S-Westerly

If you want to know why a lot of folks pay £100 or more for gloves Google "motorcycle hand injuries". Not pretty viewing. Same applies for boots as well.

It's a while since I can remember such a relentlessly wet autumn. It seems to have rained every single day since the end of September. Bloody horrible.

What he said. Definitely a no-no

Schuberth C3 with drop down sun screen works for me. As long as I have the chin vent open neither my glasses, drop down sun shade or visor mist up. However I did have to change the anti-fog from original (which was completely shite) to a pinlock. As OP said what works for one need not work for another.

Ho, Ho, Ho you might say.

Quite a tasty video and one that has put Skye on my list of places to visit.

I think if you still have family in the UK it all becomes a bit more complex. It's much more difficult to cut loose in those circumstances. Yes there are plenty of cheap flights but if there's a family crisis or even just a sick grandchild to be looked after flying back to the UK isn't really practical. Personally having sailed all over the world whilst working and still doing it, living somewhere else doesn't really appeal. I've got colleagues in the same job as me who do live abroad but in all cases they have no family remaining in the UK. If I did live abroad it would be somewhere like Canada which has worse winters than us but then I like winter sports.

This Bikemaster thing sounds interesting and it does include road riding as well as track but the cost!? Ouch.

Badgers are pretty chunky. Hit one and you may well be coming off. Even going over one that's already road kill is likely to give you a brown trouser moment. Years ago I hardly ever saw a badger dead or alive but saw loads of squished hedgehogs. Now I see dead badgers daily but rarely a hedgehog, dead or alive. Apparently the badgers have eaten all the hedgehogs.

The mud - the narrower lanes round here are sometimes so muddy you can't even see the tarmac. And it's not just the lanes - a fairly heavily used B road was awash with mud whilst two large tractors seemed determined to add even more. My bike ends up looking like a dirt bike which it sadly is not. Hence I end up hosing it down in the rain and feeling a right twit.

Why take the ACF off? I leave it on all year and it makes removing summer insect splats really easy to remove. In fact I apply it in the spring and in the autumn.

[quote=So basically the only thing is to keep speed down in areas where they are present. Where I live that means everywhere so I'd never make much progress. Pheasants are obviously part of XR's plot to decarbonise the world. Throw in the foxes, deer, badgers and God knows what all else we are obviously doomed to extinction (bikers that is).

And I'll be safely dead.

Each to his own. I personally wouldn't want to be stuck with 125's but then the reason I ride a bike is the buzz I get from speed and acceleration. So it has to be a bigger bike. These days not too big though. If I'm going fishing I take the car.

Last month came round a bend at about 60 mph to find three moronic pheasants right in the middle of the road. Two made the right decision but one didn't. It came straight at me and hit my right hand guard. It slightly damaged the guard, almost caused me to lose it and felt like someone had hit me with a hammer. The pheasant was dead and left blood and feathers all over.

Now that we're all grown up I'd be interested to know how many of us put our feet down on u-turns? I often do unless the road is wide enough to make a nice easy curve.

Next thing you know you'll be saying we don't like cos or tan either when really we're nice as pi. I like a bit of sin myself.

as maybe .. but don`t judge others disposable income by yours. My disposable income is doing very nicely thank you but it's still a lot of money for a toy and there's other things I personally prefer to spend my money on - toys or otherwise.

Bloody expensive for just hooning around! Maybe when I win the lottery. Meanwhile I can admire from afar and personally I don't find the fronts ugly. But then given what I ride that's no surprise.

You can class me with the 'weirdos' as my bike definitely has a personality - she's Italian!

Good for you. I'm sure you won't regret it and who knows you may find that a bigger bike will appeal to you after all.

Absolutely agree about Cameron, completely gutless. Corbyn is a disaster for the Labour party. For what it's worth the only time I ever voted Labour was in 1997 in Blair's first win so I'm not a natural Labour voter. After Iraq the gloss went off him. Speaking as a small 'c' conservative who generally votes Tory I've not got a lot of time for Rory Stewart; he's another product of the establishment and wasn't too popular with his Cumbrian voters over the last year or so. As to Boris I just don't know. He's brighter than he lets on but where he's actually going I have no idea. Myself I think the only way forward from here is a general election which would effectively be a People's Vote as one lot would campaign for leave and the rest to remain in the EU. In the meantime as a country we are completely screwed, blued and tattooed.

Wot?

Me, cos I dislike him the most of all our Muppets in parliament.

So you reckon that old fart Corbyn is the man? Useless lying bast*rd as well. Guy Fawkes had the right idea - blow the whole damned lot to kingdom come.