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Did an "instructional" day with Britsh Superbike School at Blyton Park near Gainsborough on the hottest day of the year. Great big expanse of concrete in the middle nowhere ensured temperature stayed at 37c all day.

Never ridden so hard for years. Tyre grip was incredible due to the track temperature, and my instructor was excellent. Great organisation, and if you've never done a track day before, or if you've done many, you'll learn loads.

Even better that there were a load of two strokes there, from TZR 250 Yamaha's to RGV's (250 & 500's), Aprilia RS250's to Honda RS250 race bikes. Lovely.

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Hi fellow bikeshiters, posted a few pics of my Jawa  350 TS  that I had for sale recently , just thought I'd share another one of my bikes that I recently got back on the road, 1986  CZ 350  twin,  a lot harder to find than the Jawa 350, anyway dry stored for  17 years. New battery,  flush the tank, clean the carb, set the points and by jingo she goes....... I have left her exactly as found apart from the addition of a daytime running light, not restored just as found, only done 9900 miles passed the mot last week with a couple of advisories, going to tax the beauty in the next couple of days. 

IMG_20190717_202452.jpg

IMG_20190717_202546.jpg

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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.

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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.

Lexmoto.thumb.png.82e1e5c20c9969c2bb62e0bac60612e9.png

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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).

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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.

Lexmoto.thumb.png.82e1e5c20c9969c2bb62e0bac60612e9.png

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.

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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.

Lexmoto.thumb.png.82e1e5c20c9969c2bb62e0bac60612e9.png

 

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.. 

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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.

Lexmoto.thumb.png.82e1e5c20c9969c2bb62e0bac60612e9.png

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

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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:

 

s-l1600.jpg

 

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.

 

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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....

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