pumilio

Me for one!! I lost this thread for a while (distracted by work recently) but I think I can make the trip - should be awesome and will be a chance to ride in scotland. Friday, August 22nd - with my memory I had to scan the previous thread pages to resolve the month. Sounds great. It is around 450ish miles from Manchester to JOG - I'd be interested in riding up with anyone passing near Manchester/peaks/lake district. I'm thinking 2 days for me to get up there so leaving on Wednesday the 20th...

omg add beemer to the poll!!

Individually in a sequence - you'd bounce instead of roll down the road if it was the other way!

Think I can probably do this and will sign up without confirming for now. With wife, kids, and potential for moving house between now and then I will have to wait until nearer to the time to know for sure!

You'd think this would be a standard practice! 8)

Sounds like a fun night - good luck but I am afraid the ankle biters will keep me from attending.

Looking at your pics, and I am no motorbike mechanic mind you, I'd say that as they go on the bike, the direction arrows on the tires refer to the orientation of the tire RELATIVE to the bike. So, if you look at http://vatzeque.neostrada.pl/conti4.jpg The tire marked with the "rear" arrow is correct if the front of the bike is facing to the left of the picture (with the tire rotated around the hub 180 degrees so that the word "rear" is upright, of course). The tire marked "front" however is not facing the right way according to the arrow - it needs to be rotated on the upright axis before mounting so that the arrow points the opposite direction. That way, the treads are facing in the same direction and, to my eye, appropriately for shedding water at speed! G'luck to ya!

Sounds interesting and the timing would be pretty good for us. Has anyone from here gone to this with kids?

*nod* red

Oh dear.

Righty tighty, lefty loosey!

Quite tempting... I reckon my poor 125 would have a rough time keeping up though!

http://www.ironbuttuk.org/id13.html I'm thinking of doing this - anyone interested?

I hit a vulture feeding on road kill once in Arizona Scary as hell and cracked the windscreen!!

If you want to do the job yourself, the first thing I would try is to get the next smallest size socket than fits and tap in on with a hammer until you can get it to bite (at the same time you might try something like liquid wrench or wd40, if necessary, along with trying to heat up the nut with a small handheld blowtorch). If that doesn't work, you can buy special sockets (called "bolt grippers" in the US, not sure here) for removing rounded nuts that bite into the rounded edges. Last, you can try splitting the nut off (you'll want to replace it anyway) with a bolt splitter. Good luck!

I could make time to do this and would love to come along

Sit on a variety of bikes, read reviews, etc. If you are worried about choosing "the perfect" bike (assuming you have a non-unlimited budget), definitely consider buying a used bike for your first bike. It will make it a lot less expensive trading up once you've tried a particular bike for a while and decide you want a change. I voted bandit as a first bike - it gets great reviews as an all-rounder for a first big bike, is cheap to buy a low mileage, late model, used one (cheap new too, especially this time of year), etc. I bought a bandit as my first big bike after short listing many of the same ones you have. Definitely have a think about how you'll use the bike most, like whether you need/want a fairing. Finally, ignore the boy-racers (everyone else does ) and choose what you want!

I notice that the sex ratio of attendees to the Xmas party is female biased...

I think that would look good.

B L A C K!!

Tempting as I itch to buy G E A R...

Thanks all - motorbike oil it is!

This might be a slightly retarded question... I have checked my oil a few times and think it needs a topping up but I am not sure what kind I should use (lol). The manual specifies many weights, but 10w-40 seems like the best fit and has a wide average for the winter temps where I live. My question is should I use car oil or oil specific to motorbikes. I realize from a bit of surfing that this is kind of a loaded question for some who swear synthetic motorbike oil is the only thing you should use; others say any decent oil is fine (so I read in places like here http://www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/Oils1.html)... I don't really want to read a book about bike oil, just a little advice about what to use and where to buy keeping in mind this is for a Honda CG125 under moderate use in traffic. Thanks in advance!

Looks like fun - I'd come along 8)

I am interested - I'd absolutely love the chance to ride around Europe. It would depend a little on the dates for me when the time comes. *shout to wife* THEY'RE PLANNING A FRIENDLY RIDE AROUND EUROPE... A HYABUSA IS REQUIRED SO I'LL HAVE TO BE GETTING ONE