The Bikeshite Thread

[Jerzy Woking]

1 hour ago, LostnotFound said:

I was playing football this morning in that there London. Thought as the weather was nice I should head down on the VFR.

 

Fuck me you lot that ride all the time in London are certifiable, fair play to anyone that doesn't want to cry after doing that five times a week, one day was enough. 20mph speed cameras wherever there isn't a traffic light every twenty yards to stop you. The cooling fan has been on for longer today than in the previous 20 years of the bike I reckon. I wasn't even heading into central, but the roads are so much more crowded (at 9am on a Sat morning!) than even a few years ago it was properly joyless experience.

I know they are great for traffic busting purposes but I'll stick to the enjoyment of the open road I think.

I commuted in to London from North Essex (A120-M11-A406-A13) five or six days a week for  the last 19 years, which was about 20,000 miles a year. I never thought much about it,  except it was taking longer and longer due to more traffic on the road, and more accidents resulting in lane or road closures almost every week.

I retired in March, and not ridden to London since. Except one day last week when I had to go to my old office. Fuck that. Not going to do that again unless it's a life or death emergency. I'd rather get the train (and I hate them).

[mrdelmonti]

1 hour ago, Fat_Pirate said:

I've got a serious hankering for a scooter, I don't know why,  It seems I've sold my MX5 (to another member on here), so thinking about a Lexmoto Milano - £1600 new.  Anyone have any Lexmoto experience?  I believe they're not too terrible, at least for a Chinese bike but stand to be corrected.

I've no direct experience of Lexmoto, but I honestly think you'd be better off getting an older Japanese or European equivalent. 

Even if the build quality isn't too bad you've then got the issue of "can I get spares, and where from", the other thing from my (albeit small) experience of Chinese bikes is you'll have to strip the whole thing down the moment you get it to make sure there's grease packed in everywhere there should be.

[Sir Chocolate Teapot]

Do have a look at kymco scooters, the quality of engines and drive systems are very good, millions of Italians can't be wrong, maybe.

[The coldone]

Are you allowed to post pedal bikes on this thread?

[Fabergé Greggs]

16 hours ago, Fat_Pirate said:

I've got a serious hankering for a scooter, I don't know why,  It seems I've sold my MX5 (to another member on here), so thinking about a Lexmoto Milano - £1600 new.  Anyone have any Lexmoto experience?  I believe they're not too terrible, at least for a Chinese bike but stand to be corrected.

 

You'd be better off in the long term with a metal bodied manual scooter IMHO. I'm about to sell one of my LML's for example.. 

[Pillock]

5 hours ago, The coldone said:

Are you allowed to post pedal bikes on this thread?

This is for motorbikes, but fear not.... there's a Pushbikes thread over on the open forum where you can!

 

[Jazoli]

19 hours ago, Fat_Pirate said:

I've got a serious hankering for a scooter, I don't know why,  It seems I've sold my MX5 (to another member on here), so thinking about a Lexmoto Milano - £1600 new.  Anyone have any Lexmoto experience?  I believe they're not too terrible, at least for a Chinese bike but stand to be corrected.

Just no, if you want a scooter buy a burgervan or similar, then you are not a fucking liability out of town, HTH

[LostnotFound]

19 hours ago, Sir Chocolate Teapot said:

Do have a look at kymco scooters, the quality of engines and drive systems are very good, millions of Italians can't be wrong, maybe.

 

I chucked a kymco agility 50cc ped down a road in cambridge on a CBT and it was fine afterwards.... So I'd have no issues with one. 

If you need the 'mod' look what about the LML vespas as fiddled with by illustrious posters on this forum? That budget would get you a pick of decent second hand ones.

 

[pilninggas]

fitted a USB port to the ZX10R, as wanted to use the GPS speedometer.

Any easy fitment and nice to have a way to charge my phone etc.

Went up my private test road [*definitely not the M48 from Newhouse Farm to Magor] and apart from being 2mph low at 40mph, it's accurate to +/-1mph to at least 155, pleased with that, i thought it was well off.

 

[strangeangel]

23 hours ago, Fat_Pirate said:

I've got a serious hankering for a scooter, I don't know why,  It seems I've sold my MX5 (to another member on here), so thinking about a Lexmoto Milano - £1600 new.  Anyone have any Lexmoto experience?  I believe they're not too terrible, at least for a Chinese bike but stand to be corrected.

 

 

It looks nice and everything, but really, seriously... no.

 

As has already suggested you would be far better off (both in terms of reliability, spares availability and resale values) to go with something Jap/European and second hand. Even buying a Chinese CG or Cub clone isn't as simple as it might seem because they re-design (I won't say improve) key parts and that makes spares availability tricky when the original importer has sold their three container-loads of bikes and disappears off the face of the earth.

 

Anything with a Lexmoto badge on will be built down to Chinese domestic market standards. That means quick rot cycle parts, monkey metal engine internals, rubber components that dry out and crack within 12 months and wiring connectors that drop off when you so much as look at them. Believe me, I have worked on these shitters and, on occasions, ridden them. No, £1650 will buy you this:

 

 

You can still buy spares for it, and when you get buyers remorse (probably after 20 minutes with that twistgrip gearchange) you can sell it for at least what you paid.

 

[Six-cylinder]

18 hours ago, strangeangel said:

 

You can still buy spares for it, and when you get buyers remorse (probably after 20 minutes with that twistgrip gearchange) you can sell it for at least what you paid.

 

I had 3 speed twist grip gearchange on my first moped a 1973 Puch MS50D, quite liked it.

[pilninggas]

Went out and did 200 miles on my RG250. Up to stratford, then Malvern, then Hereford.

Apart from a few fixings rattling loose, it went very well. The rebuilt forks were a revelation and made the handling a lot, lot better.

 

[pilninggas]

Went out and did a 325 miles spin on my NC700 to St David's and Strumblehead.

Didnt leave until 200pm and went via M&P. As i was pulling out of Fishguard to come back [at 745pm] it started to lash down and did all the way back. Got bloody soaked. M4 was treacherous too.

Good fun overall. Averaged 90mpg too -  a bit better than the Gamma got yesterday....

[shoddybanger]

The season is on, and today's weather would be perfect for motorbiking. Yeah.

 

.

I hope I manage to get it all back together!

[mrdelmonti]

Thought you all deserved a better photo of the new bike

Still love it, just need a bit more seat time.

[Bradders59]

My little C90 project I posted pics of a few pages ago is now with a new owner. I bought it for £200, spent a further £210 (and about 100 hours of work) on it. Sold it for £1325. Happy days.

 

[Bfg]

1 hour ago, Bradders59 said:

My little C90 project I posted pics of a few pages ago is now with a new owner. I bought it for £200, spent a further £210 (and about 100 hours of work) on it. Sold it for £1325. Happy days. 

Would you know if the later ones as robust as the early ones ?

[Bradders59]

I wouldn't have a clue to be honest.

[tobyd]

MOT day for the ex-JerzyWoking '99 SV650 today.

Pass, no advisories so big success. 

Rides quite nicely, picks up well and seems to handle alright in the dry.

New tyres and brakes fitted before hand however meant the ride home in the pouring rain was a little sketchy. Should clear up tomorrow so i'll put in a tankful of fresh pez and give it a trot up the A12 to scrub the tyres in. The water is beading off most of the treat currently.

Might be a '97 GS500 and/or '93 Divvy up for sale at a pretty considerable loss in the next few weeks if anyones interested?

[LostnotFound]

30 minutes ago, tobyd said:

MOT day for the ex-JerzyWoking '99 SV650 today.

Pass, no advisories so big success. 

 

 

Snap, my VFR had it's mot today. The receptionist at the council mot centre was very nice (all the staff there are good, there's a reason I'm happy to ride half an hour to go there, rather than bugger around with local garages) and ran out to open the bay garage door so I could get inside out the rain rather than park up while it was sheeting it down. Overtrousers / Jacket and a big old fairing mean it really isn't bad to ride in the rain, just does lack the 'fun' factor of a proper dry razz.

My only issue MOT wise was that the dipped beam bulb wasn't getting full power to start with so it was getting failed on that, until the end where he went to show me what was wrong and the bike decided it really didn't want to have to go back to Luton anytime soon and bucked it's ideas up. 

I did promise the bike that it owed me an MOT for the money thrown at it to get it back on the road before I thought about cosmetics, I'll have some decisions to make for winter around that.

[strangeangel]

On 8/11/2019 at 3:08 PM, Bfg said:

Would you know if the later ones as robust as the early ones ?

My experience is that all C90 variants will rot merrily around the rear shock mounts (and other areas - I will try and find photos of the 1981 C50/Lifan 110 Frankenstein I used to commute on) without provocation.

 

The only plus point of the earlier bikes for me is the nice looking round headlight; in practical terms the 6V bikes are pretty crap, with piss poor headlights and indicators that some times do, and sometimes don't.  There is also the problem that if your charging circuit (and/or battery) ain't all that you will run out of sparks and end up walking home - not a problem with the 12 volters, which will run happily with a completely shagged battery. Furthermore I would avoid any 6V 90cc models as these have different engine mountings to all the rest and can't have a later 12V motor (or Chinese wonder) fitted, as I did with the aforementioned C50.

 

[Jerzy Woking]

13 hours ago, tobyd said:

MOT day for the ex-JerzyWoking '99 SV650 today.

Pass, no advisories so big success. 

Rides quite nicely, picks up well and seems to handle alright in the dry.

Glad to see this is now back on the road. You might need to play around with the front suspension a little as I had it set up for me and my bulk, and the handling was great, even on old and squared off tyres...

[shoddybanger]

My VFR carb rehab is just about finished. I tore every carb to pieces, cleaned all the jets and passages, changed all the O-rings in the carbs and the interconnecting fuel + air lines, and even managed to put it all back together.

I bench syncronized the carbs with some drill bits and spent a lot of time wrestling the assembly back on the bike tonight. Apparently it helps, when you warm up the intake boots with a hot air gun to make them more pliable.

I'm going to put the rest of the bits back on the bike tomorrow. Here's hoping that everything works and I get to take the bike out for a nice cruise around some local twisties!

[shoddybanger]

VFR shenanigans continue..

So the idea was to put the rest of the bike back together today where I had left off yesterday. I only had to connect the throttle cable, choke cable, and fuel line, install the airbox and tank, and I should be set. I got as far as the airbox, but when I went to put it on I noticed that the screw holes didn't match. The airbox lower half comes on top of the upper plate pictured above, and I was positive I was offering the airbox on the plate the right way around. After racking my brain for a minute I realized that I had indeed managed to install the carb assembly top plate in the wrong orientation!

Now, the mental image of myself pulling the whole assembly out from the intake boots after spending considerable time wrestling it on yesterday was immediately blocked by the brain. This was simply not an option, so with trepidation I unscrewed the top plate, pulled it off the carbs, turned it around and offered it back on. A great sigh of relief was then heaved, as it went on without too much hassle.

Then I found that I had only two liters of fuel in the house, car is with the wife, and on top of that the fuel pump wouldn't even prime the carbs. Started looking into that, and apparently the 3rd gen VFR's only run their fuel pumps when cranking and when the engine is running, so the pump needs to be jumped straight from the battery, when the carb bowls are empty, bypassing the relay.

So, I am presently trying to convince myself to go and fiddle with the pump, but I've just about lost my mojo for tonight. Stupid carbs. Stupid pump. Bah.

[shoddybanger]

Well, wife returned with car, so I scraped together what mojo I had remaining and went off to buy some petrol with a jerry can. Filled the tank, jumped the pump and started the bike. It runs! Woohoo!

I went for a test ride and it pulls with authority now.. except that I'm now missing the top end of the powerband completely. The slides are most likely not opening, so I probably have an intake leak. I cracked loose the synchronization screws on the intake, so I probably forgot to tighten them back up. We'll see tomorrow.

Here's hoping.

[LostnotFound]

Ok, which of you was it? I feel for the bloke getting pulled given he was fully legal when there will have been dozens of audi's rolling past with number plates in the front windows while the drivers are watching youtube.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-49393998

 

[doug]

Tried to sell the BMW R1100GS I bought in June on ebay. A couple of people were interested then disappeared. No problem, happens all the time. Wrong time of year to sell a touring bike I suppose. So put it up on Gumtree only for the advert to be rejected. It turns out its recorded as stolen in April !!! Just hoping that their records are out of date/wrong. I got the V5 from  DVLA no problem and also got it insured no problem. Surely if it was stolen I would not have got the V5 and the insurer would have noticed? I ran a check via Mycarcheck.com and they confirmed it is flagging up as stolen.They are investigating and say they will get back to me.Not going out on it till its cleared up in case I get pulled and its inpounded as well as me along with it. Happy days.

[shoddybanger]

Well, that's a bummer! Hopefully everything ends up well with that.

I recall reading in the local newspaper about a woman who took her VW Golf - that she had bought used from a dealer, mind - for servicing, and they weren't able to update the ECU software. Turns out that the VIN was flagged stolen in another country, and the update was refused. I think the used car dealer agreed to reimburse the price in the end (but not after the woman had gone public with the whole ordeal so that they were forced to save face).

Edit: Forgot to update my VFR situation: I tightened the synch screws and intake boots. After that I adjusted the mixtures, but no cigar. Next possible culprit would be the diaphragms not sealing. I might just be able to reseat them with the carbs on the bike, but until then I'm just going to ride it. Bah.

[martc]

4 hours ago, LostnotFound said:

Ok, which of you was it? I feel for the bloke getting pulled given he was fully legal when there will have been dozens of audi's rolling past with number plates in the front windows while the drivers are watching youtube.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-49393998

 

It's not Barefoot.

[scdan4]

I'll just see what day next month the mot is up... 

 

DOH!