MarkW

Hi folks Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere. I have my Mod 2 test on Wednesday, but will need to keep my car license at hand until the end of August. Assuming I pass, what is the time limit for sending off the test certificate and car license? Many thanks!

Not sure if it's for sale to be honest - it's in the upstairs window display of DK Motorcycles in my hometown of Newcastle-under-Lyme. I dropped in last week when I was back for a visit, and there a few unusual machines in there. I think they are just for display, but this one looked in good nick and the guys seem a nice bunch - why not give em a call and see if they'll part with it?

Tell her to remember her life savers!

I can relate to your situation, and if it's any consolation you're a better husband than me! A couple of months ago my wife and I decided to go down the DAS route together, and although she was keen enough the initial impetus was from me. Anyway, she went down hard on her first road ride on the big bike. Pouring rain, tight corner and slippery as hell. The bike went over, she hung on and landed on her shoulder with the bike on her leg. That evening I got the inevitable negativity about the whole thing, and how she wasn't interested in carrying on. My response wasn't 'exactly' Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's spiel about quitting and getting the f*** off the obstacle, but the gist was the same. She said that when she fell off it really hurt, to which I asked what the hell she expected it to feel like. I even trotted out that Ali quote about getting knocked down being far less important than getting back up again. Anyway, probably sounds a bit harsh, but she does have a tendency to default to 'quit mode' when things go wrong. By the next morning she had decided to complete the training, and after a couple more minor drops during the Mod 1 training and a replacement clutch lever she's now a better rider than me, and is loving every minute of it!

She loves it! She had a bit of a baptism of fire though - our first ever road ride was in torrential rain and she dumped the bike on a slippery corner and gave her shoulder a nasty bang. There were a couple of days of muttering about the whole enterprise being a silly idea, but she got back on and hasn't looked back since. She's definitely better (or at least more consistent) than me at all the slow-speed manoeuvres, whereas I'm fractionally ahead out on the road. Not that it's a competition or anything...

My wife and I had our Mod 1 tests yesterday, where for some unknown reason we each chose to debut a completely new manoeuvre. My wife went first, and absolutely nailed all the slow-speed stuff. Then came the emergency stop, where after a slightly slow first run she excelled herself by caning it through the speed trap and applying the brake with the throttle still wide open. She’s never done that before. Oh well - off to the gate of shame… Then it was my turn. Again, no worries with any of the slow speed stuff, so I felt great going into the last three faster manoeuvres. First up the controlled stop, where I went through the speed trap at 45 kph. The examiner suggested a tad more speed for the emergency stop, which I duly provided by belting through at 65 kph. He liked that, but said it was just making life harder than it needed to be so I should be a bit more conservative for the hazard avoidance. I went through the trap at 52 kph, and for the first time ever clipped the blue cone with the toe of my boot. I’ve never even come close to doing that before, and have always found it the easiest of all the manoeuvres. Ah well, such is life. We’re both back there again next week, and at least it’s a nice ride out.

OK, so it seems the consensus is that my wife has better taste in bikes than me It is indeed a US import - I think it had a Colorado plate. Mind you, I may have gone off it slightly after someone said it looked like a police bike...

My wife and I saw one of these in a bike shop on Friday, and instantly formed wildly different opinions of it. She thinks it's one of the most hideous things she's ever seen, and wouldn't give it garage space. I think it has a certain retro cool, and would be perfectly happy to be seen out in public on it. Obviously everyone has their own tastes, but what I'm looking for here is people to tell me that I'm right and she's wrong.

Aye - it just took me a while to come to the same conclusion. I thought the bike would look better without them, but it's sods law that if I remove them I'll drop it, so I left them alone.

Thanks guys. Just to update you, this little job went as most of these little jobs seem to go: I got out the appropriate tools and stood looking at it for a while with a mug of tea in my hand, before deciding that they don't look that bad after all and putting everything away again. Maybe another day...

Hi folks Just a quickie: do I need new engine mounting bolts when I remove the R&G crash bungs from my ZZR600, or can I screw the old ones back in? Am I right in thinking that the ones used in the bungs are a tad longer than the originals? Thanks in advance!

So, my wife and I had another lesson yesterday, and the instructor decided we'd spend the first hour going around the Mod 1 circuit. We started with a couple of emergency stops, and then moved on to the slalom, figure-of-eight, slow-speed ride and u-turns. And I was struggling. Whilst my wife was tootling around like a natural I kept losing the biting point on the clutch and riding the thing on the throttle, with all the lurching and jerking that entails. After about 40 minutes I was definitely showing improvement, but it still wasn't great. I couldn't understand why manoeuvres that were easy out on the road were so hard in the car park. The instructor decided to give me a demo, and jumped on the bike. A couple of seconds later he looked at me and said "Mark, when you've finished your emergency stop, don't forget to click down into first." Yup - I'd spent 40 minutes in second gear wondering why I was such a no-hoper. Funny thing is I had almost the same problem when I learned to drive. My first lesson was in my mothers knackered Austin Montego, which had about the worst gear box ever made. What I didn't know at the time was that it wouldn't go into first from stationary without a bit of double declutching, and consequently my first couple of hours were spent setting off in 3rd. On the upside, when I got into the instructors Nissan Micra my clutch control was pretty hot

Thanks folks- that Abba stand looks like just the job, so I ordered one with the front lifter attachment. Cheers!

Evening all. Well, not a bad bank holiday weekend - managed to remove the infernal Datatool System 3 alarm from the wife's bike without any drama, so now we should be able to sleep without the damn thing going off every time one of the resident garage spiders bumps into it. So now I'm turning my attention to more mechanical things, and was wondering what the recommendations would be for lifting a ZZR600. Should I go for front and rear paddock stands, or would one of those hydraulic lifters (like this: http://www.getgeared.co.uk/ROTHEWALD_Hy ... tegory=271) be better? The hydraulic lifter looks just the job for big Harleys and such like, but I'm not sure it's the right thing for our bikes. Any thoughts much appreciated!