New rider, Virago 125 XV owner. Hello!

I'm a very new rider - been on the road for about a month. My name is Miguel, I'm 19 and I live in the far reaches of that wonderful place known as Essex.

Anyway, I came here because I will be needing probably quite a bit of advice on my bike. I picked it up rather cheap and as life will tell you.. you get what you pay for. The model is a 1997 (I was told, think it might be '98. Not sure there) Yamaha Virago XV 125. I don't mind that it needs work, in fact I prefer this as it gives me a chance to get to know my bike as well as to get general experience with tinkering and the like. It's something I'm quite enthusiastic about. The girl certainly has character anyway, which is important to me.

I won't bother posting the issues here, there's probably a separate sub-forum for that right? I'll edit and link back to it when I've posted there. Hope to make a positive contribution here, I'm very proud of my yammy and the biggest reason I decided to join up here is so that I'd know how to best care for her.

So yeah, Hello!

EDIT: here