secretagentmole

Remember the FS1E and YB100, 4 straight down boxes on those, sounds like they have just shoehorned another ratio into this Japanese sourced gearbox!

Good bike, a copy of the Kawasaki ER6N with a bit of KTM thrown in, KTM part owns the factory and some KTM bikes are built there. I know, add to that quality components and a slightly more aggressive style and you get a nice bike! The other half has a Zontes Monster, and despite it's shortcomings, like an egg noodle throttle cable that burnt through (since replaced by a quality Venhill inner) it is actually a nice little bike to ride. OK so it is never going to break any land speed records but it gets there in a self assured way. CF Moto (WK) are better than Tayo (Zontes) so the WK650i is very appealing to me!

Sounds good but I like the i model, ie the naked version, never have liked faired bikes!

I am currently pootling about on the wife's Zontes Monster whilst my ER5 is in for repair. It is a little 125 that is easily as well built as a YB100 from the 1980s. It has a conventional one down 4 up box, does 118mpg and can happily chug along at 60, eventually. For what she paid for it, it is amazing, it was a year old and she paid a pittance for it. A Japanese bike can easily be made in China these days, look at all the YBRs on the road! People moaning about Chinese quality make me laugh, Ipods, Ipads, Iphones, all made in China, as are quite a few brands of mobile phones, nobody moans about those. There is a 4 year old Zontes Monster for sale in the village we live in, the guy is obviously an immigrant from Lalaland though, it has 12 months MOT, has a hole in the exhaust, been on it's side (bent brake and scratched exhaust heat shield), he wants £700 for it! They are not much more than that new!

MOT Preparation! Replaced bake brake caliper, it was seized, another was found for about £30, bought, fitted, works, great. Chain tensioned properly! Footpeg rubbers replaced! Exhaust, hole at top of downpipe was in an outer pipe, there was a steel tube inside, but gas still leaked out, plugged that hole with Araldite Repair Putty, sanded, repainted, reassembled. Right fork was seeping, fork cleaning tool made from ice cream tub, cleaned no end of crap, front end compressed by gorilla a few times to see if it sealed, it appears to have done! Number plate light unit was missing, now replaced. Front brake fluid changed, has improved brake no end! Let's see how it does!

But the jacket and trousers are not from Fowlers, they are from a clearance specialist in the Fens. I knew Weise were not some fancy European brand and were British designed. It exceeds EU spec so will do me, the Knox armour in it is worth more than I paid for it! The helmet was direct from Fowlers (who I believe are now the wholesalers for`Duchinni and want shot of all the old helmets).

Yeah, helmet sounds fine, it's the rest of the gear that sounds too cheap. End of line specials! These are Knox armoured jackets and trousers, made by Weise! Not cheap stuff when sold originally, now just end of line and clearance. Like what used to be at the Tail Ender at Peterborough. It is good quality gear at a good price. I would prefer leather, but my shape means I would look like an out of condition sofa and when half a herd has to die to make me look like a Chesterfield then synthetic it is!

These are new old stock. Brand new, just old designs. Still 4* SHARP rated sold by one of the oldest names in motorcycling in the UK (Fowlers of Bristol). I save money and if I drop it I won't be swearing like someone with a £200 Arai! Oh and it has an ACU Gold Stamp as well!

Helmet £20, Duchinni 429, Numberworth on Ebay. A little known outfit called Fosters in Bristol. These are new old stock, have a 4* SHARP test result, have an inbuilt flip down sun visor, and that price is delivered! Luckily I know my head size. Clothes 1st gear for Bikes, Somersham, Weise fabric jackets, £30, trousers £20, boots £40, gloves £15! Jacket and trousers have armour in and removable liners. People will pay £100 for a denim jacket from Next and ride their sportsbike wearing it!

The wife just bought one, 15 plate, less than 1200 miles on it (showing 1835 km after riding back), first service done, paid £300 for it. No it was not stolen, just the bloke was bought it when he was unable to handle a big bike. Now he can handle a big bike again it is not needed. The local to him Honda dealer would only give him £100 as a trade in, he got more off the bike he wanted for not trading it in, he stuck it up for £400 or offers, never put up any photos. She who must be obeyed offered £300, he accepted, wife made like a pigeon and left a small deposit on it!

Other half has just bought a bike that qualifies. She now owns a Zontes Monster, 125cc. Purchase price £300. It is a 15 plate bike, registered in 2015 and has just had it's first service. Got just over 1000 miles on the clock! No MOT needed for 2 years and it cost £300????

Ooh well feel free to post in the project section we always like to nose at what people are doing I have already reviewed the unfettled ride home!

Damn my friend Joe is too late to take part, we are trying to get his Zontes on the road for less than £400 all in, £200 on the bike so far!

Monster Mash – Zontes Monster 2012 Review. By Mike Carter A friend of ours was put on a scooter by the local job centre and having got a job they were relieving him of £40 a week for a gutless Honda Vision scooter. Now our friend is 6 ft 5 inches tall and 25 stone. He looked like a gorilla on a kids push bike. It also topped out at 30 mph at the top of the steep hills round where we live. We saw a Zontes Monster advertised on line, 90 miles from us, at a price of £500, a months MOT left, so we expressed an interest and toddled over. A look round the bike impressed me. OK there was severe corrosion of the exhaust, but other than that not too bad. Switch gear was pretty nice, all the lights apart from the number plate light worked as they were supposed too, but the right fork seal needed replacing. Decent set of tyres on it and chain and sprockets looked good too, even if the chain was a little loose. The footpeg rubbers are also a bit worn and could do with replacing. The seller had advised that the bike was losing power sometimes. So he said that the price had dropped to £200! A quick 83600 text showed no advisories on being stolen, no advisory on outstanding finance and it was not an insurance write off. So our friend quickly handed over £200 and got a top box thrown in on the deal as well, so well chuffed! We wheeled it out into the road and I was to ride it back, I have a full license and I am used to geared bikes. He has only ridden scooters and a blast from Colchester to Norfolk is not the time to learn how to shift gears! So I was put on his insurance policy he had set up the day before (nothing like being eager) and after collecting the bike he paid the £17 road fund via the mobile and 4G! We filled the beast up, swapped the tap to main and set off from Colchester. Now the first thing I noted was that the back brake was there for decoration, not for use. It appeared to have no effect on deceleration unless you stood on it! Front brake was nice and sharp though, the clutch was nice and usable, no creep, and the gear change though clunky, was safe and predictable and the gear position indicator was working nicely. Blatted through the town, the exhaust having a rather fruity burble and warble in it's additional hole. The handling was great, much better than the learner staple of a CG125. Actually very good handling, it leant over much more quickly than any other learner I have ridden (CG 125, YB100, Derbi Fenix and an SR125). The acceleration was reasonable to 40, then it sort of slowed, but still not too bad. About 10 miles out of Colchester it struck, the Kangaroo Bounce, it bounced, lurched forwards, slowed down, stopped, revved ok without load, set off did it again. Stopped, let things cool down for 10 minutes, started again, more Kangaroo progress, at this point I was getting worried. Stopped by the roadside again, then I thought well it is not electrical, as it was running, electrical tends to be either go or stop, nothing in between, was running OK so not air, last left is fuel. I knew the fuel we put in was fresh, so problem in the lines? Swapped from main to reserve, revved freely, so a fist full of throttle and waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! Off it shot like a demon, the little bike spun up to speed nicely and cruised onwards with renewed vigour. So a problem in the fuel tap diagnosed as being the main reason for the £300 price drop! It was nearly ninety miles door to door and somewhere 30 miles in some son of a female dog swapped the seat when I was doing 50mph. It went from being a reasonably comfortable perch to being something built out of angle iron. It got painful, very painful. Sitting here 16 hours later it is still painful! We bought 10 litres of petrol, it has a 12 litre tank. We poured at least 7 litres in, topped up as we went back, got back and had enough fuel in the can to top the tank to virtually full again! I also noted that the fuel gauge is wonderfully inaccurate! The Monster is a capable bike, it handles, you can chuck it into corners and come out grinning and happy rather than worry about grip. We know it needs work, but for a few quid more he will have a bike that can cope and at the end of the day will be his! Would I recommend one as a thorough Jap/European owner? I have not seen anything on that bike that I have not encountered before and to a worse degree on something made in Japan. It handled as well as anything from a Japanese or European manufacturer of learner bikes. It was also cheap, very cheap, ok so it will never fetch as much as a mainstream bike, but it never cost that much and even with the repairs that need to be made, it will still be worth what he paid. So buy a Chinese bike with an open mind, have some fun, enjoy the journey! You want special fried rice with that?

Many years ago I got fed up with waiting for the bus, only to be sat with lots of semi coherent baboons and other lower evolved forms of simian upright walking mammals also known as school children. It was then decided I would do a CBT and get my first motorcycle, at the tender age of 35! My wife decided to make me work for my first machine, She managed to find a used Yamaha at a second hand bike dealers for one hundred pounds. This was transported home on the back of a trailer that was used by the local gardener. It was wheeled into the garage under the cover of Darkness, which meant I did not get to see the bike in its full glory. I did get the Haynes manual. I had acquired a YB100. Daylight and the weekend brought me the chance to examine the purchase. She had been assured that all that was needed were a new front tyre and mudguards. Closer examination showed an exhaust with more holes than James Galway’s flute a rear tyre on the front and a front tyre on the rear! There was fractionally more water in the middle of the Kalahari than there was acid in the battery, the indicator switch was missing the plastic slider as was the plastic choke pull. The chain and sprockets were worn, very worn and there was also a worrying rattle from the petrol tank but it was a bike! My father was worried about me having a motorcycle, but on one of his infrequent visits he saw my machine and pronounced there was no way I was getting that on the road. I was infuriated, incensed, a tad miffed… So armed with my socket set and spanners, I set to work. First strip down, battery out and binned, tyres off, chain and sprockets off, mudguards off and the flute was removed. New parts ordered, battery, mudguards (pattern) new exhaust (pattern), as well as two new tyres, tubes and tyre levers. I had never heard the engine run. Though allegedly the wife had. So the first thing was to charge the battery and fit it, put it on the charger, boiled the ball’s off of it. Realise bike is 6 volt not 12 volt. Get moaned at by wife, new battery 2 ordered. Charge at 6 volts. Fit and connect. Replace spark plug too! Turn fuel to on. Now in my many attempts to start it our dog (a Pembroke Corgi) started to bark as the exhaust coughed. As I struggled to get the bike to even stutter he barked louder and louder. Then to my surprise there was a roar. The engine sprang into a cacophony of 2 stroke combustion. Our dog had unfortunately parked his snarling nose half an inch from one of the holes in the rear of the exhaust. One that suddenly spat hot exhaust right down his snout. He shot off like a hound from trap 2 at Yarmouth Stadium and fled up the drive still barking, he then lifted his rear off the ground, span round in a handbrake turn to face the bike and barked his retribution at the thing that had the affrontery to bark back! That set the precedent, after that whenever a bike was wheeled out of the garage Monty went light. These were thin, metal cows that needed herding back to whatever field of hell they came from and he was going to tell them. He was an entertaining dog! Next take exhaust off, marvel at thing of many holes, examine new exhaust. Find it is a common exhaust for the FS1E and YB100, think to oneself the baffle for a 50cc will be smaller, will restrict the power. Remove baffle from old exhaust, remove baffle from new exhaust, manage to lose both damned screws. Swear. Profusely. Spy old wooden toilet seat with brass fittings in corner of garage. Realise that the long screws in the hinges look to be the same size as the screws that hold the riser for the seat hinge to the mount on the top of the toilet seat, take one out, see if it fits, it does. Bog seat exhaust christened. At this point I did my CBT! Well it was nearly on the road. I had discovered that most of the bulbs in the bike were toasted black with crispy filaments, so all bulbs were replaced. Now the sweat really began, chain, sprockets and tyres. To anybody who believes they can change a tyre for a tubed tyre bike at home armed with two tyre levers I have news for you. You can but it is fecking difficult. Getting that bead over the rim is hard, damned hard, really damned hard, really really damned hard. Once it is over it is fine, it comes undone fairly easily but getting it started is a right pain in the hand, wrist, arm…. I put a front tyre on the front and a rear tyre on the rear I thought that following the way they were fitted to the bike could be a bit of a nono! Whilst the wheels were off I examined the drum brakes. The linings were thin, down to the shoe in fact. So more spares ordered. Whilst the wheels were off I decided to put the new shiny bits on. With the new mudguards and the new exhaust the bike began to look quite good! Put the wheels back on and set the brakes up. Replaced the front and rear sprockets, greased the new chain and fitted that to the bike. Lost a couple of screws on the chain guard so just spaced the ones I had left. Now the indicator switch and choke pull had me puzzled, they did not seem to be on any parts list, so I had to find a replacement. At work I realised that highlighter pens could be the answer so I asked the office to save any highlighter pens that had run out of ink, a broad nib highlighter cab filled with chemical metal, painted in matt black Humbrol and drilled became my choke pull, a narrow nib cap treated in the same way became the indicator slider switch. Well they worked! Time for a test ride. I did have insurance, but stuck to pottering round the estate and I ground to a halt. Petrol in the tank, but no vroom! Back to the garage and take tank off. Grab Haynes and remove carburettor. There is mud in it, actual mud! What the? Tank off and drain and notice that there is mud coming from the tap! Panic. Really panic. Shake tank with fuel cap off and watch gravel fall out. Some moron must have run out of petrol and put stones in the tank to make whatever petrol was in the tank flow out. Filter petrol using homebrew kit, use it to remove mud from tank and tap. Strip down carburettor, clean everything reassemble, put back together and pray. Turn petrol back on, no leaks good, kick, no spark, bad! Realise you had followed instructions on disassembly to the letter and not on rebuild, refit battery, kick start again, vroom, make mental note to kick oneself up arse. The only MOT place I could get a slot at was some 20 miles from the house, so armed with CBT, MOT slot details and insurance certificate I set off. The YB was different to most motorcycles with the gears, 4 straight down, I claimed it was a racing box (rather than a moped box). It set off and handled well, got a tank full of fuel from the garage in the village and set off on the long odyssey to the place of haven known as Gildo’s. I waited like an expectant father to find I had got a fail, headlight not aligned, missing screws (that I knew about) and front fork seals. Back home front wheel off, remove front forks and take to Anglian Motorcycles in King’s Lynn, spanner twirling yes, forks no, I would let an expert do those. The forks were picked up with new fork seals, the front end reassembled, light aimed, new self tappers in the chainguard and a new slot booked. The wife followed me in her Ford Orion on the next run. Going down the A47 on the then new dual carriageway section to Wisbech I crouched over the tank and gave her the beans. The wife following recorded a top speed on the flat of 65mph! Back to Gildo’s for the retest and what do you know, the YB100 Deluxe had passed. Now why was it a Deluxe model? It had a luggage rack, that was useful you know, I carried a surround sound system home on that (main speaker in the rucksack, surrounds in a cardboard box on the rack under a bungee net)! Proudly I set off for the centre of Wisbech, where at the Post Office I showed my certificates and got a nice tax disk. I went back to the bike and proudly put it on. My own hard work had rebuilt this machine. Review Of The YB100 Deluxe Bog Seat Exhaust Model. Appearances, red, pearlescent red paint makes it look more than it is, a simple 100cc commuter bike. The luggage rack finished in black powder coating looks a bit cheap, but it is useful. It has an oil injection system, damned useful, pour 2 stroke oil in and forget, check every two weeks and top up. Means no more shaking the bike at the petrol station in order to mix the fuel and oil up. Love that. The machine will move briskly away from a standing start, easily able to keep up with traffic that is around, overtaking HGV’s along the dual carriageway requires a good run and hope, but I have done it. Overtaking HGV’s on a single carriageway means if you are in your 30s or a non slimline model you will need a bit of a run at it. Fuel economy is good, it returned on average 90mpg even with me riding it. Handling was something else. The bike did not like a lot of lean, that could have been down to tyre profile, but it was never designed to be flung around getting a knee down anyway. It was assured, even in the wet and cold (I rode this bike all year). The lights however were a joke. This bike was meant to be run in the city, not out in the agricultural depths of rural Norfolk. The glow worm in the jam jar at the front seemed to have 2 settings, dim and dimmer. I managed to find a sort of mid switch position that gave a lot of light to the front, but that stopped the rear light working… Reliability, walk out, pull choke out in cold weather, kick, start, go. Never stopped doing anything else as long as I owned it. Fun, we all remember our first bike, this was a barnstorming little beast that set me free from public transport. But I had also managed to get 500 miles of business use on my insurance, which meant I could be sent out making deliveries, I had many nice afternoons out going to local customers with their orders or to outworkers with data discs (this was before the internet really took over). The one out the back of my village was handy, I was allowed to set off an hour earlier from work, go there on my way home on the understanding that I did not claim for mileage as they were close to where I lived, so I would get home, paid, 40 minutes earlier. If you want an oddball gearbox bike then it is one to consider, but if you are learning to pass a test then it is one to avoid else you will be making clunking mistakes on the gear changes.

Sorry about the delay in replying, I have been riding my bike The fit is excellent, but I know I have a big head so the largest helmet usually fits it. damned handy having the drop down visor, bit Top Gun that!

They were warm enough, just my hands went into a coma, so went back to my faithful old Fieldsheer Hiporas. A very comfy pair of gloves that keep my hands awake!

Well decided it was time for a new helmet. Mine have reached the 5 years old limit, the Box ones have been nice, the flip face ones a pain, but they did have pinlock visors. Got the Sharp site up and had a look. Then had a look online. KWFM in Bristol were selling Duchinni 429 helmets, brand new and boxed, for £20. Delivered! So we ordered one at just gone 5pm, paid via Paypal and waited... Got an update to say the courier had collected it at 8pm! As in what the heck? Further examination of tracking number showed that it was out for next day delivery. Seriously! Before mid day the helmet was in my possession and proudly bearing it's ACU gold sticker! Ooh! Nifty. Examination showed no damage and the helmet was brand new, boxed, just old stock. Helmets only age from when you wear them and they get your sweat, grime and UV from the sun. So £20 later and I have a helmet with a drop down sun visor, that has an ACU gold label and fits nicely to my noggin! Not unhappy! Careful examination of the label on the box shows that KWFM seems to be an offshoot of Fowlers of Bristol, some johnny come lately to the motorcycle scene who have been trading since 1926AD, not 26 minutes past 7 the night before. So all happy!

The wife bought me a pair of the gloves, sent my hands to sleep in 10 minutes of riding, gave them to a friend, everybody's hands are different I just could not get on with those gloves though.