Ttaskmaster

My Mrs is 5' 4" (possibly even less, I'm not sure) and she finds the Dragstar perfectly fine. She also says "a Virago is an old man's bike", despite it being more designed for smaller riders, but hey... :-) I say go with the 650. You get used to the weight very quickly and you'll find it feels very 'planted' in the corners :-)

Interesting question... Can I ask how come? I don't think most people have had the need. It's pretty low as is and I've seen one comfortably ridden by a 4' 8" rider (controls had to be altered, though). Wearing New Rocks is an option apparently, but I wouldn't recommend it myself ;-) You could drop the suspension a bit, perhaps swap out the monoshock for a slightly shorter one. Failing that, your main option would be to get the seat padding resculpted with a deeper profile.

Ridicule welcomed? Don't tempt me, heh heh..... Actually, this is a pretty darn sensible thing to ask and I don't (usually) kick off for no reason :-) IIRC, most 400cc bikes are pretty much bang on 33BHP and won't need restrictor kits. They last nicely past the waiting period as well, so all is good. The XVS650 Dragstar has 40BHP. However, the drop to 33 with a restrictor kit doesn't actually make much difference to the performance. It's a low-end torque machine and will still shift nicely, reaching motorway speeds quite happily for a Cruiser. Even if you get the Classic model which is 20kg heavier, it does fine. Keep as is, or whip the restrictor off when finished with the 2 year period thing and you've got a great bike! I'm not actually biassed this time, I'm just speaking from experience ;-) Viragoes are pretty much the same, but better suited to smaller riders and have that little extra BHP (once derestricted) as mentioned in posts above, but parts are starting to get harder to find. Also, very low fuel capacity - 13 litres if you have the add-on. About 8 without, I think.

You WHAT??!! OK, so by that same reasoning: What the fuck are bikers still doing on today's modern roads, then? No seatbelts, no crash bars, no crumple zones, no weather protection, too vulnerable from any road condition that isn't 100% perfect... and always ridden by granny-bashing, baby-eating, devil-worshipping, speed-freak Power Ranger tossers who think the law doesn't apply to them... Same for cyclists, delivery vans, BMWs, trucks and anything else that isn't whatever vehicle you happen to have at the time. If you check your basic history, you'll find plague was spread by the fleas on the rats that lived in the towns and villages, where humans hardly ever bathed, let alone washed their hands after shitting. Horses had fuck-all to do with it. Pedestrians and horses were here first. We're taking over many of their byways and turning them into roads, but their rights-of-way take precedence. Grass field? OK, good one - Tresspassing on what is likely private land, farmer cracks out his shotgun and bang. Good alternative. All those above should be redirected along similar routes, eh. But hey, ignore the horses - What if you crash you bike because of mud on the road? Or general road dirt build-up? Diesel? Rain? OK, so that's earth banned, other vehicles banned, weather banned and all sorts of insanity - just because a few dickheads are incapable of simply looking where they're going...

And you both need to stop assuming... She may well have a boyfriend, girlfriend or both.

Tights ladder very easily (which upsets the wife) and can be expensive, as well as being very girly. You can pick up thermal underlayer sets from bike accessory shops for a few quid, or a set of NOS army surplus thermal Long Johns from surplus shops for a few quid less - Both do a much better job IMO, the military ones being the best (naturally)! ;-)

Nah, likely take you an hour at the absolute most, including cups of tea and cigarettes!

There will/should be a model number written on the bulb itself. Pop into Halfords and get the 55/60w Philips one that matches the model type and you're good to go. And yes, you should be able to alter the beam direction, as they will test it's alignment on your MOT. Likely just turning one of two screws on the headlight casing. The manual should explain it.

Yep, they're all wobbly. Far more important to make sure the rubber O-ring in the casing side panel is correctly seated and completely free of grit.

Who are you?

You can get brighter bulbs for the headlight. Phillips do the most popular 60w ones and it's just a simple swap out. Just make sure you get the right kind for your headlight and that's it. I think even Halfords sell the bulbs.

Ask the manufacturer. A public forum is NOT the place to discuss methods of fiddling with security devices, as it will only aid thieves.

No idea, but can't be any harm in sending them. Feel free to send other stuff as well - Anything but issues of NUTS magazine!

You already have it - The title of 'Biker'. Wear it proud, mate!

>Even with the rain, darkness, coldness and mental memory of junctions I really enjoyed myself! Welcome to the club!! THIS is what it's all about. THIS is where the real adventure lies! >But I've discovered that owning a 125 doesn't have to be a restriction and it sure as hell is an experience! Quote of the year, I'd say!! Many of us have been saying this all along - Great to find someone who is really living it!

Then you have not ridden in cold enough weather! :-) Even with carb heaters, I sometimes get carb icing on my bike. Go out when the standing temperature is -7ºC and blaze down the motorway a couple of hours.

Often when a military force departs a station for good, it's easier to bury the stuff than organise the logistics to take it home, especially if there's been a war on and stuff like fuel is in short supply. Go hunting around Devonshire and you'll find LOADS of site where entire fleets of US vehicles and all this equipment were just buried. Harley WLAs, Half-tracks, Jeeps, Deuce & a Halves, weapons carriers, the lot. Most of the stockpiles are on private land now though, with little surface evidence remaining. We regularly visit one particular site where we know there are Quonset huts and their entire contents just dumped into a pit and filled in, but the landowner won't let anyone touch it. The only trace is the remnants of the Quonsets' foundations. There's also a Real Tennis court of the type set up by Henry VIII still standing, all original Tudor brickwork and everything... apart from one side wall that the Yanks smashed in so they could park their trucks in there. They also used it to host evening dances and they even rebuilt the wall on their way out!

Everyone has seen the nasty side of D-Day thanks to Saving Private Ryan (SPR). What they didn't show was 'behind the scenes'. Here's the typical GI's D-Day: 0200 - Get up. Chances are you've been awake all night anyway. You've probably been in a bunk or hammock 3-high in a metal room below deck with a couple hundred other hot, sweaty, farty young men, all of whom are nervous as hell and talking all night about the invasion and smoking cigarettes. 0300 - By now you'll have had a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs and such. Time to get your kit ready and begin loading. 0600 - You're fully kitted up and in the boats. You wear cotton undergarments, wool shirt, poplin cotton jacket, wool trousers and soft leather boots (no toecap). Over this you have HBT (herringbone twill) overalls or a 2-piece. HBT is a close-weave cotton/denim affair to protect your woolen uniform. It is not at all breathable anyway, so you're sweating before you've fastened it up. Additionally, the HBTs have been coated with anti-gas treatment, making them as rigid as cardboard. Over the top of this, you also typically wear: Helmet, rifle belt, canteen, fully loaded haversack, 2 bandoliers of ammo, GP bag, several grenades, a couple pounds of TNT, a couple belts of machine-gun ammo, gas mask bag, mortar rounds and perhaps even an ammo crate. The boat is rocking on a turbulent sea. It's overcast and raining slightly, so you're soaked from that and the sea spilling over into the boat. You've been packed in together and standing (not sitting) for at least 3 hours and EVERYONE has thrown up at some point, usually over each other. It stinks, you're seasick and the sickness pills they gave you just make you sleepy. Your wool clothing has doubled in weight and everything is cramping up, from your joints to your stomach. 0630 - You're in the first wave. You're going in and boats all around are hitting beach obstacles with mines attached to them. You're covered in blood and spray from your mates in the other boat, often dry-vomiting in response. When yoru boat hits the sandbar and the door of your boat finally drops, you see before you a good 2-300 yards of empty beach. You hop out into waist-deep water and wade ahead toward the silence... Should be easy, right? Nope. Ze Chermanz have every inch of that beach pre-sighted and they're just waiting until the second wave is starting in. Meanwhile, you're going as fast as you can... but your sprint is slowed to a slow walk at best. You probably fall a few times and jar your skeleton at the impact. Just as you're about 150 yards away, your world is shattered by mines, mortars, artillery, machine guns and rifles. The rest... well, if you've seen SPR, you've seen a mere glimpse at what it was like. Over the weekend my Living History unit did a small set-piece where we were the target of incoming mortar fire. You always see explosions banging all around people in movies, but no-one ever cowers in absolute terror unless the script calls for a 'coward' character. The reality is just the opposite. Every veteran I've ever spoken to or read the words of has described incoming artillery as, at the least, the single most terrifying thing in existence. There are fuller explanations in Taught To Kill and Roll Me Over, but words really fail to capture the full experience. We were also right next to a Sherman returning fire, and yet although it was only pyrotechnic effects, for those short few moments every word of every veteran was suddenly made very real and I understood with a clarity you simply cannot imagine. Our experience was only a simulated 12 round salvo. Many of these guys had to put up with this stuff for hours on end, sometimes all-nighters and on a daily basis. At a previous event, a kid had said to me that it would have been so cool to go through war and do all this stuff. He insisted I was wrong, that he would not have been scared and he'd have been wicked. Oddly enough, that was exactly the type of soldier they mostly sent into the beaches, for that exact reason. They didn't know what was coming. At the time, I eventually told him to fuck off. I now wish I'd packed him in my haversack and pulled the little twat out just before the set-piece started. He'd have understood then!

True in this instance, but do NOT apply this reasoning to the purchase of every motorcycle-related product. You will quickly end up broke with nothing to show for it but a pile of broken and failed kit. Case in point - Half of Hein Gericke's top-of-the-range waterproofed, armoured kevlar clothing. £400 odd quid for a jacket that suffered multiple split-seams within the first half-hour. But it was expensive, so it must be good, right?

>Why does Captain Birdseye go to sea with all them small boys? Child labour is cheaper than employing Polish fish-handlers. >Why do ambulances with their blues and two's on... [snip]... see the word ambulance in the rear view mirror? To remind people it's not an 'Amber Lights'. >If you force your self onto a prostitute is it classed as rape or shoplifting? Both, especially if she has a good lawyer.

I'd have parked the vehicle right there and then, before walking off and letting the fucking instructor do what he liked, in that case!

>Why is a near miss not a near collision? It depends how far a miss it was. You generally have missed, but near the target (near-miss) and you have missed by a mile (Fookin' WAAAAAAY off, lad!).

>If you choke a smurf what colour would he turn? Reddish purple. >Why do kamikaze pilots ware helmets? In case they change their minds at the last moment... or fuck it up and want to try again. >Why do they sterilize lethal injection needles? There's an official reason for this (Google it yerself), but I like to think it's the executioner having the one laugh his career permits!

Getting easier to justify driving my tank :-)

I only reiterated the functional difference because bluetooth was mentioned. I still don't see how removing a feature from something for a car should affect something NOT for a car. THAT is the relationship I meant. Which is why I suggested the Rider - It has those features you'll seldom use, plus others actually intended for your chosen vehicle that you likely WILL use... many very often. It's more money, yes, but you get more with it as well. TomTom and Garmin both saw that bikers (myself included) were buying SatNavs and then spending loads of money on awkward setups involving waterproof luggage, bluetooths (blueteeth?) and headsets, modifications and all sorts, therefore identifying a market. Obviously, to justify the expense, they had to make it worthwhile by packing in as many of the car models' features as possible, while adding extras to cope with bikers' unique needs. The results were a pair of pretty darn cool units and I've neither regretted the expense nor had any navigational issues, instead usually arriving well ahead of anyone else in my group. You can probably find a reasonably priced Rider v2 on eBay or something. The v1 will be even cheaper, but might lack certain features. The mount it comes with is crap but there are improved versions around. Unless you're definitely going overseas, the UK only version is about half the price! Just offering advice, though. A few times. Not really that useful, IMO. OK if you have a set route to stick to, but if you change your mind or reorganise it's a bit awkward and naff.