XmisterIS

Sweet! If I can get one of those with bluetooth, that will be perfect - small enough to fit in a jacket pocket quite easily. Does that cost include all the maps too, or do you have to buy those separately?

Try Three Cross Motorcycles near Bournemouth - I got my bike there and they threw in a pair of Triumph kevlar jeans for free. They are tight in the waist (I had to get them in a 34", I'm usually a 32") but the legs are too huge and flappy! I have the opposite problem to you - I am a tall and slender.

Hmmm ... perhaps! The trouble is that storage on my bike would best be described as "minimal". Lol! Also, I like technological gizmos

Yes, they will take knee and hip inserts. Here's the website showing where all the kevlar goes: http://www.hoodjeans.co.uk/html/woven_aramid.html

Lol! I just think that some of the boots out there look like something out of Transformers, with all the angled plastic and bolts and what-not!

If you break down in France ... your bike will be fixed in a fortnight ... perhaps two ... and it might not be the same bike that you get back! If you break down in Germany ... an army of technicians will appear as a small platoon from the back of the bike shop, field-strip your bike to the frame in two minutes, perform a full integrity check on every component and re-build your bike, fixed, in another two minutes.

If you ride with kevlar jeans rather than leathers (as I do), you could do worse than to buy Hood jeans! I bought a pair recently and they have far more kevlar than any other jean I've looked at. They are almost completely lined with kevlar.

I am getting tired of printing out pages from Multimap, then sitting in a layby in the middle of nowhere, scratching my head (well, helmet), trying to figure out where I am, then letting go of the printout in the wind and watching it blow into the nearest cowsh1tty puddle. (The A4-sized Hampshire A-Z that I carry in my car doesn't fit on my bike very well!). Can anyone recommend a decent satnav that I can put in my pocket and listen to with an earpiece? I would rather listen to it than put it on the handlebars to look at. (because looking at the handlebars for too long quickly results in ground/sky/ground/sky/etc). It would be much more convenient to have a voice in my ear giving me directions so I don't have to take my eyes off the road.

Bullson Maddox. Cheap (as far as bike boots go), good protection. I never get cold feet even when the rest of me is cold! They're not over-hot in the summer either. Also, you can walk round in them without looking like a Transformer They're black leather, very unobtrusive. I got mine from Hein Gericke - just go to their website and search for "bullson maddox".

When I did my bike test, among the bumf that came with the test certificate was a flyer from a company called Ultraseal. I have had it knocking around for a while, not sure if I should go for it, or if it is a waste of money. Here's the website: http://www.ultraseal.biz The product itself is called Puncturesafe. Has anyone else used it? Verdict?

When: Every first Wednesday of the month in the BST (British Summer Time) months. That means there's two more this year: 5th August and 2nd September. Where: On the seafront, in the big coach park behind the D-Day museum. Looky here: http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=portsm ... PO5%203NT| What: Apparently there's hundreds of bikers there, kit stalls, hog roast, etc (I have never been there before, so don't take my word for it!). My mate Gary who rides a Harley (chortle) will be on the gate ... (don't tell him I said "chortle" about his Harley though ... ). What Time: 6pm onwards (I think - I will check with Gary).

I have ridden pushbikes all my life, so when I got the confidence to start filtering, I judged it by pushbike experience ... if it looks dodgy in any way, don't do it! For example, I was behind a guy doing 25/30 in a 40 zone today (dual carriageway). I could easily have nipped into the outside lane and booted past him ... but he was all over the road (e.g. drifting out over the white line, then back again, almost mounting the kerb, then back out, etc), so I sat behind him at a healthy distance until I could give him an incredibly wide berth! I think Its all down to reading the road and personal judgement. I agree with the 125'ers on here - I have a lot more confidence in filtering to the front of the queue on a 650 than on a 125! Mind you, for some reason I am very careful on a motorbike ... but a complete maniac on a pushbike! Lol!

I'll bet that this has been posted before, but it might be nice to have it as a sticky ... (vicki? no pun intended! ) http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/Motorcyc ... /index.htm

Yep, I have had the cover off and the crap behind thoroughly cleaned out. If you are saying it should go straight into gear, I will get it checked out by my local Suzuki dealer when it is due for a major service. It only does the not-going-into-gear thing occasionally though.

Nope, the clutch seems fine - perhaps it is just the "clashing gears" thing that MtotheJ mentioned.

Ah! Ok, nope, there's pretty much no play at all front/back, it's just up and down that it kind of wobbles a bit.

do you mean up/down play or back/front play?

the clutch lever feels a bit "looser" than the front brake, but it seems to work ok!

Nope Sometimes (but not often) Nope

Sometimes my bike won't go immediately into 1st from Neutral (I have to kick down on the gear lever 4 or 5 times) ... a friend told me I probably need to adjust the lever very slightly. How much is "very slightly"? How do I know when I've got it right? - most of the time it goes in fine, just sometimes it doesn't.

Thanks for the tips, I'm now kicking it up at around 9K, which does actually seem to make it accelerate quicker! Very useful for getting up to speed on very short dual carriageway entry ramps! There's a notoriously short one coming out of a petrol station on the A27 towards Chichester - I can only just get up to 70 in time to join the carriageway, so goodness knows what cars and lorries have to do. I think its dangerous myself, very short entry ramp, straight after a blind bend. Clever road planners ...

Lol! Will it damage the engine if I do that to it?

My SV is currently restricted to 33bhp. It has a stop on the throttle and washers in the exhaust ... I think ... or perhaps its just a stop on the throttle, I'm not sure. Anyway, even restricted it accelerates like a little blue lightning bolt and can easily leave pretty much anything on four wheels looking like a dot in my wing mirror (which is why I went for a lightweight V-Twin on a restricted licence!). Anyway, the acceleration is strong and constant all the way up to about 10K (it redlines at 12k), then it stops accelerating and starts "stuttering" - the engine isn't intermittently cutting out or anything like that, but it feels like it's hit an acceleration "wall" (i.e. suddenly won't accelerate anymore) and it feels like the power is on/off - like it's bouncing in and out of neutral (which clearly it isn't, but that's what it feels like). When it starts "stuttering" like that, I kick it up into the next gear until it starts stuttering again, then up again, etc. This only affects me when I am trying to get it to accelerate as hard as possible and I don't do it all that often - normally I have more than enough acceleration at my disposal. Do you think this is due to the 33bhp restriction or a problem with the engine?

I ordered a kettenmax the other day, with some Würth dry chain lube. The chain had been coated in that gunky, thick spray-on wax stuff, so that needed to come off. I popped the sprocket cover off ... and the build-up from many sprayings of thick chain wax was EVERYWHERE! I had to dig it out with a spoon, then spend an hour getting it out of all the crevices with paraffin and a toothbrush - it was a lovely big lump of wax with road grit stuck in it covering pretty much everything in the immediate area of the front sprocket, and the sprocket was covered in a gritty, sticky mess too. I now hate that stuff with a passion! After a decent paraffinning, I tried out the kettenmax - it works like a dream and gets the chain much cleaner than I can with a toothbrush! I wiped the chain and sprockets down and let them dry out while I gave the rest of the bike the once-over with a rag and some polish, then I applied the dry lube via the kettenmax. The lube is very thin, dries quickly, and you have to trust that it has actually gone onto the chain, because it looks like there's nothing there - but it is incredibly clean and won't attract the grit from the road - you can run your finger along the chain once the lube has dried, and it comes up spotless - it feels like there's nothing on the chain at all. According to the blurb that comes with it, it is extremely hard-wearing, very penetrating, and will extend the life of the chain because it won't attract the dirt and it has pretty much zero fling-off. Also, I have found an obvious way to set my paddock stand so that it fits my bike exactly, without having to fiddle with the springs each time I use it.

Well, I've just ordered the Kettenmax thing - Dan's videos and the ones on the Kettenmax website have convinced me! Plus its German, which has got to be good! ... (waits patiently for the heckling) ... Anyway, I have decided to try some dry lube with it - I've ordered a can of Wurth High Performance Dry Chain Lube. Again, its German, which has got to be good! ... (waits patiently for more heckling) ... The dry lube seems to have nothing but good reviews, and I am attracted by the fact that being dry, it won't attract the crap thrown up from the road. EDIT: I've just noticed that the Kettenmax is actually Austrian, which is not so good ... Hitler was Austrian! Boo! Never mind, I'm sure the product is good.