What did you do to your bike today?

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

17 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

I find that if I use the E5 stuff I get maybe 1-2 mpg more. Don't know if it's the fuel or the sort of riding I tend to do after taking this fuel.

I was talking with a guy whose background is engineering at a serious level. He told me something I hadn't thought of.

 

In my cars I find E5 gives me more mpg because the engine management systems can adjust the ignition to make use of the different burn characteristics of E5.

 

Bikes don't have the same knock sensors so usually you'd expect there to be no discernable difference.  But my hunch has been that my Bobber runs better on E10 than E5. I fill it with E5 in the winter when it doesn't get ridden as much. There's no difference in mpg, but is my feeling that it prefers E10 subjective or is there any evidence to say it might be true ?

 

He pointed out that E5 has a slower burn characteristic, the Bobber is designed for lower octane fuel which burns quicker. So if it gets high octane fuel the engine might actually lose a bit of power. 

 

On the Bobber forum some guys who have had running problems have found that if they switch to lower octane fuel the problem disappears. 

 

I'll still use E5 in the winter. But for summer riding I'm sticking with E10. There seems to be some evidence it works better in the Triumph engine. 

 

 

[Gerontious]

I prefer E40 to E65 if it’s a good cask strength. That reminds me I’m down to a single bottle of Asbach. And that will never do.

 

seriously it’s not something I think about. Though I was shocked yesterday when I considered the implications of thinking that £1.41 was a good price for petrol!!!

 

to think that the fuel protests were when it reached 85p and it was like the end of the world!!!

Edited June 8, 2023 by Gerontious

[S-Westerly]

I paId 1.33 yesterday and thought Christmas had come early.

[Gerontious]

17 minutes ago, S-Westerly said:

I paId 1.33 yesterday and thought Christmas had come early.

 

While in 2009 this was the end of the world as we knew it..

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

I remember when it was less......for a gallon. 

[S-Westerly]

1 hour ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

I remember when it was less......for a gallon. 

Just thinking the same. I remember feeling outraged when it passed £1 for a gallon (June 1979 apparently) I had my first bike at the time.

Of course crude oil was around $12 a barrel rather than the roughly $80 a barrel it is now.

[Ian Frog]

Just wasted probably about half an hour trying to declare the Harley SORN.

Useless DVLA website lets you go through multiple steps before repeatedly crashing at the last stage.

Fortunately I have until the end of the month but it is frustrating when I am sure it`s not the most complicated thing to do.

Can you still make a SORN declaration at a post office as the V11 reminder doesn`t mention it and neither does the website.

Once again taxpayers money badly spent on inefficient systems.

Cheers

Ian

[skyrider]

2 hours ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

I remember when it was less......for a gallon. 

who remembers 50p a gallon 

[Mickly]

13 minutes ago, skyrider said:

who remembers 50p a gallon 

I do, I worked at the age of 15 pumping petrol at a local garage in the evenings  - sometimes on my own

No way that’d happen today.

Used to do my homework in between customers and have a fag in the office.

[fastbob]

Did an oil change . Just the main engine oil . The other two can wait for now . The sump plug came out without any drama so thanks to Ian for not over tightening it . 

The magnet on the sump plug was absolutely as clean as a whistle so more thanks are due to Ian (Frog) for selling me a good 'un . 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

1 hour ago, Mickly said:

I do, I worked at the age of 15 pumping petrol at a local garage in the evenings  - sometimes on my own

No way that’d happen today.

Used to do my homework in between customers and have a fag in the office.

Same here. That was back in the 70's. We sold used cars as well and had a workshop. When the pumps were quiet I'd go into the workshop and learn how to work on cars. The guy who owned it tried selling motorbikes as well but that side of things never took off. But I got to sit on my first bike there. 

I remember the winters were freezing as we had no heating. Platform shoes were great when it was cold. 

[Yorky]

Bit of a theme going on here. I also used to work on the forecourts in order to top up my apprenticeship wage so that I could afford a bike.

Petrol then, pre-decimal, was around 6s6d a GALLON, so you could get 3 gallons for less than £1.00

[Tinkicker]

Too young for the 6 7/8ths typeof money.  However I recall at 16, a gallon of two star and a shot of two stroke oil into the tank of my fizzie at 20:1 from a small portable oil pump.  It cost exactly £1 at my local Esso garage.  The garage was full service at the time and an old guy in a brown smock would saunter out and do the doings while regaling me with tales of derring do as a young man on his 197cc villiers engined franny barnett.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bonio]

21 hours ago, skyrider said:

who remembers 50p a gallon 

That's when my Dad said enough is enough and he sold the gas guzzler for something cheaper to run. I think it was a TR7

[Gerontious]

55 minutes ago, bonio said:

That's when my Dad said enough is enough and he sold the gas guzzler for something cheaper to run. I think it was a TR7

 

Definitely the end of the world.

 

Today I did nothing to the bike beyond checking it was still there. unsurprisingly, it was. (is)

Another night shift tonight with the perpetually bewildered. (sigh)

Edited June 9, 2023 by Gerontious

[Fish]

When I started driving all those years ago, petrol was around 38p a litre. If only my wages had increased as much at that stuff has.

[Stu]

MOT passed today with flying colours  

 

[Bender]

Early fin today, got battery back on, fired up instantly yeay, got it booked in for mot.

[billy sugger]

Cleaned and repainted the left hand footrest hanger, then sanded down the front screen area ready to repaint because it looked like it has been sandblasted in some areas so was an eyesore 

[Bianco2564]

On 07/06/2023 at 19:55, Bianco2564 said:

Decided to give super unleaded a go in the Ninja, just to see if the negative hype about e10 giving worse mpg is true.

The Kwak is averaging low 80s mpg regularly, fill up tonight was just under 84mpg.

 

Filled the Kwak back up tonight, was it more economical?

I'd say yes, when using e10, the low fuel would routinely light up on the return journey home on day 4 and tonight it didn't, got all the way back to Rugby Sainsburys, 229 miles in total.

Crunched the numbers and it had returned just under 86mpg ,around 2mpg improvement on the last run.

Was it worth paying 7p a litre more for? Cost me 50p more to do the same journey, so no.

Did it run any better?  Nope, no discernible difference.

 

[S-Westerly]

Rode it to Barnard Castle. The plan was to have fun. Didn't quite work out. Stuck on M5 for 1.5 hrs due to accident road fully closed. So cancelled Welsh borders and decided to do Cheshire instead. Stationary traffic on M6 so bailed out of Cheshire and dived into services for lunch. Not very good and expensive as always.

Stuck on motorway to Preston then started to take pleasure in life. Settle, Ribblehead, Hawes, Buttertub Pass, The Stang and Barney. Good roads, very little traffic but demented sheep on the moors. Warm too so glad I was wearing summer jacket - Klim Marrakesh.Can't see it but air ambulance just landed.

Ribblehead Viaduct

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

8 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

Rode it to Barnard Castle. The plan was to have fun. Didn't quite work out. Stuck on M5 for 1.5 hrs due to accident road fully closed. So cancelled Welsh borders and decided to do Cheshire instead. Stationary traffic on M6 so bailed out of Cheshire and dived into services for lunch. Not very good and expensive as always.

Stuck on motorway to Preston then started to take pleasure in life. Settle, Ribblehead, Hawes, Buttertub Pass, The Stang and Barney. Good roads, very little traffic but demented sheep on the moors. Warm too so glad I was wearing summer jacket - Klim Marrakesh.Can't see it but air ambulance just landed.

Ribblehead Viaduct

You could have had lunch at our place. Much nicer than a M6 service station. 

[S-Westerly]

1 hour ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

You could have had lunch at our place. Much nicer than a M6 service station. 

The only decent one is Tebay and that's a bit far out of the way. I guess I wouldn't have been far from your neck of the woods while grinding up the M6. Hadn't realised it was fully camera controlled now. Makes for a boring old ride.

[S-Westerly]

Rode across the moors from Teesdale to the Tyne Valley. A few bikers about but bloody hell the sheep are a menace! Several emergency braking exercises and swerves - I couldn't care less about the wooly fuckwits but hitting one at speed is unlikely to end well for me. bast*rds. 

[Capt Sisko]

Washed the bugs off the bike. Nothing special in that you might say, but that was after completing the RBLR 1000 Iron Butt Ride (1,000miles in less than 24hrs - which by the time you include the ride to start & back was nearer 1,500miles in less than 48hrs). As you can imagine the layer of splattered bugs was deep and crisp and even.