The Bikeshite Thread

[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.

[warren t claim]

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.

Sounds like us! You probably didn't need to practice U turns and emergency stops but it gives us a chance for a fag break. Sorry for the spoiler alert!

[They_all_do_that_sir]

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.

My instructor was a top bloke but a chain smoker and story teller, most lessons were peppered with smoke breaks and its a miracle I got any time on the bike.

 

Having said that either he knew what he was doing or I grasped the concept quick enough as I passed the mod1 (off road bit) first try.

 

I bought a cheap CG125, and spent every lunchtime at work riding around every combination of the local test routes I could (they used to publish them online) so when mod2 (on road) test day arrived I knew within two corners which route I was on.....had to catch myself out couple of times making it too obvious I knew where I was going next....

 

I was mega lucky I passed when I did, as shortly after they brought in all the complicated rules. I passed on a 125, was restricted (ahem officer) for two years and then onto anything I wanted.....

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[Dave_Q]

Sounds like us! You probably didn't need to practice U turns and emergency stops but it gives us a chance for a fag break. Sorry for the spoiler alert!

 

Didn't have to do any of that as it was all in module 1, so mostly practiced on their off road area, with the instructor walking around with a fag on, obviously. 

 

They did also have a spot near a tower block nearby where they set up a few cones to do the swerving and emergency stop carryon as the shape of the road was similar to the course. 

 

As you might imagine, this was done with the instructor stood by the cones, chain smoking and shouting as required if you didn't do it right.

[twosmoke300]

When i did my bike training it was run by the local council as a series of 10 evening classes. Cracking bunch of blokes , a few im still in contact with 20 years later. Really relaxed and cheap at the time.

[Fat_Pirate]

My CBT instructor was very chatty, but unfortunately it was all tales of previous pupils who'd gone on to kill themselves (one chap came off a bridge and landed on electrified railway tracks, that was my favourite).  

[warren t claim]

Stop me if I'm boring you here guys.

 

Examiners.

 

Now I've already told you about our local examiner so let's discuss the other two who were not only based in Chester and Widnes but used to cover our local test centre on holidays and overtime.

 

This is a tale of two Daves. 

 

Firstly there was Daffy Duck Dave, so called because of the Daffy Duck tie he wore to the office. He's the sort of prim and proper person who put his immaculately ironed hi-viz on to walk to his mk1 Toyota Avensis and then fold it up on the back seat before getting in to conduct a bike test. I never knew him to ride a bike although he was a decent guy and friendly enough. He used to invite me along for a ride along although I never summed up enough courage to ask him why he drove his Avensis automatic locked onto second gear for the entire duration of a test. 

 

The second Dave was someone we referred to as Dave The Cunt. He worked almost exclusively out of the Chester test centre and was unaffected by the Pan Euro ban due to being a BMW rider. An ex-military man he expected candidates to be turned out in the right gear and for it to be clean and presentable which if I'm being totally honest was a higher standard than even us instructors managed! It was hard work to keep yourself from uttering 'oh fuck it's him' over the one way radio when turning up at a test centre and seeing his 1100RT parked outside.

 

Give me a few mins and I'll make a start on the next chapter.

[warren t claim]

Here we go again with another almost true but partially fictitious chapter ...

 

Sometimes things don't go according to plan.

 

Now your average CBT candidate counts down the days until his 16/17th birthday when he can finally hit the road. It's his/her first taste of independence and if you're 16 you can't wait to be signed off and collect your scooter and cause mayhem while a 17-year-old sees this as their first step to a full licence and finally getting that restricted SV650 or Bandit. In both cases, they're jumping up and down outside the gates before you get there in youthful excitement. Sadly for the instructor, whether he be a taxi driver or a publican it's just another day at the office and to be honest we'd rather be still drinking or tucked up in bed. Most of us are capable of conducting a CBT in our sleep and according to my then girlfriend, I actually did just that once! The DSA have strict guidelines on how long the off road compound element of a CBT should last but as this is a work of fiction and I'm amongst friends I'll tell you the truth and say it lasts as long until the instructor thinks he stands a sporting chance of passing a police breathalyzer. Sometimes things go almost well with both pupils having similar levels of ability and learning curves my I can assure you that this is rarely the case. CBTs were booked in where one guy was a 16 year old who'd been riding stolen scooters for years and positively romped through the compound work while the other punter was a lady who couldn't even ride a push bike and had zero balance.

 

Shall I talk about the various punters that went through our door next? 

[Guest Hooli]

Just to interrupt these amusing tales. I've treated all my leathers with saddle soap tonight, they feel like new now as they are so supple. I did my big leather coat too, but that's not bike gear so I won't mention it

[warren t claim]

I'm beginning to think I should have maybe made a new thread for this?  

 

Should I copy and paste into a new thread on our off topic board?

[warren t claim]

Just to interrupt these amusing tales. I've treated all my leathers with saddle soap tonight, they feel like new now as they are so supple. I did my big leather coat too, but that's not bike gear so I won't mention it

Did you treat your leather executioners hood as well?

[Guest Hooli]

Did you treat your leather executioners hood as well?

 

I'm not even sure how to answer that. I did the inside of my helmet though....

 

I agree on a new thread for your tales, they are entertaining so far.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

I'm beginning to think I should have maybe made a new thread for this?

 

Should I copy and paste into a new thread on our off topic board?

A new thread would be ace. I'm enjoying these tales.

 

Again a dedicated bike section would be just the ticket.

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[warren t claim]

A new thread would be ace. I'm enjoying these tales.

 

Again a dedicated bike section would be just the ticket.

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

Shall I post it on the main board or open forum?

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Shall I post it on the main board or open forum?

Possibly open? Less likely to get buried I guess?

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[warren t claim]

Possibly open? Less likely to get buried I guess?

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

I've sent a PM to a mod for their opinion.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

I've sent a PM to a mod for their opinion.

Good man, and I look forward to more fictional* tales....

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[warren t claim]

So in the absence of any admin input, I suppose I should continue posting on here?

 

Over the years a few incidents are burned into my brain, for example, the other instructor had a test scheduled and all went well until the test finished and the happy punter had passed their full A licence, all good so far but when it was time to return to base the instructor realised that his ER-5 had run out of fuel. No problem, give the pupil a pilly back and then summon help. I walked over to the test centre to recover the dry Kawasaki from what was then my home a few hundred yards away from the test centre with a can of unleaded but no funnel. Fortunately, the pupil had left their complimentary copy of Ride On, the magazine given to all newly passed riders behind the test centre wall so I made a cone out of it and filled the bike up.  Having no way of carrying the can back to base I left it behind the wall before returning the ER-5 back to base. So far so good. The other instructor then offered to give me a lift home which I obviously accepted and made a mental note of picking up the petrol can on our way back. We got back as far as 250 yards away from the test centre only to find the whole area cordoned off by the police due to a bomb scare at the test centre, yes a car examiner known as Grizzly Adams had seen my fuel can and as this was the week following the 7/7 bombings had decided to report it as a suspect package. Needless to say the bomb squad were less than impressed with his somewhat overzealous reporting...

[AdeMk1]

Very amusing, keep them coming!

[Guest Hooli]

So in the absence of any admin input, I suppose I should continue posting on here?

 

I suspect some of them are still partially human & may sleep at night....

 

 

Great bomb scare though, good work

[hairnet]

woot mot pass

 

needs fork seals tho

 

 

[Guest Hooli]

The mileage you do it's due fork oil anyway, so easy win.

[Arthur Foxhake]

Any C90 lickers able to give me a simple rundown of which wires are needed to make the bike run please?

It was running fine from the key before i started dicking about with it and now i have no spark.

To fill you in, it is being prepared for a moped endurance racing event and i was stripping wires I don't need.

Obviously, i needed more than i thought and am now in the shit, with a birds nest of wires and not too much of an idea where to go from here.

I kept the ignition wired up but I believe I have lost signal from coil to spark plug.

Help a clueless halfwit please!

 

Edit. I had unplugged the CDI and forgotten. Problem solved.

 

Did I mention i was a clueless halfwit?

[UltraWomble]

Suggestions please for me saving my pennies for a commuter bike.

 

1) lightweight

2) small capacity ( sub 500cc)

4) Wouldnt say no to something with a bit of ground clearance for green lane use.

3) Prefer cast wheels but not essential. ( I seem to fook up spoked rears in short order).