klingelton

stay away from halfrauds if possible - they charge £8 a tin for stuff that can be had 1/2 the money on amazon or wemoto.

sounds like you're doing everything you can thus far. give your bike a good clean with some soapy water and get into as many of the nooks and crannies as you can get into. Once dry, spray all exposed engine components (excluding brakes, tyres and paintwork!) with a liberal coating of ACF50 and allow to dry on. Over the course of winter, clean off crap on your painted areas using the soapy water route. Ensure all your reflectors and lights are clear of grime and build up. about once a month, remove your brake pads from the calipers and give a clean down with brake cleaner, making sure the grooves are clear of road debris and brake dust. Shouldn't take too long to do that. finally, ensure the chain is at the correct tension by measuring the deflection from a fixed point on your bike. generally the middle of the swing arm. it should say in your haynes manual what the optimum is, but it's generally about 30mm. if it's any more, crank up your rear wheel on a paddock stand, crack off the rear wheel nut and the nuts on the adjuster (poking out the rear of the swing arm. Use the flats of the bolts to measure how many turns you're making (keeps the rear wheel in the alignment you're currently in). measure several times throughout this process until your deflection is within parameter. After that's done, tighten your rear wheel bolt again to the recommended Nm in your haynes. if your rear brake is not hydraulic, you will need to modify this as well. check the deflection one final time (it can shift when you tighten the rear wheel). finally clean the chain using a decent chain cleaner and a rag or a specific nylon chain brush. do not use a wire brush as this will damage the seals. spray with lube on both sides of the chain and give a coating of chain wax (brilliant in this crappy weather). might be worth looking at lubing your clutch and throttle cables as well. stitch in time. get a tin of clutch lube and the attachment (few quid on amazon). take your clutch cable off at the lever end (probably 1 bolt to undo) then attach the attachment doohickey. spray liberally until it comes out the other end of the cable. re-attach to the bike and clean up the mess you just made. (should take about 10 mins). all in all, this will take you an afternoon's work, but your bike will thank you for it. adjusting chain tension is frightening the first time you do it, but after that, it's really easy and will save you £30 asking a mechanic to do it. edit: added paintwork as a place not to spray acf50!

tbh, i didn't think the fuel pump on a YBR was much of a consumable part. I stayed away from mine!

spotted these this morning. if it wasn't for MCN doing an offer where you buy 6 months and get a set of these for nowt, i'd consider this. buuuuuut - the yorkshire man in me has spoken and i will be using the freebie!

NOTD goes to the chap in a car this morning that pulled out into a hashed area with no indication (there was a right turn up ahead, but about 20 meters up ahead, and associated filter lane) straight in front of me while i was filtering. he waited until i was upon him to do that, so i'm convinced he did it deliberately as he stopped in the hashed area. When i passed him (revved engine!) he gave me the single finger salute and was mouthing "f**k off" at me. Obviously an old timer who beleives that filtering in slow moving/stationary traffic on the hashes is illegal and decided to police the roads himself. Wanted to make spider patterns in the glass of his wing mirror using my fist, but decided to rise above it instead. What a plonker!

mine pong a bit after a heavy dowsing of the rain. I'm a bit of a sweaty bugger though.

I enjoyed the mod1. But then I enjoy slow riding as much as quick anyway.

looks like someone is going to be getting an order from me soon!

I think he would be hopping to you at best That's the joke!wolfcastle voice>

What? at 95? I would put my hand up and say that probably counts as an undertake! Naa, making safe progress, officer!

it's your own skin, wear what you want. When you break your leg, don't come running to me! I have a pair of kevlar jeans. They're a nice alternative to textiles or leathers on a warm day. Would i wear them year round? not a chance! I like to be warm!

so such thing as an undertake. you were safely passing on the left

They seem to be out in force at the moment, not sure why - maybe the colder weather is making people sleepy at the wheel. over the last week, i've had more than a few "nobs of the day". Woman on bullerthorpe lane who rolled up behind a parked british gas van on her side of the road, then threw her arms about gesticulating wildly that i had the audacity to ride in the centre of my lane so she couldn't push past (the road wasn't wide enough for 2 vehicles and a bike. "biker" in his car that day who went through a red light then shouted abuse at me, tried to be my pillion passenger by driving so close and twice trying to inappropriately over take when i was riding at (or just below) the posted 30mph limit. his excuse for all this behaviour was that I should always give way to the right on a round about (he was queuing in traffic when I filtered around him). If that was you and you're on this forum, you're a twunt (probably not on this forum because everyone her is ace) Fella this morning in a car on a NSL road who pulled out on me, then gave me a "single finger apology" when I tooted to warn of my approach. There's been numerous others (some of which I could learn from, filtering to the front of a queue waiting to go round temp road works, don't rely on the car to check their blind spot before moving out to pass the obstruction, 60% my fault, 40% hers. silly me)

sand back the old crap and respray it. elbow grease and patience!

carbs or fuel injectors? Could be anyone of many things. first thing to check is the fuelling though.

Chin up, learning experience! Good luck for the next crack!

Just a moron who thinks filtering is illegal and must police the road.

next time, keep it in your pants

PMR radios are not great for bike to bike as they tend to sound rubbish at higher speeds. £30-£40 will compound the problem further. The range is 6km in clear sight, but put a chap reading the paper inbetween and you're going to see the range reduced to all of about 40cm. best advice - save your money up and buy scala rider - or other similar kit.

ask the examiner if you have any questions or concerns about where you're supposed to go. Don't assume anything. breathe and remember your life savers (both shoulders). remember your life savers when pulling out of the parking space. Breathe. Don't panic. Don't be nervous. If you are nervous, take a couple of deep breaths! Mod 1 isn't that tricky.

couple of them this morning. Two lanes turning right up ahead, learner has right turn signal on and positioned in the left lane. around the corner is a traffic light. just before arriving at the red traffic light, the learner changes lane quickly. obviously not checking the mirror, or checking their blind spot (where they'd have seen me). fortunately I wasn't going quickly (learner driver, anticipate they do something stupid) however I feel that the learner was not the one at fault. It was entirely the teachers fault. I caught it on my helmet camera, so I may well post the video to the tube of you this evening. Second was a chap that pulled out on me on a round about. so I tooted him. so he gave me an earful about how to use roundabouts and what the horn is for. Lovely gentleman.

go to amazon or feebay for your haynes manual. There should be plenty available for a ybr125 at 1/2 retail (or less). the haynes for the ybr125 is pretty good, although it goes into alot of detail about one specific iteration of the ybr, which bares little resemblance to the one we know and love in this country. I miss my 125

I know your pain! if you go to a motorcycle show, they quite often have stalls with last years stock on for cheap prices. A friend of mine picked up some SPADA gloves from one for about £20, bargain of the century!

you need to be able to try them on, mate. Ill-fitting gloves are amongst the most uncomfortable things in life, along with syphillis and watching a sex scene in a film with your parents in the room.

You can do as much or as little as you want. Get a Haynes manual and give it a read. I will tackle a 3 spanner job with the trusty Haynes as a guide. Most the standard maintenance are 2 spanners or less! Only thing I haven't done yet is valve clearances.