Mr Fro

You should see Bury St Edmunds hospital - one of the most expensive in the UK plus, for bonus arsewipery, they've been digging up the main carpark since January and turning most of it in to disabled parking with the rest of the parking scattered around the site a decent walk from the only entrance. Not what you need when your wife is about to drop a sprog!

I agree! I've got one on the zxr - absolutely transformed the handling and it was very good value compared to the competition.

Bikes are golden for getting in to the hospital near me. Been in and out the last few days and the ability to nip round the dodderers and park fairly near the entrance saved me a load of headache. Plus it avoids the £2.20/hr parking charges for 9 hours/day.

True, but you want to like it therefore you will have bias. Plus you don't have much of a frame of reference. I did have a little chuckle to myself when I looked at the stats for the LXR125 - 12.1 bhp at 167 kg... That's exactly the same weight as my zx6r but that has 130.5 bhp!

The guy is a boring chump - I watched a fair bit but it was tedious and essentially just his rather biased opinion. Crowd fund me the cash and I'll buy a new one to ride all year round. I'll even do reviews along the way.

Fabsil is really good for waterproofing textiles. It's what I use on mine and it holds up very well.

Do you mean they "didn't fit" because you didn't tighten them up or is there something I'm missing?

I think I'm with Bob on this one - surely you can get a spanner (or better yet a vice) of the flats in the tube and whip the weights off...

It's handy to be able to change your own tyres but it can be a right pain in the buttocks - especially breaking the bead and buggering about with levers. I'd look for a tyre specialist (or main dealer of you're feeling flush) if you don't have a good bike place near by. I took a wheel to a car place once and they took a chunk out of it.

If you pop the bike over here I'll chop it off and measure it for you. Did anyone mention the state of the shock by the way?

Well I'd tower over you being 6'2 1/2" tall and I get along just fine on a CG125.

Ooh, I couldn't afford two pairs of gloves back then - what an extravagance!

Exactly! We had to do it......no choice! Usually in a greasy Belstaff that covered you in black marks.......and "waterproof" gloves and boots that weren't. The worst bit was the sponge on your goggles getting drenched and compressing the cold water onto your face! No inclination to go through that shit again! The thing for me though is I didn't give it a thought back in the day... Snow on the ground? Bung a few more layers on. Home time and your gear is still soaking? Ah well, it's only 20 miles or so... Two wheels were my only choice These days: looks like rain? f**k it, I'll take the car.

Hmm, yes. 3M sticky pads all the way - I used them to hold the arse-cam on my track bike: It was on for years without any problem yet was fairly easy got remove without leaving any mess.

Well I suppose my "newest" bike is 13 years old so maybe it's a recentish thing.

Not on any Kwak I've ever owned.

You might want to check to see if the GT has a stiffer carcass than the standard tyre - it could make the ride a bit harsh on your 500.

Smart idea!

https://krazyhorse.co.uk/ might be a place to start.

Very true, the nursery my son goes to has parking for about 8 normal cars driven by ordinary people or 3 fiat 500/BMW mini SUV driven by panic eyed mothers.

No worse than the steering wheel controls on most cars...

£22.75 for an intake valve, £35.82 for an exhaust valve from Suzuki.

What bike? I recently bought a new valve direct from Kawasaki for around £25.

The "shimmies" are called collets - it you give what's left of the valve stem a little tap from the underside then the stem and collets should pop off. Best do this over a bit of scrunched up cloth or something as they can ping off. Get a new valve and pop it through the valve guide to see how it fits - how much play is there etc. Looks like you got off quite lightly with the head - what does the piston look like?

Yep, split links are fine. Got them on the whinja and El Turbino. But yeah, why chop down to a 520? Much higher wear and lower force to break.