Slowlycatchymonkey

You thought he might be gone or have modified his behaviour but no.... Here’s Johnny (aka raeswell)

We call my Ma ‘Grandee’ cos her names Dee and she rates herself highly This is a mug and perfect for this years nonsense.

Yer I probably wasn’t clear but I wasn’t considering the 310 or it’s ilk an alternative, when I was talking bout double the price I was always thinking of comfortable adventure bikes.

We discussed gluing it... after the fact

In my view the 310 is not an alternative, it’s not I bike I could sit on all day, it’s not comfortable and BMW themselves acknowledge its not in anyway in the same bracket for reliability or comfort as their other bikes. I did go and look at the 310 and the guy in the BMW dealership said they had had a lot of problems with it. It was a bike than came back in for resale faster than any of their other bikes. I think he said something about it being made somewhere else ie not is the same factory as the other BMWs but I couldn’t swear to it cos it was such a long time ago. What I’m saying is for a comfortable adventure bike you can easily spend double and you won’t get the same off road capability and the true off road bikes (high ground clearance hard seats) are not fun over distance. If you look at what’s popular for off roading you won’t find the 310 in the mix. If you look at what’s popular for comfortable mile eating touring you won’t find it there either. So yeah you can find a cheap alternative but that’s not what I’m talking about because in my view they’re not comparable in bang for your buck.

One year my son desperately wanted the Lego Millenium falcon. It was far far too advanced for his 5 year old brain so the majority of Christmas Day was spent putting together the over 7500 pieces. He was thrilled, he picked it up took a few steps, tripped over his own feet and smashed it into hundreds and hundreds of pieces. I’ve never seen my husbands face that white before or since Although the pedal tractor we left the assembling of until they went bed on Christmas Eve is right up there, it was ridiculously complicated and we’d had far too much of Santa’s Sherry to make sense of the German instructions, took 4 hrs to get it together

I wouldn’t compare new with second hand, need to compare both new or both second hand. A new GS would comparatively set you back a lot more. The Himalayan sits in an inbetween world of not being a true off road bike but it’s very capable and comfortable enough to do the miles on. You wouldn’t necessarily want to ride with other people on more powerful adventure bikes on motorways n dual carriageways though cos it’s not powerful enough. It can do 80 but it’s not happy. I picked up my used Himalayan for £2900 it was only one year old and only 1900 miles on the clock. Already had an immobiliser fitted, heated grips and sintered brake pads. Bargain.

The usual BMW and Honda ‘adventure’ bikes are the ones that seem to make people tense off road but the CRF is what I was thinking of. You know the high ground clearance skinny hard seated jobs.

I love Boxing Day maybe more than Christmas Day. I enjoy putting the time in to make sure everyone gets a good Christmas but Boxing Day with the cold cuts and someone else frying the hashed up leftovers is a joy. Only time of the year I eat pickled beetroot and piccalilli because for no reason I can fathom it only tastes good on Boxing Day?!

Hmm I’m getting the feeling you’re not sorry

The Himalayan has some excellent admittedly not obvious qualities. It’s incredibly robust in-spite of its cheapness, takes a fair amount of bashing to properly break it, it’s easily fixed so most of the time it can be repaired on the side of the road (if you have the parts n skills which I don’t), most of its steel so you can just bend back bits without them snapping which I’ve done more than once, it’s excellent off road particularly for anyone with a shorter inseam, its well balanced so it doesn’t feel at all heavy (until you’re picking it up) and it may get sneered at a bit as not a proper off road bike but I wouldn’t want ride for any length of time on the ‘proper’ off road alternatives, it pleasantly chugs away and no its 24.5bhp isn’t that engaging but that can also be a plus cos it just gets on with the job leaving you to enjoy the scenery. Its completely trustworthy in mud, water, over rocks and because of that it’s a bike that makes you a better rider. Most of the alternatives to the Himalayan are double the price and the owners are so precious about them that they may take them off road once before they realise they are too worried about breaking their expensive toy to be able to enjoy it and are often so tense they can’t ride it and do end up coming off. As a go anywhere, just enjoy the ride bike it theres no competition. I couldn’t have it as my only bike but I also wouldn’t want to be without it. Chris Scott, Nathan Millward and Itchy Boots Norally Schoenmaker choose the Himalayan for world travel because it’s damn good at what it does.

I’m happy you won @fastbob you got my vote, I really enjoy the stuff you post. Congratulations

Is the sad face because the humidity is 50% ? I thought 50% humidity was ok. I tend to aim for about 45% Have I got that wrong?

Morning Happy Boxing Day and congratulations s westerly, Brian is a fine name so long as it’s the family guys Brian Inspite of the Sherry, gin and wine consumed yesterday I have no ill effects, a Christmas pass whoop whoop.

Merry Christmas you miserable old b*st*rds. And for those of you who aren’t- Merry Crimbo, try harder to be grumpier next year

Umm hehehehe That resolution was 10/15 years ago and has had marvellous life long effects!

Not so much tried as very much suceeded I’d say!

Today is unpack shopping delivery, boil n bash the potatoes ready for roasting tomorrow, make the crust for the ham and the bread sauce, peel the brussels, go for a ride n eat a pasty in a car park, wash n groom the dogs cos they stink and finally fill the new fairground candy grabber with chocolate, the old fairground grabber mysteriously stopped working coincidentally just after my husband declared he couldn’t stand the sound of it, he’s gonna be sooooo pleased when he see’s the new one hahahahaaa.

I like a resolution. A few of them have been very helpful, stopped smoking (unless fairly inebriated and surrounded by other bad people and even then I mostly manage not to), stopped swearing so much (that one can be a bit hit n miss tbh and I do find it a useful tool for filtering out prigs before they get too close), decided to stop being late cos it makes for a stressful journey and it annoys other people (that one has been good) and the best year was the one when I went through all of my friends and acquaintances and anyone who’s company I found unpleasant, annoying or too time consuming I ditched. Shockingly that move left very few standing, best thing I ever did.

You wanted to punch someone for saying everything’s gravy? Anger issues much?

I didn’t know your real name is John..

Everything’s gravy

I thought I was the only one who’s never seen the queens speech!

Remind me to never play scrabble with any of you. Hahahaa you lot playing scrabble, I can see the gloves coming off and the board going flying within two minutes

Let’s hope it works better than the ridiculous compass they whacked on there, it’s got more in common with a windmill than a tool for navigation