madcow87

Mr Hanky.

For the fans of louder music.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvWbcK3YQ_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anQ836BXbYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cqaXTek_-U

I'm happy to admit that I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I grew up skateboarding, riding BMX and that migrating into mountain biking. I've always enjoyed anything that gets the blood pumping a bit. Go karting, bungee jumps, drifting, rallying, track days etc...but funnily I do kind of meander along on a bike, admittedly I'm new to it so I'm not 100% confident and at some point I'm probably gonna do something daft, but at the same time I think if I do it'll be on a circuit where the traffic flows one way. I have got a family now with 2 kids that I'll happily admit I'll do anything for. I'm in no rush to bury myself 6 feet under and visit everyone's favourite imaginary friend.

Like Bonio said you could always just take the odd lesson to help you build more and more confidence on the road. The tests themselves are all the exact same test with just a different bike. So the A1 tests that you'll do are the same a full A or A2 test but the bike size is variable. So if you're 17 now, and go in for your CBT, you can ride the 125 for 2 years on L plates, you won't be allowed to carry a passenger and you won't be allowed on motorways. If you stick to the idea of that then going for A2 when you're 19, you just need to make sure that your CBT hasn't expired. It'll last for the 2 years then you'd have to renew it. So if you turned 17 in June, and pass your CBT in October, then waited to do A2 at 19, you'd have those few months after turning 19 to get it done. EDIT: Prices...your CBT will fall in at around the £120 mark, that'll include price of hiring a bike from the training school. Individual lessons will be at the price the school sets, and I honestly can't offer you a guide on that sorry. You can find standard test fees here but it s worth considering that you'd need (most likely) to hire a bike through your chosen school for a warm up before the test and a bike to use during the test. On top of this lot, don't underestimate the cost of buying sensible gear to ride in, lids, jacket, boots and gloves as a bare minimum. I don't want to put you off but make sure you buy the best gear you can afford!

I agree its his choice entirely and he's not going to do it if he doesn't believe he can physically cope and he's aware of the risks. But I question if he has considered if the risk is worth it? So he goes back knowing he COULD come off and re-break the leg, depending on the seriousness, potentially ending his career. What did he risk that for? The only thing IMO that's worth that risk is the belief that he can win the championship. I do get it that as a racer that's all he's interested in, but he's a winner, a champion. He's also a clever guy with years of experience. If anyone on that grid was going to say "No, i'll heal up, I'll come back next year and make a real go of it." then I would bet my house it would be Rossi. If he's decided he wants a go, I've gotta say I'm thinking that he believes he can get back into the championship. But as you say, we'll see what happens this weekend. Well you will, I'm at my sister's wedding the inconsiderate cow!

I agree he's got nothing to prove. He does just love racing and I appreciate that. I'm a fan too but I'm a fan of Marquez, of Lorenzo, of Dovi, all of them. For me Rossi making the decision to get back for Aragon is reckless and says he really wants to fight for the championship. I don't understand how after all he's done, he thinks that returning so soon after a serious leg break is a good idea. I appreciate he wants to get back on and get racing but why rush such an injury. He stands a good chance of making matters a whole S*** ton worse if he comes off and damages that leg whilst its still healing.

So I guess most that are interested will have already been following this closely. But as of dinner time today Rossi's confirmed he'll be attempting to race this weekend at Aragon. 22 days after his leg break and he's hoping to be cleared by officials, fit to race. We'll see, but truthfully I think its a mistake, realistically speaking Dovi, Marquez and Vinales need to pick up a couple of DNFs in the next few races with Rossi winning them to bring him back into contention and I can't see it happening. http://www.motorcyclenews.com/sport/motogp/2017/september/motogp-official-rossi-to-attempt-to-ride-in-aragon/

In a world where Sykes has this off...Rossi 19 days after a double fracture of his leg is back racing laps...its really amusing to see a football player was unable to play for his club because he had a reaction to a shaving gel on his leg which developed a spot, preventing him from putting on socks...

Suffered some burns to his forearm I believe too? It looked like not much compared to some crashes we've seen but then they don't all burst into flames. The mere sight of flames and fire makes it inherently more spectacular to the general audience I think.

I said this to the wife when she failed her driving test. She made one major, which was so bloody stupid that you know 100% it was because she was bricking it with nerves beforehand, but other than that it was a good clean drive. I told her the same thing, we know you can drive cleanly and safely and pass the test, you just need to take your time and try to keep calm. OP it sucks the big one but unfortunately by this time there's nothing you can do about it. Just make sure you take all the time you want in the next attempt and pass it

Cheers mate yeah we've got a youview+ box coming which I believe has a 1TB hard drive for recording bits on which is useful. We've never filled out Sky HD box that was 500gb I think so that'll be more than enough. As for Kodi, we have an android box and a firestick with Kodi on that I use for movies and TV box sets which is why Sky Cinema is not something that I've ever been bothered about. I can't ever be bothered with getting mediocre stutter streams for sports though so that's why I fancied getting BT sport back. Having spent the weekend watching the BSB in perfect clarity I thought yeah I like that!!

The sad face is because it dawned on me that many of you were still probably no more than a twinkle in your Dad's eye when I started and it makes you realise how fast time passes. On the plus side, I am glad that I no longer serve. My dad was only 15! In all honesty though mate, huge respect for everything you did. Absolutely LOVE reading your posts on here, very rarely have I not learned something. The amount of wisdom you can shine on situations is incredible.

its definitely a limited time offer. Its a 12 month contract so it'll be that price for the next year. I'll see how much it goes up next year and start changing stuff around. Its becoming like insurance and utilities TV now. Where every year they'll up the prices and start rinsing you for cash until you grow tired of it and start ringing up for better deals and shopping around.

It really depends on how much TV you watch [mention]Joeman[/mention]. I literally only watch the bike racing. There are next to no TV series I bother with that I can't get on Netflix or Amazon Prime, the wife only watches stuff on free TV channels, we needed a few kids channels so BT was the perfect balance really. I'm not sure what Freesat HD offers so I can't really comment, but I'd have a google and see wha tthey offer and whether there is anything you want but wouldn't get.

After years of being a Sky customer I've grown tired of being ripped off and sacked them off last night and switched to BT. Was paying upwards of £75 a month to Sky for a basic package with HD and broadband, meanwhile friends were getting the same package with SKy Q upgrades and multiroom for closer to £40-50 a month. Rang to see if they could do any better and if I switched to fibre broadband they could offer me £58 a month or if I wanted to ditch some of the few channels that I did have they could offer me £50 a month. Asked BT about they're packages and I've got fibre broadband and the full TV package (which includes BT Sport and Eurosport in HD for the bikes ) I'm paying £45 a month. No activation charges or set up charges. Me and the wife scanned the lists comparing Sky to BT channels. Although Sky clearly have many many more channels of the ones that we could get for those prices we're only losing the Sky specific channels (Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts etc) never had Sky sports or cinema so not losing them because I never had them, but I'm gaining BT Sport for the Moto GP and some champions league and a few select football matches so I'm happy with that. I can't believe the lack of commitment from sky though. I asked about any discounted offers on movies/sports they could do, "Nothing sir sorry." Any upgrade offers on Sky Q or multi-room? "Nothing sir." Could I get a new HD box because mines on its way out after 5 years, "No sir sorry you'd need to have Sky cover at £10 extra month." Absolute con artists

My god...

Funny really unless I see someone really struggle I wouldn't usually touch anyone's bike. However. Due to the nature of parking and security around our site at work, I have had to move a selection of bikes out of the way to be able to go home. The nature of our work is that everyone can start and finish when they want within a window of time, that means when I come in at 6am and get parked nice and sensibly, others will come in at 9am when there's no room. Rather than move their bikes to a different area they'll just leave their bikes/scooters blocking bikes in and stopping them from leaving. Those people will often be finishing work at 4.30/5pm so when I leave at 3pm I inevitably can't get out and have to start moving bikes. It doesn't happen often mind but it does happen. It bugs me because we do register license plate numbers with the security on site but when you go to them about an issue they just sack you off and say its not their problem. Which then means I either sit and wait for another 2/3 hours potentially or I have to move someone's bike.

Browsing the internal noticeboard on the companies intranet in work, found this absolute BEAUTY of an advert for a 2003 Vstrom. Anyone else got any impressive bike adverts to share?

Cheers guys I'll try to get my Mod 2 write up done over the weekend. Bungleaio - I haven't unfortunately had much chance to do any real mileage. I noticed an issue last big ride I went on, took it back this afternoon to have it looked at...long story short its still in the shop and I've got a brand new Yamaha MT7 as a courtesy bike for a few days! Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk

So I was going to post up my experiences of the tests and training that I went through and haven't posted anything since my Mod 1 training. So I'm gonna make a series of posts to finish this thread off. Hopefully in the future someone may be in a similar situation with similar questions/thoughts and might find some useful. So Mod 1 test day.... I drove an hour or two up the motorway to Carlisle (nearest test centre ) with two other lads doing their Mod 1s. Two lads were meeting us there with the instructor and bikes (one of them was doing Mod 1 and Mod 2 in the same day). It was a long and wet drizzly drive up there and I was bricking it the whole way up there. Was shaking like a s***ing dog getting my gear on when we arrived and was just generally not overly enthusiastic. I'd never ridden in wet weather either so this was one more obstacle for me to overcome as I'd read all the horror stories about locking up wheels on the emergency stop, locking the front and the bike washing out under them....wasn't too keen. The instructor got us set up and took us down the road to a small car park for some U turn practice, and just some general confidence building, did nothing for me as the other lad was riding about with no problems and I couldn't string two successive U turns together, mostly running wide and getting nervous. Back to the test centre and we watched the first lad sail through with 1 minor on the speed for the emergency stop (he'd also not rode in rain and was maybe a little hesitant with it. The other thing that bugged me at this time, was that during our training we'd only practiced the circuit with the high speed manoeuvres to the right, but it seemed that the examiner was doing a lot of left hand circuits...very small thing but it was something I wasn't sure off. So it came to my turn and I suddenly started relaxing a little, my instructor knew I was so nervous and came and sat with me in the waiting room (didn't do that with anyone else) and just chatted with me for 10 minutes whilst I waited for the examiner. I went in got suited and booted and made a joke about it being my "first time", I think the examiner also tried very hard to put me at ease as well. Can't thank them both enough for this!! So the test it self. I don't think I've ever concentrated so hard in my life. Every word the examiner spoke, and every manoeuvre I did I took loads of big breaths and took as much time as I could and just kept repeating "one step at a time" in my head. Talked to myself through every manoeuvre to make sure I didn't forget something. Everything went kinda smooth, the slalom/figure 8 I was revving the absolute p*** out of the machine but while it may have looked a little sloppy it wasn't enough for him to mark any minors against me at least. The U turn was what I was really dreading, and by this point I'd noticed that the spacing between cones and on the U turn area was much larger than what we'd trained with. I felt a lot more relaxed at this point. The U turn was where I picked up my only minor as my front wheel just ran onto the white line a little. I had it in my head that touching that line was a fail, immediate. So I was gutted. Thought that was that. Gave it a good thrashing around through the high speed manoeuvres and after the swerve pulled to a stop and the examiner explained about leaving the test pan. It was over. Only it wasn't over. I'm going to point this out because one of the other lads picked up a minor here. The examiner opened the gate and I approached, only in the car park (it was the hub for driving and riding tests) was one learner coming in behind a tree (slightly obscured from my view) and another in the car park reversing around. Both cars just stopped what they were doing what do I do now?.....*looks at examiner, he's still smiling like a fool in the rain*....look around...edge out...pull into the bay...everything continues. I was as cautious as I could be because I literally had no idea what I was doing at this point and still thought I'd failed. Into the room and I'd passed. So the line incident was nothing, the examiner said that to fail there he needs to see tarmac between the back of the wheel and the white line, I basically just rode on the white line an inch or so. I asked about the end of the test. He explained that at that test centre, all the instructors have an agreement that if those gates are open and there's clearly a test concluding that they'll stop their students wherever they are until the motorcyclist is parked. But I was 100% right to be cautious and edge out carefully. Later that day one of the other lads picked up a minor because as soon as the test gate was open he just sailed out and into the car park without giving much thought to the cars around him. Oops!! So that was my experience. Overall it wasn't as scary as my brain had made it. The rain was pretty much non existent despite it throwing it down and it was all fine. I don't know if its a standard practice, but my instructor purposely makes his training a little tighter than need be, train hard, test easy he told me on the day.

ATGATT isn't even real. In all seriousness I don't have a favourite piece of kit yet....all my stuff is basic essential stuff.

Well done mate!! Mod 2 next!!

Go for it Stu. I've not used them on the bike, but I used to play in a lot of bands when I was a teenager and I bought some moulded plugs for the stages. Best thing I EVER bought for playing live. Took them to gigs for years.

Good luck pal. I'm sure you'll be fine though

Like indicators...they're optional extras on some cars