Pbassred

My wife passed her CBT and bought a Keeway K-light. £2300 brand new. https://www.keeway.co.uk/model/Keeway-K-Light-125 The trouble is the insurance quotes are coming back as £550. She' in her 40s, no convictions. 4 years ago someone ran into her car - not her fault. The price comparison sites are coming back as £300 until you call them. Their database says that its an automatic transmission. When she says that its a manual (they only make a manual), they put the price up. Is there a way around that?

Not really Bob. I'm a Manufacturing Engineer not an electrician they are different disciplines. In any case, the question was WHERE.

Mine was like that. I thought " this is not going well" so I just relaxed and rode for myself. Clean sheet like you. So ....... the CBR on Autotrader yet? What do you have your eye on now?

Schools have a process where they block book and give back the unused tests, but they are limited to how many they can get. Just because the School can't book a test it doesn't mean that you can't book a test for them. Talk to them about that. To answer your question; some schools run the entire A license over 3 days including the tests. It depends on you. I would wait until you pass your Mod 1 before booking Mod 2 though. You still have time to practice all the slow stuff on your 125 to make sure you get through. Good luck.

Yes, Ok ANY IP65 switch would work. What I meant was what have people here fitted, and how.

Its not like there's an excess of real estate. I don't really want to cut big square holes in the fairing. I don't even know where to buy water proof switches. Any suggestions?

I found a relay in Halfords and a 4 way fuse box in another car parts shop. I spliced into the tail light wire (soldered and sleeved. The relay itself needs an earth. On the CBR500 there is an earth bolt under the left fairing. However it looked crowded for multiple devices so I ran one wire from it to another bolt to make a second earthing point. So that gave me an earth for the relay and space to ground lots besides. I ran one wire from the battery Positive to the relay and a wire out of the relay to the fuse box. I daisy chained the hot side of the fuse box together. The other side is what I can drive stuff from. I mounted the relay and fuse box on velcro under the seat. It can't go anywhere. So now I need to find things to connect to it - new post.

Well the final round up ( or, nearly because I had to go away on business). My local bike garage will by the tyre for me next day, slightly cheaper than I could. Fitting costs £35 on the bike or £15 on a loose wheel.

I rode a CBR for around 2300 miles before I passed my test. Yours sounds different because of the after market pipe. Pipez meanz thrashed. Mine sounded like a sewing machine. Do an oil change (1 litre, no filters) an pour the old oil through a cloth to see what is in it. It there are lots of metal flakes its something to be concerned about. If not, just ride. If the engine is worn there is nothing you can do about it.

That's interesting. I did my Mod 1 at Enfield, but for Mod 2 my instructor told that they didn't do it there so I had to go to Letchworth. Maybe its only for A licences.

Well this is embarrassing! I road the bike to work and it got a flat just as I got through the gate. I could go home and bring a tubeless repair kit in tomorrow. I don't know how much I trust them. Alternatively, Get a new tyre fitted. I can get the wheel off but it seems like its only possible to buy tyres mail order. Other than a specialist bike shop, how can I get one fitted?

Firstly having migrated from cycling last year, I am slightly surprised that chain cleaning isn't mentioned more often. perhaps They are obsessed because of efficiency since they only have leg power, but wear is also an issue. With that in mind I have carried over my chain obsession. My can of muc-off says to clean and decrease before the 1st use. I imagine that I should be using greaser /detergent for that. What about the 2nd use? Revzill says to use Kerosene. That must be for an oil based lubricant. Yesterday I bought a can of WD-40 chain cleaner which claims to be fast drying but it leaves something behind. My next door neighbor just keeps applying gear oil. I don't know what the question is - except to ask what everyone else does.

It might depend what you intend to do when you get to the peak district. If it includes going off road or really nasty back roads you might consider an adventure bike. There are lots of old ones about and they are built for lugging. If not, sports bikes are slightly more aerodynamic and narrow handle bars are good for filtering. I get 70 MPG at 70 MPH on my CBR500R and 80MPG at 60MPH. With 500s you are in the scope of parallel twin engines. Singles are reputed to vibrate a bit more which never bothered me on my 1 hour commute, but might grate a bit over a couple of hours.

if you have a 125, take it to an industrial site that is quiet at the weekend and practice all the slow stuff. I got 6 tennis balls and cut them in half to reconstruct the Mod 1 elements.

Google to the manufacturers web site. If its an old /redundant model, phone them and ask.

I plan to add thing to my bike; Heated grips, lights, USB charger. It can't all just double up on the battery terminals. Is it possible to buy some kind of secondary fuse box?

December 2018 £3199 690 Miles Good points:- Very smooth and stable. Its so polite. A comment from my friend on his 1000cc Yamaha "Didn't expect it to be that fast". It handles well although after 300 miles I haven't got to grips with it yet Bad point:- Rev limited to 8500 and its a hard ignition cut that stutters the bike. Since the only reason you go at that pace is for hard acceleration, its the wrong time to unsettle you. The screen is too low, but we knew that. You find out at speed when you put your head down and get low frequency helmet noise. Would you get another - its exactly the bike I want /need right now. Other comments ..... its ... Ok.. a beginner bike, but it could easily be a forever bike. Its not powerful that its going to buck and get you killed, but fast enough that you wont get bored. Sure, I could have put my full "A" license a$$ on any size bike, but how far above the speed limit do you want to go? Last Sunday I was chasing the litre bike on a single carriage way road blasting past traffic, up hill towards a hard left band at 95 and I thought "this is not about skill. Its about loosing your license." So it will do it. I've have had it past 100MPH and it was worryingly not scary. A thought about that rev-limiter. The bike is limited to 47HP by design ( I think the Aussie version is a little more pokey), so if its making that at 8500 RPM there is no reason to go higher. What it does for you is to stop you blowing up the engine prematurely, Remember the point about the Honda brand is:- "bomb proof". It doesn't have a really aggressive riding position, so its not a race bike and its not twitchy, so what else is it? Comfortable! I rode it for 3 hours on Saturday and 4 on Sunday with a couple of stops for coffee. I could ride all day. I put a small top box on it to make it a commuter and its small enough for urban lane splitting. It could take more luggage. You could tour on it to too. I really don't know what the benefit of a larger engine could be. I'm getting 75MPG (actual) after aggressive riding. After 80 miles the Yamaha was looking for fuel!

TimR. That's exactly my point. There is little point upgrading the bike if I am the weakest component on it. Whether you call that; "faster", "safer" or "more efficient" is academic. Being able to corner faster without dropping it doesn't make it mandatory. It just means being able to ride well within a better skill level. ......unless your point was to spend £thousands to make my CBR500 the ultimate badass machine and then learn to ride it, but I don't think it was.

Having passed my test in December and bought my first real bike I could Invest in things to make it faster but I think its probably more effective to make ME faster (safer, more efficient). I can transfer that into any bike. So I'm considering the options. I could do IAM but I've just had a big helping of road training. I could do track training to get me through corners. A couple of time in corners I've felt the back go light so I wonder if adventure biking or dirt biking would help my instinctive riding. After all, many track champions have transferred from off-road motorbiking. There might be other training to look at. I don't know the best way to find them or relative benefits. Thoughts? Priorities? Suggestions?

Yes Bob but unless I know how much to add I would need to keep taking them apart. Yep. I could change the springs and the oil too. I know that the CBRs are set up for 70Kg riders and I'm nearly 20kg over that. So more of everything is better, but baby steps first. This is my first bike above 125. I'll get more serious when I'm good enough to feel the difference.

Elizabeth, When is your test booked for ?

Actually this is driven by my need to put a satnav somewhere on a CBR500R. I could buy a stem mount kit for £60 but its a one trick pony and while most people don't bounce their phone out of the mount, it only takes one time to kill your day. The bag on the other hand isn't sporty (is the a 500 a track bike?), but then the electronics stays inside plus you have somewhere to put a battery pack. So, does anyone have any advice?

The pre-2016 bikes don't have them. There are some aftermarket ones available online but if its a 41mm tube surely they can't be all that different from bike to bike. I don't know what brand Honda fit as standard. They can't be exclusive. Does anyone here know if adjusters are available from a generic supplier? EDIT:- Scratch that. I just found them on eBay. I had been searching for "front suspension preload adjustment". sorry. Not able to simply delete a post.

I use a 125 to practice everything I got wrong during my lessons. I could focus on all the things I knew I was shaky at. That way I doubled my training time and had something to practice lane splitting like a pizza delivery boy! I would caution against a 1200 CC bike as a first bike. I also learned on the ER-6N. Once you have really opened that up you won't want more for a while. I actually found it too upright. I downsized to a CBR500R which has plenty of power (>100mph) and more suited to my stance (like road cycling). In the Battle of Britain most fighter pilots were killed on their first 5 sorties. If they lived through that, there was a much higher chance of staying alive. Think of it like that. Throw a 125 into a couple of corners too fast and see how that scares you, or drop it and live. Then think that you will have a bike 50% heavier with 10 times the power.

You can't charge a 12V battery from a 12V battery unless its very discharged. You need a voltage difference in order to pass current. Lets say that your dead battery measures 11v and you are charging from 12V, that's a 1V difference. If the internal resistance is 2Ohm, then using Ohm's law:- I=V/R : 1/2= 0.5Amp. If you have a 5A/H battery it would take 10hours to fully charge .....except that the voltage differential would not stay a full volt for long. As it charges the voltage would rise and the charge rate would drop. Completely guessed numbers but you get the point.