Fiddlesticks

I had a tin plate on the Thunderbird when I bought it. Right colour and everything, but didn't fancy the agro, so changed it to a plastic one.

Hi. Good to have you along. Where are you at in your riding career?

I'm against any attempt to foist more apps on people. Best thing for motorcycle parking would be a default acceptance that they can use cycle bays.

I had this one with Chester a while ago. Their website said "bikes, find a quiet corner and don't pay", but I came back to a ticket. It turned out that they'd removed the ability to park like this a few years previously. Got the ticket overturned, but the website hasn't been updated. Their argument hinged on the definition of "pay and display", which seemed almost deliberately misleading.

Yep - no bins till next week here.

Hi, welcome

Welcome in.

There were a fair few today driving in slushy snow in the outside lane at speed, leaving themselves little braking distance. A dab on the brakes or a bit of steering input in those conditions and you're sideways.

Morning

So many variables: Value of the bike. Age. Mileage / Pillion cover / Commuting Riding experience. / No claims. Occupation Location of bike overnight. (postcode/garaged) When you want the policy to start (aim for 3 weeks in the future - if you want it tomorrow it'll be more expensive). How long you've owned the bike. Fully comp vs TPFT Etc. Etc. I usually go to Compare The Market / Confused.Com and play about with all of them (keeping answers honest, otherwise you really are screwed). One thing I used to do, instead of paying in instalments with the extra credit charge, was to get one of those introductory credit card offers (0% for 10 months) and stick it all on that, paying it all off over the interest free period. Not sure if they still do them though. Hope you get it sorted.

Hi

Hope someone finds this useful... I downloaded and installed this extension to Chrome the other day. It gets around the 10 stop limit in Google maps, optimises routes, splits long routes into shorter ones and can reverse routes. It will also export to different formats. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-maps-extended-rout/okeampldbdmpachkggljgpngbooaclal?hl=en&pli=1

That's getting printed out and stuck on the garage wall!

Love the colour ... And at that price I'd be tempted to buy another!

Pride - Rainbow Tea Rooms (because, well, rainbows) Greed - Greedy Pig Café Wrath - I couldn't decide so you'll have to pick the one you like best... Wrath 1 - The Grapes (of Wrath.. John Steinbeck novel) Wrath 2 - The Grapes (ditto) Wrath 3 - Mean Eyed Cat (this one tickled me... mean cats are kind of wrathful) Envy - Envy Lounge Bar Lust - Hooters (sadly just missed the girl in the red hot pants standing outside) Gluttony - The Fat Italian Sloth - The Lazy Landlord Faith - The Church Hope - Hope St. Hotel Charity - The Volunteer Canteen

That sun visor mechanism is swish, but unnecessarily over-engineered in my view. I have once fouled it up when pulling the visor out to clean it. The shop sorted it out for me, but just something to be careful of. Brilliant when it works though.

You always find you need it right after deciding to chuck it away, in my experience.

Well, I was all set today to pull the drive shaft and replace both the oil seal to the gearbox, and the one to the rear transfer case. Having peeled back the rubber gator to check, I decided the few drops of oil that had collected in there in the last 3 or 4 months didn't warrant the effort. (Never do today what can be reasonably put off until tomorrow.) Instead, I changed the oil and filter, dug out the old Windows laptop to reset the service indicator, and checked the throttle bodies while it was connected. They were all 69/70 which was good. Then onto the spots, a new led switch sorted the power out, but the connector to the left hand side one was loose. Snipped it out and crimped / heatshrinked the wires. Bit of a hack, but didn't have a spare connector handy. The chances are the spots will outlive the bike. Next time round should really be a valve service, so I might draft in some help and do the shaft seals at the same time.

Hi The CBT is a good way to start - fairly low pressure, not much emphasis on "pass / fail". If you need more time they'll book you in for another day/half day. If you can already drive and ride a bike then it shouldn't be too hard. Then it becomes a question of whether you go straight to the Direct Access, or whether you're happy on a 125 for a while...

Mrs. Fiddlesticks uses these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B6ZXD2WY?ref_=pe_27063361_487360311_302_E_DDE_dt_1

Hello and Happy New Year yourself

Hi all, I've added a tab for 2025 to my spreadsheet to include all the wonderful new places Hoggs has challenged us to visit. If you want to take a copy to keep track of where you've been, where you're going, and what your score is, please download it from here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_d3VioyFfYsOxyyI_HHK7C7ncKV6fuOo?usp=sharing

Sounds like you handled it all very well though. Not your fault the guy turned out to be a wrong 'un.

Got the Explorer out for a ride, found a flat rear tyre. It gave me an opportunity to test the puncture repair kit which lives permanently under the seat. Removed the screw, cleaned the hole up, plugged it with a bacon strip coated in rubber glue. Inflated, left it 5 minutes before a quick test ride. Seemed OK so threw caution to the wind, threw Mrs. Fiddlesticks on the back and went for a quick ride to J&S for some new sunglasses that I'll send off to be fitted with prescription photochromic lenses. Now sat watching the surfers on the marine lake eating chips... Or rather, we're eating chips, they're surfing. (That would be a rather neat trick though.)