bonio

<gasp/>

Oh noes. This is the one universal daft act I have yet to carry out. Just give me a bit more time. Someone - perhaps it was @Bungleaio - recently gave me a tip: fasten the disc lock up against the fork so that the bike can't move forward if you forget it.

Nice outcome.

Been streaming this on ITV-X. It's a cracking piece of TV. I've never been to the TT, so I don't know how like the real thing it is, but I like the way the riders got to speak - formal interviews, informal chat with family - and all spliced in with race commentary and footage from last year's event. Seems to me they've done a first class job at capturing some of the madness, the exhilaration, the atmosphere - and the people - who make up the TT. If you've not seen it, go watch it now.

On my recent trip to the garage to put on my kit I came back without the bike key. Still can't find it. Sometimes being a nob wears my patience.

You can find out if it's the same part by cross referencing the parts number from the catalog. zx9r here and the zzr is this one (might need to adjust the model year).

Hi there. Not quite Illinois, but I used to spend a fair bit of time in Cincinnati. What part of Illinois are you?

Came to take out the MV, but the rear pressure was very low again (20 psi) - I guess the puncture repair from a couple of weeks ago isn't quite as good as I'd hoped. Might try and give it another go myself - when I can find the time. So it turned out it was the DRZ's turn to come out and play - Cambridge and back - and have its new tyres scrubbed in. They are nice nice nice - a huge improvement on what was there before. Would like get out again and try to push it a bit harder before the shite weather is on us.

Sobakh al fol!

Oh no, that's a disaster. Yes.

Checked the phone a second time. It actually agrees pwith you about lunch. This is the spot, next to the geyser.

Here's the link in case anyone's interested: Route collection hairpins in the Eifel | The largest verified route archive thanks to MyRoute-app RouteXperts (myrouteapp.com)

Friday. We said goodbye to @Bungleaio and left @smallfrowne at the hotel to recover from his technicolour night. Three men left in. But my memories of Friday are a bit fuzzy. Most of the time it felt like my rear tyre was soft, but when I checked the pressure it was always spot on. We stopped for lunch at a very pleasant spot (my phone tells me it was in Neunkirchen). Lunch stop It was the hottest day so far, so we ate inside - air conditioning . Not sure quite what happened after lunch, but this is what my phone said we did. Friday afternoon's route ... but which way round we went I haven't a clue . Later that afternoon we stopped at Lidl in Gerolstein, and I lost the other two as we were leaving, followed my phone onto windy route off the road and back onto it again, right behind the other two lads. So we all made back to the hotel all together. While we were at Gerolstein, I was getting a bit frustrated with a bike that wasn't handling right at all, so I whomped the rear preload up a dozen clicks, and after that it rode perfectly. So I checked all the suspension settings when we got back: pretty sure the rear shock is failing. The fuel level sensor had been a bit dodgy on the trip, too, so I've added that to the warranty list too. It's all part of the excitement of life with an MV. That night at the hotel there happened to be small group from MV Owners Club Deustchland. What eye-splittingly beautiful bikes they had - Dragters and Brutales and the like. One of the guys had the ugly duckling TV like mine. He asked if I'd had problems like his and I said of course. But then he told me his engine had blown up and so he'd replaced it with a Brutale engine. But it had somehow confused the engine management system and now his gear shifts were all upside-down. But he seemed very happy with MV. In fact they all did. One of the guys told me he had 9 more at home. Crazy guys. Crazy guys' bikes

Huge thanks to @Gerontious and @Bungleaio who plugged the hole in my rear tyre. I'd somehow got a screw in it and it was gently losing pressure, but they had me back riding again in no time, no dramas. Bit of a coincidence: had more or less the same thing happen to the car earlier this week. Took it to the place up the road where they plugged it for free.

You're going to need to do some test rides. A lot has changed over the last 20 years. Bikes have for sure. You may find your body has too . When you've tried some out, I'd for one would be really interested to read what you thought. Why not start with an MT10, an R1, and, say, a Ninja 1000SX?

Thursday. Before we set off, I see that someone's made themselves at home in my bike: I guess they're coming along for the ride. The idea of the day is to pick up the L10 at Waxweiler and follow it to its end, up in the Vulcaneifel. Then nip over to the Eifelnaturpark, hop into Belgium and back home. Plans, eh... But at least we did the L10 bit, and in a couple of hours of cracking riding we were in Adenau for kaffee und kuchen which we ate seated outside on the pavement, as if in grandstand: a steady stream of beautiful bikes bikes bikes growling up the road, dotted here and with classic open-top Jags (XK140s?) that were festively decorated with expensive-looking people. We tried to blend in; not sure we completely pulled it off. Cake eaten, back on the road, the L10 that is, and on northeastwards to the Laacher See, a perfectly round lake surrounded by a perfect circle of hills: the crater of an ancient volcano. We squeezed our bikes into the exit lane of a pay-and-display car park, causing chaotic disruption to the normal tranquil flow of tourist traffic, but at least we got a quick butchers at the place without coughing up 5 euro a head . By now we're only a couple of miles from the Rhine, and a long, long way from home, but there's still a bit more riding before we stop for lunch, finding some shade from the searing heat at a kebab shop. Photographing food is thing nowadays, so here you go: Lunch done, and we're not quite half way round. But we're on the bit where we're heading west to the Eifel park when a sign that seems to say the road is closed, and although this hasn't always deterred us earlier in the week, we now meekly turn off and ride over a pile of stones onto a track - here it is - that leads nowhere. So we go back to the road that seems to be closed, past the barriers and, along with a load of other traffic, find ourselves funneled though a long, long chain of traffic lights, all them red, all them under the blast of a Saharan sun. At one point we pass a brook burbling though a verdant meadow and I have to get a grip to stop myself running into the water as I am, helmet and gloves all. When we get out of the chicanes, there are some great roads to be ridden, but we've lost a load of time and so cut for home on the autobahn and D roads. Definitely an area to explore further.

Wednesday. One man down, four to go. We headed off south over the hills down over the bridge at Bollendorf into Luxembourg and then off to explore the area to the north of the City. But was it hot! We stopped at an Esso where I tanked up on Dr Pepper and stuck to the shade. Thankfully the country is full of wooded valleys, and riding through these was deliciously cool. We got to Esch a bit late for lunch - it was probably about half past one - but this was now pretty normal for us; we were getting hardened to it . I ordered panini made with bland cheese (I though that stuff was illegal in Europe) but I did better than @Gerontious who got a tupenny bread roll with a 10 inch chipolata sticking out of it. The prices were sky high, and they made us pay before eating. But the guys tucked into coffe and cake afterwards, and judging by the expressions on their faces, it kind of made up for the mains. The route home was a great one, dropping down into Vianden, past the castle, bumpetty bump bump over a mile of cobbles and then back over the hills to the Schloss. coming into Vianden

Have a great trip! Hope the weather stays good for you.

Happy birthday!

Here's another pic from the day, from the stop above Piesport.

So this picture needs a bit of explanation. We've come out of the shop to find the guy in the orange shorts strutting around snoddy's bike muttering "nice, nice, nice" and then he was on his phone to his friend, saying things like, "... und eine weisse tank", and suddenly, not sure how, but snoddy was on the phone to the friend, which was a bit comical because orange short guy's English didn't run any further than "nice" x 3, snod's can say "bier bitte" in German but not a lot more, and the guy on the end of the phone was no polyglot. But we understood they liked the bike.

Nice bike! Used to have a 2002: was a fun bike.

Hi there and welcome in. All the best with the new Tracer; post some pics so we call all oooh at it.

I guess it's the Voge 125R. Not sure how attractive it is to theives. An alternative to a chain, an alarmed disc lock (or better, two) delivers a fair improvement in security at a reasonable cost. A bike cover can help too; it stops people clocking the bike - and its value - as they drive past. For the "professional", it's better business to target a known model than set to work on an unknown quantity.