bonio

[mention]madcow87[/mention] - The bike looks awesome!

Great picture! This is from when we there last year: http://i.imgur.com/JXfefBC.png?1 http://i.imgur.com/YyUalqn.png

Having a good day, Dave?

Oh noes. I've just looked back and seen you got it in Guildford. Was it from a dealer or private sale?

Don't sound right to me. I'd take it back to the dealer and politely tell him to fix it.

Don't often post here, but this is what happened today at a set of traffic lights in Cambridge. I got a grandstand view, as I was stopped at the red light, in the right hand lane. To the left of me is the left hand lane, for left and straight on, which is empty. At this point along toddles a little white car, up the left hand lane, with its right indicator on. It sails gently out through red light into the crossing, and then turns hard right so it's now facing the oncoming from the right. Here is an aerial snapshot I took at the time http://i.imgur.com/kZAlNd5.png At this point the lights change, unleashing the flow of traffic from the right. The little white car just freezes like the proverbial rabbit while the traffic coming from the opposite direction does it's best to get past. http://i.imgur.com/XOnK937.png Eventually the light change again, this time to allow pedestrians to cross, at which point the little white car manages to sidle over to left hand side of the road to continue its perilous journey. http://i.imgur.com/pREtE3Z.png

Well done mate. Nearly there now.

I've never adjusted mine and I've ridden in France and Germany without a problem. But the GS is German and so perhaps knows how to behave when at home. You with your British machine, who know? You might find it throwing beer bottles at the local gendarmerie and barfing outside the public loos in the middle of town. Should something unfortunate like that happen, my tip would be to pretend not to know the bike at all, shake your head sadly and mutter something about the entente cordiale.

Sounds like a good plan . When you phone,ask them if they're able to get cancellation slots.

Oh wow that took me back to another Colorado speciality: the static zaps from car doors when you go to close them. They hurt. I've still not fully got used to how wet my hands feel, having moved back to the UK. To me, they always feel like I've just put moisturiser on them.

Yeah, at your age you have the option of doing your test on a 125 giving you an A1 licence, which means you're restricted to riding a 125, doing the test on a 300 (or something restricted to the same power), giving you an A2 licence and only being able to ride something in that power band, or doing it on a 600, giving you a full A licence that has no retrictions. The test is the same, the only difference is the power of the bike you use to take it. It's a no brainer: go for the full licence.

I've never heard of any company hiring out bikes for Mod 1; I guess most of the demand is already taken care of by the training schools. According to this thread from another forum you can do the test on a bike you've borrowed from a mate, but they would need to ride the bike to and from the test centre for you (as your licence doesn't allow you to ride a 600 on the road, not even with L plates). And this is a bit perverse, but you'd also need to need to have insurance to ride the bike on the road (even though your licence doesn't let you). So it's all a bit complicated and probably expensive too by the time you've coughed up for the insurance. If it were me I'd be phoning round the training schools and trying to find the one that has the earliest slot available. The schools that know what they're doing phone the test centres regularly to book up cancellation slots, and they can often arrange a test the same week.

I reduced my FB usage to like 5 or 10 minutes a week. I used to use it to keep up with friends and get news from a few groups, but the signal to noise ratio has gone way too high and most often I find myself sifted through yards of whatever shite is being reposted this week. But here I can rely on getting reliable supply of fresh, original shite from the very people who produced it themselves, and an extraordinary high percentage of it - perhaps as much as 7 or even 8% is about bikes and vaguely interesting

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tech_loops.png

You've made it up to the lumpy bits then

Not sure, but I think it's like this: when the exhaust valve opens and the piston begins to force the exhaust out of the cylinder, the piston is designed to experience a bit of resistance (i.e. back pressure). If it's not there I guess the piston could experience unbalanced forces during the exhaust cycle and (and this is where I get hazy) not run well. When you fit a short exhaust or remove a baffle you reduce the amount of back pressure. You can get away with some leeway, but the engine will run more smoothly when the back pressure is close to what was designed.

Yes that sounds right Lat. But they should have warned you about it I would have thought. For BMWs, I know that you can buy the hardware gizmo thing so that you can reset the counters and reads all the sensor warnings for yourself if you want. Some non BMW service places have them as well and will update the counters as part of the service. I guess the same is true for Triumphs too. If I were you though I'd give the dealer a ring and explain the situation to them.

OP hasn't logged in since May. Reckon he got frightened off.

To be honest, there are going to be loads of bikes that meet that description, and it's going to be really hard to track it without a reg plate (or perhaps a VIN would do) Have you got any old photos of the bike that show the plate?

Bicycle stirrup pump and hand pressure guage for me. Works a treat.

... and what part of this plan is designed to stop you ending uyp with a non-working bike?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the coppers are great. They get you food and everything.

Hah. Wrong. Well kind of wrong: my real job is writing software

Ah bad luck Keep at it, don't give up, and you will pass.

I'm an "independent custody visitor", which means I get to visit police cells and check up on how people who are locked up are being treated, and the conditions they're being kept in. We drop in at the local police station unannounced, at random times, once a week, and get we see whatever happens to be going on at the time. I always come away a bit awed to see how amazing the custody staff are, working in a really difficult job. They have to deal with a lot of people with mental health problems, people with drug habits, people who foul their cells, people who scream, people who are violent, people who at each other's throats (often why they're in), and every now and then with people who are threatening to kill themselves. They're often undermanned, working pretty much without a break for the whole shift. Lunch or dinner is whatever they can grab to eat while they're manning the desk. And all the time they're thinking first about what needs to be done to keep the detainee safe, and where needed about keeping the public safe too. During our visits, we interview each of the detainees. At the end I often say to them, I know this isn't a hotel, but are they looking after you ok? And then they smile and say that the police are being great (and they often add that all they really want is to get out). I know the police have lost some of the public trust they used to have, but it seems to me that they are working hard to win it back. For sure, I don't know any other public body which has set up an independently-run group of outsiders to check up unannounced on what they're doing.