Gas up - Let's Go!

Never expected you to, twas a comment my dear, kinda along the same satirical lines as the original post, as missed completely by most .

Corrosion. And what mileage are you looking at ? At 3 - 4 years old the bike should be OK - if it looks and feels tight then it probably is.

Wow, Never even see your first post. Chill out fella, do you want answers from real bikers (the sort who are out riding) or those who sit inside on nice holiday weekends!! Not a great start, slagging everyone off!

Jeasus, I looked at this yesterday, but needed to get my shades. That's one blinged up bike fella!! I've got an XJR (and a Z!), and I find it's hard work on the rear after 100 miles or so, worse I feel if I'm in traffic. That said, it's a might bike, and if you choose to, it can be the easiest ride ever, the gears aren't really needed as it pulls like a train in any gear, from any speed!! I've ridden the FZ1 too, and I think you might be better looking at that for touring, you et a bit more protection from the fairing. Then again, you can pick up an XJR (08, 6 months old or so) for £5k ish, so you get alot more bike for your money. If you try one - you will love it! I defy anyone not to after riding one

It's been a while since I had a faired bike (VFR800ABS), but I imagine things haven't changed much - You'll get lots of crud and crap inside of your fairings, It won't do any harm to learn how to strip these back then you can clean what you can't see. Depending on how long it is between service, it's a good idea to give the bike a visual check over at least once a month, you get advanced warning of developing problems, Oil/water leaks, corrosion, damaged rads etc. Do this when the bike is new and you learn what it looks like when it's all together right.

Never touch it, the wifes does that. Really ? Did you expect it to ? Interesting that Goff lef tthis thread and ditched the others

Welcome Mrs Minx......... I trust you find the XT well and good.

Porn, where? How comes I get a nitting site while Woody here gets Porn. Life sucks sometimes. I want Porn !

Actually, I realy don't like the whole FaceBook thing - but it does have it's uses! I've joined the group, so next time there's a problem I'll get to find out about it!! Darren

# Alex - just a suggestion, but what about setting up a facebook group for times such as these, you can just send a message to the group and it's independant of this forum ?? We use this system on another forum and it works quite well.

Why not look for a road legal bike and use it on the green lanes ? Field bikes are great fun, but limited and you have to find some place to play. Getting a road legal bike is just as much fun, but you get to go to lots of other places too?? Try getting TBM from the newsagents, it's a small mag, A5 sort of size, cost you £3.50 and is monthly - there's loads of info in there on off-road stuff (MX, Enduro, Green Lane etc) and always a couple of pages of bikes for sale. Consider; DR ? Anywhere from £500 - £2500 Honda XR or XL TTR, TTR,E

Another great bike, based on the old XT600 but spec'd up is the TT600RE, The screen is an 'adjusted' 1000GS screen and some home fabricated alloy mounting brackets that fix to the hand guards. They only officialy imported these bike for a couple of years, but you can pick an 05 up for between £1k and £2k. Downside, the range is crap (like the XT) but Acerbis do a HUGE tank conversion for them that will see you get 300-400 miles of fuel in the tank.

I'm not sure how many MT03 owners there are on here, but I'm interested in the ones that have covered over 6000 miles (10,000km). Have any of you had to replace your cush drive rubbers ??

Are you related to Goff by chance ??

Once you've passed your test you can ride anything you want - as long as it's restricted. Then in 2 years time you can take off your restrictor. But you do have to pass your test......

Horses for courses as they say,,,, I too had a Fizer600 - hated it!, chopped it in for a XJR1300...... Anyway, The XT, You get a X, this is a super moto thing with small wheels, I've seen these thing loose sportbikes in the twisty mountain roads, awesum! There is the R, this is a dual sports bike, good manners on the road and OK off road to. The range is poor, but there are more mods available than you can shake a stick at. This bike will take you to J'burgh and back if you want it to. Then there is the Z, Good for comfort, great off road handling (when you ditch the stock tyres) and will take you anywhere you choose to go. Great range too - you can get up to 300 miles on a tank of juice. Roadside maintenance should you need to, loads of mods available. Having put it through it's paces, if a bike can take you there this one will. Only downsides on this bike are the height, at 5'10" I can just reach the ground, although there are lots of lowering kits out there. The other problem is availability, Yamaha are limiting the numbers and you have to hunt around for the bike you want, residuals are high as no-one wants to sell them (one or two have appeared on fleabagbay). Oh, and one or two 'new model bike' teething problemets (wireing harness is over tight and wears if you don't release the cable ties a bit, cush drive only lasts 10,000 miles - £25 and 30 minutesof your time.) There are lots of options for touring, most bikes will tour OK, but I've had this conversation with many people about how this bike and that bike is a great tourer - but when it comes down to it there are not many bikes you can ride 600 miles every day for 3 weeks and still walk properly! I did, and I'd do it again on the Tenere. Like I say, horses for courses

Ooops,, Just found this, by the very people we are supposed to trust to be whiter than white.......... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7986483.stm

OK, fair point - if you are stupid, your gonna get caught out. so : What about the huge amount of illegal porn you've been surfing ? those Peado sites ? But I hear you say I don't use them, never been there. Sure ? You have a wireless network, you think it's secure (cos you've enabled security), you've even done a bit digging and used WPA. I's not secure, it can be cracked, and it's not beyond the realms of child. The fact remains, your MAC addres (that is tied to a DHCP allocated IP address, that is also accountable now) has been seen to source this traffic. I've never been a one for the Amnesty people, always though that if someone was in the clink it's becasue they deserved it, no smoke without fire etc etc, if you break some countries rules then accept the punishment of that country etc etc. Perhaps it's because I can see the pitfalls (clear as day to me), how things can go wrong, or the flip side how the evidence is useless becasue it's not 'beyond doubt' I don't know. But I've got over 20 years in this area, and this new law scares the crap outa me.

and that ^ is the absolute point.

The reason they are not keeping content (yet) is because it clashes with the Data Protection Act. They already have the Computer Misuse Act that covers all kinds of abuse and it ties in with a number of other criminal acts. Within a year or so there will be an ammendment to the Data Protection Act, and this will all change, but next time, as it will be a 'minor' change the chances are it won't even make the headlines...... That's true, mostly - how many people have been released from Cuba recently with 'no charge' ?? It's not just the guilty who get nailed. Not in the slightest - they can be viewed by anyone 'with just cause' (this is country dependent - some EU countries are objecting, so not all are going to use this) - so the local council, your employer ??? In reality, this is another daft law, the amount of data this is generating on a daily basis is HUGE, some ISPs are building new data centres just to cope with the storage - originally the retintion period was 5 years until someone gave the Government a maths lesson, and who has to pay for it, in the end you, via the ISP. And, the processing power to search the multitude of databases hasn't even been considered yet. So the upshot is, they are collecting data on you that they cannot use - so why do it?? Simples - because it's the thin end of a very large wedge. I work in this industry and have for many years, I've seen how the current laws can be used to track, prevent, stop - you name it we have a multitude of laws for it (in the UK anyway). The internet is monitored constantly - you never considered it free information passage did you ?, and things can be picked up. I just see no reason for this law, it doesn't deliver anything, but it will and we won't be able to do anything about it. Consider this; You post on this forum a post about the maximum speed you've done on your bike, or how you got from A to B in x minutes. A week later a fixed penalty notice appears on your doorstep. You post something about your tyre being bald, and how you had to ride home carefuly as it started to rain - a week later a £30 fine and 3 points appear on your doorstep. Your mate sends you an email with a MP3 attached, next thing you have a summons from Sony for breach of copyright You take a 'sicky', spend all day trawling the web, making a few forum posts - return to work - Fired! It's not so very far away - Still think it's a good idea ??

That does look a bit steep. My missus got Comprehensive cover on a XL125 Varadero this time last year for £118, she did have full NCB on the car and is considerably older that you at 21 years and 216 months Do you live in a postcode that is sharded with some tow-rags ?? this could be one of the things that can influence stupid prices. I can't see why your getting quoted daft prices, it's not like the YBR is a full faired sportsbike that will cost a packet if the wind blows it over!!! I presume you've tried the usual, Bennets, Carol Nash, Devitt (although I wouldn't touch these lot with a pooe stick, had problems in the past) etc?? Oh, Carol Nash have a new division called justbikeinsurance, they take all the extras (European cover, breakdown, leather cover) out and sell plain old bike insurance. A quick Google on Motorcycle Insurance give loads of starting points. Things that will bring it down, but not always by much, will be 'keeping in a brick garage', 'alarm', 'security devices' pretty much the right answers to the questions - but don't be tempted to tell porkies, it'll invalidate your insurance and you could even end up with points if you're unlucky enough.

Not sure if many of you are aware of this, and to be honest as long as you aren't doing anything wrong it shouldn't be a problem, because as we all know our security services are 100% pure of any hint of mis-using this information, I mean, it's not as if we'd ever go to war over something they mis-represented is it ? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7985339.stm Anyway, now Big Brother can see where you've been, who you are talking to and what you are reading. So if you want to keep things a secret - buy a newspaper, use a payphone and leave your GPS/Mobile Phone/Blackberry at home!

Awwwwhhhhhhggg - Dooooooodd! That takes me back, Thunderpole 2 and 3, them woud be the days, AM, FM, SSB....

On the plus side, I bet this guy looks for bike in the future. Your misfortune might well have saved this guy from actually killing someone, somewhere down the line. Was the officer Traffic ? or just a normal Bobby? It's a good indication as to how any prosecution will go. But the most important thing is to get sorted out. How fast were you going? unless you are 110% sure you were within the limit, expect this to get thrown back at you as a factor, if it's enough to get a 50/50 claim through the insurance company then compensation is unlikely to happen. The best thing is to get the guy prosecuted for a motoring offence(undue care and attention, Mobile phone, seatbelt, defective tyre/lights even if his widescreen washer bottle is empty!), insist on this with the police - it will make everything else much more simple further down the line, oh and you have 3 years to get claim papers lodged, after that you have no claim (it still might take years to resolve even then) You were luck this day, don't put all the blame with the driver, being right isn't going to stop your legs hurting! , use this experience to learn to anticipate hazards better in the future. It's like a 6th sense, everyone with years of expereince can tell how a driver is going to react - unfortunatly it usually means you have to take action as a result of what they've done. Like I say being in the right doesn't keep you safe! I've had so many near misses in my years, only because something inside said 'slow down', 'move over' - they could all have put me in hospital (even the idiot that did a U-turn in front of me a couple of months ago didn't see the error of his way's, he just waved, smiled and drove off!). It's a sad fact of the world we live in - folk don't take responsibility for thier own actions anymore. It's almost imposible to judge the speed of an oncoming bike in the dark as your eyes have very little information to compare the single headlight (as that's all you can see, even though you've got two) to the darkness around it. If this is his defence then it's going to throw some doubt into the question of a presecution - you have to be persistant that you want him prosecuted, undue care and attention is all you need. I'm not having a go at you, just try to use this experience to keep you alive in the future. If you don't learn from it, statistically speaking you will have a similar accident withing three years, consider some extra training before you get back on the road BikeSafe or an IAM course (there are a few you can do and not all include an assesment). if nothing else it will help to resore your confidence. Hope your sorted out soon, there's some good weather on it's way and you don't want to miss it.

Rode my first bike to School, DT50 it was back in the 80's Had my 125's, Went through the sportsbike stage, ride real world bikes now.....