manxie49

The Sound Cafe on the Isle of Man, voted in top 11 best Biker cafes by MCN ..... Really good food at sensible prices, friendly staff, great views. Gets packed out with bikers on sunny weekends and during TT, great atmosphere https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/the-sound-named-one-of-britains-best-biker-cafes/

Helmet modification required ....

There's other places that sell similar ones, just type in "motorcycle wheel spinner" here's a link to Amazon, plenty more out there though https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=motorcycle+wheel+spinner&hvadid=80264447234823&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvqmt=p&tag=mh0a9-21&ref=pd_sl_2ao75gkv2p_p

Got one similar that I bought from sports bike shop, I use it under the front wheel mainly, its a really good bit of kit, makes the job of cleaning much easier, this is what I use

Yes that’s the only issue I found, they have a tendency to fall out when you take your helmet off .... haven’t lost any yet though

Yes tried them, they were ok but still not brilliant for me, ear peace one’s, for me anyway, were money well spent

I use these by ear peace, Different inserts, depending on how much noise you want to block out, you get three in the pack, one spare, all in a small metal container with clip. These, for me anyway, are the most comfortable and most effective ear plugs I've ever used, not cheap but no where near as expensive as custom made. I've always worn ear plugs out on the bike but found a lot of the ones I used didn't do the job or actually gave me ear ache, these ones are 1st rate. https://www.earpeace.co.uk/products/motorcycle-ear-plugs

Did an oil change on a Land Rover once, refilled with nice fresh oil and then realised I hadn’t put the drain plug back in! Mate still hasn’t let me forget it 14yrs later.

That was interesting and entertaining viewing, thanks

Never ridden an MT09 but the Tracer 900GT, basically an MT09 with slightly longer swing arm, is great, very capable triple .... welcome back by the way

I really should have taken a photo of my bike jacket when I got home ..... it was covered, hundreds of the annoying feckers. I inwardly smiled though, thinking “that’ll teach the little t—-s’

Try wild camping ..... Me and a mate did it a few years ago, on a whim, up in the Cairngorms, both ex squaddies so we thought "we'll tuff it out", how wrong could we have been!! After two days of being eaten alive by f-----g Scottish midges we were running for civilisation and a B&B ....

I have a 19mm, 1.5m Almax with supplied Squire lock, very happy with it.....Not the sort of chain I'd want to carry around but for security inside the garage it's great, I use it in conjunction with a gear gremlin ground anchor. Not the cheapest but the quality is amazing and although I know full well, if some tow rag wants my bike they'll probably still get it, it certainly throws a major stumbling block in the path of your casual thief. I would certainly have no hesitation in recommending Almax

Sounds like a good trip planned .... Something to keep the spirits up and look forward to, hope it all goes well and you have a great time

I got this info from someone who works in I.T. although I don't do it because I don't really know WTF I'm doing, it's also my wife's computer and I couldn't live with the fallout if it all went wrong, lol ...... To help reduce and stop the bombardment of ad's and pop ups regularly clear your cache of cookies, install a pop up blocker, and, if you bank online especially, use a VPN to encrypt data (Don't ask me what a VPN does though)

You don't seem to have to even use Google for it to be sticking its nose in ...... my anti virus software monitors page by page trackers and virtually every page I go on shows up "Google analytics" as an active tracker. I also use Duckduckgo, moreso because it's my wife's computer and that's what she has set up.

Done .... Not that I'll win, I've never won anything in my life! But happy to support them....

I am part of a WhatsApp group, a friend set the group up so we could send out a message for anyone wanting to go for a ride out, it seems pretty good. I'm certainly no tech expert and I don't profess to fully understand what's going on on with these groups and how it would affect me, however, I empathise with peoples concerns about how much personal information these organisations gather and share without the user ever being aware. IMHO that mass covert monitoring and sharing of someones information, whether it be for marketing or more nefarious reasons, is wrong, but as you say, times are changing and this is now the world we live in, the only way we would ever stop it, and claim back control of our data is to live off grid, completely, end up on one of those Ben Fogle programmes, lol.

I can actually get the bikes in and out without having to move all my crap around first now, got one of those bike tidy thingies to put on the wall in the week as well, all my gear in one place, man cave is starting look like a proper dwelling place for me and my bikes now

Well another holiday cancelled so decided to spend some of the refund on sorting my garage out, fed up with tools and kit everywhere and not being able to find anything when I want it....The Teng tool chest isn't the cheapest, but as someone who has used teng tools in the past I'm really impressed by the quality and versatility. I went for the seven drawer option, it's made from heavy duty, rust proofed steel, roller castors of which two are braked, ball bearing runners on the drawers with a latch system, each drawer is lined with compressed foam, the cabinet also has a combination lock. It holds most of my tools with ease, is very robust with a removable top that doubles up as a work bench. I'm sure this will last me many years would definitely recommend Teng for tools and garage equipment.

Yer ...... Look at the greeting it got!

I carry a puncture repair kit and some very basic tools, multi-tool, 10-12mm spanner, small tin of chain lube and my RAC card

We’ll be watching, hopefully goes to plan

If he’s obviously broken down I stop otherwise, like Dynax, I give a thumbs up