Any Motörbike riders here?

jaytmon

^^also glad you’re ok and that there’s minimal bike damage. I was twitching just seeing the fairly extreme riding conditions! 

Haych

Kittyfrisk said:

Glad you were OK. Bikes, even BM's don't do as well in such slippery stuff.
Guy behind you was observing well though  

There were quite a few adventure bikes on the trip, mostly GSes, but a couple of Honda Africa Twins and a Triumph tiger as well.  Even these bikes with knobbly tyres fitted went down quite a lot, a couple stayed upright though, and the big surprise was a massive R18, which seemed to take it all in its stride.

I've got my bike booked it to get checked - one of the other guys on the tour reckons it's unrideable due to the incredibly twitchy throttle response.  In his words, "it's a total pig to ride", and he wonders how on earth I stayed upright for as long as I did.

jaytmon said:

^^also glad you’re ok and that there’s minimal bike damage. I was twitching just seeing the fairly extreme riding conditions! 

Yep, the weather changed rapidly, never seen anything like it - that was just the start, it got much worse after that.  We ended up abandoning the bikes in a small village and taking a taxi to the hotel!

robinbowes

Haych said:

Had my first real crash last week, fortunately I wasn't going very quick.  No damage to me and the crash bars on the bike took the brunt so no other damage on the bike, luckily.

This was the first of about four offs late last Tuesday afternoon, we were falling over like dominos.  One guy, who fell off twice, hurt himself quite badly, but didn't know until he got home a couple of days later and went to A&E, where he was diagnosed with four broken ribs and a broken ankle!

Anyway, have a larf at my expense.

Am I missing a vid here?

Kittyfrisk

robinbowes said:

Haych said:

Had my first real crash last week, fortunately I wasn't going very quick.  No damage to me and the crash bars on the bike took the brunt so no other damage on the bike, luckily.

This was the first of about four offs late last Tuesday afternoon, we were falling over like dominos.  One guy, who fell off twice, hurt himself quite badly, but didn't know until he got home a couple of days later and went to A&E, where he was diagnosed with four broken ribs and a broken ankle!

Anyway, have a larf at my expense.

Am I missing a vid here?

Yep & I can see it running in your post too.

robinbowes

Kittyfrisk said:

robinbowes said:

Haych said:

Had my first real crash last week, fortunately I wasn't going very quick.  No damage to me and the crash bars on the bike took the brunt so no other damage on the bike, luckily.

This was the first of about four offs late last Tuesday afternoon, we were falling over like dominos.  One guy, who fell off twice, hurt himself quite badly, but didn't know until he got home a couple of days later and went to A&E, where he was diagnosed with four broken ribs and a broken ankle!

Anyway, have a larf at my expense.

Am I missing a vid here?

Yep & I can see it running in your post too.

Odd. Works on my phone, not on my laptop browser (Chrome on MacOS)

Kittyfrisk

robinbowes said:

Odd. Works on my phone, not on my laptop browser (Chrome on MacOS)

I'm on Safari on Mac OS, shed load of content blockers & yet is OK.
Browsers are a pain in the arse sometimes...

Dominic

I cant see anything......

Kittyfrisk

Tried uploading to Imgur & reposting here... fingers crossed.

AK99

Ouch. Tough to manage that kind of snow with existing ruts and tracks in it. Glad you're ok Haych.

Glad to see the weather's picked up a bit for biking again too.

Been working on the newly acquired FXR for about the last month. Got stuck into the wiring job from hell when I went to replace the bars and switchgear, and discovered 30 years worth of horrible bodging in the headlamp shell. Anyways, all sorted (mostly) now:



Need to reroute or replace the twin throttle cable, and also tidy up the brake-hose.
Not sure if I posted any pics before, but this is it with the new bars, and the mag wheels/disks on.



First run out with everything back together this morning. Shakedown run went ok, so in two minds now whether to carry on and sort out the shocks (it needs longer ones to sort the abysmal ground clearance, and improve the stance) and also get rid of that awful Roy Rogers studded seat-pad for something less carnival looking.

Either that, or might be wiser to just stall and ride the flipping' thing for a while first

Kittyfrisk

Nice. I reckon you should go full Zed's 'Pulp Fiction' on it   

Liking the bars, the saddle doesn't have fringes & concho's, so I'd let it ride for a while until it tell's you what you need to do.
Ground clearance might be 'characterful' for a while 

hollywoodrox

Corvus said:

I was without a bike for 2 yrs which is a shit situation best avoided, rectified recently -



1340 Evo. Excuse the elephant's fiveskin seat cover, it's a temp one while I've been reshaping the seat in stages for fit.
It's an absolute splatfest on there from recent rides, needs cleaning but just keep riding.

Also re the Goldie & BSA stuff, here's an old pic of my A7SS with 60s Dunstall kit and ARE parts. The Goldie cans were glorious. Brakes were terrible, as were clutches, didn't live long. Had some brilliant rides on it, used it daily.


And @hollywoodrox pics, great stuff, love older bike pics especially with people. Reminds me of the AWOL era, I loved that mag and the bikes.
My chop, got as a non-running heap for very little money, sorted & painted out back of the house. When my other half went away I got it into the lounge it stayed there 2-3 weeks being worked on, was a novelty footrest, got fully rewired by Tea-Drinking Steve who appeared to survive on nothing but industrial amounts of PG Tips.

That’s awesome 

p90fool

Nice one @AK99 glad it's working out!

Dominic

@AK99 ;
Progressive Shocks are the answer (that 's the brand name ).......lovely bike ...best riding/handling HD frame but get a Mikuni 42 slide carb on that thing or an Sand S .......huge difference 
@Corvus .......that 4 pot chop .....hardtailed to death ....respect but do you have any kidneys left ?

Corvus

Cheers @hollywoodrox . @Dominic I loved that bike, rode it minimum 5 out of 7 weekdays. It was OK in London at the time,  like late 90s/early 2000s anyway. A few psi off the back tyre helped but most roads were pretty OK. Round here though not a chance - a lot of rough roads, crap repairs giant pot holes, fen roads subside and move, get rippled like a concertina. Bad enough in a car.

Dominic

@Corvus .......You're a better man than me
I had a hardtailed bobbed Ironhead Sportster 1200......tried every trick in the book .....sprung saddle ,soft rear tyre etc
rode it London to Peterborough and back for a show .......never tried to do more than 10 miles on it after that.
I was 15 and a half stone at the time but I nearly bit the end of my tongue off 20 times on that journey !

Kittyfrisk

^ I'm always surprised that Sportster owners haven't brought a collective action against HD for vibration injuries...

Dominic

@AK99 ;
I like the pull back drag bars on your bike....they look really good in the chubby gauge ,nice and meaty

guitargeek62

I forgot to post that I flipped back to a Scrambler 1200 XE last month. I didn't quite last a year with the Speed Twin, but I'm glad to be back on this one.



As wonderful as the Speed Twin 1200 was on the road, it was almost *too* smooth and polite for me, and I also really missed having the option of going off-road. The XE is a bit of a beast, especially with those slash-cut TT pipes roaring away and waking up the neighbourhood, but it’s also incredibly capable and versatile. 

This is pretty much my ideal do-it-all bike, I knew that when I bought my first one and I’m really not sure why I sold it!

After my initial tweaks already, I’ve still got a few planned changes:

- Tank & bodywork refinish, the white’s still not my favourite, but I’ve got something in mind that should look pretty swish
- Lose the Tourance tyres, bloody horrible things in anything but dry weather
- Iconic parts rad. guard
- Smaller and less vulnerable indicators for those inevitable off-road drops 
- Re-upholster the seat and fit some medical gel (I'm doing weekly ~260mi day-trips back and forth to London for work on this)
- Apply yellow headlight film (helps you stand out in traffic and be less invisible to drivers) 
- More that I can’t think of right now!

Haych

hollywoodrox said:

Corvus said:

My chop, got as a non-running heap for very little money, sorted & painted out back of the house. When my other half went away I got it into the lounge it stayed there 2-3 weeks being worked on, was a novelty footrest, got fully rewired by Tea-Drinking Steve who appeared to survive on nothing but industrial amounts of PG Tips.

That’s awesome 

That reminds me of my neighbour.  He's a "unique" individual, lives on his own in one of the flats on the opposite side of the street.  Doesn't work and spends all his time fiddling with old motorbikes.

He showed me round his living room last year.  He has a small sofa, a TV set, a massive fricking metal turning lathe and some old BSA bike he's restoring from the ground up that nobody (including the council) knows about, and a sideboard full of parts and tools.

That's not casting any kind of dispersion on you, @Corvus, just when you said you got it into the lounge it reminded me of Nick - he probably has two or three in his lounge by now I reckon.

He rocked up last year on a newish Indian Roadmaster!  Goodness knows how he does it, he doesn't exactly live like he has money, but the state seems to give him enough to live his dreams!

Corvus

Dominic said:

@Corvus .......You're a better man than me
I had a hardtailed bobbed Ironhead Sportster 1200......tried every trick in the book .....sprung saddle ,soft rear tyre etc
rode it London to Peterborough and back for a show .......never tried to do more than 10 miles on it after that.
I was 15 and a half stone at the time but I nearly bit the end of my tongue off 20 times on that journey !

The ride wasn't that bad (like as bad as that), maybe smooth GS motor helped, dunno. The worst thing in the memory of it was the brakes, weak single pot CB750 + the drum that outdid the back tyre easily. Certainly not a chance I'd do it round here though, even when we got here like 17 yrs ago the roads were rough and much worse now.

@Haych no worries hope you & bike are all good now btw. Your mate sounds a character having fun, good on him.