Fozzie

It causes congestion when the motorway isn't clear. When the motorway is busy but still free flowing, and you have a driver moving at the same speed as the left lane in the middle lane, it bottlenecks everyone else into one lane. This is why I cringe when I hear the "it's safer for me as I make less moves" excuse. As by their own logic they've made everyone else now having to overtake them because they wouldn't move in less safe. On the bike I don't care as I will move around them any which way as long as its safe. But in the car it can become tedious. There's no reason for it other than they have poor skills or are lazy.

I had a ER6F project back in 2013 I had to do an engine swap on. I think if you remove both the front mounts located on each side the engine can't drop, but it does slump forward a tad. The rear of the engine makes contact with the rear of the frame. The engine can pivot a bit on the rear mount, it hits the frame so can only slump forward a bit. Could easily be wrong as that was the 2006 model but maybe that's what is happening here?

If you don't want the hassle of repairing it, where are you? I might make an offer on that

I got a set of AKG bluetooth headphones (noise cancelling as well so makes everything from working on the bike to travelling for work much less boring). A jumper, hoodie, chocolate, few gift vouchers for nandos and Halfords. Feel pretty sorted. I didn't need anything bike related though this year!

Kidneys toast eh? If you feel you are about to meet your maker, can you let me know along with your address and general condition of your liver ... For science...

I'd be very wary of this bike. The assessors that write them off sometimes try to do you the owner a favour. Both bikes of mine that were written off and in my possession were checked and in both instances the bloke said something along the lines of: "I can ignore *points at a couple of bits* as you can sort them out easy enough and I'll mark it as cat D/C". One of these bits was a pissed swingarm, which he felt would be ok if I got a second hand one off eBay. When I declined, they both got marked cat B. I could have fixed them relatively cheaply but both times I had a different bike lined up so took the payout.

A new battery could easily survive 6 weeks. I don't like leaving batteries on trickle chargers, but it might be worth putting it on charge every month or two you don't use it. A basic 2amp one from Halfords would do the trick. Get a cover for the bike though, keep it shiney and corrosion free

I used to keep fire bellied newts. My dad had a tank for tropical fish but I wasn't that fussed as I always preferred marine setups. The terrarium I had setup was pretty good, but it also proved why you couldn't keep the newts with other community fish. They preferred warm but not tropical temperatures otherwise they'd get bloat really easily. And they spent more time out of water than in it generally! Hiding in little caves. They also hunted any of the smaller fish when I did experiment with a community setup. Made changing the water nice and easy at least

OK, so come on - what's the BEST oil for my bike ? The safe answer is the one stated in your owners manual It will give a grade/standards that need to be conformed to. This topic causes big kick offs on facebook so I won't delve into it. Just read any counter arguments with the pinch of salt that identical grade/standard oils can differ wildly. As some do the minimum to meet those requirements (in an effort to reduce production cost), and some go further. Those videos I mentioned by engineering explained test them I believe, so worth a watch

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, are you saying the oil is thicker when hot & at operating temp? I think I made edits mid post but left the word "thicker" in. It should read "you need the oil to be thick enough". So that it reads that when cold the oil flows well enough it doesn't starve, but is thick enough when hot to protect. I'm an electrical engineer in power generation currently, which I'm in due to the big dip in oil prices a few years back. I was an instrument design engineer previously for a company that built on/off shore rigs/refineries. The reason I have chemical knowledge is I would work with chemical engineers to specify control valves, sensors, etc that pumped various oils/chemicals to transport them, but also control the production process of various oil grades/types. So I'm not a specialist, but what I do know was largely gleaned from asking them. The companies were quite tight lipped about which brand oil was what, but you could tell which was the higher quality stuff just looking at the production train. Higher quality oils would have twice the control systems and monitoring the lower quality ones would have. You could also pick up what various additives did etc but I'd bore you to tears

I can't post them from work but watch Engineering explained. He did a series on oil types/flow rates etc. He even did a comparison test of different oils, new and used, where he cooled them down to below freezing temperatures so that they would flow slowly enough we could see the differences (which is one of the industry standard tests). And the difference in some oils with the same rating was astounding. But for changing oil, I think a point to take away is it's not damaging to do it cold. The oil will flow well enough, especially if it's a 0-10W oil, and even better if it's a synthetic. Warming the oil is really only crucial when the oil is very old or well past the change schedule. As in the videos I mentioned above, their flow rate greatly degrades. How much and how fast it degrades depends on the quality of the oil.

Same scale, different functions. Oils these days are multi-grade, which is how most earn their ratings. When the engine is cold, you want good flow to avoid oil starvation during start up / warm up. However when the engine is hot, you need the oil to be thicker so that the friction in bearings/piston rings/gears/clutch doesn't allow components to get too hot. By this point the engine will have also attained a healthy oil pressure anyway. So you're right, it won't flow more easily, but that's not why you run the engine briefly before an oil change. You run it before an oil change with or without a flushing agent as the heat helps to shift deposits. Think of it like swilling your mouth with mouthwash. There is no direct need to do it and I've frequently done it without firing the bike up at all, as the new oil/filter will sweep any lingering deposits away and be well within spec (especially as I change the oil more than the manual suggests).

Just do what I do and say "I can't adhere to that dress code due to my religious beliefs" I'd say roughly 60% of the time they panic and let you in without a blind bit of critical thought. And it's because the world we live in has some nervous they'd end up on a hysteric facebook post that would go viral and end in them getting sacked and death threats from the "tolerant progressive millenials". In short, weaponize social trends

Those pesky vegans eh! ">

Probably a tongue in cheek remark as I believe Joeman has had a few heated exchanges with vegans before

Yeah it should be fine. You're not even pulling an extra amp with the bigger bulb, and a fuse wouldn't be sized that close to the max load of the lower wattage bulb. If you fit it and it blows the fuse, let me know.

If you're taking the bike off the road for a few weeks it's worth doing a light strip and overhaul. I do this every year. I have two tins of paint, one by hammerite called stone chip, which is a black paint. And I'll find a good grey/silver engine paint as a secondary paint. Get some wire wool and rust treatment, buy job lots of the clips you find all over the bike, and stainless bolts. I also have a tin of brake cleaner, WD40, tubs of grease (red 'rubber' grease and multi-purpose grease for metallic parts). Target an area of the bike and break it down into a bunch of individual projects. Like the front end and handlebars, strip down the rusty parts, clean, paint, refit. I used to ride full time and I'd do this at the end of every Winter, or whenever I had the time.

Which is why I specifically said it's normally chavs, to avoid tarnishing anyone else. There's good and bad in all groups as you point out with tories and the background they generally come from. Just to add some balance re credit cards. I use 0% purchase card deals to pay for things like insurance etc as I just set a direct debit to take it out as fast as reasonably possible. Barclays do a 0% credit card for 27 months at the moment. If you bought a bike on that and set a direct debit to pay the bike off in the deal time as a minimum, then you can always pay it off faster by making extra payments. At the end of it you'd likely have a good credit rating, and a bike to show for it. Credit cards demand being used with care though, so I'd suggest when the bike is paid for, you lock the card away and avoid using it again.

While technically true, saying "it could be worse" is just dismissive of the OP's issue. It's just a bike. But the OP like many of us attach emotions to them. It was in the news this year a teenager took his own life when debt collectors took his bike and he lost the ability to make money. Never underestimate the emotional value something can carry. [mention]emmajaneg[/mention] I've had 2 bikes nicked and it feels soul crushing when it happens. The first one I spent years saving up for and couldn't replace it as my insurance premiums rocketed so high. I lost a machine that enabled the biggest part of my social life, it was my only way to get to work and around in general, and I lived 200 miles from family. It is depressing but if you keep at it, it all works out in the end. And the bike may yet still show up if the police are involved. A 125 is normally stolen by a chav and ragged around before being dumped. Get out and look for it is my suggestion, and target the council estates and parks. They have a habit of showing up around there.

Tequila is another one. I'm quite fond of it. But who in their right mind looked at a huge blue-ish plant with massive sharp leaves and decided to make an alcoholic drink out of it? And how did they figure out to oven bake the plant to get all the juice out, and then after that thought to put it in a barrel for weeks, and then after that look at the rank fluid that resulted and decide "I bet if we distill that twice it will be great"

I would genuinely like to know how a thief can: 1. Steal the ped he's on 2. Use said ped to steal things and threaten innocent bystanders 3. Rides dangerously without regard to anyone and often damage other vehicles while doing so And then feel that being knocked off by the police is taking it too far

I'm late to this, glad it was sorted. I see you're only in Hazel Grove, I'm not a million miles away (Lymm). I've fixed bags of 125's, their electrics are a piece of piss and engines even easier still. So if you need help, just holla.

15% pension here, 5% contribution, 10% from the company, which I think is pretty good. I have no faith in the state pension though so as I get older and I pay my mortgage down, I'm going to try and expand my property portfolio to act as my real retirement fund. My lack of faith stems from the fact right from the beginning schools don't explain mortgages, pensions, or anything like that. When I was in school it was all "uni, uni, you must go to uni". But the schools only wanted this to boost their statistics. I knew of apprenticeships but none were advertised and I wasn't told how to find/apply for them. When I did ask I'd get a patronising response from teachers about why I didn't want to go to uni, and the message was "do it yourself". Not useful when a few months prior I had to put my hand up and ask to go to the toilet. Ironically, the apprenticeship I ended up on got me to Beng with 0 debt. But it took a couple of years of stabbing in the dark in every direction to find it. So when I retire I might well offer to do seminars at schools for those wanting a good career without 3-5 years of uni and the crippling debt.

Ahhhh introverts have bumped into the phenomenon called "socialising" I'm in an open plan office, but as there's always a light background noise of chatter, the departments only really talk amongst themselves. If you're all quiet, it makes certain types uneasy so they interrupt chats to ease their stress while raising yours. You need to get past the pain barrier and have little groups chatting on/off throughout the day.

Not sure if this has been done but here we go: A light passenger plane is flying through heavy fog and cloud bound for Scotland, the pilot can't see where he's going and his GPS is very intermittent due to the conditions. A passenger stands up and says "I can tell you where we are just by putting my hand out of the plane" In disbelief the pilot agrees. The man opens the door and hangs his hand outside. "We're over Belgium, my hand has a faint smell of chocolate unique this part of the world ". The pilot can't believe this but his GPS works for a brief moment, and it showed they were over Belgium. And hour later he did it again. "We're over London, the air feels dirty here, definitely our polluted capital" Sure enough, the GPS flickered into life and showed London. "We're nearly home!" the pilot said. And one more hour later the man did his trick again. This time he paused before saying "Liverpool..." The pilot, bemused asked "How can you be so sure it's Liverpool, does it have a different smell from London?" The man looking disgruntled replied. "It doesn't, but that time I stuck my hand out, someone stole my watch."