Capt Sisko

Using a sort of reverse process of elimination, what on the bike doesn't work?

I suspect the problem is that electric scooters are typically bought by youngsters at the start of the their biking career and as such have a pretty high claims rate against them. Often as not it's not an if, but a when a claim is made. It's also not the value of the scooter, but the cost of fixing what they’ve hit. It was the same with the Sierra Cosworth in the 80s. Once the insurance companies twigged what they were, the type of people that drove them and the rate of claims against them the insurance cost as much as the car was worth, and that's if you could find anyone that would insure you. I'm not really sure what you can do about it when the computer says no. Try some of the specialist, if you're IAM, BMF or whoever, their preferred partners might have different parameters or computer models designed for the more experience & responsible rider. Other than that, sell and buy a Honda Supercub for round town use.

True, but British bikes of the era were old designs, unreliable and this years 'new' model was exactly the same as the old model, but with a chrome trim or it was now available in blue. The Jap stuff was a breath of fresh air and in many cases the performance mind blowing. The Chinese aren’t up against slow, dated models that leaked oil and ridden by stereotypes ‘rockers’, they’re up against modern & desirable bikes. The only advantage the Chinese have is cost.

It was well know that Richard Brunstrom was anti speeding, but that was nearly twenty years ago and nowt to do with the 20mph decision. What many don’t realise it was he that introduced the then new idea of offering courses rather than points & fines. Whilst the Brunstrom name may have a hint of notoriety, how many of us have benefited from what are now call Speed Awareness Courses rather than having points on our licence?

Considering Mid & N Wales are my back yard for biking, neither have I. You do see an increased police presence at the usual hot spots at the usual times of the year, but that's no different to the Peaks, the Pennines, the Brecon Beacons or any other area that attracts enthusiastic drivers, riders or even just some hill walkers who park their cars in stupid places. I’d love to know where this myth that all roads in Wales are 20mph came from? It ain’t put me off ridding to Barmouth for some chips, just because I can.

You should. Many assume if it's quiet it's okay, it's not. Valves tend to tighten with wear and after 20k without attention, they're likely to have done so. It's not a hard job to do, basic spanner work really, but you'll need a set of feeler gauges. I'd also order a new gasket beforehand as I suspect the original will tear, even break into bits when you take the cover off. You'll provably have to scrape the broken off bits from the head & cover and a basic Stanley knife blade is as good a tool as any that's been invented for doing that. An oily rag stuffed into the cyclinder head will stop any scrapping dropping into the engine. One last tip, don't use a big adjustable spanner for adjusting the valve like the guy in the video does. Adjustable spanners have their uses, making fine adjustments ain't one of them.

Being from Shropshire that's a regular route of mine. In practice the 20mph parts are only through the towns & villages, and there's not many of them enroute. You'll go into one almost immediately after you cross the border, Corwen has another and there a couple of villages with short sections, but the only hassly one is Llangollen where the 20mph zone goes on for miles and they've extended the 40mph zone as well. Unfortunately there's no way around it. In practice the A5 is a major road and is designed to keep the traffic flowing so the 20mph zones are few and far between. Fixed speed cameras? A couple, but generally speaking in both Shropshire and N Wales they're mercifully thin on the ground on the open road, however be careful when you go up Chirk bypass. You'll have gone over a long bridge, propably stuck behind a queue of traffic and then you've got one of those two up, one down lanes bypass type roads. The problem is people put their foot down to get past other vehicles going up the hill and forget that even though you have two lanes on your half of the road that that doesn't make it a dual carraigeway and the speed limit is still 60. There's a bridge half way up and the camera van lot know there's easy pickings to be had. EDIT: If you need fuel onroute turn off the A5 and go through Nesscliffe instead of taking the dual carriageway and fill up at the garage in the village. It's one of those rural garages that's slashed the price of it's fuel to keep the business. Typically it's 4 or 5p a litre than the supermarkets and 10p a litre less than the garages on the A5.

AND your insurance company could come after you, personally, to recoup the cost of the claim and their expenses. If that 3rd party's vehicle was just a dent on a rust old Corsa you might say so what, but what if it wrote off a virtually new Rolls, Bugatti Veyron, worse still there was someone injured, subsiquently confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life or worse. You could be paying out for the rest of your life. That sounds dramatic and the odds of it happening are slim, but it does happen and it's part of the reason why you took out insurance in the first place. Tell the insurance company, ask about their policy on NCB and take whatever cancellation fee there is on the chin.

I wonder if the tooling for an RD350LC still exists? Okay, the engine will need work, but if Langen have managed to get a 250 two stroke through the emission regs, others can. The rest has long since been written off and whilst there will be other mods needed to make it 2025 / A2 compliant, ABS & fuel injection systems are off the shelf parts nowadays.

The decision had already been made but councils know they have to go through a public consultation phase, which they do, knowing they're going to ignore the responses and they’ll be go ahead anyway. The second part is councils are scared stiff of saying no. They’re frightened of being sued if they go against ‘best practice’, of criticising someone, applying common sense or simply saying, who’s stupid idea is this?

Plus the 'kit' isn't exactly cheap either if you want to do it properly, and of course for the much younger generation, the 'my daughter isn't getting on the back of any motorbike' attitude which is going to cramp some teeagers style.

Given what's happened domesticity with the resulting drop in consumer confidence and what’s going on globally I'm surprised the drop in sales isn't higher. Still not a pretty picture and explains why so many dealers have ceased trading in the last 6 months or so.

For political, environmental and ethical reasons I try to avoid buying Chinese whenever I can. I know it's impossible to avoid that completely, but I’ll do my bit where I can. YMMV.

VisioDry is absolutely brilliant, but way too delicate for day to day use. If you know you're going to encounter rain apply it just beforehand and you'll be amazed at how clear your visor stays, but it's no spray it on at home just in case product. It's also very expensive for what it is. Bennetts Review - VisioDry Me, whilst a bottle of the VisioDry lives in the cubby box of my fairing as a just in case, I won't be replacing it when it's used up. After cleaning my visor at home I use Nikwax Visor Proof as general preventative and that seems good enough compromise between cost, performance & ease of use.

By the time Trump's tariff war is over it'll cost a lot more. 25% from China to the USA, 25% USA to UK if not more. Grab yourself a bargain soon!

Why don't you just buy a second hand bicycle computer with GPS speedo on it? Not sure about the legalities of using that just on it's own on the public roads, but if that's not a concern it's going to be a lot easier than buggering about with the wiring.

If it's a smart battery charge, yes it can be left attached and the 'smart' bit will look after it. If it's an old fashioned one, i.e. it's got just a low/med/high rocker switch, then no you can't. What type of charger do you have?

You've also got to remember 21 bhp (claimed) isn't a massive amount once you're on the open road. It's fine for towns and urban enviroments, but once out of town you're going to find it lacking when it comes to overtaking & dual carriageway runs. If that's not a concern fine, but go in eyes open about the performance. To reiterate what SD said, with modern engines you can't just take a file to the exhaust port, stick some expansions chambers & K&Ns on and rejet the carbs (showing my age here) to unleash extra power. Plus even if you could as a new bike it'd invalidate your warranty.

They get reborn as Tuppaware lids that don't fit any of the boxes.

It's a good idea to remove the built in speaker from the tag before hiding it your bike as they have what in other circumstance is a useful 'anti stalking' chirp facility, in our circumstances the chirp would guide the scrotes to the tag location. It's fiddly but quite easy to do. Airtag - Remove Speaker I also bought waterfroof self adhesive rubber holders to mount mine. Similar to these. Airtag - Rubber Holder Lastly from the various real world tests I've read / videos watched, don't expect great things from an Airtag / Smart Tag as a tracker. That didn't stop me putting one on my bike (two actually, one easily found, one well buried) as like you I already had them, but I treat it as a 'well it's got to help' rather than something I'll be relying on.

Excellent and I’d like to see more prosecution of importers & dealers selling helmets and clothing that are substandard, counterfeit or with incorrect safety claims etc etc. I’ve seen reports of Trading Standards visiting show, but this is the first I’ve heard about the DVSA getting involved and getting a good result with it. Good.

The road markings, although well worn when the snip below from Google Maps was taken, and there are, (or at least were three of them), but it looks clear enough. The inside lane can be used for both turning left and going straight ahead and if I was a stranger to the area I'd be using the inside lane as well. HOWEVER. Exhibit A My Lord In my old home town of Bridgnorth there's a roundabout (we've got more than one now, but when I was a kid it was the only roundabout in town), but as you come into town everyone who was turning left, then 100yrds later turning right to go over the bridge used the RH lane to turn left. It was just easier for the flow of traffic to get into the dedicated bridge turn off quickly as it saved people slowing down or stopping and 'pushing in' to the traffic already queuing and thus keeping the through traffic moving. The council eventually also saw the logic and we got LH turn arrows in both lanes as you approach the roundabout. Great it made it official and the locals know to be in the wrong lane to turn left. Not great as there are only one set of road markings and they're painted on the road and right on the junction. Get someone stopped on top of them, you can't see them, and even when you can it confuses the hell out of visitors. I suppose what I'm getting to is that sometimes, whilst yes you are in the right, sometimes it pays to go with the local flow even if that seems wrong to you.

I think this is true of trades shows and exhibitions generally. Pre internet it was the way industry launched new products, showed it wares and generally waved the flag, and the punters came flocking through the doors. Now, and these exhibitions are so expensive to attend, man and monitor the value of. £5000 to £10,000 for a basic shell scheme isn't unusual, and that's before you 'hire' electric sockets, lights or create posters. As for the big open stands the say Honda need to host 20 motorcycles you can sit on plus all the other 'stuff' needed. You ain't going to get change for a £100k at Excel or the NEC just to rent the floor space and pay for the necessaries you need. It's little surprise many industries are turning to other means of advertising. It's worth a quick scan of the below to see how much the exhibition halls charge for the essential 'extras' https://www.thenec.co.uk/media/6998/nec-exhibition-full-order-form-printable-22-23.pdf

Possibly not to the brightest of ideas to go around videoing in a country with an oppressive regime. To us spying is secret agents meeting contacts hand over secret tapes, maybe bugs, surveillance or other dirty tricks. To Iran it's writing home to mum describing how your day went at work, let alone posting the aforementioned videos on social media.

I see where you're coming from, but the real world ain't a level playing field of democracy, tolerance and the freedom we enjoy in our corner of Europe. Travel out of that bubble and you're dealing with different rules, values and attitudes. Iran is one of those places and the Foreign Office advise is very clear; it advises against all travel to Iran.