Mississippi Bullfrog

Are you to blame? Not in my book. The owner / rider is responsible for the control of their machine and if it's left with the engine running and they haven't got their hands on the controls then they leave things open to go wrong. In that kind of situation it's easy for the throttle to be activated by contact with anything nearby. Especially any kind of bike with an automatic clutch. If the rider wanted to move it like that the engine should have been off. Back in the day - and don't tell anyone this - when I was young and poor and desperate - I had a Honda Cub to get to work on, I had a similar mishap pushing it into a parking slot when the throttle caught on a railing, fortunately no harm done. After that I never got off the saddle without killing the engine.

If I've read this right (and I probably haven't) Leaning inside keeps the bike more upright for faster bends, putting your weight outside is when you want to counterbalance the bike when cornering slowly. You certainly wouldn't want a pillion going the other way.

You can't tax a vehicle until you have insurance on it so it's not uncommon to buy a vehicle and tax it when you get it home. However that relies on the vehicle being currently taxed by the owner - what people refer to as 'get you home tax'. You send of part of the V5 to arrange the tax which you usually won't have from a private sale until you've done the deal. Obviously you must have insurance in place to ride it home - but if you're buying it then you'd need insurance anyway so not sure why you'd bother with one day insurance (unless you intend to lay the bike up for a while). If it is declared SORN then you can't ride it home until you have taxed it - so you'd need to pay for it, exchange documents, sort the insurance and then tax it before collecting it. Bear in mind that any vehicle taxed must have continuous insurance so if you tax it then you have to keep insurance going.

Surely this calls for a Montgomery Scott quote - Ye canna change the laws of physics. Are you sure you heard right?

This will get moved 'cos it's in the wrong place - but just clicking, first thing I'd check is the battery. The clicking is the solenoid engaging, but if the battery charge then the voltage will collapse as soon as the starter load hits it.

I met the guy who does those at a trade show last year, some lovely bikes he's got I may know something about this 🖒 I knew I had a photo on my phone somewhere....

Particularly when it's a motorbike hearse 🖒 I met the guy who does those at a trade show last year, some lovely bikes he's got

Im sure the guy they are burying doesn't mind. The deceased may not but their family hardly feel any better when some knob carves up the hearse.

It is appalling how some drivers treat a hearse and following cars. These days funeral drivers have to literally drive bumper to bumper to prevent idiots trying to squeeze between the hearse and the following limo. It never used to be like that. Most bikers seem to be different, I've seen a few bikes block the traffic to show some respect.

I missed this - been busy as our daughter is just about to get married so it's chaos here.... I have a dodgy knee following a fall off a canal boat so I sympathise with the pain, but a mate of mine has had two cartilage operations recently and in both cases was back to fell walking within a fortnight. Doctors tend to tell you the worst to cover themselves. I had my shoulder done a couple of years ago and was told it would be six weeks before I could even make myself a cup of tea. 48 hours after the op I stripped a car engine and rode to the first physio session. When I walked in through the door in the my riding gear the physio just laughed and signed me off. The trick is to get back to being active as soon as you can. The worst you can do with any kind of op is sit around waiting for it to get better by itself.

The person driving a black Golf stuck in traffic approaching the Mersey Tunnel this evening - all the other cars had moved to the sides of the lanes allowing a clear route down the middle which a blood biker was using to make good progress. Until he comes to said Golf which is sat out of line blocking the blood bike's progress - and no amount of hooting would make her shift. Had to chuckle on the way home when a green Beetle shot past us at a rather exuberant speed for Her Majesty's Highway. Clearly the unmarked plodmobile a couple of miles further on thought a few words were in order and there was much flashing of lights by the roadside.

I like the idea of riding within the speed limits and not being aggressive - makes riding much more relaxing. Only snag is I work most weekends - certainly for the whole of September I'm booked solid at weekends

What? They don't do it on the road these days? We just rode round the block until the examiner jumped out from behind a tree and so long as you didn't run him over you passed. Legend tells of the guy who rode round and round the block for hours until he ran out of fuel. When he walked back to the test centre it turned out the examiner had jumped in front of the wrong bike and got himself flattened, so he was carted off to hospital leave the candidate cruising round the block blissfully unaware of the accident.

When I did it they measured speed in furlongs per hours - but it's so long ago I can't remember what speed I was doing at the time.

Drives a Bentley Continental and rolls his owns ciggies ... Just proves the theory that for every force there is an opposite and balancing counterforce I drive an ancient Toyota Yaris and smoke Siglo Vs (Castro's favourite).

This is really a very individual thing - some of my mates wear contacts and love them. I wore them for years and eventually had to accept they don't work for me. The one thing about contacts and riding bikes is the very occasional times when something got into my eye even with a full face helmet and the visor down. It only happened occasionally but since I have to wear gas permeable lenses it was horrendous when it did. I tried soft lenses but they just didn't work for me - but they do for most people. So for me it's glasses and full face flip, and I don't generally have any major fogging issues. But for you it may be entirely different. All you can do is to try and see what works for you.

Check the earth, intermittent problems like that can be down to corrosion on the main earth. One way to check is to use a jump lead as a temporary secondary earth.

tbh my first thought would be points - I had one did that. Invest in the puller do the job, I had all sorts of pullers and none of them shifted it until I bought the specific CG tool - then it was a doddle. It helps to say the year of the bike when asking questions - later ones didn't have points.

Exhaust wrap is usually used to prevent the heat from the exhaust getting where you don't want it to be - eg in classic cars with hotter engines it's common to wrap the exhaust to prevent the engine bay getting too hot.

Yup - Halfords pro stuff is excellent value for money. I take rusty old cars to bits for fun and their tools take some punishment. I once managed to split a socket and they replaced it without quibble. Buy well and buy once. Buying cheap tools is only for rich people who can afford to throw money away.

I once used WD40 to try to fix the auto ignition system on our gas hob. This was not a good idea. The void under the hob filled with WD40 fumes and when I pressed the ignition button the hob rose about six inches out of the worktop. A friend had a similar mishap when he sprayed it into a model glow engine as an after run treatment, and then flicked the engine over by hand. Did you know that WD40 will ignite under compression like diesel? He didn't! He does now.

I have another solution to this problem - I have raging tinnitus so one of the joys of riding a bike is that it is one of the few times I am not spending my life listening to a jet engine at maximum rpm about to terminally explode.

It is a silly fault on ebay that once you've listed something as either 'auction' or 'BIN' you can't revise that bit. I had some car bits I was flogging off and every item was listed as an auction except one that ebay itself decided ought to be BIN so it just defaulted to that setting and I couldn't amend it. I try not to use ebay these days because every time I do so it ends in hassle. Too many muppets out there.

I use a Halfords digital tyre pump - for the bike I run it off a lithium ion starter pack. Does the job great.

You managed to break a CG! I feel some sort of award ceremony ought to be in order. You do realise that you now need to carry hammer with you everywhere you go. And one day Mr Plod will notice this and not be convinced that you need it to start a CG so you'll be charged with going equipped with intent and be thrown into jail.