Rollingskies

Just riding from Inverness to Aberdeen (110 miles) and my throttle cable went partially 50 miles in. I had to twist the throttle to max to get 5k revs. Acceleration was like a 30 year old 50cc moped. Is the cable easy to fit? The local bike shop said it would be either a 30 minute or 60 minute job where labour is £30 per half hour. Looking at webmoto they sell two different types of throttle. One is a push and one is a pull. huh? Which one do I need?

Thanks for replies. I bought the box off ebay and will just put on an extra layer of socks for now. Decided to leave the fly screen for now and will look at the heatee grips on offer. Thanks

Hi, just bought my first bike. Cheap, cheerful and common. I pick it up next week. In the meantime I want to buy a few things and I wondered where and what the best place and make to get. 1) Fly screen 2) Givi Box 3) Heated grips 4) Waterproof/warm socks! (learned to ride in the winter and passed test Feb. I use Sidi boots, but my toes ahhhh!). Ben

I had the unfortunate date of mid December 2009 for my test. Then the snow came. It stayed for over a month here in Scotland and by the time it left I was well into my exams. I restarted in February with a full day's lesson with my riding school almost 2 months after passing module 1 and being on a bike and then a few days later I had a two hour pre-test ride. Well, in the words of my instructor 'it wasn't the best pre-test ride he'd seen'. I managed to pull off one of my worst biking trips, making a complete horlix of a major roundabout cutting lanes and all sorts. I messed up other smaller roundabouts, missed lifesavers and generally screwed up almost everything. I looked like a newbie to riding, not a person trained for a test. I think my instructor didn't have any hope and thought I was going to mess up the school's good pass statistics. The test began with a question on the handlebars and checking the oil. We then went out on a 35 minute trip and I remember reaching a roundabout I messed up on earlier on in the day and pulled it off perfectly. Maybe it was my day after all. We then reached another roundabout and I knew then the instructor was heading back to the test centre. I remember that buzz in my helmet I actually grinned, nearly there we're going back and you haven't messed up! One thing I was confused about was that I thought we had to do a hill start. I remember being asked to stop on an incline, but it was hardly a hill. No complaints there though. As I got closer to the centre I had one last roundabout 200 yards from the building. A learner driver in a car was approaching it and crawled around it. I did what you should never ever do. I let my guard down. Having ridden what I thought was a flawless ride believing I'd passed I was too relaxed. I thought the girl might be on a test so I dithered and didn't want to upset her, or get me to make her stop and so cause me to fail. It was obvious I was hesitating, but unbeknown to me I drifted off the right side of the approach to the roundabout (we were turning a 3 o clock right) towards what you could call a middle approach (there were no lanes). I didn't even know. The instructor never asked me a pillion question and after an age of talking and doing things he said I'd passed and I let out an Andy Murray style roar of delight. Then proceeded the break down. He gave me two minors for speeding. Not because I broke the speed limit, but because I always sat on it and because of the wet I could have gone slower. I knew this wasn't the time to argue. He gave me a further two minors for not pulling away quick enough after stopping in a safe place after my lifesaver check. He then said 'and what on earth were you doing on that roundabout?!' My instructor looked at me as if I'd fallen off. He said he nearly failed me for it. I blurted out then why didn't he? To which my instructor nearly killed me for! The examiner replied not to put a red flag in front of a bull and I shut up. So he gave me a minor for the roundabout offence and I can happily say for the CBT, theory, module 1 and 2 were all a first time pass.

I was given a good hour's practice on the test centre's actual square and this really helped me when I came to take the test. I knew that on the day it would be a toss of a coin; it would be a everything went right and pass or clip a cone, put a foot down fail. My riding school has a high pass rate for both modules and I was determined to honour the great instruction I'd been given, not least respect my bank account. I knew I could pass it on the first attempt and then if I was asked to retake it I could fail it again, it's that sort of test that even the examiner could fail on. Anyway nothing exciting to report except for a couple of things. I started to wobble on the go-slow and my examiner practically stopped walking to see if I had put my foot down. If the strip was one foot longer I probably would have done - I only just made it. Use the back brake and don't look at the ground! I did the speed trap avoidance and emergency stop pretty fast, 56 and 58 I think were my times. My instructor had told me of someone living on Shetland who had travelled all the way from the islands to Aberdeen to take his test and failed with two 49 readings. I didn't want to fail on that basis, still it is quick and goes against your instincts to go that quick in a small confined area with cones and an examiner littering the place. On the avoidance I nearly had a disaster, thankfully I missed the cone, but either my hand wasn't right or the throttle stuck and the bike reved up just as I was pulling back in line. I just someone squeezed it back in at a dreafully wonky angle. No idea how, but I don't think I could have repeated it! I was shaking with nerves and wondered if I'd failed, but I only got a minor for it and as far as I'm concerned it now didn't matter! I did the direct access route and took it on a ER-500. Nice bike.