XmisterIS

In some ways they are easier to look after when they're that small - you can put them down and they don't go anywhere! This reminds me of one of our neighbours who was passing with his wife one day when i had the Z out and was tinkering. We exchanged pleasantries and he started asking about the bike. "You're not having one!" she said to him as she shot him the glance of a woman who's husband has all the confidence of an emasculated chihuahua. He instantly started talking about the weather instead of the bike!

Firstly, congrats! I feel no shame at all in admitting that we both wept openly when we had our 12 week scan and saw XlittleIS for the first time - after two silent miscarriages at about 8 weeks. Secondly, get your sleep in now; as of November, you will never sleep again. Ever. (Actually, it's not as bad as all that, they do usually sleep at night, despite what people say!) Thirdly, tell the nosey bast*rds of this world to stick it! I once had a conversation as follows: "When are you giving up the bike?" "When I decide to do so." "Oh, that's a good decision, it's for the best!" "I haven't made it." "What?" "The decision. I haven't made it." "What decision?" "The lights are on, but nobody's home, eh?" "Which lights?" "Your not a member of Mensa, are you?" "No." "Quite."

Yesterday, we came up Lunnun way from Sudaamp'un (Southampton, to them wots not from round 'ere) to visit some friends in Sunbury-on-Thames (very posh, old chap) who are selling their house. It is in a terrace, it has 3 bedrooms, only one of which is a double, minute hallway, miniscule lounge, poky kitchen, hardstanding for only one vehicle, no garage, back garden the size of a postage stamp. When we got home, we found it on the Internet - and the price made my jaw hit the floor. It is about a quarter the size of our property (including land area and outbuildings), and about half the size of our house (main house only) but it is for sale at more than double the value of our house!!!!!! Actually, quite a lot more than double. Insane. We are not in a rough area of southampton either. They are moving out of London and he is taking a pay cut - but they are buying a much bigger house, for less than the value of their current one, and even though he will be taking a pay cut they will still be saving money because apparently everything in London is now stupid prices. I can vouch for that - I recently attended a conference in Hampstead and at lunch time the cheapest decent hot food i could find locally was a hot dog for £8. I didn't really care that it was a homemade-boutique-artisan-hand-knitted pork saussicon. It was a hot dog and it was £8. Insane. The following day i brought a packed lunch. The prices seem even more insane when you consider that southampton is not actually very far from central London - 80 miles according to Google - just over an hour on the fast train from Southampton Central to London Waterloo. It seems to me that London is one huge, terrifying bubble that is going to burst one day.

that reminds me of an incident that happened many years ago when i was in my first job, just out of university. I was a 21 year old boy racer with a red mark 1 ford fiesta, which i drove like an absolute lunatic. One day i badly cut up a fellow employee (stuffy boring 40-something - a bit like me now ) who followed me into the works car park and told my boss, who had a word with me. Shortly after that, i ditched the fiesta and invested in a Nissan primera GT ... which was black. Over the next six months, the employee whom i'd cut up carefully and secretly catalogued every bit of bad driving by small red cars near the office. One day i came in and was called straight into the boss's office. There were my boss and the grumpy employee, who read out every entry in the dossier he'd prepared. Of course, i knew from the start i had him snookered, so i just waited until he'd finished, then i asked, "what colour is my car?" "Red!" he cried with great relish. "Nope. My car is black. Its in the car park now, would you like to see it?" If, at that moment, if the floor could have opened and swallowed him whole, I think he would have welcomed it. My boss just laughed and patted him on the shoulder. Ironically, I'm now the boring 40-something who drives a sensible car very sensibly (well - sensibly-ish - it's a very small car so it goes round corners like a roller-skate) and tuts at boy racers!

OP reminds me of a friend of my wife's who posts all sorts of dramatic messages on Facebook (e.g. "Can't believe the match has been postponed. Was going to watch it on sky sports this afternoon. Feeling devastated."). Then we found out through the grapevine that his girlfriend is pregnant. I think he's going to be in for a shock ... !!!

The fuel economy is better than the daf because it's got taller gears. The SX truly is a touring bike whereas the DAF is more for hooning around on - although because they are almost the same bike, the SX is perfectly capable of hooning, if you want it to! Motorway cruising speed in 6th is about 4K revs at 70, which is barely ticking over, hence why it just sips petrol at sensible speeds. As for tank range, I can get about 170 miles out of a tank, much less if I am riding in a spirited fashion

After having owned my Z for 8 months, i can confrim that it is an all-round cracking bike. I've split my review into bullet points for ease of reading: WEIGHT: As far as litre sports tourers go, it's pretty light! I came from the SV650, which is only 30Kg lighter, yet has half the power and a little over half the torque. The Z is very flickable yet feels very nicely planted on the road. You can ditch about 10Kg by replacing the cans and headers with arrow or akrapovic. COMFORT: It's a comfortably sat up riding position and the windshield is very effective. I find i can just relax and let the bike eat up the miles. The seat is a bit hard, but you get used to it. HANDLING: This is what really sold the bike to me in the first place. The handling is amazing. The power delivery is smooth and forgiving and it drops effortlessly into corners. It feels very stable even cornering at high speed with a big lean angle and will flick between the turns quite readily. It pulls like a train in every gear and even though it is quite forgiving, it accelerates fast. Very fast. A heavy hand on the throttle in any gear will bring the front end up, unless you have the traction control switched on - and even then the front wheel does like to bounce around! The upside to all that torque and bhp is the power band. It will accelerate quickly and smoothly up to about 7000 rpm, and then it goes like a rocket. It feels amazing and it's what makes me love getting on this bike. You want to overtake? No problem. Just lean forward, open the throttle and go. It will not run out of grunt. My only complaint is about the tyres. It comes with Bridgestone Battlax as standard, but I do not like them! They are wearing down quickly and have always felt a bit sketchy on ruts, etc - they do track quite badly, although they grip well on corners. I have been told that this is genuinely due to the tyre and not the bike, so I will be replacing them with Pilot Road or Pilot Power. I only ever put Pilot Road on my old bike and I would swear by them. FUEL ECONOMY: Because the powerband is quite high up the rev range, it's like riding two bikes. Keep the revs below 7K and it just sips petrol and behaves politely. Crank the throttle open, and all of a sudden it is a screaming hooligan that drinks petrol! And is fun to ride ...

There's something in Newtonian physics called the law of conservation of mass, i.e. matter cannot be created or destroyed (except it can, but for the purposes of this discussion it can't). Therefore it doesn't matter how many balloons you have, filled with helium, or feathers, or lead, or more balloons, compressed by hippos or spherical horses in a vacuum, matter (and therefore mass) cannot be created or destroyed. Nevertheless, if the total density of the baloon + helium (i.e. weighted average of density of balloon and density of contained gas) is less than the surrounding air, the balloon will float. Otherwise it will sink. (Ask Archimedes about that one!)

I imagine they were talking about Dalton's law of partial pressures, or perhaps they were alluding to Boyle's law, but the overall mass of the cylinder is directly (not inversely) proportional to the pressure of the contents.

Pffffft!

NOTD goes to the pillock in the stupid little "hot hatch" (complete with nürburg ring bumper sticker) in front of me who started pulling out to overtake the car in front of him, when I'd already begun my overtake of both vehicles. Did he pull back in when I held my thumb on the (very loud upgraded) horn? No, of course not.

Really looking forward to it, me and the bike on a long trip. Part of the reason I wanted a bike. Starting to think an sports tourer is the way forward after I get the license, rather than a cruiser. Although I do like that Yamaha XVS1300! Hope you have a good trip when you do it. Thanks! I'll be up and out early, stop for lunch half way, long ride home. As regards big bikes after you've got your licence, it depends what kind of riding you enjoy. I've never ridden a cruiser, but i know people who have them and I've sat on one. It was very comfortable, but very heavy. They're good for cruising! The good thing about the Z1000SX is it's almost two bikes in one - comfortable for cruising, but comparatively lightweight and manoeuvrable, and goes like shit off a shovel! 230Kg wet weight, 140bhp. It shifts! Sure, it's not quite in the same sports league as an R1 or a gixer thou, etc, but i wouldn't fancy riding either of those bikes all day.

Getting older is quite satisfying! I'm 40, wife is 43, daughter is 1, we wouldn't have it any other way.

I like the look of that trip! When you get going you'll enjoy it. Even when I was on L-plates I discovered the joy of long distance trips on the bike - I love seeing how far i can go, hence why i have a litre sports tourer now. When i was on a 125, i once did Fareham (my home at the time) to Eastbourne and back in a day (2 hours each way). Your butt gets used to it pretty quickly - i was also doing a lot of cycling at the time, so i didn't get a sore backside. One of my planned routes for this season is to do the entire length of the A272 (a famous biking road on the south coast) I'll be doing Southampton to Lewes along the coast, then inland to pick up the eastern end of the 272. 190 mile journey!

I hope everything is OK, nothing serious going on! My Father In Law had one for three days, he resorted to sitting in a few inches of bath water and having a sponge bath.

All I want is a phone that makes and receives calls, connects to my car and which allows me to send the occasional text and take the occasional photo. The Samsung range has always started off OK and then very quickly gone belly up, and even after having it looked at under warranty, it is not long before it plays up again. That is why I hate Samsung. At the moment it has now gone into requiring charging twice a day, so just as well I have an in car charger. It is a total piece of crap............. I do not want or use internet on the phone, I do not need or want loads of apps, I just want a simple phone that does what I want from a phone well. My first car phone back in the late 80's took up half the boot of my car, but at least it worked reliably I recommend ... two tin cans and a piece of string!

This is an important consideration. I found the early Samsungs would go flat very quickly, but the S4 was pretty good and my wife's S6 is even better. I'm getting the S7 soon and that is reported to be better still. As regards bloatware ... root is your friend I insure via a third party, cheaper than Vodafone, so rooting doesn't invalidate the guarantee (it would if I went with Vodafone insurance).

I don't understand the Samsung hate! I have been with Samsung since the i9000 (the S, or what I suppose could retrospectively be called the "S1"). I have found that from the S4 onwards, they've got better. I currently have the S4 and I'm going to upgrade to the S7 soon. To get the most out of them, you need to root them and keep ontop of upgrades and the firmware. Easy to do with Odin (google it) and quite fun if you're a techie like me. Just don't brick it. I know someone who's teenage son bricked his brand new S3 straight out of the box, invalidated the guarantee on a £300 phone before he'd even used it once (facepalm). As someone who got his first mobile phone (a housebrick sized thing) with his first graduate job in 1996 at the age of 22, I find modern phones an absolute wonder, regardless of how slow they might sometimes be. In those days there was one single mobile phone shop in the whole area and you hand-picked your preferred mobile number out of a book. Texting took forever, but it didn't matter, because almost nobody else you knew had a mobile phone!

I'll second the Varadero. Very roomy, comfortable bike. Not great top speed, but seeing as you'll only be riding it for 6 months before you get your full licence, just get a second-hand one and learn to ride on it.

Quite. I too am lazy ...

In a word ... no. I've never had a bike with a gear indicator. Not many bikes have one, because they're unnecessary. You will select the best gear based upon engine revs/torque mainly. You change gear more often on a bike than in a car (unless you're on a 1000cc, then you can be lazy!) and gear selection is completely different on bike vs. car. Don't worry about it, you'll see what i mean when you get on the bike and ride

I would never take a vehicle of any description into Halfords for any kind of work to be done on it - they're overpriced and underskilled! My car goes to a family-run garage just round the corner from my house and my bike goes to a Kwaker specialist just round the other corner from my house.

When the weather is dry and warm enough not to have to worry about damp patches on the road, every ride is a joy. When it's freezing cold and the roads are slimy, or it's pissing with rain, it's no fun at all. I don't buy into the idea of "no such things as bad conditions, just bad clothing". No. There is such a thing as bad conditions. It doesn't matter how marvellous your winter jacket is, winter rain is still winter rain and it's shit!

NOTD goes to one of my colleagues where I'm doing (thankfully temporary) work. Me: "Please can you look this up on Google Maps for me and tell me where it is exactly?" (I thrust sheet of paper into her hand). Her: "What do you mean?" Me: "Please put this location in to Google Maps and tell me where it is". Her: "What's Goo-ga-mapa?" Me: "G-o-o-g-l-e M-a-p-s. You've seen a computer before, haven't you?" Her: "No, I never heard of that". Me:

Well done! Now the fun begins