Nute

What he said ^^^^. Until recently I had a load of points on my licence but was hoping the the premium would go down after the came off my licence but its not changed.

Felt fine when I rode it. Stops reasonably well considering its age. I know the right mirror is missing, couldn’t be bothered to refit it.

I had to renew my car insurance last week. Wrong side of sixty, no claims for 20 years and it’s still bloody expensive.

It lives !! Rode it down to the village and back, only about a mile but I live at the top of a long steep hill and didnt want to have to push the thing too far if it did crap out. Smokes like a bitch, but I think it's from being on the side stand for a while - illogically that puts the crank case above the head, so oil seeps to the top of the engine. Ive ordered a right hand side stand for it. Its a heavy bike and the original side stand allows the bike to lean over at a really steep angle - make me nervous seeing it like that so hopefully the new right hand stand will give it a more upright position ... otherwise I will have to adapt it so it does. Still need to fiddle with the rev counter, it's a bit jumpy so will experiment with where the input comes from. Also need to get the gas gauge to work.

I used to own a Yamaha MT07. The swing arm was mild steel with really thin paint, just where all the shit from the back wheel grit blasts it. I noticed it going rusty so ran it back to the dealer who said they would replace it under warranty. When I asked if the replacement would be the same crap quality they said yes. I waited until the new one was in then picked it up from them and got it stripped and powder coated then gave it back to them to fit. Seems that it's not just HD who cut corners sometimes.

Its called an EUC, the most powerful ones accelerate at an insane rate - The motors main job is to keep you upright with the power which is left over from keeping you upright giving you acceleration or deceleration. If you ask to much of it the thing decides it doesn't want to play anymore and shuts off which is what you see on the second guys telemetry when it hits red. The motors on these things get better every year. My first ever wheel was 500w, the red one in the pic in BOTM is 4kw continuous output, maybe 6kw peak.

I have the speed warning set to 30mph, it will go considerably faster but I'm old, and things take longer to heal.

Is this eligible, its good a motor & peddles, and it currently goes faster than my K100

I don’t live in a city, rural village in Hampshire, but there are still to many street lights and other light pollution to get a really good view of the stars. Before Covid I went to Bolivia and stayed in a hotel in the middle of a desert at 5,000m altitude. Everything worked off of solar / batteries and all the power went off at night, no ambient lighting. The view of the stars was amazing, I stood outside ( it was bloody freezing) for ages just looking up at it. I don’t thing we will ever be visited by aliens, the distances between the stars is just to great.

I bloody hate this weather ...

That looks like fun!! The torque on anything electric can be immediate and insane ... enjoy it. How far will it take you on a charge?

The last front brake pipe arrived on Friday ... won't take long to fit the front brake lines and bleed it all so I taxed it (free after twatting about at the post office trying to get them to update the tax class to reflect the 40+ years old tax free status) and insured it. Put it all together and filled it up but couldn't get any pressure at the brake lever - master cylinder piston seals? Drained it and spent fecking hours getting the bloody thing apart. The seals look ok but ordered another piston anyway. The cylinder looks ok but it's only 13mm diameter and quite deep so difficult to see far down into it. Unbelievable amount of crap in the system - cleaned it up as best I can. Have to wait another week ...

I was going to make my own exhaust but on a trial, welding tube pieces together I found it difficult to make them neat as I don’t have a rotary thing which turns the work piece so I have to stop every few seconds to reposition everything. I also don’t have a way of purging the inside of the tube with argon so the inside of the weld looks shit and I’m not sure how that would affect the strength long term …. So I gave up and bought a used one. Even with the rough mock up exhaust the kick stand hits the muffler so I thought I would drill and tap a socket head screw into the yoke of the kick stand so by winding the screw in or out I could control how far the stand closed in the up position to keep the end clear of the can. Even being very careful with the tap the bloody thing broke off in the hole and I don’t have a broken tap extractor & at 4mm it might be too small anyway. Plan B, after some shouting a swearing, biuld up a weld on the thing the kick stand closes against and I can then file it down to suit once I have the new exhaust…then find I’m on the last gasp of Argon so had to do it with the min possible gas flow rate so it looks shit, but at least it will / should work. I was too annoyed and irritated to take any photos

Stopped at Southampton hospital on the way home from work to see a friend who had brain surgery last week. He had a non cancerous tumour around the nerve from his ear, removing it kills the nerve so he is deaf on that side and has lost some of the nervous control to parts of one side of his face, but given what he has been through he is doing pretty well. Makes you grateful to be (mostly) healthy.