mackemforever

Ok, another pretty noobish question here but at least they are becoming less frequent now. Since I got my bike the one thing I had never really looked at was the chain itself, it rode fine and as far as I could tell there was nothing happening that shouldn't have been, and so I never paid much attention to it. Today though, I was in the city center and another biker pointed out to me that its been adjusted as far as it can go and that the indicator on the bike shows that it needs replacing. So, I just wanted to ask what syptoms to look out for if the chain does need replacing, as I have felt nothing out of the ordinary. Also, I know that the easiest way to get the chain replaced would be to take the bike to a garage, but I'm assuming they would charge well over the normal price for the chain, so would it be better to order the chain myself and then just get a garage to fit it? Thanks.

Dropping my bike the first time I got on it. Basically I did my CBT and then had around a months wait before I got my first bike. Its a Varadero 125 and weighs about 60kg more than the bike I did my CBT on. I kitted up, jumped on it, and was heading down my drive to spend a bit of time on some local, quiet, roads to get used to it, when my dad stuck his head out of his office window and shouted at me to stop cos he wanted to talk to me about something. I gently applied the front brake, or at least it would have been gentle on the bike I did my CBT on, but the brakes on the Varadero are a lot better and bite with less movement of the brake lever. As a result the bike was stationary well before I thought it would be, meaning that I was late getting my foot down, and by the time my foot was down the bike had tipped over too far for me to stop it, so it just slowly toppled over. My train of thought went something like this: "Crap that stops quickly." "Crap its heavy." "Crap its lying on my leg." Very embarrassing, god did I get the piss taken out of me for that

Ta very much.

As the title says really. I have a Duchinni D409 helmet at the moment and stupidly threw away the sticker that was on the front of the lense when I got it and now can't remember what it said. It had instructions on how to remove the visor and so now I have no idea how to do so. I only need to do it to give it a decent clean as it was terrible to use the last few times I have ridden as there were so many mucky marks on the visor. So, anybody know how to take the visor out of it? Thanks.

Thanks for that. Just had a check and they sell exactly what I am looking for. They actually have what I need in their own brand for £15, so gonna go pick one up next week.

Thanks. I found the thing you are on about, but don't know what HG is. I assume its a bike shop but can't find anything that seems to fit.

Quite a simple question but just wanted to see if anybody here could help. Do you know of any companies which produce mounts for TomTom satnavs that aren't the motorbike one. I have this lying around for my car, http://www.tomtom.com/products/product.php?ID=473&Category=0&Lid=4, and wanted to find out if it would be possible to buy a mount to use it on my bike, as I have the worlds worst sense of direction and in past week have got completely lost 4 times. Thanks.

if your gonna have the oil changed, they will need to remove the forks to invert them to drain out the old oil, unless you have drain screws, if so replace the seals as a matter of course, as its cheaper in the long run, seals are about £10-15, and you'll still have the labour to remove them.. I know it should work out that way but most places I have rung have quoted about £20 including labour to drain and refill the forks, while they have all quoted at least £80 to replace the seals.

I don't know if this is still leaking or not. I had it out for around 90 minutes today and when I got back there was a very very thin coating on around the bottom inch of the fork (as in picture 1 of this thread) and a ring of muck and tiny bits of gravel/general crap, around where the ring of oil was forming before. There didn't appear to be any oil there, it just looked like the much had stuck where the very thin film of oil was and had been pushed up by the dust cover. I am riding to work tomorrow and so will take a photo when I get home so I can get an opinion on it. If it isn't leaking any more then how much do you reckon a garage should charge just to top up or replace the oil in the forks? Thanks.

Just to clarify, you mean wipe down the forks properly and then if the ring of oil reappears every time its ridden then it needs new seals? I have run around for a few quotes from localish places and the best I have come across is £80 including parts, labour and VAT.

I have taken the dust seals off already and had a look and there is nothing like that in there. It was bought privately and there was no sign of any leakages. The seals were replaced when it was serviced in November but since then it hadn't been ridden. I would assume the fact that it was sat in a garage for 6 months could cause the seals to corrode and then the constant movement when it was being transported could start it leaking?

Ok, I just took delivery of my new bike, a Varadero 125, and when I looked at it and gave it a quick test ride it was perfectly fine, however while it was being transported the front forks dumped a load of oil onto the floor of the van and I just wanted to see if I could get some opinions on what the problem is most likely to be. After around 15 minutes of riding it looked like this: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8620/img2526la.jpg You can't really see on the photo but there is a thin film of oil covering around the bottom 1 to 1.5 inches, and a ring of oil around half way up. The forks themselves aren't in great condition, so I wondered if somebody could tell me if they are likely to need replacing any time soon: http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8559/img2521nu.jpg http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/294/img2524c.jpg The bike was serviced & passed its MOT in November 2009 and everything was fine then, so I just wanted to see if I could get some opinions as to why it has dumped oil all over the floor while being transported, and what I need to get done about it. Thanks.