DuRavary

That’s a nice earner for them.

Sort of, but I’m not sure that he would be too happy about that description as he’s from Canada.

C

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A

Thank you. So the court case will be a total waste of time and money.

Does your answer come from knowledge and experience, civilians working alongside the U.K. Forces in Germany were subject to a lot of the same rules. If your answer is based on fact, thank you, if it’s a presumption, why the negativity?

Over 20 years ago one of my colleague’s husbands, an RAF Warrant Officer, was involved in the same sort of accident. They were based in Germany and had gone back to the U.K. for a wedding and one morning left a B+B on the wrong side of the road. They ran into a motorcycle killing the rider. He got what he deserved, he lost his licence and was given a huge fine and points on his licence. What was more interesting was what the RAF did. They considered his actions to be so serious they demoted him down to an airman with not only a reduction in pay and loss of earned pension but the family had to move out of their WO quarter into a much smaller one. The RAF point was that they allowed no error of judgement. Their personnel regularly switched between U.K. and Germany postings and they expected them to take upmost care at all times. I wonder if the USAAF have the same expectations.

The ultimate example of how the leading car doesn’t have the luxury that the other cars do under safety car or vsc was the GP earlier this year where at the restart Lewis Hamilton was the only car on the grid. Every car behind him pitted to change tyres. He could not pit because their pit box was at the start of the pit Lane and he would have been unable to leave because of the stream of cars coming in after him. Saying that Mercedes was wrong not to follow the Red Bull strategy shows a lack of understanding.

One of the main points in my post was that we learn to do things instinctively and don’t spend out whole time thinking in detail about what we are going to do The Pan European needed a hefty input, quite different from any other bike I’ve ever ridden. Luckily for most people they can use everyday objects without understanding the science however interesting it is.

Perhaps I should have said consciously countersteered then. I’m sorry you don’t appreciate my input, I was just pointing out that it’s a technique that made a huge difference on that particular bike. Mind you if you had read the whole post properly you would have understood the context b

For a long time I have regularly watched French TV programmes. For a while I had to concentrate hard to every word and often used subtitles to help me to translate what I was hearing into English. I couldn’t multi-task, it was TV or checking my emails. One day I realised that life had become more straightforward and I worked out that I was understanding the spoken French with no need to translate. Life was so much easier. I am sure that riding a bike is a bit like that. To start with most of us have to concentrate and justify every action and reaction. With experience you just get on the bike and ride. Last weekend I had a great ride out of the mountains with the road surface changing on every bend, everything from snow to pristine sunny tarmac. I probably didn’t go through two corners in exactly the same way and to be honest I can’t remember thinking about any of the details, it just comes down to muscle memory and experience. I know that I have a style that involves as little braking as possible (I roll off the throttle quite early on unfamiliar roads) and that most of my braking uses the the front brake only. I think that almost a decade on a Pan European with linked braking made the food pedal obsolete. I know that although I ride reasonably quickly there will be a lot of riders that will be a lot lot faster. I have another outlook, on two wheels on public roads I never take unnecessary risks. My choice. I also drive a ‘hot hatch’. When driving that I’m much more likely to get close to the vehicle’s limits because unlike a sliding bike the FWD car is reasonably tame and controllable when it loses traction and if I should hit a hedge or run into a field I have a pretty good level of protection. My advice to any newcomer to two wheels is don’t run before you can walk. Read the theory and learn the jargon but nothing will beat getting your bum on the seat and miles under the wheels to work out out what works for you and your bike. I never countersteered until I got my ST1300 but soon discovered that that was by far the best technique for me to use on it when travelling quickly on twisty roads.

It’s a 2006 Honda 5hp. Touching every bit of wood around it’s been as dependable and reliable as you would expect. As you will have seen I only use between six and twelve litres a year so running it on a more expensive fuel wouldn’t be a problem but the fact remains, it’s always been fine with E10.

A tank full of non E10 for when the bike is laid up is hardly going to break the bank so would be a good choice for a bit more piece of mind.

Talking of the sea… I have a boat with an auxiliary Honda outboard. Every Spring I fill the 12 litre tank with E10. The tank usually lasts all year and when I take it home in November it’s normally about half full. I use the remaining fuel in my lawnmowers during the winter. I’ve never had any trouble with the outboard or mowers. I was concerned to start with as I thought that being hydrophilic the E10 might suffer in the marine environment. It’s been fine.

Yes. There have been huge problems with some older bikes, the worst I can remember being certain Ducati’s with plastic fuel tanks that actually started to melt. Other older plastics in the fuel systems were also vulnerable. As I’ve written before it’s very easy to find out if your post 2000 bike is ready for E10 and if I had an older classic I’d be tempted to ask questions on a forum with German members not just in the U.K. where it’s new for everyone. MPG is a difficult one. I’m an anorak and have recorded every fill up in my vehicles for years using an App. With my Pan European the average mpg varied very little whether it was run on E10, E5, used on motorways or in mountains. The higher averages between fill ups were no more than 4-5mpg better than the worst. With my cars I have never seen any difference that can be put down to the fuel type. With one car however using even an empty roof rack, having a mountain bike on a rear mounted rack or towing a small trailer can cause havoc. The mpg figures I get these days using E10 are far more impressive than when I often used 98 or even 102 octane fuel in Germany. That however has nothing to do with the fuel is the different sorts of roads that I use these days, lots of French D road kilometres and fewer on the Autobahn. My CB500X has shown a huge range of average mpg between fill ups, anything between 72mpg and just over 100 according to the use. So different to the pattern from the Pan European.