ColinWB

Apologies @bonio, you've been so helpful to me with your comments, the vision of you with the air vest inflated around you is comic genius . Particularly doing a U turn, that's my weakness too!

Maybe I should start taking photos on my rides and post them in the "ride reports an photographs" threads. I don't take my camera with me, though. But until then, I only have words lol. I set off from Gourock around 10am to got to Tighnabruaich (try remember how to sell that at ay time of the day). Gourock to the Erskine Bridge avoiding motorways, uneventful, as it was until the traffic got stuck behind the truck on the road up Loch Lomond side. The truck driver knew just how fast to go to prevent anyone overtaking, so the queue grew and grew and grew. All the way from Dumbarton to the Rest and be Thankful. There are roadworks there, so I was able to pass the truck and a mile of queuing traffic to get trough the lights before they turned red again . After that wee bit of frustration and buffeting from the truck after I leapfrogged the cars and got stuck behind it, it was basically a clear road to Tighnabruaich. If you accept my choice of the coastal road instead of the direct road. Potholes and puddles on the coastal road, the centre being alternately grass, gravel and moss, with the occasional dropped branch, dog walker, hiker and the odd (Audi!) car coming the other way on a single track road with passing places. Oh, it was wet too. Character building. Lunch at The Tearoom in Tighnabruaich, where the lady serving was also the cook, having baked the scones and cakes before opening. She was remarkably good humoured doing it all single handed because her assistant had called in sick, and the food was great too. Huge kudos to her. The forecast was sunshine all day. Eh, no, it chucked it down big time when I was eating lunch. For half an hour! So I had an extra cappuccino, dried my set and set off for the return by the shorter route via the ferry from Hunters Quay, with a run down to Toward Lighthouse thrown in just because it was there. That route took me over the loggers road which had some steep downhills with sharp bends in light showers- so two muppets in 4x4s decided the best place to pass me was on the z-bends near the bottom . Let's say I'm glad I don't drive an Audi . On the ferry to Gourock from Hunters Quay another two bikers chatted away. They'd been to Campbeltown, starting off from Inverclyde like me, though they rode Yamaha Tracer 900s, a wee bit bigger than my Honda 125 . All told, a great day out, 143 miles round trip.

Just a shirt ride this morning because I was meeting my sons in Glasgow for beers in the afternoon. The sun was out in Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and Renfrewshire today, probably to mock us because it has been so absent for the summer that officially ends on Saturday lol. So, at 9am I was on the road down to Largs, turned left at the Haylie Brae road because it has some big z-bends on it, and over to Kilbirnie, back to Inverclyde via Brookfield, worth a mention for the haulage company Malcolm of Brookfield (I think every village in the UK has a Malcolm of Villagename franchise lol) Bridge of Weir and Kilmacolm. Beautiful ride, the z-bends were nice, though going in the opposite direction will be more challenging, going downhill with the sharpest being a left hander through 180 degrees - less road and a sharper bend than going right hand uphill - maybe next challenge. One thing I wasn't impressed with, and never have been impressed with. Going though Bridge of Weir I spotted a car coming out of a driveway, slowed down and moved to the centre of the road, looked directly at the driver, who saw me and stopped. Good on you, mate, thought I, you were alert for bikes. Then while waiting for me to pass he started putting on his seat belt!!! Why? Just why? Seatbelt should have been on before moving. Sadly, it is all to common to see that happening. edit was changing pf to of, and wh to who!

I meant to post this on Saturday. Took the bike down to Ayr on Saturday for its first service. The forecast was for wind and occasional light showers that turned out to be gusting strong winds and frequent short heavy showers. I've driven the A78 in my car forever but still hadn't appreciated how exposed it actually is for bikes in gusty crosswinds. The middle section from Fairlie almost down to Prestwick Airport was much nicer, the sun shone, the road dried out and had a bit of shelter because it is not right on the coast like the more northern sections. Happy to say that it was an uneventful ride apart from the weather, which gentle riding coped with.

Didn't have their Weetabix that morning!

Seagulls in Skipton???

This is an interesting topic for a newbie. I bought an HJC helmet, my first ever helmet, and was surprised that it came with a pinlock already fitted because I had the impression they were sold separately. I got it for the list price of the HJC helmet. The instructor on my CBT commented that the pinlock was already fitted as if he was surprised it came with the basic helmet. Absolutely no problems with it, maybe I struck lucky? Edited for spelling mistooks

Naw. I can't think of any bus lanes in Inverclyde. But the buses don't need them, they act like mobile road blocks, just like the taxis. Between them and the prolific traffic lights it's almost impossible to be done for speeding here.

A bit like Basil Fawlty thrashing his car with bough of leaves Hope that's allowed?

You can see it on the Rebus episode currently on the U&Drama channel. Set in Edinburgh but this one was filmed largely in Inverclyde.

Another day another ride. I met my mate Steve at Erskine and we headed to Ayr via the back roads, which was almost a novel experience for Steve since he rides a Suzuki 650 on motorways . So I was in front so he didn't either disappear into the distance or inadvertently lead me onto a motorway. It was a pretty uneventful ride but I got two lessons. On the road between Beith and Burnhouse there's a z bend that has a short bridge in the middle of it I took the first part correctly but didn't set up properly for the second part so ended up heading for the outside of the lane on the exit, and three deep looking dimples that I didn't fancy going through, so I drifted over to the opposite direction lane because there was nothing coming the other way - yes, I was lucky; the road was damp so I didn't fancy trying to pull tighter to avoid them in case I came off. The second lesson was even though I was catching up on a car on the dual carriageway, it was also giving me some protection from the wind, so when I pulled out to overtake, bam, the full wind was like braking and instead of passing quickly I started going backwards relative to the car. Steve had pulled out behind me to give me some protection, knowing what was going to happen when he saw me indicate to overtake. Yes, he mentioned my two gaffs when we stopped in Ayr. Actually, I learned three lessons. The third one was don't try to eat a doughnut on Largs sea front, the seagulls will steal them when you put them up to your mouth and the genteel locals don't appreciate the gulls being told to go fornicate elsewhere.

Cheers Simon, I'm really enjoying being on the bike. Need to remember I'm a learner, though and not get too carried away with the thrills

I had a week baking in the sun in St Neots, so missed the bike for that week. I put that to rights today with a trip up to Aberfoyle via Erskine Bridge, Queens View/The Whangie. Passing this I had to give the car in front plenty of distance to avoid second hand consumption of weed . From Aberfoyle I went over Duke's Pass with its twist and turns on the ascent and descent and on to Callander where I took a wee detour along the southern shore of Loch Venachar towards Invertrossachs. Back through Callander and along the A84 to Stirling where I went round the bottom of the rock the castle sits on to join the A811 to head back to Queens View. It was windy and gusty all the way but the A811 was the worst, most exposed part of the trip, my wee 125 got a bit twitchy occasionally. I got to practice my emergency stop at the A811/A809 junction when a bus turned left out the junction and strayed over to my side briefly, I moved to the left side of my lane to avoid the bus and spotted the left hand drive campervan turning right on the far side of the bus straight into my path. It was a Westfalia Nugget conversion, an apt name for that driver who was not looking into the junction. Anyway, my emergency stop worked. Every ride is a lesson.

I rode up to the well known Green Welly on the A82 on Tuesday, a lovely and uneventful ride up. The weather forecast was worse than the actual weather, thankfully, and I was prepared to turn around further south than the Green Welly but it stayed dry and a wee bit sunny so I kept going. Had a nice chat with a bloke at the Welly who was running in a Harley after a rebore, then set off for the return. It was a wee bit different from the ride up though. The Falls of Falloch car park entrance, some moron was reversing out of the car park onto the A82. Another moron was waiting to turn into the car park and decided the best way to do that was to stop across the southbound lane. Brain cells were in short supply. I was overtaken by a Honda Forza further down the A82 on the banks of Loch Lomond, after we'd been held up for half an hour while the police cleared a collision between a car driver and a wall. The guy on the Forza was on a roll, he zoomed past the van in front of me after tailgating it and then the guy on the BMW F750 in front of the van. Anyway, I decided to extend my ride by going to Helensburgh then up to the roundabout at the far end of Faslane, where I turned round and headed for the Erskine Bridge, through Bishopton and down to Largs before turning round and heading back home to Inverclyde. It was a good day out, different roads, some light rain showers and a persistent wind from the south, all good experience. One of the best was passing the Drovers Inn. Traffic was heavyish there and I almost missed it, but the aroma from their kitchen left me in no doubt where I was .

I'm tempted to say not a lot but I'm trying to get experience of different roads in decent weather. On Thursday I chose a route that was uphill with tight blind corners, sheep grazing freely on either side for about 5 miles. I've done that route on my pedal cycle before, so it's reasonably familiar, but the speed of the motorbike is the new dimension. Happily it all worked out fine on another bright sunny evening.

Too good an afternoon to waste so I got on my bike again and forgot about the bonkers road works in my town that were causing an hours delay for drivers. There isn't really an alternative route either . My patience lasted ten minutes and another 4 bikes filtering through the queue so I decided to try it for the first time. Surprisingly most drivers had left enough space to get through comfortably, except Mr 4x4 pickup who just had to put his tyres on the white lines. An obliging driver in the next lane created a space for me and through I went . It took 5 minutes to get to the roadworks, except they weren't because no one was working, just a load of cones and signs creating an obstruction, with temporary traffic lights to enforce a standstill. I had to go through them again on the way back and had no hesitation in filtering this time. There were plenty of other friendly bikers out too, it was nice to get the nods and waves from them. I rode a "massive" 85miles around Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and North Ayrshire, so if you saw a blue CB125 being ridden by a guy in a white helmet wearing a high vis vest, that was likely me.

Hi, welcome to the forum

Welcome to a very friendly forum.

Picked up my first ever bike, a CB125F, and rode it home 50 miles. Decided to do an additional 30 mile loop because I was enjoying it so much. The weather was perfect, dry and clear skies. That's me started

Got my insurance sorted today. The final step was phoning the brokers direct. £20 cheaper and £50 less excess compared to the comparison sites. Thank you, all your advice worked.

Interesting approach. I'm sure they were on The Motorbike Show relatively recently too.

I bought a white helmet because I thought it would stand out more than any other colour and because the police use them I thought there must be some truth in that. However, one retailer said he was told that pink helmets actually stand out more than white because they are unusual.

Welcome from someone else who gets confused by the wiggly amps

Welcome , it's a very friendly place, this forum.

Welcome to a really friendly forum. Well done on getting back on bikes