Ttaskmaster

Don't get me wrong - The Viragoes are a good range, right to the top. Just not suited to what I personally wanted. The Dragstar *looks* bigger because it's long and low, but the 650 actually has slightly less power/torque than the 535. As mentioned, try both out, see what you like best. One good thing about Cruisers especially is not only the range of available accessories, but the degree to which you can customise it yourself. I personally avoid shiny pretty chrome and all that crap, preferring something that currently looks like it rode in straight from the desert in a post-apocalypse movie. With a bit more cash and time, it will look so fucking bad-ass it'd put Mad Max to shame! But that's the whole point of riding a Custom. To me it's not just about decking your Cruiser out with a 'unique' combination of whatever (expensive and usually chromed) accessories are available, for which you might as well ride the Classic version of a Cruiser, but adding properly unique custom bits to make it truly individual. Mine is done to meet my requirements and be comfy to me.

Aside from the occasional dipstick models, most of which seem to be Harleys and therefore pretty irrelevant, just about every bike I've ever known has to be upright. That's pretty much standard and thus why it's taught so from CBT.

Did anyone read that fucking link, or what?

Discussing religion, are we? Norse gods were here before God. Personally I'm a fan of Crom and his followers, but the old Viking gods were the absolute best. Here's the long explanation of why: "Christianity promised to rid the world of evil... Odin promised to rid the world of Ice Giants. How many Ice Giants do you see stomping around?" 'Nuff said, I think. Now off to the mead hall!!!

I'm also 5' 11", with most of that height coming from long limbs. Back when I was younger, I wanted a 535 (mainly because Gary Numan had one at the time). Having subsequently tried both the 535 and 750 Viragoes, I have to say they were very cramped. I briefly borrowed a 535 with outrigged footpegs but not only was it still awkward, the pegs decked out very early. That's a major reason why I went with a Dragstar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_Diversion

Actually I'm saying you wasted money on something that is free and easy. I live out in the sticks too. Out here we're not on the main water network and we don't even have gas. I only get 1-1.5meg connection at best and the PDF still downloaded in less than 30 seconds. Heck, even my 2006 model mobile phone running Windows Mobile 5.5 can manage it in less than a minute with only 60% signal, so I don't know what's so dysmal about your home connection. I linked you to the official Yamaha one, but PDF Owners Manuals are everywhere. It takes a few seconds on Google. And yet you had to ask, "Is the engine oil checked on the side stand or on the main stand?"... It's all in that manual

Any bike that isn't the fastest, biggest, most expensive is automatically a girls'/old mans' bike. It's usually what pretentious pricks say shortly before they fuck up and crash into a motorway bridge while trying to get their knee down at 175 down the M25 during rush hour traffic... I don't think this thing is operational. It's either work-in-progress or just a display piece. He even removes the mirrors in some shots. Worthless, unless it works!!

So do what I suggested in the first place and get an official Owners Manual from the official Yamaha website for free: http://www.yamaha-motor.eu/uk/services/owner-manuals/index.aspx It will be a PDF file about 4.8mb in size and will take approximately 42 seconds to download, depending on your internet connection. That should provide more than adequate time to permit an oil change over the weekend. Centrestand, yes. NOT the sidestand, because the bike is then not really upright. Your other options include putting a block under the sidestand or having someone hold the bike upright (usually sitting on it) while you work. By downloading the free Ownwers Manual from the official Yamaha website, I can tell you that the exact, precise amounts are as follows: Total amount: 3.1L Periodic oil change: 2.3L With oil filter: 2.6L However, exact, precise measurement may be problematic especially if you don't completely drain the sump first and is an awful lot of fiddling around. This is made much easier by checking the engine oil level sight glass (located at the lower part of the right side crankcase cover), measuring the level against the maximum and minimum level markers along the side of the sight glass. Most people just buy a big 4L bottle of oil, drain the old oil, swap the filter and then add new oil until the level sits between the aforementioned level markers. Curiously, this is all covered in CBT as well as full A-licence training, which every licenced motorcyclist in the UK should have successfully completed... Your girlfriend had a Harley? You have my condolences... I wonder how much I'd have to pay them to make me a Harley Spongebob... I reckon that'd be a great laugh!!

Indeed. Sound advice there. You might also want to search online for an Owners Manual - These are usually free (Yamaha might even have one on their site). You can also find both Haynes/Clymer service manuals (owner use) and proper Yamaha Workshop manuals (professional mechanic use) for download, but these either cost (legit Workshop ones are expensive) or the free ones are technically illegal downloads. I'd recommend the Workshop one as Haynes and Clymer often have errors and black & white photos instead of clear diagrams. For all the wonder they create, bike designers are quite stupid when it comes to certain basics. You'd think by now someone would have figured out how to angle the sight glass so that you can check the oil level without having to have the machine upright, especially on bikes that don't even have a fecking centrestand (cough Dragstar cough)! I don't know if it's the Drags specifically or Yamaha in general, but they do like to site things in akward places. You have to remove half the bike to change the oil filter on the 1100, for example. I've seen some very awkward bits being done to an R1 as well.

Dragstar engines are quite hard to come by, I'm afraid, especially at sensible prices. It takes a fair bit to knacker these things.

It's not stupidity. That's just what they'll claim, along with bikes being so invisible, you riding like a loony, etc.. Fact is, they will always come off betterthan you, so they really don't give a fuck if they kill you or not. Ask any woman driving her kids around in a (typically pretend) 4x4 - "So long as my beloved kids are OK...". They just about all know FULL WELL that they can get away with being cunts, because half the time YOU will not be around to argue back. Hit and run, no witnesses, no problem. It is this exact mentality that is driving me to save up for my tank. I'm used to an environment where I speak the loudest, tread the heaviest, hit the hardest and carry by far the fuck-off-biggest stick around, so I see no reason not to carry this into the driving arena.

That's what LAN parties and online gaming is for! Drag out yer Spectrum 48k and then we'll start talking nostalgia... Don't bother with the BBC, but Amiga, Atari, Amstrad and Commodore owners also welcome. Anyone who remembers Pong first coming out is an honoured guest!

Mini- what? Mini moto?

I hate all weathers!

Yeah, well Big Al says that dogs can't look up... Apple cost so much because of the prorietary crap and the reputation they have built from temporarily cornering the market. Currently, about 50% of all handsets worldwide are Android, with about 31% being iOS and the rest being 'other'. They trade off of other people's laziness. They do the same things with gaming consoles - PC gaming is better in just about every way, yet consoles are designed to be played from the comfort of slumped on a sofa. As a result, you get crap graphics on low-powered processors, with overly-simple control maps that work very poorly with half the games out there and those maps further translate very dysmally to PC, meaning a half-crap game on a shitty console is fucking dire on PC. Even now, people are disregarding decent high-performance laptops in favour of lightweight models that can be lazed with on yer couch.

Read it again - The apps you download, even genuine ones, purposely collect personal data and transmit it to other parties. By just downloading the app, you automatically agree to let it do so and it's a condition of the download. You want it, you accept that it will compromise your personal data. Most people are not stupidly clicking on links, they are failing to read the T&Cs of each app and don't care so long as they get to piss about with Angry Birds or whatever. Even a calculator app has been known to do this. If you read half of thiose links above, you'll understand why. No, you REALLY can't. That's why I check these things out. The full truth would horrify and terrify you!!

Gotta be proper careful with eBay...

Knowing several people who've had such issues, and finding out a LOT with just a 5-minute Google, I'd say my reluctance is perfectly justified. However: http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/10/01/massive-security-vulnerability-in-htc-android-devices-evo-3d-4g-thunderbolt-others-exposes-phone-numbers-gps-sms-emails-addresses-much-more/ iPhone is secure, eh? http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/product_id-15556/year-2012/Apple-Iphone-Os.html There are similar lists for all the Samsung range too, including remote-wipes that copy your data out of your phone, then erase everthing. It's like cloning, but it eliminates the original (ie yours), thus replacing it - Good luck arguing that! iOS 4 and 5 are also both vulnerable to flaws in the Nitro Javascript engine that permits remote access and pretty much full control, be it making your phone ring on demand or accessing just about every bit of personal data, from emails and phone contacts to web history and GPS location. Here's a list of known security vulnerabilities, from Apple themselves: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5503 http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/new-macdefender-malware-infecting-unsuspecting-apple-users/ Absolute naive fucking bollocks - EVERY computer can get viruses, malware and so forth. Viruses are less useful these days, as hacking and data theft actually brings in money, whereas hitting you with a Trojan that wipes your drive is considered a childish prank. Why do that when you can make money selling people's data? There are fewer hacks there that specifically target Macs, but they do exist. Again, several users I know have experienced this, including the bloke sat opposite me at work right now. Go get a copy of The Mac Hackers Handbook and then we'll talk Macbooks are wide open to Malware installations and there's a remote hack that can rewrite the firmware on the battery's embedded chip to brick it and render it useless. Apparently a good hacker could even make the battery explode. http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/23/security_expert_finds_vulnerability_exposing_macbook_batteries_to_bricking_malware Apparently, you can hack into a MacBook within seconds (not the first time this has happened, either): http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/pwn2own-2009-safarimacbook-falls-in-seconds/2917 Finally, there's this: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/most-smartphone-owners-are-indifferent-about-phone-security/

Holes.

Can't be hacked? Everything can be hacked. The issue I have is that many of the apps for all these phones, including ones you'd never expect, can and do access personal information which is then available online. You can't usually deny the permission for such and the only way to avoid this is to not get the apps.

I'd say yeah, wrong size springs. Where did you buy these?

What social stuff? I have a phone, texts and the ability to visit people, or meet them down the pub. What more is there!

Football should not be a contact sport, as I understand it... They call that a Foul, don't they? English Football in general is shite - 1966 since we last won the World Cup. Know why? Because we keep focussing on getting THE best players in the team. But in 1966 the team was composed of players who weren't THE best themselves, yet played very well as a team. How is it no-one does this any more?

Every single mod on my bike has either been about maintenance or function. Nothing on there is cosmetic.