OhJay

Road to nowhere - Talking Heads

Do the chicken dance. Flap your arms like a chicken while riding. This has 2 effects: 1) You have to relax your arms and shoulders in order to flap them 2) It's impossible to be tense while laughing your arse off and feeling like such a fool

Thank you Stu, your suggestion of a nut on the end of the crank shaft was a saviour. Able to turn the crank with no sticking at all Took the cover off at the end of the crank and fuel poured out the hole from the sump!

Think that's the way we're leaning Stu, as far as we can work out it has to be combination of the tap and float. If either was working properly it should stop the fuel all dripping down into the engine. Float could just be stuck and/or mucky rather than anything broken but the tap sounds like a definite culprit.

There's no off Al, it's a vacuum tap

Likey likey, you taking orders?

Sorry to hear Neil, thoughts and condolences

Hard luck mate but at least you know what's coming and what to expect. It's all useful stuff for the real world as well, don't sweat it, just remember that striple

Yaaay, congrats mate How does it feel?

Very good luck mate, just relax and enjoy it

There are reactolite pinlocks as well but they're something like £40-50

If you can get the pinlock for them then yes, you can get the kits with the pinlock, pins and a template showing how/where to drill the holes. http://www.pinlockshop.co.uk/images/options/CLEAR_1349284193.jpg I just chickened out of that and got a new visor with the holes predrilled

Not all Pinlocks are created equal, I'm afraid. Different makes, different helmets have different sized visors. I wear a Marushin which appears to have a narrow visor top to bottom so the first one I got managed to foul both the seal at the top and at the bottom! Arai have extra vents in the top corners of their visors which the pinlock has to go round. etc etc Most helmets these days come with pinlock installed or at the very least the visors already drilled. Ask the shop if they'll throw one in for you when you get your lid or at least do you a deal on one that fits. Failing that you can get the pins and drill them yourself or get a new visor with the pins drilled and installed for you (this is what I did, I'm a coward ) As for what helmet to get? The one that fits! Go to a shop, try them all on. If it doesn't fit or is uncomfortable it's off the list. Then you've got a shortlist of the ones that fit and you can look into colour, linings, noise, cost etc etc from there. If you want advice then put your shortlist up on here saying "these fit, any opinions" and anyone who's had any of them will let you know what they thought.

And then 2 years after you pass A2 or when you hit 24, whichever happens sooner, you can take the A test for full unrestricted licence

I was trying to phrase it in such a way that meant it wasn't me that got nominated

We do a Christmas-ish Mince pies in Matlock when/if we get round to organising it

Congrats Let us know when you've completed your bike hunt

Sorry Bob, minor thread hijack Definitely would be something I'm interested in doing. I've looked at advanced training all along which is when I got into the discussion about TVAM with my instructor. Let's face it, anyone who can teach me anything (and there are a LOT of people who are better than me ) is a good thing. Do I want to lower my insurance? Wouldn't mind but that's not why, I want to be able to enjoy the bike more. Got a mate said that Derbyshire were offering reduced IAM skills for life courses off the back of the Bikesafe. Spoke to the guy who organises it and he didn't push the Bikesafe particularly but said they were just interested in safety and training and have all sorts of offers on other further training: they've got discounts on the ERS training thing and said they do discounts on the Derby IAM group if you say you've gone through him. Definitely something to look into I feel. How far's Derby for you Gaz?

I've heard much the same about the Thames Valley IAM group that meet in Wokingham (please tell me you're not one of them TC before I slag them off ). Having a chat with an instructor at the school I did my licence test with he'd just dropped IAM. Chatting with another ex-student of the school about his going along for obvserved rides and he said they were basically telling him which limits he could ignore and they are very focussed on "making progress". When he asked what qualifications the observer had to approve his breaking the law it got fairly snippy apparently.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg ... 197120.pdf Page 3 has all your measurements

You don't have to do it all in one go if you haven't got the £550 lying around, most places will do a lesson a week or so and then you can spread the cost and use the time in between lessons to practice what you were taught on that lesson.

Ought to be one (or two depending on the shock) in the toolkit under the seat If not we'd get a better idea from what shock it is rather than what bike I think.

Conga rats

I'm sure Givi will make the rack for hard luggage, have a look on their site, you can search for accessories by bike. On mine they do it separately, the side racks are a separate option and you need the top rack fitted to attach the sides to. Not a cheap option though, the rack for panniers for my bike is about £90 then a couple of hundred for the boxes! Failing that get the part number off Givi's site and type that into eBay What about soft throw overs?

I've got the Navigon app on my phone and you can set waypoints. Trying to plot a route road by road would be a complete ballache but possible. I did plot a route Bristol over the Beacons and its not particularly intelligent. I took a slightly different route through Abergavenny than I had plotted in and it refused to tick off that waypoint and get in with it, the entirety of the way over the beacons it was telling me to turn round. Phone lives in my pocket so I don't know if I can tell it to skip that one and move on. TYRE have just announced that on their premium subscription service they can output routes to it though, might treat myself start of next year see how I get on with it. Just need to sort out powering the damn thing, it keeps switching itself off "to save battery life"