel sent off to a company called Hagon, who manufacture shocks and custom wheels, but they also repair cast wheels.

£75 to get it fixed, and the garage would take care of the labour and postage costs etc etc.

We then headed up to Dundee, leaving the MT at the garage. We went to see Robin Hood and it was ok. After the film had finished Em and I both went to the toilet, and as I entered the Gents I looked over to my right to see 2 blokes standing at the urinals, one of them turned round to look at me, and I went straight ahead in to a cubicle.

Shortly after one of the blokes left, the door shut and that was that. But then this 2nd bloke went in to the cubicle beside me, no biggie I thought, blowing his nose or whatever.

Finished up, sorted my belt and as I turned around to open the cubicle door and I suddenly was aware that some bare feet were sticking under the door. A bit puzzled as to why there would be bare feet in the gents of a cinema, but then to my absolute horror, a face appeared. Under the door. Looking at me.

And this wasn’t a childs face. This was a mans face. Looking at me, on their hands and knees, under the cubicle door.

I quickly opened the door by which point this bloke had stood up and was now staring directly at me. I said “alright?” in a nervous, weirded out kind of way and he turned and started washing his hands. I quickly washed my hands and this guy had progressed on to the hand driers so I just left, but as I passed him, he took off his right shoe.

Now after I left the toilet there was no sign of Em, so I just wandered over to the main area, still completely puzzled why a grown man (albeit say late 20′s) would go down on his hands and knees and look under a toilet cubicle. A toilet cubicle with nobody in it but the two of us.

Emma surfaced from the ladies and I said “You’ll never guess what happened to me” and told her about this guy looking under the door. She thought it was weird but then we both walked outside where it was hailstones. We ran to the car and I sat for a minute to let my thoughts catch up.

It was then it dawned on both of us.

This guy turned and looked at me as I entered. The other guy left leaving only 2 of us in this toilet. He then went in to the cubicle beside me, and whilst I thought he was blowing his nose, there was not a lot of sound, only rustling. He must have stood on the toilet and was looking over the top of the cubicle. He then got on his hands and knees and looked under the cubicle door.

Now, the questions are a plenty, but the main ones are, why. And Why? And WHY?

Emma got quite angry at me as we drove down the dual carriageway away from the cinema and suddenly we both came to the same conclusion. This guy must have been a pedophile, or a pervert, one of the two.

Why else would he wait till the other bloke was away and then look at me taking a piss?

In a startling realisation of this conclusion, I pulled over at the side of a slip road and we frantically searched for the direct dial for the cinema, using our mobile phones and the WAP internet to find the number, I mean we needed to let them know there was this weirdo loitering about in the gents.

Our fears were that a small boy is sent in by his Dad, and this fucking lunatic approaches him. We, I, couldn’t live with myself if I had done nothing.

After many a dead end from 118 247 and cineworld ticket hotline, I phoned head customer services and got the Dundee branches number.

A quick phone call to alert them to my discovery and the lady on the other end of the phone couldn’t get away quick enough to find him.

We sat for a moment after the phone call and I was really shaken up.

It’s truly frightening turning round in what you think to be a “safe space” in a toilet cubicle, in an empty toilet, to see a face looking at you under the door. Really disconcerting, frightening, weird and very very very infuriating…at least, 10 minutes afterwards when you realise you should have kicked him in the face, or at least went and found somebody straight away, and not left the cinema.

Anyway, I have to try and put my mind at rest in some way, but that’s the first and hopefully last time I come face to face with such a weirdo.

Getting back home again I did some filing with the new box files we picked up at Staples (Emma’s in house sale tidy mode), and then set about looking through my plethora of photographs that I always take of my new bikes. I wanted to try and locate the point in time that the wheel was dented, so that I could try and remember the incident. I knew it wasn’t me that did the damage, but I wanted to rule it out. I guess I was feeling a bit paranoid after the pervert run-in.

I got the first photograph I ever took out, a photograph that I took on the 2nd of May, the day after I bought the MT.

This photograph looks like this (Beware, it’s a full size photograph at 4mb)

If you don’t want to click that, then click this zoomed in one:

Look at the bottom left hand spoke, to the left of the air valve. Then look at the rim directly “below” it. See the join between rim and tyre. Trace it round and then study.

A different angle (Again 4MB so dont click unless you have fast internet):

Zoomed in for you:

I’ve kind of highlighted the area in question with a colour mask (Picasa is shite for marking your photos, and I don;t have my big computer/photoshop)

Now.

This was taken the day after I bought the bike. I took the bike to show Blair, was so very careful with regards to bumps etc as it was only an hour old (to me).

So the day after I got it, there’s evidence of the rim being bent.

Now if I am going by the theory that I wanted to see when the rim could have been dented, and there’s evidence of the rim being dented the day after I get my hands on it, then the only time it could have occurred was the day I bought it.

And I, as with everyone else on the planet, remember the day when something great happens. I remember it with crystal clear clarity. And I can  say now, for absolute certainty, that I did not dent this rim.

If I had found a photo that showed the dent in week 3 and no dent in week 1 then fair enough, I must have dented it at some point.

If I had a photo that showed a dent in week 3, yet no photo showing the rear rim before that point, then I would have to assume that it was possibly me.

But I have evidence showing that the day after I picked up my bike, the rim was dented. The time scale is so small, and that it was the first day I had it, means that this dent was done before I had the bike.

The bloke at the garage today did squeeze in that the guy who sold the MT to the garage was in “the other day” and said that he had never dented it. Well, why would he?

So there you go.

I don’t know what will come of this new evidence. I’ve emailed the garage again with an open ended email, showing the photographs and asking for their thoughts.

It will be interesting considering that I have the proof that the rim was dented the day after I bought it. I do have a photograph of the day I test rode it, but as with anything in critical times of need, the section of rim in question is behind the swingarm.

If that photo showed evidence of the dented rim, it would be absolute. But I think the proof I’ve got is just as good.

Updates as things unfold.

I am away to lie down, this has been an eventful day for me.

YY