Steve_M

2 hours ago, rennie said:

Good evening 

I haven't been to a judo grading for about 45 years!

It’s been over 23 years for me. I’d previously graded in 1973 

They say you shouldn’t have regrets but having a 22 year judo hiatus is mine. 

1 hour ago, Fozzie said:

I did my grading last night. 

 

I felt a bit run down still from last weeks flu, my fitness had a big dent in it. My heart was pounding, and I was sweating like mad. 

But I did it, and I got my red belt  

 

The sensei who helped out and was the uki for the grading did say after I was run through my paces a lot more than the other two. And while I immediately took that to mean "they had doubts then?", he assured it is more likely they were pushing to test what I could do and how adaptive I was. The head of the club is a 7th Dan so I tried not to squander the chance to raise my profile with him. As I'd like to take this all the way through to black belt at the least!

Congratulations. The difference between a red belt and a black belt is that the black belt didn’t give up. 
 

On 12/02/2024 at 16:57, Fozzie said:

Good afternoon,

 

Still recovering a bit from last weeks flu. Was up at 4am yesterday to take my sister to the airport, was a long drive to Heathrow, very teary goodbyes. She landed safely in Australia this morning, and has hit the ground there with a job and a place to live... Pretty good going, although I selfishly hope she doesn't love it enough to stay.  

 

Got my grading tomorrow at Jui-Jitsu, should be fun. I have the advantage that my girlfriends dad is a third dan, so I went over to his and did a bit of training with the promise of buying him a beer. Doing 2 gradings in one night, and I'm feeling good about it. 

All the best with your grading.

Shame it’s not judo, mind.

12 minutes ago, Simon Davey said:

Could it be the low 26 psi pressure on that picture? 

I can’t see the wear indicators - they’re in the tread pattern - check them.  As a leisure rider I usually replace the tyres when they’re around 1mm from the tread. Not sure if that is a good description of what I do.. I used to let the tyre go all the way to the wear indicators when I was commuting as well as leisure riding as I was doing around 12,000 - 13,000 miles a year so I needed to get full value from them.

8 minutes ago, Simon Davey said:

Oh right, I imagine I'll need a pair, as they were both new before I bought it. 

Thanks for keen eye. 

Do you think it's from sitting in the corner doing nothing? 

Tyres square off through lots of motorway / straight A road riding with little lean. 

54 minutes ago, fullscreenaging said:

I would look at getting a new rear as that is seriously squared off. 
 

Just from my experience, some bikes are affected more than others as their tyres wear and square off. My VFR800fi would readily squirm over slightly raised white lines as the tyre wore, while my R1200GS doesn’t feel in the slightest affected until just before I replace them at around 2mm tread depth.
 

I did a day at Cadwell Park on my FJR with tyres that were nearly ready to be replaced and quite squared off - made little difference on track. As a bike that was bloody awful in the first place it wasn’t a whole lot worse - just needed a more of a push to get it to lean and was stable once leant over. 

5 minutes ago, Simon Davey said:

Now, I'm of an age that I'm happy to be honest, and accept that this honesty may lead to judgement and possibly being called a to**er etc. 

 

As per my recent mentioning on other threads, I've found some frustration with my cornering as I've had to correct my steering a couple of times per ride. (wobbly wobble). 

 

@RideWithStyles and a couple more of you suggested checking tyre pressure.

I promised myself that I'd buy a gauge, but I also thought to myself "I only bought it in December, surely they would have ensured it was safe and roadworthy"? 

Nope..... 

Bought a gauge today. 

12 PSI front, and 26 in the back! 

Owner's manual says 42 front and rear when cold. 

 

All this wet road riding I've done, it's just as well I've been cautious. 

 

So thanks for the prompt guys, you've probably saved my neck. 

 

 

What a tosser!
 

Good to see you holding your hands up on this. I’m sure most of us have skipped / forgotten checks at some point. EG. I don’t check tyre pressures each time I ride the bike despite advocating regular POWDERS checks. 

3 hours ago, RideWithStyles said:

also to note, what tyres are on the bike now, pressures, suspension settings?

they have great impact on how the bike feels and behaves. 

Suspension settings. Oh the joy of ESA and mode settings.

2 hours ago, Simon Davey said:

Thousands of miles, several bikes, and 40 years later, I had no Idea about counter steering until now

It’s simply an automatic response to make the bike turn - we learn to do that on pushbikes (assuming you rode a pushbike) and instinctively do it without consciously making the effort. Not being aware of it is not unusual.
 

I first learnt about it while doing a machine skills course. I’ve just noticed your location. You might want to consider Essex Firebike training. Some of the instructors are the same as did the courses I attended. They call Counter Steering “Postive Steering”.. 

56 minutes ago, Simon Davey said:

One hour ride per month for the last three months, and I'm still a bit wobbly. 

This is mostly fear of the wet greasy country roads. 

 

I would recommend attending a i2i machine control course. 

7 hours ago, Capt Sisko said:

Can't speak for RoSPA, but the IAM issue with their own handbook which has enough information to get your through their test. That doesn't mean the Police Roadcraft manual is superfluous, far from it, but all of it isn't necessary to pass the IAM test.

 

To answer the  main question. I passed my motorcycle test in 1979, my car test a couple of years later and that was the last time I looked at a copy of the Highway Code before I did my IAM course three years ago, and in truth then only skimmed through it and read the headline changes!

I’d forgotten the IAM publication. It wasn’t around when I took my IAM test. 

Banham? They’re a load of animals I recall from visiting once.

Ah, sorry, that’s the zoo. 

2 hours ago, rob m said:

 Have you seen the video of ATOTW 2? It's a cringe fest but contains a lot of useful info. Must admit I've never taken any formal training, I used to hang out with some IAM guys and learnt a lot from them but that was many years ago. We used to do Sunday breakfast runs to the coast when they weren't observing. They never pressured me to do the training but did suggest it from time to time.  One of them gave me a copy of roadcraft which I've still got. Highway code I haven't looked at since I took my bike test in the 90s. The shame of it 

Yes,, I have seen the video… nuff said.

2 hours ago, Simon Davey said:

 

Yes, options were something like 1.3 metres, or 2.2.

It was the longer option, which surprised me. 

That came up in a “Highway code / Roadcraft” quiz session that I took part in as member of an IAM group (car section vs bike section) way back in the 1990’s and, I seem to recall, the answer being 1.5m at that time. Which is either an indication that my memory is poor - probably true - or the figure has changed. 

Incidentally, I also have a copy of A Twist of the Wrist by Keith Code which, though track biased, provides some useful information about how a motorbike responds to inputs from the rider. I last read that a few years ago, too. 

9 hours ago, fullscreenaging said:

You can get the most up to date version from here and it’s free. 
 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code

That’s what I’m currently using to refesh my memory.

1 hour ago, bonio said:

Dabbled into Roadcraft about 2 and half years ago. Not the latest edition. To be honest, It's hasn't got a great plot, and it isn't great as a reference book either. Would rather take on War and Peace.

Looked up the lasted changes on the Highway code whenever they last changed - a couple of years ago?

My first contact with Roadcraft as 1992. I had more fun reading a COBOL manual. The later editions are much easier to work with - not a fun read, mind. 

7 minutes ago, S-Westerly said:

One reason for putting off retirement as long as I possibly can is because my wife has an ever increasing list of "when you retire" jobs. As it is I have the best of both worlds - work 6 months of the year doing something I mostly enjoy and then spend 6 months of the year lolling about "resting" from my labours. Occasionally get stuck with a bit of painting or gardening  but nothing too burdensome.

Our “list of jobs when we retire” runs to several pages and isn’t getting shorter. It wasn’t helped with our relocation where we were to “downsize house - small project, upsize garden” turned into “same size house - big project, enormous and neglected garden”. “Big Project” is also susceptible to scope creep - I never envisaged the building of a rope bridge, for example, yet here we are mid-build. 

1 hour ago, mealexme said:

Last time I actually looked through it was probably 2009 when I did my test, but I do look up the rules if I hear something has changed. 

 

Going off topic already, but I do find the rule change on pedestrians right of way who are crossing at a junction a strange move. I get the idea behind it, but if anything it just encourages pedestrians to step out into the road just because they have right of way. I actually had this very thing happen to me about 45 minutes ago, where some chap just walked straight out without looking. Luckily I was going to let him cross anyway, but not everyone would, especially when the highway code states that drivers "should" give way to pedestrians, meaning this is more of a courtesy than a law. 

 

Not off topic… it highlights how people may have heard of the rule but not fully understood it and how it affects them and others. 
 

Perhaps (and this, I suspect is a forlorn hope) if it was made part of a periodic test then people might actually read the darn thing. 

52 minutes ago, exportmanuk said:

Hi   The legislation has not changed just the interpretation . But to my mind they should have put in a H0 before the H1-3 that states You are always responsible for your own safety.

It could have been separated out to make it more explicit, though it is covered in H1.

41 minutes ago, Mickly said:

For me it’s more about not being able to do the stuff I want to do coz family & friends think I must have loads of spare time & find ways of filling it, when I really should be on my bike.

I do have the occasional challenge with the more local offspring (local 100 miles away) asking me to do little jobs. I’ve, probably foolishly, agreed to coach at a local judo club for which I need to become a qualified coach, as well as other existing commitments. 

Good afternoon.

You know those old codgers who are retired and then say stuff like “I don’t know how I had time to go to work”. They used to really annoy me. Guess what I’ve just said.

I think I may have somewhat overcommitted my time. Thankfully, two of the items on my todo require me to ride on the motorbike. 

A question, probably not for the recently qualified.

When did you last read / refer to the Highway Code for information / guidance respectively? 

For those who are IAM / RoSPA, same question but for Roadcraft - the motorcyclists edition.

Supplementary question. Was it the current edition?
 

I’m currently refreshing my knowledge of each of the above (yes, yes, I’m a fully paid up member of the Dull Men’s club) and realised it’s been around 6 years since I last referred to either and I’m wondering how much I can recall. 

Two of the grandchildren are visiting so that’s playing with Lego, swimming, having them jump on me, digging the toy Gator out from one of the outbuildings and supervising them crashing it into various obstacles, etc. 

56 minutes ago, Hairsy said:

I have Sena because it's designed specifically for my Shoei helmet but I wouldn't buy it again. The voice recognition is completely hit & miss. I took it back to the Infinity store where I bought it after a few weeks and could clearly demonstrate it being hit & miss. I was advised to try speaking at different volumes and different paces and see if that improved things. I was told they could send it back to Sena but it would be away for at least a few weeks and might well just come back with the message that They All Do That Sir.

 

I decided to just suck it up - the Siri instructions work and that covers most of my needs.

 

But next time I'll go Cardo.

That was my reason for going Sena - the SRL2 is designed to go with my Neotec. We bought a cheaper Sena (SMH.) for my pillion - also Neotec - as the total cost would have been exorbitant for two SRL2’s.

Next time will be Cardo for us, too.