The General Motorbikers Discussion Thread

[Spectre]

Nobody said that the relays in the box worked, though.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by tianluo

Just placed an order for one of these:

It's going to be my new commute bike, going to arrive early next week

Congratulations!!! i love the mp3, they are very popular here!

[KaJuN]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Nobody said that the relays in the box worked, though.

Trying to figure out if a Yamaha relay is still good. That's like going to the moon in a paper spaceship. Powered by jelly. With a dolphin as a copilot.

[Blind_Io]

Throw in a white mouse* as the navigator, and you might just make it.

* - Only the physical manifestation of pan-dimentional beings.

[tianluo]

Originally Posted by avanti

Congratulations!!! i love the mp3, they are very popular here!

Thanks, they are lovely machines and looking forward to them

Originally Posted by efoolution

... well, about time to toughen up then for when everybody is going to mock you about it from next week on.

seriously ... why? It´s hideous, huge ... I´ve seen some around here too, but I can´t get any sense into it ... why have something like that instead of a Scooter?

Because I have a bad balance and would def. fall off a 2 wheel bike

Joking aside, I found these trikes very funky and would make sense the road surface you see in inner London. Diesel spills everywhere and killer pot-holes

[Blind_Io]

Or as I call them: Slalom gates.

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

My opinions on that are torn. One the one hand it's good that they're ensuring that people can handle the machines they're operating. On the other hand it's targeting just motorcycles and I don't like that. Someone could pass their driving test in a Geo Metro and then (theoretically anyway) drive away in a Ferrari Enzo. And it would be perfectly legal.

Overall I feel that motorcycling is a personal choice and it should be up to the rider to decide what's right for him or her. This law seems like a slippery slope toward the graduated licensing that's in place in England which I don't agree with at all. You can kill yourself just as easily on a 250 Rebel as on a Hayabusa.

More than anything I sense it's a way to squeeze even more money out of people since they'll have to re-test to move up to a bigger bike.


Jackpot!!

First thing they do here is lay the bike on its side and make you pick it up. If you can't do that you fail.

[Blind_Io]

You try putting my bike on it's side and you will be picking your teeth out of the back of your head.

Do they also make you push your car?

[Karoug]

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

First thing they do here is lay the bike on its side and make you pick it up. If you can't do that you fail.

what? That's retarded...

[KaJuN]

Damn you Spectre!!! All your talk about Yamaha relays jinxed me. I just got back from a ride and my left turn signal refused to work about half the time. The right signal was fine.

And failing for not being able to pick up your bike is bullcrap. Just because you can't lift up your Goldwing doesn't mean you're not capable of riding it safely.

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

Damn you Spectre!!! All your talk about Yamaha relays jinxed me. I just got back from a ride and my left turn signal refused to work about half the time. The right signal was fine.

And failing for not being able to pick up your bike is bullcrap. Just because you can't lift up your Goldwing doesn't mean you're not capable of riding it safely.

Well... you *did* buy a Yamaha. There *is* a reason why Honda owns 75% of the world motorcycle market, and it's not because of "superior marketing."

You know what the difference is between a Brit bike and a Yamaha?
When the Yamaha's electrical system fails, you get to walk.
When the Britbike's electrical system fails, you run away because IT'S ON FIRE.



Okay, all jokes aside, you know about xjbikes.com, right? They have a nice writeup on relays and how to check them. http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=6809.html

As for picking up the bike.... if you can't pick it up, either it's a heap like a Harley or you are doing it wrong (just like putting it on the centerstand). Even little old ladies or small women can pick up a giant touring rig if they know the technique.

http://www.pinkribbonrides.com/dropped.html

Even Ardys Kellerman (http://www.bmwmoa.org/features/queenie.htm) can pick up a big touring rig (and IIRC has had to more than once on an Iron Butt run) like a BMW K-bike with that technique.

That said... there are many disabled riders who are perfectly competent but who *cannot* lift a bike themselves. First to mind are the many veterans who ride with prosthetic legs. Requiring it for licensing is STUPID.

[Blind_Io]

It's not that I can't pick it up, it's that I don't want it on the ground in the first place. I would put my firstborn son down in the parking lot before my bike.

[Spectre]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Even more so for me, because the freshly painted tins for my bike are due back Thursday.

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

It's not that I can't pick it up, it's that I don't want it on the ground in the first place. I would put my firstborn son down in the parking lot before my bike.

Keep in mind the vast majority of people going for tests here go through a school, its a different system, and if you don't go through a school you still use the testing centres bikes with "roll cages" so the biggest bike you'd have to lift would be a 750cc naked street bike.

I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for it. I don't know the official reason, perhaps its making sure you can clear it off the road so it isn't a hazard or something. As for pushing your car, well, everyone should know how to push a car, push start a car, jump start a car and change a flat tyre, I don't think it would be ridiculous if some of that stuff was on the test. Also, it may not be a strength thing so much as technique and procedure - rookies are all too keen to pick up a bike that's still running and possibly in gear after they fall off and of course the first thing they grab is the throttle.

[emil_t]

what bike did you started rideing ?

i want to ask what actually is a starter bike, people told me that getting a 600cc bike from the start is something similar to a death sentence

[Karoug]

I started riding on a 125cc dirtbike.. But a 600 is a good starter bike.. Someone here said: If you can ride it in your head, you can ride it irl.. Just stay away from the sportsbikes and you'll be fine! And don't look to much on the size of the engine...

[Spectre]

I have to disagree. Most 600's are sportbikes or sportbike derivatives, so they're a *bad* idea.

When asked, I recommend that beginning riders start on something about 250-500cc. Or less. With an average rider, even a little 250cc Nighthawk (CB250) will eat most sports or high performance cars in a 0-60 run or even a 30-60 roll-on. That's a lot of performance for a newbie to handle.

In addition, the bigger the bike the less forgiving of errors it will be in general. Better to learn on a smaller, friendlier machine and then upgrade later. I'd recommend something as small as a 125, but most people want to get on freeways with their bike occasionally and a 125 just doesn't have the top end power.

If you choose your starter bike carefully, you can actually sell it for the same or more than you bought it for. Also, if Europe is anything like the US in this respect, you will find that any major city has THE Kawasaki Ninja 500 or THE Nighthawk 250 - one bike that's had dozens of owners in a few years. Basically, it's *the* bike for the city in that just about everyone who's learned to ride there seems to have had it for some period of time. Someone bought it, learned to ride on it, sold it to someone else who learned to ride on it, who sold it to... you get the idea. When I lived in Huntington Beach CA, there were two Ninja 500s that seemingly everyone in North Orange County had ridden at some point. LA County had a few 500s, a Nighthawk 250 and a Kawa EX250 that was forever changing fairings because for some reason everyone dropped that thing (more than the others). When I moved to Dallas, guess what? Found a Ninja 500 and one beat to hell Nighthawk 250, same story. From what I've been able to find out, it's the same everywhere here in the US. Can't imagine that it'd be different there.

[Karoug]

Well.. My mom got her license on a Sook intruder 1400 and she was 50.. it's not the size of the dog you know..

[Spectre]

Yes, there are exceptions to everything - but I still stand by my advice. Something small and light that's not a cruiser is the best choice for a newbie to learn on.

***

I went back to L & L Cycle yesterday to pick up my "replacement" engine for my 700. Shot some additional photos and footage while I was there.

+ YouTube Video

Photos are at http://www.dallasdrivers.org/gallery...ycle/2jul2008/

Anyway, my 700 is currently in the shop, having the engine swapped out. I should get it back Monday or Tuesday, should solve the three problems I was having with the bike. I need to go back to L&L to see if their mountains of instrument clusters has a spare 700 cluster, probably do that at lunch today.

[tigger]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Congratulations - you bought a Yamaha!

Ha, I've had my bike for almost a year now, and the headlight has never worked. Fortunately there's no relays to worry about, it's just the $46 NOS headlight that needs replaced. I think I've solved that with a $12 tractor light though .

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

A new Utah law is going into effect. Motorcycle riders will be limited to riding bikes no larger than the one they used to pass their M-1 test. So if you test with MSF you can only ride 250cc bikes. I have not read the law, so I don't know if I will be grandfathered in (got my M-1 in 2003) or if you will have to re-test with a larger bike to be legal to ride it.

Are the tests that hard? I've still just got my permit, (which I can actually just renew indefinitely without getting a license), but a license wouldn't have to be renewed yearly.