The Bikeshite Thread

[bangernomics]

Going to collect a Yamaha T80 on Thursday for the back of the new camper. Apparently comfier reliabler and fasterer than a c90!

 

I’d do a collection thread but it’s going in the back of a van.

[bangernomics]

Now the weather has changed I'm amazed at all the all weather bikers out & about, I dunno how those guys & girls do it in this heat. As always I'm tempted to park mine up till temps drop down to survivable levels.

Any consolation I got absolutely soaked feet today, well my feet and hands as the rukka kit was excellent just the cheapo boots and gloves leaked lots.

[Aston Martin]

I don’t know if I ever mentioned, but I got rid of the CB400A a few weeks ago.

The guy that collected it arrived from Kent... in a Mustang with a bike trailer.

[gtd2000]

I bought myself a textile jacket last year and have been wearing it this year, before the May holiday weekend. I'm amazed that I only need to wear a t-shirt underneath and still feel warm!

 

Regarding riding in hot weather, I lived for 6 years in Hong Kong and you simply couldn't wear sensible riding gear there in the summer. It was usually jeans and T-shirt with gloves, at best, at that time of year.

[Guest Hooli]

Readjusted my throttle cables now they've bedded in today, odd how one had got loose & t'other tight. That & a bubble of oily gloop on a sensor should fix the crap running when cold, it never felt serious, just annoying.

 

Tested this tonight when I went to a local bike night. It now runs properly from cold so I'd call that a result. Still needs the throttles balancing to be perfect, but I need to get new pipes for the gauges as they've perished before I can do that.

[warren t claim]

Is there any interest in me writing confessions of a former motorcycle instructor post on here? It'd be a warts and all tale of sex, violence, drugs and bribery?

[PiperCub]

^^ As I believe the Pope once said: "Fuck yeah"

 

Used to enjoy such musings in the old UMG back in the day. 

[warren t claim]

Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction so here goes. Let's assume the following story is a work of fiction written in first person perspective.

 

Part one. (No pun intended)

 

Back in 2002 a mate wanted to do his full bike ticket and asked me to run him to the training school he'd chosen as he'd be wearing full bike gear and couldn't drive in it. I agreed as I was a biker up until 1997 and was interested in seeing how learning to ride had changed since my day of a test consisting of a trip around the block on a GP100 as it was in my day. I got chatting to the instructor and we hit it off so when it came to the road element of my friend's CBT he threw me the keys to one of the  ER500 Direct Access bikes and invited me to come along for a laugh and obviously I agreed as it'd been 5 years since I'd had a bike. When we got back to the compound the senior instructor was for some reason impressed with my riding and laid back attitude and made me the offer of being down trained as a CBT instructor giving newbies lessons in both the classroom and on the road on our scooters and CG125s. For some reason I jumped at the chance as it gave me the opportunity to ride bikes and get paid for it.

 

Now time for a little description of what the bike school set up was like. Every other school had instructors that acted and behaved like wannabe police motorcyclists, even down to their choice of ex plod BMW and Pan European bikes they used for lessons. We were somewhat different in being a school who were more interested in the fun aspect of biking and didn't take ourselves too seriously. When the call came out for marshals to assist on the annual Wirral Egg Run we declined due to not wanting to have anything to do with authority. The other main training school in the area had an after Egg Run family friendly get together at their premises involving bouncy castles and a BBQ while our effort was different, the senior instructor had a pub as well so we had an after run party involving a bawdy rock band playing while our girlfriends served drinks dressed in fishnets taking it in turns to dance in a cage.... Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself so let's get back to the story. As I had yet to attend my instructor assessment course in Cardington I was only allowed to teach CBTs and our younger learners who weren't allowed to do Direct Access due to their tender age. Some were genuine bikers in the making but I also had to deal with scores of 16 year olds who knew it all and wanted you to finish so they could ride home on their scooter and suffer two wheels until next year when they could buy the Corsa of their dreams. A good 90% of these already had the machine control element pretty much licked before they got to us, the other 10%, mainly girls, were somewhat challenging to say the least. The number of times I asked the question can you ride a push bike only to be answered in the negative is more than I dare remember. One such girl who I shall call Chantelle-Marie for the purposes of this post was a particular pupil who illustrates this point perfectly. She came to us as she had a job offer and the DWP did/does have a scooter commuter scheme where if you had a firm job offer but public transport wasn't an option they'd bung you a new scooter, helmet and CBT to get you off the dole queue. She was utterly fucking hopeless. Both myself and the senior instructor tried to get her to stay upright on our Honda Vision without any great success. When we eventually got her to go in a straight line she'd promptly fall off to one side when she was told to stop. Undeterred I ended up running around the training compound in front of her getting her to aim for my arse! Sadly she was distracted by one of our fence posts and as your eyes are connected to your head, which is connected to your body which is in turn connected to your arms she made a full throttle beeline for said post uprooting it and writing off our scooter at the same time.

 

 

Part Two to follow next time I'm at home drinking.

[PiperCub]

Like it - more please.

 

 

BTW - wierdly, like you I did my  Part 2 test aka "Trip around the block" (as it was back in the day) on a GP100 too. 

[yellowperil]

Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction so here goes. Let's assume the following story is a work of fiction written in first person perspective.

 

Part one. (No pun intended)

 

Back in 2002 a mate wanted to do his full bike ticket and asked me to run him to the training school he'd chosen as he'd be wearing full bike gear and couldn't drive in it. I agreed as I was a biker up until 1997 and was interested in seeing how learning to ride had changed since my day of a test consisting of a trip around the block on a GP100 as it was in my day. I got chatting to the instructor and we hit it off so when it came to the road element of my friend's CBT he threw me the keys to one of the  ER500 Direct Access bikes and invited me to come along for a laugh and obviously I agreed as it'd been 5 years since I'd had a bike. When we got back to the compound the senior instructor was for some reason impressed with my riding and laid back attitude and made me the offer of being down trained as a CBT instructor giving newbies lessons in both the classroom and on the road on our scooters and CG125s. For some reason I jumped at the chance as it gave me the opportunity to ride bikes and get paid for it.

 

Now time for a little description of what the bike school set up was like. Every other school had instructors that acted and behaved like wannabe police motorcyclists, even down to their choice of ex plod BMW and Pan European bikes they used for lessons. We were somewhat different in being a school who were more interested in the fun aspect of biking and didn't take ourselves too seriously. When the call came out for marshals to assist on the annual Wirral Egg Run we declined due to not wanting to have anything to do with authority. The other main training school in the area had an after Egg Run family friendly get together at their premises involving bouncy castles and a BBQ while our effort was different, the senior instructor had a pub as well so we had an after run party involving a bawdy rock band playing while our girlfriends served drinks dressed in fishnets taking it in turns to dance in a cage.... Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself so let's get back to the story. As I had yet to attend my instructor assessment course in Cardington I was only allowed to teach CBTs and our younger learners who weren't allowed to do Direct Access due to their tender age. Some were genuine bikers in the making but I also had to deal with scores of 16 year olds who knew it all and wanted you to finish so they could ride home on their scooter and suffer two wheels until next year when they could buy the Corsa of their dreams. A good 90% of these already had the machine control element pretty much licked before they got to us, the other 10%, mainly girls, were somewhat challenging to say the least. The number of times I asked the question can you ride a push bike only to be answered in the negative is more than I dare remember. One such girl who I shall call Chantelle-Marie for the purposes of this post was a particular pupil who illustrates this point perfectly. She came to us as she had a job offer and the DWP did/does have a scooter commuter scheme where if you had a firm job offer but public transport wasn't an option they'd bung you a new scooter, helmet and CBT to get you off the dole queue. She was utterly fucking hopeless. Both myself and the senior instructor tried to get her to stay upright on our Honda Vision without any great success. When we eventually got her to go in a straight line she'd promptly fall off to one side when she was told to stop. Undeterred I ended up running around the training compound in front of her getting her to aim for my arse! Sadly she was distracted by one of our fence posts and as your eyes are connected to your head, which is connected to your body which is in turn connected to your arms she made a full throttle beeline for said post uprooting it and writing off our scooter at the same time.

 

 

Part Two to follow next time I'm at home drinking.

I was a downtrained instructor for a couple of years, I never wanted to proceed any further, but I did have a lot of fun. looking forward to hearing some more stories.

[gtd2000]

I was on a blue GP100 as well!

[Dave_Q]

One of my CBTs was done at a place that was based at a bike shop.

 

You met them at the shop and they did the off road bit on a local school car park, they took the bikes and people down in a van then left you there while they went back to the shop to get their own bikes.

 

When I got to the shop on the morning there was a completely ditched Piaggio Zip in the shop.

 

Asking what happened there, it turns out they left the keys with the bikes while they went back to the shop, leaving the assembled learners with an instruction not to ride the things as some sort of bizarre trust exercise.

 

Turns out he day before some lad had decided he couldn't wait, jumped on this thing and tried to ride it and they came back to find him in tears on the floor next to a very damaged ped about 2-3 metres from where they left it.

 

Obviously you can't actually fail a CBT so they fetched him another bike, got his dad to pay for the damage and he got his certificate at the end of the day.

[bangernomics]

Is there any interest in me writing confessions of a former motorcycle instructor post on here? It'd be a warts and all tale of sex, violence, drugs and bribery?

Only the bits that include sex, drugs and bribery. Leave the violence out as I’m squeamish.

[AdeMk1]

For any fellow Bikers interested in a new backpack, I spotted this and promptly ordered one seeing as it was 80% off.

I wouldn't pay full price for it but at this price I couldn't resist!

 

https://www.xlmoto.co.uk/slipstream-waterproof-mc-backpack

[brandersnatch]

 

FJR1300 work bike. Tight as a drum and still going strong

 

 

One’s too many, ten’s not enough!

[John F]

^^ As I believe the Pope once said: "Fuck yeah"

 

Used to enjoy such musings in the old UMG back in the day. 

 

I got an article published in that (or maybe it was UBG, same thing really). They never did pay me my £25.

[Guest Hooli]

IMG_2521.JPG

 

FJR1300 work bike. Tight as a drum and still going strong

 

 

One’s too many, ten’s not enough!

 

Just run in.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Is it time to have a separate bikeshite section of the forum?

 

Just a thought

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[John F]

I've been wondering for a while whether it's time to split the board into sections.

 

It's been great as it is, but traffic has increased & sometimes it's easy to miss interesting threads that drop off the first page.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

I've been wondering for a while whether it's time to split the board into sections.

 

It's been great as it is, but traffic has increased & sometimes it's easy to miss interesting threads that drop off the first page.

I think you can go too far with splitting the forum up but definitely a separate playground for two wheeled shite would be useful - I think stuff gets lost in this thread, and there's some stuff in here which would flourish into great threads in their own right such as Warren T Claims instructor tales?

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[Eddie Honda]

I've been wondering for a while whether it's time to split the board into sections.

 

Yeah and a load of old moaners start bleating at the slightest change even if it's for the greater good.

 

There's a lot of transient shit that has its place, but should be stuck in one forum. For sale / wanted / swaps, but each should have a separate thread. If it's without activity for more than a set period it should be auto-archived.

 

Tags just don't cut it.

[bangernomics]

Viewed the Yamaha T80 this eve in sunny Leeds, bunged a £50 deposit and he is bringing it to Manchester on Monday for the balance.

 

Can’t wait to get it painted up in a nice retro colour.

 

Wheels are a bit salty, would it be a sin if I stripped and painted them?

[Jazoli]

For any fellow Bikers interested in a new backpack, I spotted this and promptly ordered one seeing as it was 80% off.

I wouldn't pay full price for it but at this price I couldn't resist!

 

https://www.xlmoto.co.uk/slipstream-waterproof-mc-backpack

They have been £10 for a year at least, I have one, it's moderately useful but I'd say not worth more than a tenner.

[pilninggas]

They have been £10 for a year at least, I have one, it's moderately useful but I'd say not worth more than a tenner.

 

Yeah a mate of mine brought one and he gave it away when he received it. No good for commuting.

[bangernomics]

Viewed the Yamaha T80

[warren t claim]

I suppose as I'm having a rare Friday night off with a glass or three of something cheeky I'll continue with my (mainly) true instructors tales.

 

A little about the fleet we ran. To begin with we had, starting from the bottom up, a Honda Vision Met-In 50cc scooter, two Lifan CG125 clones, three consecutively registered Kawasaki ER-5s, an older blue ER-5 and finally a Kawasaki GT550 that was given to me as a company bike. The Vision was about as fucked as you'd imagine it to be as it spent it's life being crashed on our compound every day. The two Lifans were a disaster, they were both W plated and even back in 2002 they both had totally fucked chrome and starter motors that refused to work. An unusual quirk of them was that they both had no less than three sets of footpegs for some reason. Our ER-5s were divided into two groups, two were dedicated DAS learner bikes and of the other two one was a mint condition example used only for tests and the older blue one was used as an instructor bike.

 

Next part to follow in a few mins...

[warren t claim]

Part Three.

 

Now let's talk about some tricks of the trade. A load of bollocks is talked by many instructors about if you're good enough to pass a test you're good enough to pass anywhere. This is total shit. Any test taken away from your local test centre should be treated as an "away match" with a greater chance of failure. Several times I've taken pupils to Chester, St Helens, Widnes and the like just because a punter has managed to get a short notice test only for them to come home with their tail between their legs and a quivering bottom lip just because they had no idea about the sneaky stop signs and slightly unusual junctions, so my top tip is stay local! Another thing to bear in mind is that we would always strongly advise you to book the 3.27pm test and turn up 20 minutes early, our local examiner liked to get home sharpish and he'd be more interested in an early dart than your rear observations! Now our local examiner was, and still is, a decent bloke. He hated working for the DSA and out of all the local training schools he had the best rapport with us as we were the only outfit that didn't claim that he used us to train his own kids which was a common lie told by other instructors. In fact for the record, his son was at the time 18 and had a Max Power Corsa with no interest in bikes and his 21-year-old daughter was a hairdresser who'd cut her own head off before wearing a helmet. This lead to a few perks for us like when the examiner was given money to replace his helmet he'd buy one and sell it to us cheaply but the biggest perk was the Saturday morning scam. Part of his job was to visit training schools and observe us giving CBTs and we had an arrangement, we'd sign off that he'd been to visit us and he'd not bother to turn up and still get the overtime. 

 

Stay tuned for more two-wheeled antics in a few mins.

[DodgeRover]

My instructor for my part 2 was female attractive and liked cider, had I been less painfully shy

I should have found out if she wanted to go to the rock n blues as she seemed to find my wall of death impression when the road turned right sharply (just after I had been distracted by a buzzing in my intercom) quite amusing.

Oh the benefits of hind sight....

[warren t claim]

On with the story.

 

During my stint as an instructor, this incident happened...

 

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/140mph-police-bike-taken-roads-3525545

 

What this meant for us is that the DSA immediately stopped examiners using their DSA provided Pan European bikes for tests which meant that most, but not all (and I'll come to that later) bike tests were conducted with the examiner following in a car. Now because we had a decent relationship with our examiners we were often invited to 'ride along' with the examiner while he was testing our candidate. Now this was a perk only offered to us over other training establishments because we would never spend the 40 mins talking shop or DSA procedures but we'd listen to him moan about his job, talk about a plumbing course he was thinking of attending, make various sexist comments about our lady pupils arse, you get the picture? All in all we managed to swing it for a few of our punters while in the passenger seat.

 

I think we'll discuss the examiners in the next thrilling instalment.

[Dave_Q]

When I did my DAS I paid for an intensive course, 3 or 4 days I think it was.

 

They were a pretty old school outfit in Bradford, sound as fuck but overall I didn't really think I got the best value for money.

 

Arrive 9am

Coffee and a fag

Head out about 9:45, ride around for less than an hour

Fag break and a chat

Another short ride

Back to base, dinner, coffee, fag

Another short ride

fag break

back to base and finish about 3pm

 

Honestly probably got about 2-3 hours riding per full days training. 

 

Having said that I passed first time so not really complaining.