Mississippi Bullfrog

A couple of years back I forgot to MOT my CBF, it was after they extended the MOT during covid and it threw me . So in April I remembered the MOT had expired in November. I'd been riding it daily and not been pulled. But if plod does pull you then riding it to work in the morning with the MOT booked for the afternoon and you're in deep doo doo.

"Scratch" ..... reminds me of the Monty Python about the Black Knight.

When j used pay at the pump it was in Wales and took the best part of a week to refund the £92 pounds of fuel I hadn't used. It was near the end of the month and that much missing from my account was a problem.

I used pay at the pump once - the thieving blighters took £100 out of my account just to put £8 of fuel into the Bobber. Never again.

Things seem to have gone to the next stage. Vauxhall used to design their small SUV Crossover on the Astra platform, now it's the other way round. Since sails of SUV/Crossovers are high the new Astra is built on the SUV platform rather than the other way round. The outcome is that the internal layout of the new Astra is very cramped because they've had to use a SUV base and build a normal car out of it. Our daughter runs a Skoda Fabia which she can get the pram into the boot no problem. Someone went into the back of her recently so she had a VW T-Roc as a courtesy car. It was very nice and much bigger but the pram wouldn't fit in the boot. Give me an old fashoned estate if you want more space.

Which end?

I am surprised how many people still have centre stands. They seem to be getting rarer on new bikes.

That's a belting exhaust note. They've done a good job with that.

I don't sit on it whilst filling it just in case I spill fuel onto a hot engine. It's unlikely to catch fire but then the Titanic was unlikely to sink on its maiden voyage. It's easier to run away when you're not sat on the bike. I fill both on the side stand. The Bobber has the petrol cap offset anyway so when it's on the side stand the cap is at the top. Since it only holds 9 litres you need to make sure you fill it to the brim. Getting a bike onto a centre stand shouldn't be an issue - what's causing you to think it's going to fall over?

Same here. Cold wind and heavy rain all morning. Its not very conducive to playing out.

So that's a separate controller rather than the controls built into the gloves themselves?

I'm pretty sure that's not how they work. Like many button controlled devices when you switch them on it goes to low, then you press again for medium, and again for hot. You can cycle through the settings with short presses. A long press to turn off. I've never got to use mine on hot. I usually just leave them on low. I have once had them on medium when it was really cold.

What was I saying about not reading the manual.....its usually the bits left over which cause me to check. In this case it was the bit not left over. I rebuilt the front end and found the steering lock was out of line. Much headscratching later I realised I hadn't measured the new head bearings. They were slightly deeper. So having meticulously laid out all the bits that came off....and then refitted in reverse order.....there was a spacer that I should have omitted. And yes, the manual does show that. So, second time round

I am old school - the first thing I do when I buy anything is to get the Haynes for it. Most of the time I take things to bits and then read the manual. One of my Bobber friends recently found out the hard way that you really should read the manual first. He dismantled his TPS and then read the bit that said DO NOT DISMANTLE THE TPS. It has a factory set spring internally that cannot be replaced once dismantled. It cost him a lot of money to put that right. ($2,200)! I find it makes a handy checklist to spot the bits left over before you have put it all back together again. I have a long shelf of Haynes which are mostly oil stained and grubby. But there are a lot of good memories and occasional bloodstains in them.

We are slaves to history. The very first mayor of London was a Dick so tradition must he upheld.

What was particularly satisfying was getting the head bearing back together and reconnecting all the loom connections that have to be stripped off....and then finding it fired first time with all the electrics working. But yes....very glad I decided to overhaul the forks whilst they are off because externally there was no sign of a problem. If I'd have left them that side would have been damaged by the water.

Good job I decided to overhaul the forks whilst they were off the bike. This one had got water into it. I replaced the oil 2022 but it had turned into emulsion. No sign of any oil leaking so the forks looked fine. But same again, some clot had used a screwdriver to install the seal so it was in a poor state.

Check the state of your battery as well. Just in case it's getting past it. You don't want to fry your new r/r.

I have tinkered with various grades of oil and found what works for me best in that bike. The thing about delivery is that you don't need a lot of it and it isn't expensive so you end up paying half as much again for delivery charges - hence I'd rather buy it over the counter. But if they don't keep it in stock then it's readily available on ebay. Then again, there seems to be inconsistency between what the numbers actually mean anyway. I've ordered some Smith & Allen which I've used before.

I like to support local retailers whenever I can so I didn't order fork oil online. After all, J&S is just round the corner. But no, they don't stock 10W fork oil, only 5W. Why? Halfrords it is then. But oh dear, they only have 1 500ml bottle in stock, enough for one fork. That's not much good. So it's back to ebay and a litre bottle is on the way.

Oh dear. That means my father in law will not be a happy chap. We should stick to sailing. We're usually pretty good at that.

Lost to Scotland....is that in the world tiddlywinks?

Motorcycles are hardest to control when going slowly. First gear sounds like overkill, unless you're riding something with higher than usual gearing. I find on really steep hills 2nd is the most engine braking you want. And there's no rule that says you can't use the front brake when going slow. If you're applying light front brake you're compressing the front forks and tyre to give better grip. Just use a finger of pressure rather than a full hand of grip.

I have Gerbing heated gloves which I run on battery packs. I got the highest rated batteries. I ride all year and over the winter the heated gloves work fine for my usual 1 hour each way ride. They don't get warm, they just stop my fingers getting cold. Mostly I use them on the lowest setting. Once this winter had to go to medium. I've never had to run them on hot. One issue is that they won't fit under my jacket sleeves so in heavy rain water does run down into them. But they still don't get cold. I could hardwire them to the bike but I prefer the flexibility of batteries.

Has someone been mixing herbal substances with their cornflakes again? No idea what the DB would be but the BTM* rating would be 100%. *Brown Trouser Moment.