Arwen

Looks like a good day out, glad you all had fun

There is one sitting in my garage (R1150 GSA) but sadly i can't reach the floor when I'm on! Pillion seat is all good though!

I like Held and RST gloves. Both have a rather large range of gloves and many dealers supply them The halvarssons/jofama/lindstrands brands are also worth a look. I absolutely love their kit, and they have a massive range. The halvarssons stuff is the more premium kit, lindstrands the more "Motocross/adventure" kit. Jofama kit sits somewhere in between them. They are less well supplied from dealerships, however motolegends.com are very nice to deal with online.

So I thought I would do a milestone update on this. I've now had the bike 2 years, and covered 3300 miles (yea I know... a 14 mile a day commute doesn't add up to much!) I still get a stupid grin on my face when I'm riding it, I still love messing around and tinkering with it, and I still get people coming up to me, giggling, and asking what it is! It is however looking quite a bit different than when I first got it now - Changes: Purple paint! Akrapovic carbon fiber exhaust and titanium header pipe. Front Hel SS braided brake line (white sheath, purple bangos). Rose joint mod for gear leaver. Purple velocity stack in air box. Durability: Ok, so this was a sub £3k bike when it was new and it is made in Thailand. Anyone who is expecting quality found on £10k+ bikes will be disappointed. However that's not to say it's all bad either. Mine gets a wash every month or so, coated in ACF-50 for winter and it seems to be holding up pretty good considering I ride it in Scotland, even when the roads are covered in road salt (even this week they have been gritting...). So far, all the mods I have done have been done out of choice, not out of any parts failing. The front of the engine gets splattered by everything on the road, so it is not looking pristine. Try as I might, I cannot remove the black stuff from the two right hand side nuts here! The brown corrosion can however be removed with relative ease. There is also some paint wearing off the "fins". Doesn't seem to be disappearing too quickly however. The chain adjusters are a part that could have done with being a bit more "refined" from the start. I absolutely hate them! The plates fall out all the time when you are trying to adjust the chain, and then when you finally get it just right, tighten the axle and the whole right hand side of the axle shifts forward. Argh!!! They also are a haven for collecting water and road salt, which in turn is going to eventually effect the swing arm I think. The gear leaver linkage is one of the mod's I done because the stock set up is rather rubbish and cheap. It is basically a stick of metal joining the leaver to the engine using split pins. Over time the split pins effectively weld themselves onto the metal or split, and the whole thing ends up with loads of free play that you cannot adjust. It causes gear changes to be rather hit and miss at times. I replaced mine with a rose joint kit, that is much more smooth and has been faultless for around a year now. It also looks much better! The stock exhaust was also a bit of a nightmare. I should have taken a picture of it, but it was getting to the point I was going to need to repaint the header pipe because so much of the black coating had peeled off. It's difficult to clean/dry because it's got shields and covers everywhere. Here is a picture of it in a bucket when I removed it putting on my Akrapovic General riding and stuff: As I said above, I still get a stupid grin on my face from riding this little bike. It's such a playful little thing compared to the bigger bikes I've ridden. Even after spending half a day on 650cc training school bikes, I still loved getting back on this one! MPG is slightly lower than before now, mostly due to the Akrapovic I reckon. It sounds so good it is infectious! MPG is probably around 135mpg now for 80% city riding 20% country B roads. I did have a slight issue with the bike refusing to start some times, for no apparent reasons it just wouldn't even try and turn over. But since getting the fuel pump recall this has never happened. So I suspect it was that part at fault. Every where I go, or stop, this little bike gets attention. Even when I visit a BMW dealer and there are all the pretty and expensive BMW's littering the car park. This one gathers a gaggle of people around it! Servicing the bike is still really cheap as I do it myself. 1l of oil is enough for a change and that plus an air filter and spark plug cost around £25. During the last service (March) I also checked the valves (dead easy, and they were fine) and installed a Hel SS front brake hose. I only changed the hose as the front brake was needing bled, and my logic said "well you are basically doing half the job anyways to bled it, lets just change it all!". So I did, and oh what a difference! Front brake is extremely effective now. It also looks rather good So to finish off, I still recommend this little bike to most people starting out. Especially if they are short in the leg, or want a very light bike. I enjoy commuting on it, especially when the roads are dry and I can have some fun on the twisty bits and roundabout! Filtering is super easy and the bike really does fill you with confidence as there is very little danger of dropping it when going slow.

AGV k5 is well in your budget. It's so well vented it pisses water in when it rains and you have them open! Pros: pinlock and sun visor included, pretty light Cons: i find it a bit on the noisy side. Chin vent is difficult to use with a glove on.

Buy a seal mate for around £5, and it will clean out the rubbish from the seals. Otherwise, it might need new seals.

Boxer twins for good vibrations…

I agree with Joe too. Unless you have money to waste and really need a bike more than a 125cc right now, just get a 125cc just now and wait till your 24 and do the full test. I spent nearly 2 years on a 125 before doing my full test. I think it helped a lot, and prepares you better for the unexpected that may happen on your test in my opinion.

Abba stands are great, but I really don't understand why so many people have difficulties using paddock stands. I've never had an issue using mine on my MSX or the Ducati.

Source You will more than likely be asked to show documentation to state that the bike is MOT'd and tax, and you are insured to ride it.

I agree with Hoggs, sounds a bit sketchy. Starting off with "ride over there and back" is not how I was taught. We did lots of learning clutch control first, simply moving a few inches, then a few feet in a straight line. Sounds more sketchy to me that someone who had been told to come back was there too. However, If you feel you have learned enough, just go back and bare with them, do the road ride and get your certificate. Then never go back to them! If you feel you might not pass, or simply do not want to see them again, then yea just bite the bullet and book in somewhere else. Not all schools are horrible.

I'd go to a different school. That one does seem very inflexible. I changed schools mid way through my training. Done CBT and MOD 1 at one school, and MOD 2 with another. I changed more so because I really did not like the bike I had to use at the first school. The second school gave me a choice of bike, choice of days/hours of training and even got a test where I wouldn't have any chance of bumping into my old training instructors (their choice rather then mine, but a nice touch) Neither of the two schools would offer a mod 1+2 course with the tests on the same day. Both would generally wait for you to pass MOD 1 first before booking MOD 2. Since if you fail MOD 1, you need to wait 10 days to resit. If you passed, then generally they block booked MOD2's so you could sit MOD 2 within the week. Very occasionally, If they felt very confident about a persons riding, they would allow them to book tests like this, but it was not common, or advertised.

I was wondering where he disappeared too.... I figured maybe he had made the move to Trump-land and was baned from talking to outsiders without filling in millions of bits of paper to say he didn't believe anything we told him

To find 15% I find 10% then half the 10% value and add it to the 10% value. So say my purchase comes to £13.49 10% = £1.35 5% = 67.5p 15% = £2.03 (rounded up) To pay = £11.46 So I can do %'s in multiples of 10 and 5, ask me a weird percentage of something (like 13%) and I resort to googling " X% of "

A number to choose from here - http://www.getgeared.co.uk/type/motorcycle-eyewear/for/men

I sort of blame my maths teacher at secondary school to be honest. Had the same one for 4 years in a row, she always spoke in a monotone voice, never showed any interest in her subject and always got my name wrong. So I got bored and fed up in her class and would regularly fall asleep... In my 5th year, I finally got a different teacher. And what a difference that made! I suddenly found maths interesting and started to really understand more than just algebra (which I always found "fun"). Too bad I only stayed at secondary school for 5 years!

I agree, I am awful at maths, but given some time I can normally work it out without a calculator. "Evil me" likes to see them squirm though. My other half finds it very funny if I go up to the till when a young guy is there, and let a big queue form behind me as they are trying to work it out. Then they practically just throw the stuff at me as they blindly type in a number to charge me! Some days "nice me" will win though, and I'll just tell them the total I've to pay.

Thanks to the ford owners club I've got a 15% off card. However the cashier needs to work out 15% of the total price, and evidently that's frequently a difficult number for them to work out. So I've had many bargains, can of WD40 meant to be £4, bought for 80p. I now feel guilty when ever I go in...

I bought the spanner set from halfords advanced range a few weeks ago. I've also got various sockets and other bits and bobs from them. Can't fault them!

Yea that's what I'm thinking. There seems to be a lot of aftermarket screens for it that look rather good. Especially with a dark tint.

We have a pair of Q3's I bought from a guy on gumtree for £100. They were still in their plastic wrappings and had never been used. They work an absolute treat. Battery lasts for ages and can connect to phones with ease.

^^ that was my first thought . Students will be students...

Well done! What have you bought?

I would think that so long as your trip switches have the correct fuses in them then they should not be able to damage anything plugged into them, unless the switch itself has been damaged. Your landlord electrical inspection should have checked for damaged switches aswel. I've seen the sheet my landlord gets, and they even note down when the on/off switch is not moving fluidly;

I was kinda hoping that might be the case, that it just needs to "bed in". If/when I take it out again I'm thinking I might ask to soften it a little. Can adjust both forks and the rear shock apparently.