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I don't think that that looks much different form filtering at most junctions that most of us do on a daily basis. Obviously with the benefit of hindsight he'd have been better off sitting behind the truck but the car could have easily chosen to go through the red light a few seconds later and hit him as he emerged from behind the truck having followed it. In my opinion the fault is 100% with the car driver. If we couldn't make assumptions that people aren't coming through red lights or coming round the corner on the wrong side we wouldn't ride anywhere without being paralysed by fear.

The car going through the red light will be lucky not to go to prison and rightly so.

You can't fit them without checking that they don't push the master cylinder in at all.... that is that there should be a little play. You also have to check that they move freely and that they're adequately lubricated. If you don't do either of these things then they may lock on. However, you really should do this fitting *any* lever, including OE levers or expensive race levers. If you've done this then they should be fine unless the lever point wears faster than OE but again you should be checking this stuff with any levers. Finally, given the above, the only way a lever can fail is if it breaks. Pull it all the way to the bar with fresh fluid and you'll be pulling on it with more force that you'll do while riding. If it doesn't break you should be fine. All of the above at your own risk etc but I don't subscribe to the belief that just because a lever is cheap it'll break or jam the brakes on.

Was curious so looked on the map... do you mean Rushton or Little Budworth?

Have you tried one on yet? They feel like a really good bit of kit. Don't wear it too tight by the way. The way it was explained to me was to have it so that you can form fists with your hands and move your fists between whatever you're wearing and the air bag vest. The reason for this is that when it goes off you still want to be able to breath The only downside is that it's rendered my hundred odd quid back protector redundant

This is a review of a company, not the product... when I crash I'll post a review of the product. Wanted an air bag vest as now I'm getting 'more wise', injuries are taking longer to heal so anything I can do to minimise the severity of them in the first place strikes me as a good idea. I've seen the demos on YouTube and so on so knew what I was getting. Went over to see Nick at Love Life and Ride in Wokingham for advice and a fitting after exchanging a few emails at Christmas. Nick showed me every aspect of the recommended vest and even did a demo for me. I couldn't do one as I've ripped a tendon in my shoulder and I didn't want to how strong it currently is. Really impressive bit of kit. We checked the fit for wearing the vest with my textile jacket and with my one piece leathers and went through the process of changing the canister of gas once it's discharged. He does the whole range as far as I could see and I went for a black Turtle 2 so I could use it for road and track. A Turtle 2 as it can be used for both and black so I don't get mistaken for an instructor on a track day (although 10 seconds of observation would disavow anyone of that belief). I saw that he'd arranged the repair of another vest after it had been 'exercised' also which is good to know. I got the vest, 2 canisters and two lanyards that attach the the bikes. He does discounts for various road safety organisations (I passed my IAM course last year) and I think for ACU license holders too but check with him. He rents the vests out too. Can't recommend Nick highly enough. His website is... https://www.lovelifeandride.com/ ...and he's at the MCN London Motorcycle Show in a couple of weeks. No connection to the company or Nick, just a happy customer. Cheers, Mark

Apropos of nothing, my old 929 pinned me to the ground when I forgot to put the sidestand down before getting off it and it fell on me.

That's a good idea I've not heard of before... filed that, thanks.

It's fine, it's only the back brake... no one uses it anyway. To be clear this is very much intended as a joke

My interpretation was that it was difficult to turn by hand while in neutral but the wheel turned freely in gear with the engine running.

Loosen the adjuster bolt until the wheel turns. If the wheel never frees off to be turned by hand or the activating rod is loose on the rod that connects the activating rod to the pedal then you'll need to take the drum apart to clean/service it. (ETA - you're doing this with the bike in neutral right?)

I bought some cheap speakers off the net and this was the problem I faced. They worked fine but the indents for the speakers in the helmet weren't over my ears and the smallest offset made a huge difference.

Sounds fun, can I have 808 please? Is there any etiquette to posting pictures? Do I post them up when I take them or save them up and post in batches not to annoy everyone? Thanks, Mark

Like my CBR1000RR review this will be pretty biased as I love this bike too but there you go. I bought this at the end of 2018 for about £7500 and rode it through the duff weather until I got fed up with nearly getting wiped out on the A34 in the dark and rain. Started riding it again early doors 2019 and rode it loads for commuting, weekends and practicing for my IAM assessment. Passes the assessment at the end of last year and put the bike away for the winter again. I've no doubt it can handle winter riding but I'm not interested in doing it any more. Starting with the bits that could be better... I think that the throttle can be a bit snatchy. There are three maps from memory, rain, normal and sports. Sports is pretty sensitive but a lot of fun and can be snatchy in town, normal is ok in town but the best one for filtering through a lot of traffic is rain which is really smooth. Once you're happy changing maps it's not a problem switching between them or you can be more patient with your clutch than I am. It is a big engine with a lot of power, something has to be a compromise. It's bloody heavy. I know many bikes are but I dropped this one on my leg and it bloody hurt. The only time the handling was a bit weird was on an IAM low speed handling course where flicking from full lean on one side to the other side can make the front wheel hop/skip a bit which makes you jump the first time it happens. Nothing untoward happens, it's just a bit weird. The instruments light up orange and for some reason I struggle to focus clearly on orange stuff. It's not the end of the world but I'd prefer it just to be white. The range display is idiotic. I think it can do about 200 miles but it'll tell you it can do 400 and it never ever learns. Weird. Bits are expensive... well, the radiator I bought for £450 was expensive I thought. Sounds like a tractor until you wind it up and then it sounds a bit better. Heard them with an akra fitted and it sounded like a loud tractor so won't be doing that. All the good bits... Very very very comfortable. You could ride for miles and miles on this thing in pretty good comfort. The suspension height is adjustable depending on load and the suspension can be adjusted from soft(ish) to hard. You can do this all on the go if you want. The heated grips are ace. Instrumentation is all good except for the orange illumination and there's room behind the screen for a tomtom satnat. The tyre pressure sensors are very very neat indeed. There's even a little cubby hole for your earplugs. Very fast for a big bike. I think it makes about 150bhp and the torque is immense. It just goes like a mad thing. It very cool and I got a finger wagging from a nice policeman after only 1 day. The handling is awesome. It does feel a bit weird coming from a sportsbike to be so high up an leaning the thing so far but it just does the job. The soft suspension can feel a bit weird leant over but that just because of what I'm used to. You can lean on the thing and it will look after you. The brakes are phenomenal. I did a low speed and braking course with the IAM at RAF Odiham and at the end of the day the exercise was to accelerate as hard as you could and then hit the brakes at the cones as hard as you could. I was braking as hard as I could from 75mph. A couple of the instructors came over at the end of the day and said that the KTM was outbraking everything else by some margin and there was all sorts there. You could mash the brakes on and trigger the ABS if you liked and that would work or you could aggressively squeeze the brakes just staying away from the ABS triggering and the front wheel would just embed itself in the floor and stop very very quickly. It's extremely confidence inspiring. I have accidentally triggered the rear abs a few times... either the abs is sensitive at the back or the rear brake is much better than the one on the blade... I suspect the latter. The cornering ABS looks very cool. Search for videos on youtube but I haven't triggered it on purpose as I'm no where near brave enough. The traction control seems to work very well. Can't wheelie so can't tell you what it's like at that. It's got proper engine bars instead of those silver winglet things now as I smashed them when I dropped the bike. Also got orange hand guards now as I broke the black ones on the same day. Headlight is epic and screen works fine. Can't thing of anything else. It's a bit like a GS1150 but it's reliable and it's fast. Love this bike and will keep it as long as it keeps working, would get another if anything happened to it. Regards, Mark

I bought my 2007 CBR1000RR in April 2015 and I paid £5500 from a Honda dealer in Abingdon. I'm afraid that this isn't a very objective review as I absolutely love this bike. That said... I'm not a naturally fast or brave rider, I like bikes to be predictable and I like them to do what I tell them to do. If they do that I really love riding them and this is what this bike is like. It's possibly not for someone who likes 'character' however that may manifest itself. That said I'm not a novice rider and have had a fair few bikes and this is my second fireblade... my previous was a 2001 RRY which I loved to bits and rode all year round. I don't ride this all year round as I can't really be bothered getting cold and wet and I'm less comfortable on this sort of bike as I used to be as I recently crossed over the 50 barrier. As a bike that you can get quicker on in increments this is the best thing I've ever ridden. Even when it does move about it doesn't do it in a really scary way. Again, I guess some people might find that boring but I love it. It's never done anything weird like shaking its head or anything untoward like that. I don't know how to wheelie so can't comment about how well it does that but at cadwell when the front left the ground all I can say is that it sorted itself out while I held my breath. It's pretty comfortable, I'm 6ft 1in and have ridden it for hours on end whereas other bikes in the same class have me in cramps after minutes. It's been extremely reliable, just requiring tyres and servicing. The gearchange was a little sloppy but I fitted a Gilles gear shaft support bearing and that sorted that out completely. I don't know what the fuel consumption is like but I get about 120 miles to a tank I think. It never uses any oil or anything like that. It's not that easy to service like any bike with full fairings but it's not that bad I guess. It's got no abs or traction control or anything like that and while I do like those systems I don't miss them on this. Low speed handling is much better than you imagine... I got to the edge of the tyres on an IAM low speed handling course in 1st gear. Having said that, turning on full lock still requires a little space I guess. I used to run Bridgestone Evo T30s on it which were great on the road and pretty good on track (I'm in the novice groups). However, I did a day at Bedford and they moved about more than I liked so swapped them for Bridgestone S22s and these are amazing. This is what it looked like when I got it... I used to just run it on the road but wanted to start doing track days and felt that this bike would be good to do it on. I did a couple of days at Bedford and absolutely loved it... It's absolutely incredible on track. Again, very predictable, just what you need when you don't know what you're doing. I found that I couldn't get full throttle very easily as I don't have full movement in my right wrist. I fitted a quick throttle which made things a lot better and thanks to the smoothness of the bike and engine was easy to get used to. I did start to get worried that I might crash it and that the Honda bodywork would be expensive so I ordered some cheap bodywork from China to fit. It went on extremely easily and only cost £250 including delivery. I really like the look and have the original bodywork safely tucked away in the loft. I did 4 track days on it last year, 2 at Bedford, 1 at Pembrey and 1 at Cadwell. I also did a training day at Thruxton. Can't wait until the sun comes out and will do more track days this year. I'd be gutted if I broke it and would get another without any hesitation. Regards, Mark

When I did the stator on my old fireblade I leant the bike on it's side on something soft and you can take the cover off without losing any oil if you don't want to do an oil change. I also made a gasket out of a cereal box as I forgot I needed one when I did the job. Worked fine and never leaked.

In reverse order of buying them and if anyone wants any information on any of these I did all my own maintenance on them so please let me know... 1993 ZXR750L1 (current bike, being restored) 2014 KTM 1190 Adventure (current bike, fantastic machine, hope it last as long as I do) 2003 CBR1100XX Blackbird (sold - bought as a commuter on the cheap which was a mistake as unreliable and needed lots of work, really uncomfortable and steered like a supertanker, improved quite a bit by raising the back, dropping the front and new springs all round, still didn't like it, sold it and bought the KTM Adventure) 2007 CBR-1000RR (current bike, best bike I've ever had) 2007 KTM 990 Superduke (sold - traded in for the CBR-1000RR, never got on with it) 2005 BMW 1190GS (sold - bought it after recovering, easy to ride but easily the worst bike I've had... totally unreliable, dreadful fuelling, slow) 1993 Yamaha TTR250 (sold - quite good fun but didn't use it much) 2004 Yamaha R1 (sold - loved it but had to sell when I fell ill with a year long bout of labyrinthitus which stopped me riding) 1986 KX500 (current bike, barely started project, never ridden it, bits of it all over the place) 1995 Triumph Trophy 900 (sold, ok bike, did the job of commuting ok) 1995 ish Ducati 748S in Gray (sold, lovely to look at but got rid of it as I'd always rather ride the blade) 2001 Fireblade RRY (sold - had this for ages, loved it to bits but became unreliable due to repeating electrical issues and looked terrible having commuted on it through winter for a few years) 1997 or 98 Kawasaki ZX6R (sold, ok bike but never liked the front end feel) 1995 (or thereabouts) Kawasaki GPZ1100E1 (sold, epic bike, wish I'd kept it) ...gets a bit vague here... Yamaha Thundercat (sold, great bike, loved this) ZXR750 H1 (sold, loved it but couldn't ride it, too inexperienced and too scared of it) RD350YPVS (sold, good bike) TZR 125 (sold, piece of crap, I didn't know any better, rarely worked) Regards, Mark PS. Bikes I'd like to have at some point... 1998 Yamaha R1 1992 Honda Fireblade 1997 Suzuki TL1000S Any green Kawasaki ZX7R

It's fine in town but if you don't protect your hearing on long distances you'll damage it.

Yes I do! I will show you some lime build up later when I get chance This is what it looks like in the BMW F650 engine from not using distilled water! This is all over and will take some cleaning but imagine what it does to the seals! IMG_20200117_143335.jpg Blimey, you learn something every day. Good job I never keep cars that long

If you can see the coolant level then mark it with a bit of tape and see if it moves after a few rides. If you can't see the level then fill it to the min and use that mark to see if it moves. Don't fill it to the max as some bikes seem to find their level and spit out anything above that and you'll worry you'll have a leak. If it's leaking then fix it if not then top it up if it's a bit low (do people really bother with distilled water?) or drain and refill if it's really low so you're protected against freezing weather.

I nearly bought one as I couldn't find a way to sensibly get my phone in a waterproof mount and charge it at the same time. They looked pretty good but in the end I bought a tomtom rider 550 world as it offered so much more for half as much again. Really happy with it.

It never has been in the 30 years I've been insuring cars and bikes. Fortunately it's piss easy to create an account on confused.com, run the search with all you details saved from last time and pick the cheapest. You used to have to phone them all up and spend 15 minutes per quote with someone who was insisting they were doing you a favour only to come up with double your cheapest quote. From memory the only loyalty worth keeping was to a local broker you knew well enough to trust to do the leg work for you.

I'd just chuck a cheap one on and see if you like it and if it works. You can put a good one on if it does when the cheap set wear out.

Legally I have no idea but I'd contact the dealer and explain honestly what's happened and ask them to look at the cam sensor under warranty and fix the engine mount for you.

Yes, can't be arsed any more.