Gas up - Let's Go!

Cheers Paul. Looking forward to breaking open this bottle of 12year old Bunnahabhain that the birthday fairy delivered earlier today......

Good point, I was thinking more for LED's that are exposed, rather than behind the lens. There are mutli-facet LED bulbs available that work well inside the lampt with the reflectors, but they still have a long way to go before they are as good as bulbs. The biggest advantage of course is the minute power draw over bulbs.. If you were to replace the side, stop & tail bulbs you would save in the region of 14 watts, don't sound like much until you start thinking about heated grips/gps/phone chargers etc on small capacity bikes, then it can help.

BikeVis are good for LED lights, you can get replacement sidelight bulbs and bullet lights - not sure if they do red ones, but worth a look. www.adventure-spec.com do a range of lighting options, 35w HID kits for £100 or they do a replacement LED bulb for around £85 but even so these are crap in comparison to Halogen. It depends on your bike really, but I made a light bar for the TTR (these have really crap lights) and put a couple of cheap Halfrauds lights on it. I made it so that I can take it off easily in the spring. Lots of options, just need to find the one that suits.

I'm fairly sure I said recalls and safety campaigns, Oh yes, that's right I did.... I am. You might also like to know that a manufacturer is under no legal obligation to provide a warranty. Your legal rights actually lie with the retailer not the manufacturer under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as ammended). The only reason we can quote warranty is because it is laid down in the contract of sale, and the manufacturer can still refuse to action any work if they believe the goods haven't been used in accordance with the instructions. Nope, but the drop in value will, and does. In any case a service history doesn't have any real standing, all it actually shows is that the stamp used to make the mark in the book had ink on it. It has no legal standing as to the value or mechanical state of the bike. It's a trust thing, if I buy a bike from my local dealer and the bike has been serviced by the same dealer, and they tell me they did the work - then I would trust them. I certainly wouldn't trust the sevice record in a private sale, or an unknown dealer. In these cases you have to satify yourself that the bike is sound. The service record is not a legal document, nor is it or does it form any form of contract unless through a trader where you can use the Sales of Goods Act to ensure the goods are 'as advertised' ie, if they are advertised with a 'full service history' then the retailer has to be able to show that to the stisfaction of a court. Unfortunatly the same act is very weak when it comes to second hand bikes, especially if the bike hasn't been used in accordance with manufacturers guidlines (ie - the service schedule) in which case the trader (in the case of a second hand sale) could use the same act to defend himself, leaving you to persure any claim through civil litigation - It's abloody minefield. In short, unless you are happy defending your rights, and know them, and know how to successfully defend them then it is far easier, and more cost effective to take the bike to a dealer and have it serviced by them, as I have already stated. Anyone with any knowledge about bike will be able to spot a pig relativly easy, if you are ever in any doubt then go and buy one from a dealer, yes you pay a premium but you know you have some recourse should something go wrong. It doesn't mean you are getting a better bike though.....

You can use LED bulbs to get a similar <solid> colour (sort of crisp blue white), but you don't get the spread of colours you do with Bi-Zenon or HID lights. Also if you are looking for something to light the road then forget it, LED's are a good 'look at me, I'm here' light but crap for lighting the way, just don't have the output Take care if you do decide to go down the HID route, as the spread pattern on your bike will be different, it's one thing being seen, but another if the car approaching you is blinded and cant see where he's going..... in the words of the lottery -> It could be you!

£100 sounds a bit excessive, is this the same dealer who sold you the bike? and did you buy it new? # if so, then they should only charge you for consumables, such as oil and filter. I'd have put the figure closer to £50 (£10-15 filter- maybe? and £30ish for oil). the labour is free of charge. At £100 it sounds like they are charging you time as well. By carrying out the service, you are not neccasarily going to void the warranty, you are under no legal obligation to have the bike serviced by a dealer in order to retain your warranty - you must, however carry out the service in accordance with the service schedule (which are only made readily available to dealers funnily enough!). I'm assuming you are in the UK? clearly rules differ from country to country. You can see any recalls or safety campaigns on the VOSA website -> http://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/onlineservices/vehiclerecalls/vehiclerecalls.htm Dealers will buy bikes without service history although you will take a hit on the value. From speaking to others this is generally less than the cost of dealer service costs, although when you add up the consumables it works out a little more. On balance, unless you know what you are doing, are competent, have the right tools and manuals then really, you are best taking it to the dealer, at this early age of the bike.

Didn't old Satan, erm, Sadam have the right idea ? if you want cheap Oil, invade a country with little or no defense and take it ! Scotland perhaps ??

Hey hey... We're OK, had the forsight (after nearly loosing it all in 2005) to move to a place that isn't in the flood plain, although no-one would ever have expected the amount of rain to fall in the fells that did - has to go somewhere, usually down.....

I took this off the BBC website, pretty awesum piece of flying, considering it's blowing a hoolie

I'm not sure what the weather is like in your part of the world, but I think the end of this part of the world is almost here.... so far yesterday ; Keswick was cut off, apart from the Penrith approach. The reality of this is that West Cumbria is only acessable from the south! Sellafield Nuclear site has sent non-escential staff home as a result of torrential rainfall and high winds, We had 15 servere flood warnings in place for north cumbria, 14 Flood Watches, Carlisle public park (a big field thing in the middle of town) was under water, as was the Golf course (no loss there then) an may outlying fields, Keswick was only dry as a result of an old slate wall!!! not so today They evacuated large areas of Keswick and Cockermouth, the authorities adviseing everyone to move their cars and valuables to higher ground! The A6 between Shap and Penrith was closed, as was the A69 (carlisle to newcastle) and the A591 (Keswick to Windermere) and parts of the A66 Seathwait in Borrodale (officially the wettest place in England) has recorded 173mm (6.8 Inches) of rain in 24 hours, that's more than some countries get in 10 years! and to top it all, my front garden is flooded ! that's going to ruin my Daffodils for next year. Today, this have got worse,, Overnight TWO main bridges have been washed away, and one Policement lost to the torrent. The main road link into Workington from the north has gone taking the main gas line with it. The people living just the other side have a 20 - 30 mile detour, heading back into Cockermouth, which itself is under around 2 METERS or water, the town centre is practically wiped out with almost no businesses left. The RAF and RN are busy picking people from upstairs windows and rooftops. Just here'd on the local radio that the ARMY has been called in to assist with the rescue, around 11 people are unaccounted for at the mo. This is all happening 20 minutes away from where I live..... reminds me of the scene outside our front door in 2005: The RN Seaking had just airlifted the family from the white house you can see, it's normally the other side of the river, which was about 1 meter (in hight) from taking our house out - we were lucky. The effects of these last few days is going to last for years. A mate sent me this yesterday, it's from a cameraphone so not great quality, but the waterfall you see is actually a wall that is normally around 20 feet above the river: Really, the place is a mess. In Dumfries & Galloway, half of the remote areas are isolated, another mate of mine took 3 hours to get home, a journey that never takes more than 30 minutes.... Glad of a deisel transit most of his time was spent negotiating flooded cars.

I got 15litres on the north (scotland) coast from one of those post office/shop/petrolpump/vet/doctor/supermarket all-in-one community things in September and it cost me £20 and some pennies...... that's a whopping £1.33 a litre! Fair enough there wasn't another petrol station for miles and miles and it's a community thing, so travveling to Tesco's 80 miles away for fuel is a bit of a problem, but even so, it's still a bit much. The pub in Applcross gives you a gallon for a £5, again it's a community thing.

Shouldn't you have waited till 1st April to post this up ?

Nope, that won't work either. There are 8 refineries in the UK, and people like Asda, Morrisons, Tesco will buy from whoever is giving the best deal. The likes of Esso, BP and Shell will produce and sell in thier own franchised shops, but these shops are owned and run by independent buisiness people (who make a fixed price per litre, usually a few pence) - so this approach would only hut them. If you did boycott say, Shell then the slack in the market would be taken up by the others, and when they reached peak production they would more have to go to Shell and buy from them to meet demand, furthermore if Shell did reduce prices them the supermarkets would no doubt buy this stock up. Yes cheaper fuel but the problem is it would never hurt the producers, only the distribution shops. The problem isn't with the fuel producers, it's the double taxation that the government takes. First they add fuel duty, then VAT. So you pay VAT on the Duty that the goverment takes! Considering the government is practically bankrupt (apart from owning a lot of failing banks) they are going to sting us for every penny they can. Personally I'd preffer they took the money from fuel rather than income tax, this way I can choose not to ride/drive to deny them thier cut, if they took it from income then it would be gone and there's bugger all we can do about it! They are is a difficult place though, add VAT and the economy shrinks, unemployment goes up and tax recipts go down (while payments go up), take it out of tax and spending falls, the economy shrinks etc etc. Take it from fuel and we all have a bitch and carry on regardless......

:lol: :lol:

You'll only overcome this by experience, and the only way to get that is to get out and ride in it. Before long you'll develope a sense of whats going on and you'll compensate without thinking about it. One or two things will make life easier; Look out for gaps in the roadside hedges/walls, you'll often get a gust here when passing wagons, take care when clearing them, again you might pick up a gust Think about your road possition if you are being blown about, make sure you have enough space to get blown off course without going into the oncoming traffic! Don't worry, befroe long you'll be asking questions about riding in ice, or on gritted roads, about the low sun, the cold, the wet etc It's all part of becoming a proper motorcyclist, you never stop learning.

Certain bikes cost more to insure, it like that, and that's how it is! There is no apparent reason to it, other than if it has lots of plastic on it it will cost you loads more.... Carol Nash have a discount broker - JustBikeInsurance, they quoted me £70 TPFT for a dirt bike when lots of others wouldn't quote (high risk group) and thos ethat did were quoting £150 to £200. JustBike take away the stuff you don't need or want (leather cover, legal cover, recovery etc). Give them a try. Self employed, that will increase your premium, as will none-secured parking. Try picking a few bikes and looking for an on-line quote for them, you might actually find a bike you like (with more power?) that costs less to buy and less to insure ? Consider maybe a naked Fazer, XJ, Hornet, Bandit etc, you'll get an idea of the costs, even if you don't like the bikes. If a shiny bling bike is what you want, you are just going to have to dig deep and pay the fiddler, as they say !

I have a Keis heated waistcoat, superb in the really cold weather on the long runs over the tops, it's a great piece of kit even if you don't plug it in! However, if I were to by buying again I'd got for the Stormrider from EXO2, and pay the extra. EXO2 have some pretty cool cloth that heats up without any elements, so you get warmth all round, not just your kindeys like most heated stuff (the theory being that if your kindneys are warm, then the blood passing through them gets warm as carries the heat around your body). I have the EXO2 heated gloves too, they don't get hot, but keep your hands at the normal temperature without any hotspots, sounds a bit weak but they work very very well. If you are doing long winter runs, don't knock the heated stuff, makes the difference between a happy rider and a cold one....

They sell them as fog lights, and have a centre dip (they don't peak up at the left edge like normal dipped lights - Centre dip is leagal as the new Tenere has a centre dip, so you don't need to put them daft stickers on your headlight when you go over the water) so my guess is that they are fine as they don't dazzle other road users, but I'm not sure of the opinion that VOSA or the MOT tester would have. You can get the same shaped lights, sold as daylight running lights. For this I would imagine you would get a daytime MOT (as in the bike is treated as having no lights) I've never had any bother using mine, and they weren't questioned on the MOT, but they are controlled by a switch.

Sounds like a mighty easy way to provide a small bit of home comfort to the guys out there. Someone must know, but to get the free BFPO do you take it to the post office ? or do any of the other carriers do this ?

They are made by Ring, you can get them from Halfrauds for around £26..... They are cheap, but they are not the best...... I have a pair on the TTR to backup the crap headlight during the dark months... http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_232473_langId_-1_categoryId_165688

the hotgrips have a load of 3amps, 36w on full power, so with the hot hands drawing 1.3 each thats 2.6amps and 31watts total load - there is only 5watts in it! change your sidelight bulb for an LED and you have the budget for the grips - if you so desire,...... I have Hotgrips on two of my bikes, they are not as good as the older style (the ones with the knob rather than the press buttons) but they are as good as the Honda OEM ones I had on my Varadero but 1/4 of the price !! ,,,, and better than the BMUU ones I've tried on a GS I've tried heated gloves too, the current draw is much higher but you get all round warmth as well as inbetween the fingers!! (EXO2 gloves)

It's certainly a good costume, but I don't see the halloween link?

I'd say then that this is a normal reaction to high revs and a good thrashing. Try plugging the pipe with something (small rubber bung?) and see what condition the oils is. This is certainly the source of your oil use. The WR's are race bikes and so require a bit more in the maintenance department than your average trail bike. Perhaps get your compression tested, if you have back pressure (from worn piston rings) this will blow oil out of the breather more than normal.

The 660 sinlge is a heavy breather, and it's very normal for the breather tube to fill up (it has a plug to stop it dripping). Mot heard of this on the 450 though... What kind of riding are yuo doing, high revs for long periods by chance ??

Stockbroker insurance !