bonio

Oi. It was you who sent this thread off topic at post #3. Who moderates the moderators? @XTreme? @Six30?? @Travis???

If it were me, I'd levy a monthly tax, based on some notional vehicle value. Add in some special rates for classic cars and bikes. Job done. Only problem is that it's more expensive to collect than a sales tax.

Yes mate. You wanna keep off the scrumpy.

Oh yes, er, hi @Travis

Your avatar looks a bit fuzzy, @rennie. Last nights cider having an effect?

Yup, that's the way to go - do the CBT, then you can insure and ride the moped on L plates for the next two years. Then you need either to do another CBT to get another two years' riding, or else take the full A2 test and never do a CBT again.

Looks good on the phone to me. I prefer it now to the laptop.

You're already paying 6p a mile in petrol taxes. How do you pass this onto your customers?

Fly back to Blighty. Pick up gixxer from home. Ride to Turkey. Simples. And less than £24k. Actually a better idea is to fly to Blighty, px gixxer for a GS or ruffty-tuffty KTM and ride that to Turkey. And do it soon, before snow comes to the Carpathians.

wuz wunderin the same thing

Last MOT the bike passed was in Sept 2018, when it had 29k miles on the clock. So it looks like it's not been ridden in the past couple of years. Depending on how well it's been looked after in that time, you might - worst case - have to clean the carbs, clean out the tank and replace the battery. Even so, at £800, don't sound like a bad buy.

Marking lane usage on the road surface is pretty useless when the road is covered in cars and trucks.

Got into bikes late, but the mrs encourages me. Me mum too - bless her. It's the children I have trouble with, especially with their mother, its "Don't you know it's dangerous to go on the back a bike?!" Apparently with me they're comfortable with the risk

Oo - you're getting the new Tiger 900? The Rally Pro? I've read some great reviews about it, but never had a go on one. My last bike was a Tiger 800; the 900 is thought to be big improvement on it, and the the Rally Pro is meant to be the best of the bunch.

Used to use a Garmin Zumo. I'd use it most (1/2 - 2/3rds) of the time; Even if I knew the way, as it would mean I'd worry less about going past my turning, and focus on the road instead. I'd use it without audio, so I'd glance down to see how far to the next junction, and then not look it again until I was near. The distraction was no more than it took to check my speed - so quite safe, and I never had a "moment" with it, although there were a few occasions where, needing to keep my eyes on the road, I went past the turning. Later I paired it to my earphones, to get audio instructions as well, thinking this would help. But I couldn't get it work reliably - the audio would come and go (I think it was fighting with my phone for access to the earphones). On one occasion it went silent for over an hour and poured out all the instructions it had saved up in a continuous stream for about 5 minutes. Not great. The other thing that was irritating was when you had to modify a route in the middle of a ride - the only safe way was to stop for 5 minutes and poke the nav into submission until it showed the new route. I've now got rid of it, and instead I'm going to use my phone in a holder attached to the bars. Google maps or waze probably (I like the way you can send a route directly from google maps to your phone - a whole lot easier than with a sat nav). Bluetooth between the phone and earphones will be reliable without any other devices trying to get their oar in, and I can use voice instructions to get the phone to do what I want ("Hey Google, stop the music"). I've not yet tried it out on the bike for real, but I'm hoping for solution where I don't have to look at the screen unless I really want to, and where I can get the machine to do what I want without having to stop, get off and reprogram it. Never had a close call from using a sat nav. Close calls due to other distractions? Oh yes, far too many. I once ran my car clean off the road, into a wood, and totalled it against a tree, all because I saw something in the valley that looked just a bit different from usual.

You're right. In fact I tried out one with the SCS clutch, but didn't get on with it - seemed to me it's either on or off, couldn't find a way to feather it. The clutch cable thing was on an old 2002 CB500. Part exchanged it back in 2013. I looked it up a couple of days ago - it's still happily running somewhere and doing a few thousand miles a year.

I put a brighter Halfords bulb in my 2003 CB500. Was quite a big improvement.

Dunno if this is going to be any good, or if it's restricted for Suffolk-folk. But here it is anyway in case you're interest. Found it on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/events/637875333559488/

Had this. Very quickly got a whole lot better at looking ahead, smooth riding and clutchless shifts. The only issue was stopping a red lights: all I could manage was to stall the bike and start it again when they went green.

Fitted a radiator guard and a RAM mount to the yoke. Was going for a ride but the roads were damp clearly not natural for an Italian bike. So took it home and wiped it down with a soft damp cloth.

Time for a Guinness here. One the best bits of working from home is the beer starts even before the work ends.

Ah that young goat, such a kind chap. Always remembers to pop in when he's passing. Makes me laugh - always asking for my autograph. Can't think why, I must be such a bore, but it's very flattering.

that is one strange looking rear mudguard It really needs a tail tidy, but I don't know I can be bothered to rewire the indicators.

Does it work like that?? So I've just shelled out £200 on insurance when I only needed to pay whatever for changing the bike? I knew I was a bit daft, but I guess I've taken it to new levels. I had a whole week of being more profoundly stupid than normal: yesterday, I was sent away from the pharmacy with a flea in my ear because the prepayment card I showed the lady had expired. And when tried to buy a new one online the site didn't let me, saying I already had "access to free NHS services" whatever that's supposed to mean. It's only when mrs bonio hands me my prepayment card today that I realised what I'd shown to pharmacist was my YHA membership card. Funny thing is, I'd been using the same card all year to collect my prescriptions. Wondering if I should just sign myself into a care home now and be done with it.

A bit of background to this: I took out insurance with protected NCD from Bikesure. Bike was stolen, all settled and paid out by the end of August. No complaints. Today I phoned them asking for a proof of NCD, which I need for the insurance on the new bike. It went a bit like this - I'm after proof of no claims discount on my policy - Oh no sir, sorry, but the policy is still active. - What? But you paid out after the bike was stolen and never recovered. It was a total write off claim - Sorry sir, we don't have any record of you phoning to ask us to cancel the policy - But I phoned you last week to ask for a quote using the NCD, saying that the policy will have been cancelled automatically. And the person looked up the policy and said fine - One minute sir while I put you on hold ** long wait ** - Excuse me sir, can I ask you wait a bit longer? - Sure of course, no problem ** another long wait ** - Well I can see that you called for a quote, but I have no record of you asking for the policy to be cancelled - But I did mention the policy being cancelled, and if you doubt me you can go and listen to the recording of the call - Yes but you didn't mention using the NCD - But I did, and you can listen to recording of the call now and avoid any doubt - Er.. No problem sir, I can cancel the policy, backdated to date you called Frustrating, but I was lucky I'd called them last week. The lesson is, the next time my bike's stolen or written off, once the claim's settled, call the insurer one more time and cancel the policy.