Bungleaio

That seems very harsh to me, what you did sounds like the right thing to do. I got 2 minors on my test, one for being to wide on a left hand junction and the other for being to tight on a right hand turn. Just chalk it up to experience mate and have another go.

I'll come along too, I might be on the car though depending if I have to come straight from work. I'll keep my eye out for you [mention]Snod Blatter[/mention] and [mention]Gerontious[/mention]

Bit of an update, I've switched to a group in another area as I was still waiting to start with the other group. Fingers crossed I can actually get some additional training underway soon.

I went with a school that was local and I've been driving the surrounding area for 20 years. Within 10 minutes of being out with the school I was on roads I'd never been on. Since passing my test I've found so many roads I never knew existed. It did come in handy on the MOD 2 test though when the examiner said to follow the signs back to the city and I knew exactly where I needed to go.

If you have decided to get a car license then a car before learning to ride then getting a bike you don't need to decide on what bike you are getting yet.

Sainsburys and Costco also have pay at pump.

This will mess with cyclists best times etc so please don't do this

If I'm free I'll pop down.

No need to ask, the evidence is here https://www.themotorbikeforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=92&t=68238 This is the very reason I am looking to go straight to a triple. Was also looking at MT-07 but the problem is I know deep down I want a triple and won't be happy if I don't I had an Mt07 as my first bike. I did almost 1000 miles on it until it got traded for a street triple 765 RS. Best thing I ever did. The MT was good but the Triple is better in every other way. Just treat it with respect and you'll be fine. Good luck with the tests, get those out of the way first before worrying about what bike you want.

Just to put a slightly different outlook on it but if the bike was stolen from the home address then would it matter? It's not the same as an accident on the road. Letting the CBT lapse by over a year is terrible though.

I hope you get back on your feet quickly.

More trips to the continent will sort you out.

I haven't ridden an MT09 or a Z900 but I bloody love my Street Triple RS, it makes a glorious noise when accelerating.

I love my street triple. It's plenty fast enough but handles les than perfect inputs very well.

I did about 1500 miles then did the enhanced rider training and got a lot from it. It's a full day's training and my local council cover most of the cost, I think I paid £60. https://www.gov.uk/enhanced-rider-scheme

I don't know if it's the rider or bike, they both talk, but there's a lot of filtering on the crumbles channel. https://youtu.be/_WoZSa007m8 Don't watch if you don't like very industrial language.

Just having a reminisce and didn't realise there had been more posts and the video. Great work and I don't envy you with the editing.

I went to the first meeting a few weeks ago but it didn't quite go to plan. It appears that the recruitment of new members at motorcycle live was a massive success. There were 17 new faces at the meeting which is more than the total there is normally. Due to this, the club was a bit overwhelmed and couldn't offer the normal one to one training that they normally do. Following a bit of a chat with the chair and other members I decided to hold off until after march to start my training. This should give them a bit of time to recover from the sudden influx of newbies and I'm going to be silly busy with work up until the end of the financial year so my free time to ride will be minimal.

9000 for me. It has been fantastic weather and my first year on 2 wheels so I've been very enthusiastic.

Nice little project and like you say if it doesn't work you can source a new one. It's always a relief to get things undone without shearing anything though.

I haven't got much to put here yet but I thought I'd something down as I go through the process of hopefully passing the IAM test. Some background on me - did CBT then DAS in summer 2017 having never ridden a motorbike before. I've subsequently covered just under 10k miles since passing the test. I passed MOD 1 with no minors 1st attempt, MOD 2 passed on the second attempt with 2 minors. IAM had an offer on at motorcycle live for the £99 rather than the usual £149, I'd planned on signing up in the spring but for £50 I couldn't resist and signed up at the show. At present, I'm just waiting for my local group to make contact so I'll update this as things progress.

To be fair it wasn't heavy drinking like I would at home if I was out with my mates, it was more steady away, we weren't riding until 11 most days too. The beer is really good quality so hangovers aren't really something that happened. Anyway, I forgot to add this screenshot from my google tracking, it's not quite accurate on the numbers but it gives an idea of the distance covered on the return leg.

[mention]Slowlycatchymonkey[/mention] My work here is done

I've not been deliberately dragging this out but here's the last instalment Friday Despite having random shots the night before I woke up feeling great. Breadfast was consumed then 5 of us set off for the final group ride. Smallfrowne went off to get his bike and sort the clutch out. As per normal I had no real idea of where we were going, I didn't need to know and to be honest I was better off not knowing. We set off on amazing roads again, hairpins, sweepers everything you want, I was feeling more confident and my chicken strips were shrinking. I'll put the next bit as a spoiler as was amazing so don't click this if you think you might go on one of these trips in the future, I'm so glad it was a surprise to me. We then continued our journey through more stunning places on amazing roads. It's hard to put more of a description as they really are all like that, I bet the locals hate visiting other places in the world as it must be a real step down in quality compared to home. We called in for lunch in a really nice restaurant, I forget how old it was but it had been open for a very long time. We sat outside as the weather was lovely. There was a little bit of a panic when the waitress tried to take our order but Bonio was back at his bike getting his glasses. We somehow managed to convey the message of can you come back in 10 minutes please. Bonio returned and all was well again. I'm happy to order food that I have no idea what it is so ordered Bratwurst mit Gräwes. We all know what bratwurst is but mit Gräwes turns out to be the nicest mashed potato I've ever had. Off again for more great roads, at one point a couple Umleitungs brought us round in a big circle so we stopped to work out where we were going. I say we, four of us had a chat whilst one did the working out The route was sorted and we made our way to Cochem. We stopped to take in the view. It was at this point I decided to break away from the group, they went off to do "Matts road" and I went back to the hotel. According to google it would take me about an hour and a half to get back to the hotel so I started to follow the directions. I forgot to click the avoid motorways option so I ended up on an autobahn, well I think it was an autobahn everyone was travelling at a fair old pace. I'd never been on an autobahn before so I did what anyone would put my head down and pinned the throttle. My bike has a TFT screen so I had it set to display KPH so I didn't really know how fast I was going, it was also about 17:30 so it was getting busy. I had a few goes at going as fast as I could, the biggest number I saw was 203kmh. I didn't know exactly how fast that was but it was very windy! A quick google later said I'd done just over 126mph, i was quite pleased with that as my bike can apparently do 139mph flat out. Maybe next year... Once back at the hotel total distance for the day of just over 200 miles. The mechanic was nowhere to be seen but the patient was still in the operating theatre. Dinner was consumed then time for more beers. There was even another round of the Romanian Moonshine! After a few more beers it was time to join Smallfrowne in the pub Yay more bloody mary shots The landlady was also consuming these shots, it must have gone to her head as she sat down and promoted Smallfrowne to head barman Doesn't he look proud of himself He took his job seriously and invited Mark to assist him in consuming as much beer as possible At about 2 am I decided it was time to call it a night seeing as we had a bit of a journey to do the next (same) day. I dragged Smallfrowne with me, he would probably still be there now if I didn't. Saturday Being clever I'd pretty much-packed everything before the beer started on Friday night so I didn't need to try and figure out how to get all my stuff back into the small bags I'd brought everything in. The beer is also good quality rather being the chemical filled lager we have here so I was feeling pretty good for my 4 and a bit hours sleep. The sun was out too. More bread, final packing and a quick once over of the bikes and we were good to go. No chicken strips for Snod Blatter Ate the miles between the hotel and the tunnel with no real dramas, lunch at Spy then arrived at the tunnel was all textbook. Then the textbook was thrown out of the window. Due to an honest mistake we arrived a little later than we should have done so the group was split on to two trains no real dramas but it wasn't until about half an hour or so after we were at departures that we realised the trains were delayed due to a breakdown in the tunnel. After a couple of hours the entertainment consisted of burger roulette We said our goodbyes and the first three guys boarded their train after nearly 4 hours of waiting. The rest of us boarded at about 5 hours, it would have been even later if Bonio hadn't had a word with one of the customer service agents. The final photo of the trip, I got this just before they took their trousers off Once off at the other side we met up with the other guys from the earlier train, they had gone for food and kindly waited so that we could ride together. I'd never ridden in the dark before so it was good to have others to ride with, After a massive tunnel delay and it being 10.30 at night you would have thought it would be fairly easy to get back but no. M20 had a junction shut so we had to divert to the M2, there was a massive queue for the Hartford tunnel then a rolling roadblock on the M25 which then completely shut for a while. It was great to get to the services at South mims for a very much needed coffee. Despite it being the middle of the night snod blatter almost created a fan group for his bike. There was a bloke at the services who was loving that he was on a TRX, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't nursing a semi, he even watched us ride off. Back on the road and nearly the home stretch on the M1, bugger junction 13 to 12 shut, time for another diversion. Shortly after this I pulled into a services to adjust my neck tube, as I was no on my own. No bother as my headlight is actually quite good and after riding in the dark for a few hours I didn't mind it. Just before I was due to get off the motorway I saw a streak as Gerontious overtook me, waving as he went. I was soon home after leaving the motorway and put the bike back in the garage. Total stats for the day 441 miles and getting home at 02:55! And this was for the entire trip I then went to bed, bloody body clock woke me up at 7 though! I hope you've enjoyed my write up of my trip experience. As I've said before it was absolutely amazing and something I will never forget, I can't wait for next year!

I reckon I spent £540 in Europe. That includes the hotel, petrol, meals out, drinks at the bar, everything. Then another £120 in the UK on petrol, a night in the hotel and dinner. Then it would be another £70 tunnel crossing, except I got some off with Tesco clubcard. I haven't bothered adding it up, I know I went though €500 in cash, 300 of which was for the hotel & bar bill. It was all very good value for money other than some of the petrol stations €1.72 per litre at one of them was a bit eye watering but I still got change from a €20 note after filling up so it didn't really matter.