What did you do WITH your bike today.

[Tiggie]

Not ideal but it did the job for me once when mine snapped 

 

[Ian Frog]

Tsk Tsk creases in the tape reveals a shoddy job ! (what passes for paddock humour lol)

Cheers

Ian

[bonio]

Clutchless changes saved me when mine snapped. Only issue was red lights: I somehow managed to stall the bike and start it again in gear. Not ideal but it got me home.

[Fish]

I was a little bit naughty today. I paid a visit to J&S as I am looking at luggage options for an upcoming trip to Portugal. I could take the Tracer 700 that already has some Kappasport (Givi copies) hard panniers, but I'd rather take the XSR900.

 

So I had a look at the Kriega OS Base with an option to use the OS-18 bags. But £330 for something that I am likely to use once seems a little steep in my tightarsed mind.

 

I've ended up ordering the Rhinowalk universal saddle mount and a couple of the 20l bags, which are all on special via Amazon, which I just happen to have some vouchers for. All for £99 delivered. Once they arrive on Wednesday I'll be setting it up and making sure it works. 

[Stu]

On 31/08/2024 at 15:45, bonio said:

Clutchless changes saved me when mine snapped. Only issue was red lights: I somehow managed to stall the bike and start it again in gear. Not ideal but it got me home.

 

I did exactly the same when one of mine snapped many years ago! 

[AstronautNinja]

39 minutes ago, Stu said:

 

I did exactly the same when one of mine snapped many years ago! 

My party trick as a teenager was stamping my 50 into gear with a fag in my mouth whilst carrying a red bull. Not sure if this translates to naughties+ transmissions but I imagine a clutch is still a clutch

[Throttled]

This is more what I am about to do with my bike in a couple of days. What with this year being rubbish weather and low mileage, I will be, for the first time, going glamping. I cannot risk a tent, so a pod it is. It's got electricity and if the weather turns, I will be OK. So, Lossiemouth it is. Not many challenge tags in the area, but I have only been along that coast once and hardly stopped. I have ordered a camping kettle that looks like a flask and will take some food I can just open up and eat. And some beers. A friend loves the site because it is next to RAF Lossiemouth and there are lots of planes to watch.

[Trooper74]

It’s fixed ….

[ColinWB]

Maybe I should start taking photos on my rides and post them in the "ride reports an photographs" threads. I don't take my camera with me, though. But until then, I only have words lol.

 

I set off from Gourock around 10am to got to Tighnabruaich (try remember how to sell that at ay time of the day). Gourock to the Erskine Bridge avoiding motorways, uneventful, as it was until the traffic got stuck behind the truck on the road up Loch Lomond side. The truck driver knew just how fast to go to prevent anyone overtaking, so the queue grew and grew and grew. All the way from Dumbarton to the Rest and be Thankful. There are roadworks there, so I was able to pass the truck and a mile of queuing traffic to get trough the lights before they turned red again . After that wee bit of frustration and buffeting from the truck after I leapfrogged the cars and got stuck behind it, it was basically a clear road to Tighnabruaich. If you accept my choice of the coastal road instead of the direct road. Potholes and puddles on the coastal road, the centre being alternately grass, gravel and moss, with the occasional dropped branch, dog walker, hiker and the odd (Audi!) car coming the other way on a single track road with passing places. Oh, it was wet too. Character building.

 

Lunch at The Tearoom in Tighnabruaich, where the lady serving was also the cook, having baked the scones and cakes before opening. She was remarkably good humoured doing it all single handed because her assistant had called in sick, and the food was great too. Huge kudos to her. The forecast was sunshine all day. Eh, no, it chucked it down big time when I was eating lunch. For half an hour! So I had an extra cappuccino, dried my set and set off for the return by the shorter route via the ferry from Hunters Quay, with a run down to Toward Lighthouse thrown in just because it was there. That route took me over the loggers road which had some steep downhills with sharp bends in light showers- so two muppets in 4x4s decided the best place to pass me was on the z-bends near the bottom . Let's say I'm glad I don't drive an Audi .

 

On the ferry to Gourock from Hunters Quay another two bikers chatted away. They'd been to Campbeltown, starting off from Inverclyde like me, though they rode Yamaha Tracer 900s, a wee bit bigger than my Honda 125 . All told, a great day out, 143 miles round trip.

[Simon Davey]

Fantastic report, so detailed as always 

Character building, but skill building too. 

[bonio]

Spent most of the day following @Essexboy, me on the 400 trying to keep up with his MS 1260. We stuck to back roads and single track lanes and had dry weather and great riding through south Suffolk, down into Essex and on to the Original Tea Hut in Epping Forest for lunch. Even though it's inside the M25, it's still the middle of a forest which means there's no reception and all transactions are Cash Only . All we could rustle up was one £10 note between us, so it was no lavish feast. 

To add a bit of pantomime to the morning, I fell off doing a U turn. The air vest went off like a balloon, but the bike and I were fine. Bit of a nob moment. 

200+ miles. Completely knackered now. 

 

[AstronautNinja]

8 minutes ago, bonio said:

Spent most of the day following @Essexboy, me on the 400 trying to keep up with his MS 1260. We stuck to back roads and single track lanes and had dry weather and great riding through south Suffolk, down into Essex and on to the Original Tea Hut in Epping Forest for lunch. Even though it's inside the M25, it's still the middle of a forest which means there's no reception and all transactions are Cash Only . All we could rustle up was one £10 note between us, so it was no lavish feast. 

To add a bit of pantomime to the morning, I fell off doing a U turn. The air vest went off like a balloon, but the bike and I were fine. Bit of a nob moment. 

200+ miles. Completely knackered now. 

 

What's price on an air cartridge replenishment? Is it co2? I'm guessing one wouldn't want actual oxygen / nitrogen 

[RideWithStyles]

Most likely will be co2, depends on the model but but more than likely the old paint ball gun pistols mini cylinder back in the day or BB guns, or more commonly used in modern day for the drug heads… cheap really but depends on the unit of how priority the maker wanted to be I.e raping the owner of even more money after purchasing.

[bonio]

23 minutes ago, AstronautNinja said:

What's price on an air cartridge replenishment? Is it co2? I'm guessing one wouldn't want actual oxygen / nitrogen 

CO2. Currently on offer from Sportsbikeshop for £19.

[AstronautNinja]

1 hour ago, RideWithStyles said:

Most likely will be co2, depends on the model but but more than likely the old paint ball gun pistols mini cylinder back in the day or BB guns, or more commonly used in modern day for the drug heads… cheap really but depends on the unit of how priority the maker wanted to be I.e raping the owner of even more money after purchasing.

Isn't it nitrous oxide used recreationally? Don't think inhaling co2 would do much 

[ColinWB]

4 hours ago, bonio said:

Spent most of the day following @Essexboy, me on the 400 trying to keep up with his MS 1260. We stuck to back roads and single track lanes and had dry weather and great riding through south Suffolk, down into Essex and on to the Original Tea Hut in Epping Forest for lunch. Even though it's inside the M25, it's still the middle of a forest which means there's no reception and all transactions are Cash Only . All we could rustle up was one £10 note between us, so it was no lavish feast. 

To add a bit of pantomime to the morning, I fell off doing a U turn. The air vest went off like a balloon, but the bike and I were fine. Bit of a nob moment. 

200+ miles. Completely knackered now. 

 

Apologies @bonio, you've been so helpful to me with your comments, the vision of you with the air vest inflated around you is comic genius . Particularly doing a U turn, that's my weakness too!

[ColinWB]

20 hours ago, Simon Davey said:

Fantastic report, so detailed as always 

Character building, but skill building too. 

I have become more vigilant since I started riding my bike. And I have to say I have recognised bad traits in me as a car driver too, so it has improved me as a car driver.

[Essexboy]

8 hours ago, bonio said:

Spent most of the day following @Essexboy, me on the 400 trying to keep up with his MS 1260. We stuck to back roads and single track lanes and had dry weather and great riding through south Suffolk, down into Essex and on to the Original Tea Hut in Epping Forest for lunch. Even though it's inside the M25, it's still the middle of a forest which means there's no reception and all transactions are Cash Only . All we could rustle up was one £10 note between us, so it was no lavish feast. 

To add a bit of pantomime to the morning, I fell off doing a U turn. The air vest went off like a balloon, but the bike and I were fine. Bit of a nob moment. 

200+ miles. Completely knackered now. 

 

The airbag moment wasn't unlike an Incredible Hulk metamorphosis from Dr. Banner......

[bonio]

1 hour ago, Essexboy said:

The airbag moment wasn't unlike an Incredible Hulk metamorphosis from Dr. Banner......

Quote

Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak, socially withdrawn, and emotionally reserved physicist

Oi mate. Tread carefully. No one calls me a physicist. 

[Tinkicker]

A nice little ride out on the VFR around Elvington/ York area this morning. 

 

On my way back to Selby, I called in the Strawberry Fields Cafe.  It is on the A19 at Crockey Hill.

 

I don't normally "do" bikers cafes, but since I was passing..... I stopped in for a frothy coffee.  Rude not to.

 

11am on a Friday morning and there were perhaps 20 bikes there.  From what I have seen when passing previously, that seems to be the norm.  It is not a massive bikers haunt with hundreds of bikes parked up.  I would have shuddered and rode on by if it was.  Hate poseur places.

 

Strawberry fields just seems to be a biker friendly place, run by from what I witnessed, a biking family and a place to drop by for a quick butty on your way somewhere else;  not spend all day strutting around in baggy arsed one piece leathers.  I have even seen hardy bikers parked there on a wet winter Saturday afternoon.

 

A shit pic taken furtively.  I did not take a pic of the bikes lined up because it would be wrong to photo their reg plates.  Coffee was OK.  Not fantastic, but frothy and drinkable.  I am on holiday again next week, and given the shennanigans I had while sampling cafe food during my last week off, I gave the burger in a bun a miss.

 

Edited September 6, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Throttled]

Rode Elgin to Erskine, 205 miles, on a tank, with the bike telling me it still has 95 miles to empty. There is a lot to be said for average speed cameras on the A9. It took 5 1/2 hours with two stops.

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

Set off home after looking after our granddaughter and my headlight blew at the end of their road.  Not a nice journey home on unlit rural lanes with only either full beam or nothing. 

[Throttled]

17 hours ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

Set off home after looking after our granddaughter and my headlight blew at the end of their road.  Not a nice journey home on unlit rural lanes with only either full beam or nothing. 

 

I had that last year. Fort William, through Glen Coe and home on main beam or the running lights. Right hand turns down Loch Lomond side were not much fun.

[Fiddlesticks]

1 hour ago, Throttled said:

 

I had that last year. Fort William, through Glen Coe and home on main beam or the running lights. Right hand turns down Loch Lomond side were not much fun.

Yes. Going across the Holy Island Causeway with the tide mostly out. We couldn't quite see, but toes got a bit wet. Turned out to be a corroded plug buried deep under the tank.

[ColinWB]

A wee ride down the coast to Ayr. Not to see the Ayr Festival of Flight but just for fun. It was a beautiful sunny day all the way down, very busy in Largs for the Viking Festival with lots of start-stop mostly due to pedestrians wandering willy-nilly across the road. Anyway, I got through safely (nob of the day happened n Inverclyde so he was well out my system by the time I got to Largs). I decided to go back up the road via the A77, so had to go onto the old road when it became the M77. But before that I stopped at the Dutch House Roundabout services for toilet and a snack - M&S Best Ever prawn sandwich, slice of cake and a large coffee for £6 - bargain as far as I'm concerned.

Going up the A77 after that I spied a foursome of motorbike cops going the other way. Don't now why but I was surprised when all 4 of them gave me a nod. Then the two following on about 5 minutes behind. Onto the old A77 and it was almost deserted until I got to Newton Mearns, but even then it was very light traffic. Back to Inverclyde via Nitshill and Paisley with a stop in Bishopton to watch a rugby match.

That journey took me through the 1000 miles mark, actually 1120 miles if truth be told. I'm a happy biker 

Edited September 7, 2024 by ColinWB
Couldn't spell Ayr properly!