Mississippi Bullfrog

To be fair I used to be but these days I take a more chilled attitude to riding and find it much more relaxing and to be honest more rewarding. What I love is the freedom, some time to myself, the wind noise which drowns out my persistent tinnitus, and best of all moments like yesterday when I pulled onto a motorway alongside another biker. We rode about 20 miles together then he gave me a wave when he peeled off up a slip road. No idea who he was - just another bloke on a bike who shared a few miles. I get my adrenalin sailing boats these days. You can be as much of a hooligan as you want and there are no speed cameras on the water.

Makes you realise that as soon as the bike starts to move the movement of the bike opens the throttle even if the person holding it isn't twisting it.

Is badger bashing a common occurrence? Imagine the biker wont come off well in a high speed badger impact. lol I do see a lot of dead ones on my travels and you wouldn't want to hit one at speed because they are pretty solid. They sure are pretty solid, my mum hit one in her Mini many moons ago. The Mini was a right mess, the whole front was stoved in. Poor little thing was a write off.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/roadworthiness-testing-for-vehicles-of-historic-interest The report has been issued following the consultation process. I think the summary is that there will be a rolling exemption for light vehicles over 40 years old, with no mileage limit imposed. Obviously this has already been debated to death, just posting the link for those who didn't take part in the consultation.

I don't know if applies to your engine but I've heard of some aftermarket exhausts causing an increase in oil consumption. Just in case yours shows higher oil use than it should. Otherwise if it works ok I'd leave it, having a slightly more noticeable exhaust can be helpful.

I think there is a rather big difference between being bike jacked and voluntarily dismounting a machine and pushing it from the rear with the engine still running. But if that's where the discussion is going then I'll happily admit to being wrong.

If he had full control why didn't he throttle back, apply the brakes or hit the kill switch? If he was in control and chose not to then it's his responsibility. If he couldn't then it's again his responsibility.

I guess I'm going to be the odd one out here - and I agree with the general rule about not messing about with other people's things but that is surely a secondary issue in this situation. In my book the rider of a bike is responsible for the control of it at all times. If the rider cannot reach the controls then the engine shouldn't be running. The primary cause was that the rider left the engine running when he didn't have full control of the machine. Maybe bikes ought to learn a lesson from boats and have a kill cord fitted.

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.