After a great day's riding from home to Coffs Harbour via Gloucester, Walcha, Armidale and Dorrigo we were happy to arrive out our digs for the night expecting to meet up with some friends for a couple of quiet ones and deal with some aquisitions that were in the fridge cooling. My Road King® though had other ideas. The battery decided it wasn't going to play any more and instead of starting the motorcycle gave a nice click or two. Oh well, time to ring Harley Assist, and at least we were at the end of our day's ride.
We stowed our gear in our room and I called Harley Assist and spoke to a very polite girl whose suggestion was they send someone out to jump start the bike for me. I guess it was reasonable if all I needed to do in the next couple of days was park my bike under cover and leave it, but I suggested that trying to organise a battery replacement might solve the problem better. After some discussion with Harley Assist and then their local provider the best solution they came up with was for me to call them in the morning so they could organise a jump start and when I needed to stop for fuel on the way home I could either leave the engine running or call them to organise another jump start. If you've read this far I probable don't need to comment on the quality of this solution but wasn't given a choice.
I called a mate who slipped me the local Harley-Davidson® dealer's mobile number and soon after I was speaking to Ashley (Ash) Beaton from North Coast V-Twins. Ash is the dealer principal and imho is an absolute gem! I sincerely apologised for calling him out of hours, explained my situation and asked for some advice about where I might be able to secure a battery so I could have a crack at changing it myself first thing in the morning. I knew that the dealership wasn't open tomorrow so I was looking at trying to get hold of something that would do the trick.
Ash's response... he stepped over and above great service. Within an hour and a half the battery was changed (with a call to a tech for some advice about the alarm system) and I was on my way. Frankly I was a little stunned, but certainly very grateful and I came to an understanding of why so many people speak highly of Ash and this dealership.
The delay meant we wouldn't have time to meet up with some of the locals for a drink tonight so instead we settled in to attack the fridge and the bar/restaurant at the Motel. I was very happy that tomorrow wasn't going to be a nightmare of jump starts and that I got the opportunity to cancel Harley Assist's solution.
Thanks Ash!
