Marky

I have heated grips, but when it's cold (like below 3 C), my thumbs and tips of my fingers get really cold on my 1 hour commute. If I turn the grips up higher, my palms get too hot. So I've been thinking about heated gloves too.

Contact your local group and you can probably arrange a free 1 hour assessment ride, which should give you a feel for what it's like and whether you want to join.

I did that earlier this year after reading a thread on here, and I'm doing the observed rides at the moment.

Another option... Do the DAS this summer and then stick with your 125 until the spring when you might have saved a bit more, plus it gives you more time to find a good bargain. If you're not going to ride much over the winter it can be frustrating to get a new bike then park it up for a few months.

Chris Evans has quit the show; fingers crossed he takes Eddie Jordan with him!

Yeh nick wax, I used the stuff you put in the washing machine , well the Mrs did, I don't even know where the washing machine is .

Is the washing machine waterproof now too?

I got the impression someone had forgotten to mic-up Chris Evans so he had to shout all the time; that'll get annoying very quickly.

In my experience, eventually you reach the stage where you own two of some tools because you couldn't find the first one! Or you reach the point where you start thinking you need a bigger shed/garage to put them all in!

My local council have free motorcycle parking spaces, but also say if you park in a car space you have to pay. They used to suggest taking a photo of your pay-and-display ticket against the number plate, which you can later use to prove you paid if you did get ticketed, but I can't find that on their website now.

I finally got my first few in the bag today, and learnt a useful lesson in the process: planning a route is all very well, but it really helps to write a list of where you're planning to go too. Thanks to a little sat nav confusion and not remembering the names on any of the pubs I was aiming for, I managed two stops at the wrong damn pubs!

Hopefully I'll be better prepared next time.

Finally got the ball started.

Waggon & Horses

White Horse

George & Dragon

Hedingham Castle

Which length chain would you think I'd need for it to do a fig-8 inbetween the back wheel and over the seat and back down?

Got some rope or even a hosepipe and a tape measure? You could use them to get an idea how much chain you need.

There is an AND function in Excel that can do that. The formula would look something like:

=IF(AND(condition1,condition2),value1,value2)

If condition1 and condition2 are both true, then you get value1, otherwise you get value2. And you can drop in another IF statement in place of either of the values. Like:

=IF(AND(condition1,condition2),value1,IF(AND(condition3,condition4),value3,value4))

eg: =IF(AND(B2<5,C2<5),"A",IF(AND(B2>10,C2>10),"B","C"))

If condition1 and condition2 are both true, then you get value1, otherwise if condition3 and condition4 are true, you get value3, otherwise you get value4.

It's really bizarre when you see people doing this at the leisure centre or gym!

Do you know if training schools do the direct access over say 3-4 consecutive days, or if you can do say.. monday, wednesday, and friday or something to fit around work.

Sure you can. I did mine over about 3 weeks, with one or two days a week. I paid for 20 hours up front, then could book that in half-day slots when it suited.

Have you checked this? https://www.gov.uk/driving-nongb-licence

Shirl, you should have a C-shaped bit of plastic with a groove in (just to the left of the U-bolt in Paul's photo), try putting that between the U-bolt and the bar. As long as you can get both nuts on the U-bolt tightened up you should be OK.

It's usually up near the lever pivot.

And the two for doing the figure-of-8 are 6 m apart.

The first document on this page has all of the dimensions if you wanted to start practising anything else.

There's loads of websites that can do the calculations, but the first I picked was Tire Size Conversion. (Note: there's a bug in their code that means it won't work with a tyre that is 100 or less in width. So I used 101/80/17 as the starting size.) That site will compare tyre sizes and even tell you how much a speedo will be out.

A 110/70/17 tires is 1.4% smaller in circumference (will read 69 mph at 70 mph) and a 120/70/17 is 1% larger (so 71 mph at 70 mph).

From a speedo point of view, there's not a lot in it. No idea about handling etc. though.

It's a provisional category A licence, but you can only ride bikes where you satisfy the licence requirements. When unaccompanied and on L-plates that's up to a 125.

As you're over 24, you can ride a big bike but ONLY if accompanied by an instructor on a direct access training course. If you didn't have provisional A on your licence you wouldn't even be able to do that. It's much the same as you can't start driving a car without a provisional B licence, but you still can't drive one unaccompanied until you pass.

As funinacup says, off (when you're not using the socket).

It'll be the voltage regulator that runs down the battery, converting 12V down to 5V for the USB.

best way is to be a named driver on your parents policy if possible, and if you do, make sure you can actually earn some NCB from it.

so, get your parents to buy the car in their name, insure it in their name, and you be a named driver. should take that figure down to around £1300 or so, although this depends on hyears they've had their license and if they have any points.

hope this info i useful.

 

this is long gone these days as insurance quotes for the highest risk driver and not just for the owner!

Not only that, but the insurance must now be in the name of the main driver.

With some insurers though it can help to put a parent (or someone older with a long driving history) on your insurance as a named driver, even if they'll hardly ever drive it. With Elephant/Admiral for example this often brings the premium down.

I used to cycle 11 miles to work every day, all year round (so 22 miles a day). You will get used to it and get a lot fitter.

Some tips. Leave as much at work as you can: shoes, trousers, towel (if you have a shower), lock, etc. Then you can carry as little as possible on the bike; I used to carry just a clean shirt and underwear for the day, lunch, tools&pump to handle a puncture and waterproofs if rain looked likely.

I think officially it can be up to 2 weeks, but they're often faster than that. I think I got mine back within 1 week.

You could have a look at Spada too. I got a set for commuting and it was great value for money.