S-Westerly

That's not a bad idea and at least would keep the worst of the crap off in winter.

Why do modern bikes have such useless mudguards? I know they aren't particularly aesthetic in appearance but surely something halfway decent could be devised. My new bike which I think is gorgeous to look at, is desperately bad for minimising road crap from being spattered all over the rear of the bike including the expensive adaptive Ohlins suspension. There's no after market rear hugger available, at least not yet. Lots of XCP and washing is thus required.

I wonder how many of the muppets you see are driving on cloned plates?

My last bike had Michelin RP6 's and they were damned good tyres, yours looks to be RP4's so quite an old model tyre now. I'd not say that your tyre is particularly squared off compared to the pics below but their age might well count against them.

That would cause a bit of a wobble alright!

A not very responsible pooch caught in the act. Caught you!Who me?

Try and avoid riding through floods if I can. Driving too for that matter and as I live on a hill it's rarely a problem for me.

Gravel is my particular bug bear. Particularly when you are going nicely round a bend with a decently surfaced road and all.of a sudden there's a load of gravel washed out from a track or field entrance. Always good for a squeaky bum.

People like that need points on their licence as eventually there's a good chance they'll injure or even kill someone.

About 7 years ago I did a cornering skills course at Mallory Park using their bikes. (Means you're not fretting about dropping your pride and joy). It was really good and really explained and demonstrated cornering. Improved my skills 100% and I've been diligently following the experience passed on since. Now second nature.

I took delivery of my new bike on December 14th. In the 2 months since I've done 1952 miles through all the crap weather. 1300 of those were for fun. You've got one life, live it. BTW I counter steer and use the tyre as its meant to be used and have reasonable faith that the bike and tyres will perform as designed. Not to say I don't get squeaky bum moments because I do.

Excuse me if I have hysterical laughter. I will probably not set foot on shore until I sign off in 3-4 months time. Most places we go are either offshore terminals or don't allow shore leave. Even when we do have a chance we'll be miles from civilization and rarely there for more than 24 hours. Pay isn't bad though.

Middle of May to end of June depending on where the ship is at the time. At least it should be warmer if not drier.

Got to daughter's place and got it washed and put to bed. Son in law will give it TLC as required. Now time to switch to my working head. Bugger.

Councils who put 50 mph limits and double white lines on a 2 mile long straight road. Why?

The Volkswagen Van that went up Zig Zag Hill at 5 mph. Had to go down it and go up it again.

Rode it via Portbury, Bristol, Bath, Shaftesbury and Zig Zag Hill then on to Salisbury and then Stockbridge where I'm having lunch. Then off to Kingston on Thames where I'll be putting it to bed. Going to need a thorough wash though as it's filthy.

Last spring and summer was bloody wet. The only difference you didn't get cold while getting the bike filthy and it was generally salt free.

Fitted a side stand extender.

Need to get heated seats.

I'll add that one to my vocabulary and probably add it to my professional one as well as there's quite a few of them floating around.

One reason for putting off retirement as long as I possibly can is because my wife has an ever increasing list of "when you retire" jobs. As it is I have the best of both worlds - work 6 months of the year doing something I mostly enjoy and then spend 6 months of the year lolling about "resting" from my labours. Occasionally get stuck with a bit of painting or gardening but nothing too burdensome.

Looove tubeless tyres.

Familiar with all of them. I'm generally an ATGATT fellow and there's more than a few SMIDSY types round here.

We're not allowed to use plastic carrier bags but the amount of plastic wrapping is ridiculous. Non recyclable either in most cases. Cheese wrapped in waxed paper with an inner plastic wrapping is my particular irritation.