MooN

it's got a fekking great searchlight on the top of it, 'bout 18" diameter by the looks of it, that ain't a clay pigeon tower...

it was 16c and sunny this morning but I had to take Madame's car back to the tyre place (again) as they're a bunch of incompetant fuckwits, and glare at them menacingly until they did what I had asked them to do in the first place. I'm not a patient person but I am rarely openly rude and agressive. Today was an exception and one of the fuckwits got shouted at. Anyway, long story short, I didn't get home till nearly 12 and Madame was deep in the twins maths homework, so we didn;t eat till nearly 2 by which time the forcast storm was nearly upon us. I rushed to get the bike out and get some riding in before a0 the storm broke and b) curfew... i realised as I rolled out that I hadn't checked tyre pressuressince the bike had been sat for a week or more so I headed first for some air I usually do this with a foot pump but I was already togged up and getting overheated when I remembered so I came here, wonderful peice of kit this one, when you attach the air hose it lets all of the air out of your tyre! The only way to meke it work is to hold the end onto the valve and then press the green button on the pillar. I magaged to get it to stay on but not to seal properly so as you pump air in, it lets it out as soon as you stop the compressor so I had to pump it up to 3+ bar, let go the button and dive at the bloody valve hoping to get it off at 2.9bar precisely.... I got "some air".... The storm front was coming in from the west so I rode a while north, almost along the leading edge of it and then turned East to run befoe it hoping to outrun it before turning south and cutting back West in the hope of finding a passage round it's southern edge the storm was moving quite fast so I didn't stop for many pics as I could see the rain moving in behind me, I did have to stop here for this pic though as I knew @XTreme would never forgive me if I passed up an opportunity for some dark motorcycling, I have no clue as to WTF this is doing here, or what is the other side of that wall, but it looks well abandoned, so I will be back for an explore as and when possible and I'll have a gander on gooooogley earth later to see what shows up. it has to be military with a watch tower like that right? did 100 odd km and managed to get home dry by diving through a gap between two storm cells and got home half an hour before curfew and 15 minutes before it rained "like a cow pissing on a flat rock" as the locals here say ? PS. The pics were taken on my phone which is not my usual M.O. and the quality is, surprisingly, not as good as I thought it might be.

yeah but what pontoon you going ta nail it to?

Nice pics. Are you not restricted the same as @XTreme then, or do you just have a much bigger area to play in?

Ewwwww!

I was lucky.

well I didn't punch anybody ?

I instantly thought of you when I felt that bolt let go! ?

This was supposed to be a ride report! first day for ages that the temp wasn't around freezing and I was at home and had nothing else planned for the afternoon. Quick ride I says to meself, get a few miles in before curfew... "Oh" said Pooh, " I'll just replace Tigger's broken rear indicator before going out, cos it's dangling and we don't like dangling, do we?" I discovered it Dangling a few days ago and had picked up a new one from Triumph in Dijon yesterday. Replace an indicator... quick job you'd think... I could do this on the transalp in about 10 minutes ( having had plenty practice at dropping the tralp and breaking them) It's fixed on with one allen head bolt threaded into an insert or a clip inside, and the two electrical connectors under the seat...right... WRONG! I lifted the seat to find that the wiring is all hidden away under the rear fairing thingy and I can't get to it AND the allen bolt is not threaded into a captive clip but into a nut that is clearly turning with it and that I can't reach either. "POO" said Pooh, "I'll have to take the rear rack / topbox carrier off to access behind the rear light." So, 4 bolts to remove the luggage rack, easy right... WRONG... 4 bolts ringed in red were so tight I fucked the 12mm 1/8" drive socked getting the second one undone, obviously you cant get a spanner to them and I only have my smallest socket set with me. " Bollocks" said Pooh, as he realised he was going to have to drive to work to pick up his toolbox. So 40km and 45minutes later, with a proper 1/2" drive 12mmsocket and 6" ratchet I managed to get all 4 bolts out but they were obviously heavily overtightened when fitted. That's the 4 bolts out then... yep, but wait...what's this? below the sliding rack for the topbox is the original rack, with 4 more bolts ( ringed in yellow) 10mm this time and though dry and tight they drew with some progressive force but only needed the little socket and drive. Lift off the rack and.... OH FFS! Another plate with 2 more 12mm bolts ( ringed in blue). remember this is all in order to access 1 electrical connection and 1 nut for the indicator. Big socket out again, first one waaaaaay tighter than it ever should be, 2nd one...I didn't even need the ratchet handle...? " FECK!" said Pooh, and swore loudly whilst throwing his toys out of the pram ? That's not normal! the bolt on the right came out first and the one on the left, from the marked hole, basically snapped as soon as I touched it. Not being a particularly patient bear, Pooh threw a wobbler at this point and sulked so hard that he didn't take any more pictures ? so I removed the passenger handle which left me with about 2mm of bolt proud of the frame, not enough to grab, or cut into, but luckily the broken surface was quite flat so a centre punch and a 3,5 and then 4,5 drill bit came into play, I only had a 6mm "easy out" in my box so that wasn't going to work but the easing oil I had applied earlier and the heat generated by drilling loosened it sufficiantly so that an old 4mm flatblade scredriver could be hammered into the hole I'd drilled into the bolt and used to twist the broken bolt end out. I was also lucky that I had an 8mm x 60mm stainless bolt in a box of bits in the shed that I could replace the broken one with. I replaced the indicator, checked it worked, and then put it all back together ( with a little grease on the bolt threads and not having a torque wrench, tightened to " contact + 1/4 turn" it was then nearly curfew time so I just managed to ride to the car wash and back, as I'd put it away dirty last time.

any reason why I often, but not systematically, get notifications twice? I just noticed for example that I got a notification that Tym hes reacted to a post in "x"thread, the notification icon top right of my screen shows a little red "2" and I have 2 identical notifications. as per below.

feck! there's an ignore button?! why wasn't I told? ?

nope, just everybody hides whenever they see him coming.

don't call it blood sausage Perdro mate, you'll have the philistines vomiting at the very thought, call it " black pudding" and they'll fight each other for it. ?

Hullo.

Nor deos Pete, he just changes bike so often that on a more or less regular basis the laws of probability mean that the latest bike happens to match whatever lid he's wearing.

it's just garlic butter with Parsley in it Pedro. As you say the only interest in the snail thing is the garlic butter, the snails themselves have little or no taste and I imagine very little nutritional value. I'm not a huge fan but the kids love them which is why Mother in Law cooks them, so I eat some, but i wouldn't choose them from a menu.

Uuuurrrrpssss.... Look what Mother in law fed us with this evening

ouch!

Pleonasm doesnt mean verbose, and I never said Buck was wrong I just said that Bus and harley come to the same thing. The Only problem Buck has is that he hasn't moved on from the quips and quolibets he made pete giggle with 15 years ago, stuck in the past... which would explain why he rides a Harley too.

That's scary...

two words with the same meaning ( i.e. Bus & Harley), a synonym in the same phrase = pleonasm.

is that not a pleonasm?

I had one of those, a black and red one, did 60,000km on it in 3 years and absolutely loved it, I could sit on it all day in comfort, and madame would doze of on the back...

Allo Allo, and welcome. Nice bike too ?

I'll just add it to my list of many talents Pete. I expect Glitch has been called worse, by better too. ?