gogs01

That sounds like a huge undertaking - good luck !

If you're sure the 14.6aH battery is a motorcycle battery, you should be fine. A leisure battery can't deliver enough current to start a bike, but if you're not sure it won't hurt anything to try it. Give it a go and let us know how you get on !

I hope you mean your battery is rated at 9ah - 9mah would fit in a watch ! Assuming it's 9ah : Look on the Tayna Battery website. Find a motorcycle battery (Motobatt AGM recommended) which has the same physical dimensions as yours, confirm that it has a minimum of 9ah and you've got a suitable replacement. Make sure you connect everything to the correct terminal - it's simple enough, but you'll be amazed at how quickly your bike dies if you get it wrong !

That's what I replaced the battery of my R1200RT with. Slightly smaller than OE, slightly lighter, much cheaper than buying from a BMW dealer and, according to the specs, more ampere hours and Cold Cranking Amps. Motobatt AGM recommended. Tayna are a good supplier, but they don't have a F700GS on their list. Either find out the make and model of your current battery, take measurements of height width and length, or find a BMW model which takes the same battery and is listed. Lots of detail on the Tayna website.

The only person I know who had a Harley as a first bike got rid of it after a couple of days. He didn't make it round a bend. He'd bought it brand new, so it was a very expensive mistake. I've always been an advocate of getting a cheap, light, low-powered bike to gain experience and skills, then progressing through more expensive, heavier, more powerful bikes as experience, skills and confidence improve. Harleys tend to fit in the more expensive, heavier, more powerful group.

First try pushing the pistons back with your fingers. You need to push both at the same time if you have opposing pistons. If you're lucky, they'll slide right back in. If they're a little stiff and you don't have the correct spreader, a suitably sized piece of wood will help lever them back in without causing any damage.

Let's hope so .....

This is an interesting thread. Everyone will, of course, have their own experiences and preferences. Mine is that, having had issues when wearing glasses on the bike I now always wear contacts on the bike. I would occasionally forget about my glasses when putting my helmet on or taking it off ( !!) and riding in the dark when it rained was very difficult for me. Contact lenses solved these issues for me and my preference is for daily disposables. When I came to need varifocal glasses, my optician came up with two different prescriptions for my contact lenses. My dominant eye gets a lens for distance, the other eye gets a lens for reading. Sounds strange, but works very well. I don't know how or why it works, but the human brain is a wonderful thing . While on the bike I can read number plates and the bike's "clocks" without any difficulty. While touring I carry more lenses than I should need, although I usually use less than one pair per day because I will often wear my glasses for non-riding days. I also pack a spare pair of glasses - you never know .....

If you like exciting sports, New York has two NHL (Ice Hockey) teams - New York Rangers and New York Islanders. Get yourself along to one of their games and enjoy the speed, skill, violence and American razzmatazz ! Madison Square Gardens for the Rangers .....

Aggressive / skilful riding with overtakes, fairing bashing, breakdowns, crashes, three different winners and a "rookie" leading the championship - what's not to like ? Might make the other championship look a little tame ??

I understand the advice on battery tenders / chargers, but why won't the bike's own charging system fully charge the battery ? My understanding is that most bike's charging systems have a fairly large spare capacity.

Me too - all set up to record everything now !

I bought one of them new in 2002. I'd like to hope that, if I had kept it, it would look as good as that. The only modifications I made to mine was to connect the second dipped beam through a relay so that I could have both on instead of the standard one. I took it on a track day - brilliant brakes, good handling, could have used another few horsepower. Rode it to Imola and back (WSBK Bayliss v Edwards) and it was comfortable, quick enough (130 mph max) and had a good range when ridden at sensible speeds. A super bike !

thank you , will take a nosey at those. Further to my advice re not lubricating teflon lined cables, here's a quote from Venhill (manufacturer of replacement cables and hoses) :- " ..... Lubrication will not improve performance or feel. By lubricating you run the risk of clogging the cable and allowing dirt to stick to the surfaces ....."

Don't know if it applies to your bike but, if the choke, throttle or clutch cables are teflon lined as is common these days, they should not be oiled.

I thought exactly the same. It's difficult to understand why people would ask for help, get that help, and not take the time to post a simple "thanks". They might get good advice (even the ones who "know") or they may need more help in the future .....

No surprise there. One tooth is a significant increase on a 13 tooth front sprocket, probably similar to dropping three teeth on the rear sprocket. Either one would probably see the bike struggle to get much use of top gear, although I could be wrong of course .....

Can the OP let us know how he gets on with a front sprocket a few teeth over standard ? I'd be interested to find out whether his bike would be able to pull top gear on anything other than a downhill run.

I'm on the East Coast but I like to get over to St Mary's Loch / Moffat / Biggar etc. I'm not likely to be over there before April, unless there is a sudden and dramatic improvement in the weather !

I went for a Motobatt MBYZ16HD. An AGM battery that can live on it's side or upside down and doesn't need an initial charge - just fit and go. It was a couple of millimetres less tall than the original Exide but fitted fine. Ordered from Tayna Batteries, it cost less than half what I would have paid at the BMW dealer, has a higher ampere rating (16.5AH against 14) and CCAmps are 240 against the original 170. All good so far .....

Replaced the bike's battery and fitted twin horns ..... I was hoping to have all the plastics back on, but that's now a job for tomorrow ......

Fitting a replacement battery (Motobatt MBYZ16HD). Fitting dual horns. Then, spending 3 or 4 hours carefully replacing plastics using the correct screws (four types, all looking alike).

Property prices pretty low there then ?

Moisturising is a good thing - even for your backside. I would suffer from dry, flaky skin otherwise. I won't "go commando". I find a base layer ("long johns") more hygienic, since they are easy to wash out and dry overnight while travelling. They are also more comfortable than briefs or boxers.

Unfortunately the photo I posted is a computer mock-up, so unlikely ever to be produced. As for the bike ridden by Tom Cruise, it had the same colour scheme as the GPZ750R my brother had in the early '80s. It was a lower capacity, slightly gutless version of the GPZ900R and didn't sell well in UK. The GPZ750 Turbo was based on the older, air cooled GPz750. It was heavy and didn't handle too well but it was fast !