Marmalade43

If your pic relates to your bike, it has a helmet hook under the pillion seat, same as gsxr, pan euro and i imagine many other bikes.

the covers are at aldi 220cm long and meant to fit all bikes, i looked on ebay and the xl ones are 235cm+ so i ordered one online to replace one of mine, £9 delivered, you can get them for as little as £4.40

I always use caberg flip lids and put mine into top box along with my oh, full face.

I've used both spare sets of batteries in mine and i've only had it a few months, my oxford disc lock alarm has not had new batteries in over a year.

Older hacks you see around often won't get an oil filter for the last few years of their life and rusting through will cause them to fail if they don't block up first. Obviously an annual oil and filter change should be the longest a filter should be fitted but for some, £20 for a change is far too much expense. I know plenty of people like this. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sjXTwkRWoT4/TKB8z5FVPBI/AAAAAAAAAz8/DWAmGINazt4/s320/P1110744.JPG

I'm south, up for a meet somewhere for a coffee. Always the A338 burger van near Salisbury if all else fails.

I can't see any top box affecting filtering, mine will take 2 helmets. Just use the helmet lock on the bike, 2nd hand helmets are pretty much worthless, even more so if they cut the strap to get it off the bike. I've never lost a lid or heard of anyone who has. When i'm out of the UK and parked up having a wander, I usually leave it on the bars and so far not lost one, I wouldn't leave it loose in the UK because of the chance of someone wandering off with it 'for a laugh'

I have one of those alarm padlocks. The batteries have a short life and make bugger all noise after rain because they fill up with water. I did buy some jeans from there toddy for £30

I went through 3 tomtom mounts in 18 months and one warranty case replacement with the rider 2 so bought the garmin. If the warranty was 3 years I'd live with it but at £60 a go and cases or the parts to fix it not available, the tomtom isn't something I can afford to use daily.

What was that, 3 hours? The q1 I currently use will last over 2 full days, the older rounded version, the rider fm lasted 5 days on before going flat. I still charge mine every night. £99 each from fowlers bristol, cheapest I've seen them. Do you have a link to the ones you bought?

In reality, for a lack of faffing around with waterproof phone mounts and chargers etc, it leaves 2 overpriced sat navs, the rider which is pretty good in itself but if you go got the charging / active dock, it'll be rattling at cease to charge after about 20,000 miles. If going more than 4 hrs a day you'll need it charged and the added hassle of charging every night if not using the active mount. This leaves a garmin zumo. The mounts last much longer and come with a charging mount as standard but will still wear out at 60,000 miles. I find it gets sluggish and more errors when you save poi's and favourites and needs resetting to factory every now and then to sort it. The garmin wins over updates, lifetime map updates for about £60 and tomtom charge a shed load every 3 months. I just don't bother with updates on the rider. If you are on a bike daily, you really will appreciate a proper bike sat nav 2 seconds to clip it on the mount rather than plugging in cables, buying replacement cables when yours breaks, phone going flat, trying to keep it dry etc. Just a shame waterproof bike specific navs are such a rip off.

After having 8 of these bikes in the last 7 years, I've found them amazingly reliable, comfortable and reasonably economical to run. Truly a pleasure to ride, the fairing keeps the worst of the weather off of you and helps stop you getting so tired. 28l tank will keep you going for up to around 300 miles and will drag you up to 137mph (top speed of my current model) They are mighty heavy beasts at standstill but get it rolling and it'll outrun many bikes and you can ground it out at speed on tight turns, brakes are great but remember that you have a 300kg+ beast to stop. Most of mine have made it over 100,000 miles, one retired at 86,000 in Portugal resulting in a bodge repair to get it back to blighty. A couple of them have had the engine block crack at around 120,000 miles leaving me with useless but perfectly running engines that hold no water. Problems I've found with these bikes. The starter relay controls ALL the electrics, the fuse melts, the contacts melt and suddenly you have no power at all, nothing. A new relay is a 10 min change but at £60 they are not cheap. I've found that keeping it clean and replacing the fuse regularly before it melts will avoid failure. Front wheel bearings. They have a lot to deal with and i've had 2 sets fail. Nowadays i replace them every 30,000 miles or so at about £8 a pair from a bearing stockist rather than a bike parts stockist and all is good. Callipers pick up loads of crap and should be cleaned regularly, I strip and clean mine when i do the pads every few months. they bind badly if not kept clean. Alternators can be an issue. prior to around 'P' reg bikes will have a dynamo and reg, the regs can fail but it's not hugely common. More problems come with the newer models with a 40A alternator mounted on the nearside rear of the bottom of engine. They corrode, especially on little used bike, rust causes it all to expand, crack and fall apart. Not only is a new alternator £500, the seat, tank, rear wheel & swing arm needs to be removed to get it out in any kind of realsitic order. Refurbs are possible but only if your unit is complete and unbroken, this is rare. Steering lock. they can seize if not kept lubricated, removal, lots of wd40 and persuasion will sort it if it does. Rear bevel, whenever rear wheel is removed, splines should be checked, cleaned and greased, if it wears and fails, you lose all drive suddenly, repair isn't too much hassle for someone handy with the spanners but the part from honda is £600+, second hand ones can be rare/expensive. Swing arms are prone to corrosion ans apart from safety, they fail the mot. If buying one, check it, especially in front of the rear wheel. All of these issues are from multiple high mileage ownerships. I would highly recommend these to anyone needing to cover miles, do touring, use for a holiday etc My current one is on 98,000 miles. In the last 50,000 miles, other than the usual brakes, tyres, servicing etc it has had one complete set of brake seals and pistons, 2 sets of front wheel bearings and the ignition switch removed to free off the steering lock and that is it. my previous one had at 113,000, rear bevel and spider, cush rubbers, 94,000 starter relay 2 sets of wheel bearings in 70,000 miles When you look at many bikes/owners that never reach 50k, you could well never need a repair on one of these bikes outside of normal servicing.

Riding other than in accordance of the terms of insurance is a civil matter between you and the insurance company. Minimum cover of third party risks cannot be removed by anyone other than by the insurance provider with 7 days written notice. so whatever you do, if you have paid for insurance, you legally have insurance

I keep this file on my phone as there are so many different combinations of key presses on these things I forget. It is a pdf I made for the scala rider Q1. Not perfect but plenty usable. I made the file and it is clean, no nasties in it and it is hosted by me. Click here to download 2.34mb pdf

If you take the cam cover off, is there not any of the broken bit you can clamp on to and remove? If not, cover everything in rags to collect bits and drill a fine hole in the broken piece, put in a small stud/broken screw extractor and wind it out, just then needs a new bolt.

Safer to unplug wires from brake light switch and bridge them with a paper clip, nail, fuse, anything and ride with brake light permanently on.

Priorite a droite (priority to the right). It's mainly a French thing. There are signs to warn you beforehand. This is part of the reason people have so much trouble with the roundabout at the arc de triomphe because you have to give way to traffic joining the roundabout. But yes. I do as many miles over in euro as I do here. http://i881.photobucket.com/albums/ac17/Marmalade43/paris/Img_2793-2_zps08a3d160.jpg

I tend not to do much shopping, i'd just fill my house up with stuff. I might have a nosy around when I'm next out there as it's been brought up, possibly by the end of the week if all goes to plan, which it usually doesn't.

I've organised a Luxembourg trip on the 1st week of June, going out on the tunnel on the Monday, returning on the Friday. If anyone might be interested in joining this, i'll post more details. currently about 10 of us going. It's a budget trip, 4 nights, you book your own tunnel and hotels @about £140 yourself.

Car passengers tend not to affect the handling too much. The passengers can claim but if fully comp they are unlikely to cover your damage if you have a passenger if you told them you won't carry any n

Any information given forms part of the policy. If someone is asked if they will be carrying a pillion and say no, stuff the bike into a car, they are outside of the terms of cover.

actually you dont HAVE to have it its not a legal requirement If you dont have it it just means the pillion cant use your insurance in the event of a claim This, plus the insurance company may well tell you to go forth as you were carrying a passenger you told them you would't be carrying.

I would edit my last post but it's not here yet, being a noob and all that. Are you going via swiss because you want to or just because it seems the best way? If it was me i'd just go down via belgium and lux, saarbrucken, stuttgart and Munich and into Austria that way. No tolls needed, no swiss tax and just an Austrian vignette for cheap money if you want to use their motorways. If you do get one, make sure you confirm it's for a motorcycle because the people in petrol stations etc seem to never know there is a cheaper one for bikes and try to sell you a car one.

I use booking.com app on my phone to find a room near where i am at the time, saves having to meet deadlines and pre planroutes. The san bernardino pass is a nice ride and has several small towns to find a room for not much money, even in mid summer.