MooN

google the definition of "scrawny" and Tym's photo pops up

i passed my test on a heavily customised Honda CM125 ( the gutless wonder), sold it cos of moving to France and after saving up for a while over here bought a yamaha Xj 650 just like this one 'cept mine had 4 into one pipes I loved it so much that after winding it up to 130,000km I sold it on ( and saw it a year later with a paint job and 60,000 km less on the odo...) and bought an xj900 same as this but without the luggage or the lower engine bars. same colour and same screen but mine was never that clean of course... would I recommend either of them. They're so outdated now that they can't compare to modern bikes. They were both utterly bomb proof mechanically I bought the 650 with 60,000 km on the clock and wound it up to 130,000km in 3 years basic maintenance was all it got except for replacing the carb inlet pipes which had become porous. the 900 had 40, 000km on it when I bought it and i sold it with 98,000km 3 years later having done 2 uk return trips, Alsace, the jura, the alps and mont blanc on top of being my only everyday transport. I could ride it all day and the longer I stayed on it, the better it fitted me. If someone found a clean one I would absolutely recommand it as a tourer.

I thought this would be more your style Tym

makes you proud don't it?

tiger does about 52 mpg when just oodling around like yesterday. hooning around or autoroute work it drops to around 45 ish. when I first got it it was only doing 38 but that improved following the first service I had done.

nope, problem is really that any new job wants to pay minimum legal wage "to start with" which is basically 30% less than I currently earn.

It's a rock formation, basalt I think. called " Les rochers de basseville" it's f'kin apalling Bob, hot and wet with endless waves of storm cells moving noth east across most of the country. Storm dodging is fast becoming a riding / navigation technique. it was rather fun, I don't usually risk dirt tracks when there's storms about as I'm alone, on road tyres and not particularly competent off road so if it gets wet and slidy I could find myself rapidly out of my depth, but I am starting to gain confidence with the tiger off road and these were trails that i,ve been on before in the company van so I knew where I was and how far I needed to go to find tarmac again.

I hate electrics... well done for solutionising.

As expected, having been roasted by the sun all weekend my days off are forcast shit. I went riding anyway and actually avoided getting wet today. 130 odd km and 2 and a half hours ish. the bike is set up just right and is bloody perfect

too knackered by the time I get home and, frankly nothing to say. if it stops raining long enough I'll get some more ride reports in.

ok thanks Pete, waiting for things to evolve on all fronts and that always takes time.

hell yes, If It hurts I'll stop.

the difference being that I'd quite like to actually meet Pedro...

you want boaty advice / Info? start with what sort of boat? sail, motor, river, lake, sea, sporty, cruiser...? what do you want to do with it?

Noothing definitive decided yet but I've been working on a route to Millau Bridge, drop down as far as our base on the canal du midi at Capestang ( free night...) and back via Aurillac, or something along those lines. Sunday I did about 7 hours in the saddle and still managed to work on monday so the test was worthwhile, I wasn't sure I could do so much.

you tempt me Pedro, but I can't be away that long, not this year anyway.

the history of the battle of the Marne is french history Bob, and no one wants to learn about battles the French won because it would oblige them to question their stereotypes. The Body stood up fine to this test, worked the following day with no more then normal aches and pains so it's looking good for a 3 or 4 day ride at the end of august... if we're not all in lock down again by then. I'm surprised you've heard of it Pedro, most people haven't and I certainly hadn't until recently. The old start / finish straight throigh the stands and it lane is now the D27 between Reims and Gueux.

I have been planning a couple of longer trips, 3 or 4 days, but am not sure anymore how many hours I can ride comfortably in a day having not done any longer trips since the problems with shoulder and now knees. So despite the weather forcast being shyte and our region being on yellow alert for storms I decided to see how long I could last. I had heard tell of a road near Reims that was once a race track, and the stands have been left intact along the side of the road. I saw it on the telly a couple of weeks ago so though I might go have a butchers: Reims, and most of the Champagne region is on the Marne river plain so is obiously strewn with cemeterys and memorials of the first war and the battle of the Marne ( i did a ride report from Chateau Thierry and the american cemeteries and monument a few years ago) so, this being kind of my pet subject, I had to visit this, the National Monument to the 1st battle of the Marne ( sept 1914, with the advancing Germans just 30 miles from Paris, Marechal Joffre ordered his retreating 6th army to turn around and attack. The BEF on his flank did the same 24hrs later and the german advance was stopped and 5 days later was in general retreat) a small British cemetery nearby I also rode past a huge French military cemetary and an Americain one also but it was pissing down with rain so I didn't stop. The weather cleared again and as the sun came out I found a lovely quiet spot to eat my sarnies, in a village called "Oyes" the whole time I sat there eating and reading my book, about half an hour I guess, not a single car came past...lovely! Moving on, I crossed the Seine at Romilly and found the old race circuit pit lane and stands at "Gueux" just west of Reims being a Sunday there were a few people about as it's obviously a meeting place for the local petrol heads the grandstand opposite I went on Into Reims for petrol and rode home stopping a number of time to shelter form the heavier rainstorms that came through, they don't last long but they drop a huge amount of water on you and you can go from dry road to 3 inches of standing water in under a minute, so I prefer to pull over and shelter for 5 or 10 minutes if the opportunity presents itself, as it did here in a derelict Service station which I had to document for @XTreme I did try the door but it was locked. all in all 450km and 7 hours including stops, I could probably do another hour or even 2 after a longer break so i'm pleased to find I can manage so long and can now plan accordingly.

weather here is stupid hoit by mid day so out early and get a couple of hours riding in before Lunch at home and an afternoon spent cowering in the shade of thick stone walls with closed shutters.

'bout 20 minutes. 36€ i had the bike booked in for 14h00 but got there about half an hour early, Vincent, the shop manager turned up about 5 minutes after I did which was a surprise ( French lunch break is still traditionally 12 till 2) and he said he starts before the others to get a half h of calm and do some paperwork before oening the shop at 2 but he let me in so I could sit in the air conditioning and drink his coffee whilst waiting, Pascal the mechanic turned up at 13h45 and rather than open the main shop doors just pushed tigger in through the customer entrance and through the showroom and got straight into it. This sort of behaviour is sufficiently unlike normal French "service" to be worthy of note. Pascal invited me into the workshop to show me what he'd done and to ask how I wanted it finished off. He'd started by joining the wires that were flagged white and yellow with bits of tape, to see if that was effectively the solution, and it was, alarm out of circuit and everything else functioning, I've even still got the dashboard LED flashing as if there was an alarm. he then chopped the remaining wires and I ceremoniously removed the alarm unit, still weeping and clicking ( it has an internal battery) to the workshop bin. Pascal then soldered the connections he'd made, grouped and insulated the loose wires and secured the whole lot together. Good job jobbed! Thank you to all those who made useful and / or helpful comments, cos it was only really because of what I learnt that I was able to push them in the right direction and get the neccessary information out of datatool.

I have no clue, I know where the depot is and its actually closer to me than the hospital, it was a sunday morning so maybe they were "on call" rather than actually at the depot and had to come from home to the depot first but that seems a stoopid way of doing things ( it'd be typically french though, Sunday hours count doiuble here)

Yup, going to the dealer tomorrow. that way there's no " fail" option. well that's nothing if not honest. I'll take that. dealer tomorrow. I'll let you know how long it takes them.

im still kinda hoping that they'll not let the english back in 'til next year.

pedro's right, when I had a "cardiac incident" a few months back, it took the ambulance nearly 40 minutes to get here, on a sunday morning so no traffic and I live about 10 minutes by car from the hospital. I reckon I could have walked it in 4o minutes...