mealexme

Just press all the buttons in different combinations.....you'll get the right one eventually......

I did this whilst riding once. I think I was tying to reset the odometer or something and all of a sudden I was doing 50 in a 30!

All I can really say to this is, you should get used to it

If you don't want to get used to it though, or you have small hands like me, you can get adjustable levers which means you dont have to reach as far, which may help

cheers guys.

To throw a spanner in the works - (having a cold I can't smell well at the moment) but from the way it moves and dipping a finger and sniffing really, really hard, I think I smell a whiff of petrol, rather than oil. It also doesn't feel very... oily.

I'll have another look when my colds gone and I get my glasses back (been blind for the past week and Its giving me a massive headache too)

I'll just hope they don't grit the roads for another week or so, because she's currently in pieces in 3 different locations haha

Thanks for the help all, look out for an update in a week

Better still, if you're as bad as me - do you still have them kicking around somewhere?

I still have a broken clutch lever from a bike I sold 2 years ago...

Filter is a bit oily. Not done many miles since the service to be honest, it ran like crap so its been sitting on the drive looking sorry for itself for the past month or two whilst I use the CBR

Its just the left cylinder that looks to be the oily one and any different from the others.

old spark plugs

(in order from left to right)

new spark plugs

To start simple (probably too simple, but what the hell)...

What's the oil level like / what was it like when you got it? As far as I'm aware, overfilling it horribly can lead to oil being forced into the airbox (via the crankcase breather) and past the valve seals. Does it smell like it's burning oil or do you get a blue tinted smoke from the exhaust? That would certainly help identify if you've got something coming from behind the valves that shouldn't be.

Disclaimer: RantMachine don't know shit

did an oil change to the correct amount. Same issue as before. No smoke once its warmed up. Not that I've noticed anyway. I have checked in the past though

Also, the liquid only seems to be in the one port, there is none in any other port and no residue in any other carb but the one on the far left

So a lot of you will know I bought a 15 year old ninja a few months back for real cheap.

The plan was to use it over the winter in the salt and snow, to keep the CBR off the white stuff, then polish 'er up and turn her into a track bike for a bit of summer fun with 0 fear of trashing the thing, because lets face it, its a bag of sh*t to start with.

Anyway, amongst its many flaws, it doesn't run right. Give it the beans and get the revs high and its alright, but keep them low, especially around town and it will stutter.

So, I decided to rip the thing apart, with no haynes manual and little knowledge of that anything really does, I mean, I know the basics of a combustion engine but I dont really know what I'm looking at. After replacing the air filter (and spark plugs) I realised there was an oily substance around the air filter. I wasn't 100% sure as it may have been a bit of fuel or just grime thats built up over the past 15 years.

After putting it back together and realising it still runs like a bag of nails, I took it all apart again, took off the carbs and had a look down what I can only presume is the inlet to the combustion chamber (although I'm not 100% sure), and whilst the bike is on its side stand, you can see a liquid down one of the ports, coming up over the valve

I presume its oil, but there is no significant oil loss and no smoke coming from the exhaust once its warmed up

Any idea of

A) what it is

B) will it be hard to fix (with a haynes)

C) can I still ride it like that over the winter without doing too much harm to it, until the salt comes off the roads and I can fix the thing?

your lucky you don't work in a supermarket, with the same CD playing on repeat 24/7....

Ive heard good things about their waterproofs and thermals. Anything designed to save your life though, I'd be wary about. Usually if it doesn't have a brand name on it, it has a dodgy reputation

Hey all!

So I moved to the UK from Canada 3 years ago and only drove automatic cars back there. I have now applied for my provisional (Which hopefully should come within the next 2 weeks) and will then go for my CBT. Having never ridden a motorcycle AND never used manual gears, will it be difficult to pass the CBT with no experience? Or are these training courses which help with everything from the basics?

I bought myself a Honda Varadero 125 V3 the other week and can't wait to take it out for a ride but it's just picking up dust at the moment sadly.

Thanks

The CBT stands for Compulsory Basic Training, and it is exactly that. It's basic training, designed for people who have never been in control of a vehicle before.

Unfortunately, having driven a car for many years, you may well find that you have picked up some bad habits (we all do it), but they will be picked up during the training.

If you find it hard with manual gears, you could always request to do it on an automatic and learn the gears in your own time. This is what I did, but found the gears to be fairly easy to learn anyway. Unlike car gears, it is literally just up and down on the gear lever.

They will go over everything on the CBT, and if you have any questions or issues, there won't be anything they haven't come across before.

Whilst waiting to do the CBT, have a look at "get on" - a government scheme designed to get people onto bikes. They give a free hours taster session, more than likely held at the same place that the CBT takes place

Congrats on getting the Varadero! That is possibly the best choice of 125 and yet one that is often overlooked.

I wish you a long and fun biking career, Alex

on the sidewall, I'd replace it perssonally

Personally, I'd filter over double white lines, if it was safe to do so.

I find myself queuing behind stationary traffic with zero space to overtake and a solid white line. What's the score in this situation?

zero space = ... wait for it

... Don't do it!

Why would you overtake anywhere, where its not safe to do so?

And overtaking on double white lines is illegal? Who'd have known

As I said, I'd do it anyway, depending on the road layout, but only if traffic is at a complete standstill. Just don't do it past a cop and remember that if anything happened, you'd be at fault. I've seen someone filtering before on a long que of traffic, when without warning a van decided to use a farm entrance to do a u-turn with no indication and without checking his mirrors. It ended up with the biker sitting in a hospital waiting room for many, many hours. If that was on double white lines, I somehow doubt the insurance company would be in your favour.

Hello

I work in an IT company. In our company we develop tracking and diagnostic devices.

We are going to make a gps tracker for motorcycles. I want your advice to make it better if it is interesting for you to participate in the process of creating a new device.

Main features of the tracker:

- real-time GPS tracking;

- highly-sensetive accelerometer which will notify you of every move of your motorcycle;

- internal battery which charges only when you move, so it won't drain your motorcycle battery;

- route sharing;

- smartphone application;

If the tracker loses a gps/gsm signal you get a notification.

Which other functions would you find useful? What functions do you think are unnecessary?

I will be thankful for any ideas. Feel free to say what you think.

Giving your background, you should know there are loads on the market already. The one thing that stopped me getting one in the past is that if you want something decent, there is always an ongoing charge. How about you pay x amount for the product and x amount each time you want to receive any of the info off it.

A nice feature might be top speed, just because if you have a GPS on the bike, its always fun to see what your max speed was

I have no idea what gsm is, but it needs something stronger than GPS. The thing thats put me off the cheapy stuff is that the signal is easily blocked. Park it in an underground car park and the signals gone. Not much use then.

No need I heard someone actually looked at my thread and came rushing back

Thanks for the reply polecat. Shame that it didn't work out for you!

Is there any way you can look for a property further afield?

It's complicated, but short answer is no

Parking spaces are usually allocated in a communal area so digging up ect is normally out of the question.

dammit

Is there bowhere else you can latch the bike to other than a parking space. How about a teo way alarm one that will page you with motion sensors and tilt sensors.

both bikes have 2 way

Why not just knuckle down and stay at home for a few years?

Already have. Got 15k in the bank, but can only get a mortgage of £80k

You likely won't be allowed to put in a ground anchor without a heap of hassle as I've tried in the past and been told flatly no.

dammit!

I think I remember someone doing something though where they bought a very large plant pot, filled it with cement and put a ground anchor in it, as well as a bit of soil and some plants to make it look pretty. I spose that's always an option

So, hopefully I will be stepping onto the property market early next year. I'm young and can't afford much, and most of what I can afford has nowhere for the bikes

There are a few flats though, with allocated parking (ie a parking space that is yours). The question is, is it likely that you actually own that space, and can dig it up and install a ground anchor? Or is it more like the "gardens", which are communal areas and owned by someone else and you just have the right to use them?

Yes, you are being childish. Sell the car and get another bike!

Yea, it burns off. It says on the can I think, but its non flammable and nothing to worry about

Its actually good fun. You feel like a magician or mythical god when you pull up at work in a cloud of smoke. It settles, and there you are!

Anyone want to know what a 15 year old air filter that's had 40,000 miles worth of air passed through it looks like? (I can only presume its the original air filter from the general state of the bike)

Because it looks more like its been melted...

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd519/mealexme/20151008_173047_zpsuq2uyrbs.jpg

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd519/mealexme/20151008_173100_zpsdobupcsg.jpg

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd519/mealexme/20151008_173241_zpsyxfnsfp9.jpg

Aaaanyway, whats the best air filter to replace it with?

I've tried K&N on previous bikes, but I'm not a fan of having to re-oil it every x amount of miles

Why'd you remove the video?

Basically he went to overtake a car with another car coming towards him. He had plenty of opportunity to back off, bit instead decided to crawl past. He ended up passing between the two cars. Very silly thing to do as he admits himself, but seems he got a bit freaked out by us all confirming it was silly... Very strange...

Not seen the original video, but if the OP is still reading this, I'm sure we've all done worse. We all live and learn. It's the learning part that's important here.

Whilst in a really bad mood, in the rain on a bike I was still getting used to I tried to overtake someone. Got up to about 70mph to overtake a car doing 40, uphill with an oncoming car. Ended up on the white lines, rear end sliding all over the place, front end hitting the cats eyes and wobbling all over the place, sandwiched between the car I was overtaking and the oncoming one. Shat myself right up, and more than likely scared the hell out of the two car drivers too.

It's situations like this which have made me think twice on EVERY overtake since, and that happened years ago.

Keep your close call in your mind every time you go to overtake. If your not sure if you can overtake, then don't. I've gone to pass a group of cars at once before and pulled in just behind the lead car, even though I had enough room to overtake him too as a "just in case". It's not worth trading your life for a bit of fun

At the bottom of the emeail there is usually a "unsubscribe" button hidden in the small print. I went through a phase of having 10/20 a day. Unsubscribed from them and not had an issue since

How many more? Well, if one of thems doing it on such a large scale, you can be sure that loads more will follow.

As Stu pointed out, Seat use VW engines. This is fairly common, with car manufacturers sharing engines or other parts.

It was pointed out on the news that the large manufacturers will already have all the data from their competitors engines, which they would have tested themselves, so they would have known that their competitors are cheating. And if you know your competitors are cheating, why not do it yourself? It's widely known that they cheat with their MPG figures, so why not cheat on the emissions too?

TL;DR Lots more!

Personally I think now is the time to buy some shares in VW!

God dammit. I will track him down!

talk about bringing a thread back from the dead...

Do you have any up to date pics? I'd like to see how this has fared after a few years.

Also, did you end up putting anything on it to stop any excess fuel destroying the paintwork? (I'm thinking about starting a project myself)

Could it be possible to polish it out?

And by polish I mean the abrasive stuff that removes scratches to remove the clouded layer of lacquer?

The best things in life are Freeeeeee !

Only if your a motorcycle thief