We’ve all had these bright ideas from time to time. You know, the kind of thing that seems like a perfectly reasonable proposition at the outset, but four hours later, when you’re bruised, sweaty and covered in dust and the FZR 1000 EXUP is firmly wedged in the living room doorway, well, you start to wish you hadn’t bothered getting out of bed.

It’s all our next door neighbour Darren’s fault, really. He takes his bike out of the garage and leaves it to warm up whilst he fetches his lid and gloves. My other half, Rob, hears it purring away outside and starts to scowl.

“He does that deliberately, the scumbag,” Rob mutters. “He knows I haven’t got my bike – he’s torturing me.”

After several days of this, a decision was reached. On Saturday morning, we would drive to Rob’s work, borrow the Big White Van, and fetch the bike from the shed at his mum’s flat. Darren’s Fireblade was going to have some company.

Things we learned on Saturday:

1. When parking a car in front of the shed doors to make a patent anti-bike-theft device, *don’t* leave the handbrake on for two years.  This makes the patent anti-bike-theft device difficult to remove later.

2. Always use the right tools for the job.  When attempting to remove rusty, rounded-off screws from the side panel of an old shed, an electric drill fitted with a screwdriver head will only make things worse.  A big claw hammer is your friend.

3. When building a shed in a sloping yard, try to ensure that the drop from the shed floor to the yard does not exceed the maximum ground clearance of the bike being stored. This can lead to an alarming moment when your makeshift exit ramp collapses and leaves the bike see-sawing on its belly on the shed frame.

4. Eleven year old sportsbikes *are* narrower than the average domestic door frame – by about 3/16ths of an inch.

5. Motorcycles do not steer well on carpet. This is particularly true when the motorcycle’s rear tyre has a slow puncture.

6. Motorcycles are heavy and have lots of inconvenient sticky-out bits, that are capable of doing significant damage to woodwork, wallpaper, and on occasion, humans.

7. Don’t call the motorcycle a contrary old cow and expect her rider to take you pillion afterwards.

8. Don’t threaten the motorcycle’s exhaust system with an angle grinder and expect her to co-operate. In a confined space, she *will* exact her revenge (see 6 above).

9. It *is* possible to get an EXUP through a Tyneside flat from back yard to front door in under five hours – just. It takes considerably longer to redecorate the hallway afterwards (see 6 above).

10. Finally, when a newly re-biked other half announces that he’s “just going to have a wander round the bike shops, dear,” remove his wallet into protective custody *immediately*.