Capt Sisko

The .Gov advice is not to go to Iran and in the BBC TV News article I watched about it they mentioned that simply having a British passport can be enough to get you detained. With what's going on in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, the whole area ought to be out of bounds to a sensible traveler. It might be a long way out of your way, but ferries, train and other routes are usually available to avoid these hot spot.

I've got to admit that I pulled over, took the seat off and checked to see if I'd done that as well. 1st World Problems.

I had to investigate an absolute disaster. The heated seat stopped working! I mean if it wasn't for the dirty great big fairing & screen on my R1250RT that diverts most of the cold air away from you, the heated grips, my heated vest, trousers, insoles and gloves, then several woolly layers and a GoreTex suit I might have got cold. It was only a broken connector and BMW relieved me of £22 for a new cable, but at least my nether regions will be warm.

Things stuck to the outside of your helmet are also noisy. I hadn't really appreciated that until I took off the Sena 50R that was fitted to the side of my helmet and swapped to the built in SRL system on my Neotec II. The reduction in wind noise in my left ear was really quite significant.

Reading your previous posts it's pretty obvious you have no mechanical knowledge. Now that's not your fault, we've all had to learn and good on you for taking those first steps, however a throttle body is a seriously important link in the control of a motorcycle and not to be messed with by the inexperienced. Sorry if that's putting it a bit blunt, but screw it up, the throttle jams open whilst you're riding and you're in a world of deep shit. If you have a problem with it which isn't very obvious (which we've got to assume is the case otherwise you wouldn't be asking), best to either let a mechanic or someone with a lot more experience take a look at it. BTW, what was the problem with your starter motor?

100% Agree with the above. I bought a Innovv K3 system about four years ago, transferred it from my old bike to the new about three years ago and aside from the 3rd party SD card getting corrupted about six months ago it's worked perfectly. Dead easy to install, no drilling or bike modifications necessary and hard wired so it comes on with the ignition. It's been snowed on, rained on and baked on on 40c temperatures. They are expensive but if you can find a used one on ebay or wherever, buy it.

Been there, seen it, got pissed off by the lack of progress. Yes, you have to pay for the French 'Peage' system, but that keeps a lot of the local, 'I'll just nip down two junctions', traffic off it, plus of course HGV's are banned from using them between certain hours in the summer at weekend & bank holidays. This makes traveling long distances far more efficient than on UK motorways. As I look at it, I'm heading to the Alps, Provence or wherever, not sightseeing through the miles & miles of boring wheat fields of northern France. Anyone who's done that run back to Calais from the south will know exactly what I mean by that. You run out of 'I Spy' things to guess!

It's not the actual mpg that's important on a bike used for distances, it's the combination of mpg and the size of the tank, i.e. your real word range. On the French motorways you can usually sit quite happily at their limit of 130 km/h (81 mph) but at those speeds your mpg is going to take a hammering. 40mpg x 4 gallons gives you a theoretical 160miles, in practice you'll be looking for fuel every 120 to 130 (or whatever your comfort zone is). If you're on your own and don't mind that, fine, but if your riding mate's bikes will happily do 200miles between refuels they ain't going to be impressed. Don't get me wrong that GSX-S1000GT is going to be a great bike when you're down in the Alps, way better than any lardy tourer, but if you're taking the direct motorway drag there & back the tank range may be a bit irksome.

The review below seems a fairly honest, but low 40s mpg and a 19l tank (just under 4.2 gallons) ain't a good recipe for efficient touring. https://fliesonthevisor.com/suzuki-gsx-s1000gt-road-test-part-three/

Just going off topic a little, but the built in battery in my Sena 50R lasted about 3 years before it died. According to Sena it's not replaceable, but I found one* via Aliexpress (and with a slightly bigger mAh capacity). It came to about £10 all in so I took a punt. Three weeks later and it turned up in the post. A bit of careful disassembly & reassembly, all in half an hours work, and it worked! *There are two types of connectors (two or three wires) and you won't know which you'll need until you've opened the unit up, but it's pretty straight forward and if clumsy big hands here can do it, anyone can.

The obvious answer given your height is to recommend a big adventure bike and your choice is wide & varied, but you've obviously ridden physically small bikes before and fitted them okay. Up to you, however there is a new generation of 'tallrounders' that have hit the scene in recent years that sound right up your street. Most of them are very modern in terms of looks & tech and it's difficult to find a dud amongst them. To chuck my pennies worth in, to start you off I'd go recent but second hand 750(ish) bike, decent low down pulling power rather than a need to keep it in the power band type engine. Something like a Suzuki V-Strom 800RE, Honda NC750X or similar. New & modern enough to have the tech & toys, enough power for day to day use but not so powerful that'll frighten you. If in a year or so's time the bug has bitten and you've learned what works (or doesn't) for you, you'll get a good PX on it. That's essentially what I did when I got back into bikes. I bought an low mileage BMW F800GT, (great bike but ultimately physically to small for me), then having figured out what I did and didn't like bought a R1250RT. IMPORTANT. Take a couple of lessons. I'm not recommending an IAM or ROSPA course at the moment (but putting my IAM Observers hat on, long term they are a good thing to do), instead find a local bike school, tell them your state of play and say you'd like a ride out or two with constructive criticism. We've all picked up our bad habits, forgotten some of the basics and having a trained eye point out these might feel like they're being picky, but it ain't a bad thing to be reminded about whilst also getting pointers that will improve your riding generally. Good luck and welcome back to the fold.

Remember even Christopher Columbus had a couple of goes around the harbour first. Those things you're worried about will come natural and that by riding in the bad weather you're building a skill that many fair weather bikers just don't acquire. Those sunny days will soon be back and you’ll be way ahead of the rusty put it away for the winter guys & gals. Just a thought. The B bit in CBT stands for basic and whilst I’m not advocating you take an IAM, ROSPA course or anything like that, going back to your training school and getting a few real world riding lessons ain’t a bad thing to do. Tell them no, at this stage I’m not looking to take my test, just looking to improve my bike handling, awareness and general road skills. Without the pressure of knowing there's a test and accepting that mistakes are there to be learned from, you’ll be more relaxed and probably take a lot more in. Keep up the good work.

The famous photographer Chase Jarvis once said “The best camera is the one that's with you." The same applies to bike locks. It's no good buying a chain that's more suitable for anchoring the Queen Mary if the thing’s too damned heavy to carry around with you. It's always going to a be a compromise and if a professional thief wants you bike they'll take it regardless, but the lump hammer & disc cutter mob are more likely to look elsewhere if you have something looking at least half decent securing your bike.

Insurance Groups. Weird or what! https://themotorbikeforum.co.uk/topic/52412-insurance-groups/

If you do go down the disc lock route, don't forget to buy (and use) one of the curly cable reminders. Disc Lock Reminder Cable

Make sure you've read up about them, know what to look for and what questions to ask. Pretty they certainly are, but the early ones don't have the best of reputations for reliability.

See it through the eyes of the insurance industry. To you're young, inexperienced and want to ride a 90bhp / 130mph motorcycle of a type that screams use my power. You then want to ride it in one of the worlds most densly populated & congested cities (that also has a serious crime problem). Your chosen bike is only part of the equation, your job, points, previous history are all taken into account. As for why some bikes cost more to insure than others, a RE650 produced half the bhp of the Honda and has none of the expensive plastics or sensors that the Honda has. Go figure. You'd get the same silly number quotes for a Golf GTi or something similar as opposed to a Kia Sandero. The bottom line is it's nothing personal, it's just the number & combination of factors counting against you. To the insurance company you represent a serious risk and they look at it as not, will this client be making a claim, but when. I sincearly hope you don't but their statistical model will suggest otherwise. It's also nothing new. At 19 I had a RD400E and paid the equivalent of £650 in todays money for just TPFT. I was young, inexperienced and riding a bike that for the day was both fast and very nickable. And yes, I had a claim.

Worth a quick read as boot manufacturers can offer protection over & above the basic level of the CE standard. https://www.sportsbikeshop.co.uk/articles/advice-and-guides/motorcycle-boot-ce-markings-explained

The old term is, a picture paints a thousand words. The moderd term is, see attached PDF. Keis.pdf

On 'high' all my Keis kit is to hot. I did a ride just before Christmas, 500miles in one day and the temperature varied between 3 and 5c. None of my Keis gear, (and I was wearing the lot that day) was ever set at anything higher than medium. As I said I sit behind an enourmous fairing & screen on my BMW 1250RT so that might be a little unfair comparison, but inefficient Keis kit ain't. If you're aren't getting warm somethings wrong.

No, it doesn't work like that. In effect there are two separate electric circuits within the vest / jacket. One is for heating the jacket and the other is 'the hub' and that's designed to provide the power supply for other kit separate to whatever the jacket is set to. That's why I said the trousers, or if I'm using the insoles on their own need a separate heat controller when plugged into the hub. The sockets at the end of the jackets arms ought to be part of that 12v hub system and therefore the heat of your gloves is only controlled by their built in controllers.

Yeah, there are a lot of entitled idiots out there who have watch too many make over or bodge & sell it type TV programs and think they're experts on both motorcycles and in negotiations. Don't get me wrong, a bit of negotiation is all part of the game, but when you get to your bottom line, you stand your ground and say, no that's the deal, they then get all shirty that you're not giving in like they do in the tele. Their problem as far as I'm concerned.

The 'power hub' is designed so you only have one power socket contecting you with your bike. This is great for simplicity when getting on & off, but makes it complicated for adjusting temputaure setting as (mostly) it's one heat controller per garment. This can be right phaff and mean buying extra cables and controllers, but it does put you in control. To power my heated gloves 'the hub' (I have a vest rather than a jacket) has power output sockets under each armpit and I then have to run a cable down the inside of the sleeves of my riding jacket to connect to the gloves. I had to buy a pair of extra cables to do this. Do you need something similar to attach to the power output sockets on your jacket? With my heated trousers, there is also hub power output socket on the waistcoat, (inside at the bottom hem) however unlike gloves, the trousers don't have a built in heat controller. More expense! I also have heated insoles (bloody brilliant) and IF you've got their heated trousers you can use another power output socket they built into each trouser leg, but strangly in this case Keis have chosen to use the trousers heat controller to control the trouser legs power sockets and therefore the heat of the insoles. If you'e not wearing their heated trousers you can of course still connect the insoles to 'the hub' but that involves running the Y cable down your riding trousers and potenially buying another heat controller. That all sounds complicated and a bit of phaff, and it is, but it does work. I like warm toasty toes, but sat behind the barn door known a fairing on a R1250RT my legs are pretty well protected and it's only on the coldest of days do I need the heated trousers. For me having the options of how I plug things together and control the heat levels separately ain't a bad thing. Toasty extremities but with my core ticking over so I don't swear under my jacket works for me. Lastly if you don't want to use 'the hub' you can buy a 2 or 3-way coax cable splitter to plug into the Keis coax power cable to split the power supply so you can power separate garment independantly but still only have one main power connector coming from the bike. I've tried it this way, it works but 'the hub' is just easier.

Pity they didn't name & shame.

It's always worthwhile to keep a folder of receipts for things you've done/bought for the bike. I keep mine in two half’s, one being parts for servicing & spares (oil & filters for servicing, tyres, brake pads etc), all with dates & mileages written on them. Basically 'things' done to the bike to keep it serviced, legal and generally in good working order. The second half is for equipment I've bought for the bike. The top box, a replacement screen and other none service parts that I've fitted to make it suit me. If you sell these with the bike, fine pass the info on, if not they go into the next bikes folder or with the ever increasing, 'I'll keep that, it'll be useful one day' box. To me that folder shows to the prospecive buyer that you've cared for the bike and it's not some polished ebay turd that you're trying to flip and just make a few quid on.