Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Anyone know any decent bike transport? Might need a bike moved from South to North London

Thanks a lot mate, and everyone else who gave advice, very helpful. Looks like insurance is going to be around the £300 mark for the year and then all I have to pay is the tax and I'm good to go. Might just book the CBT for this weekend to just get that out the way and stop me from stalling from getting this constantly delayed ball rolling. Woooooooooo spending lots and lots of money a smart man would know I cant afford to spend, my favourite.

Oh ye and I need to buy a helmet, preferably one that doesn't make me look like a total jebend

I was a bit slow catching up with the change in the law. Of course you should still have insurance before you ride it!

ahhhhhhhhh yes, just the number

The wind blew my bike over. Any top tips for preventing this?

Also goo leaked over the rain cover. From the smell I think it was probably petrol, especially as I'd filled it up the other day.

Any tips for how to clean the goo from the rain cover?

Figure out which way the wind's blowing, park bike so it's blown onto the stand rather than off it?

I parked between two bike stands at work the other night as I was worried about it being blown over but this may not be possible for you i guess.

Cheers. That's a good idea. Thinking it through it was parked the other way. But it's a light bike and the camber is slight so I could park facing the curb.

Usually I try and check it by rocking it to check the weighting - my street is quite windy at the moment. I think it's fell because there were no cars near to break the wind... equally I don't want it to fall onto a car and cause damage.

Anyone here riding with an airbag?
Going to get one, just not sure which one.

Route 66 east from Chicago to LA, then up highway 1 to Monterey, over to Yosemite then back to San Francisco to finish. September 3rd to 29th.

Sounds like a decent schlap, as someone who's done similar I'd recommend as much time as possible on the coast roads (routes 1 & 101). I have pals in San Fran if you need a hand with anything. I can also recommend a great Airbnb.

I did a lap around Lake Tahoe/Yosemite NP too, well worth the slog, Reno if you like that sort of thing, Folsom prison is out that way also.

You can never plan enough, I've got a bunch of USA road books you can borrow on a long lease if you like?

Anyone here riding with an airbag?

Going to get one, just not sure which one.>

a what now?

http://www.dainese.com/en_en/d-air/street/

no shit! want!!

It's a fair whack of miles. Current planned route is ~3,150 miles.

We've booked through a company who've sorted out all the hotels etc along the way (apart from LA where we have family) so just got to sort out the bits in between.

Would be great to borrow some books... will drop you a PM

Yeah. Think I'll pass on dainese and get the helite.

Dainese needs servicing every 2 years and is £250 if it goes off to service.

Helite is good, but slightly slower deploy tjme as its a cord attach, not accelerometer.

Husqvarna starting fine and going well through all the gears, thanks for all the help you lot. Haven't got anything to judge it against as everything else I've ridden in two wheels hasn't had an engine but it's very fun to ride. Acceleration is crazy. Was out on it yesterday in that wind, quite intense.

We did 3500miles in 9 riding days, it's easy enough to do out there. We went in April, still encountered a massive range of temperature (snow at altitude to 38 degrees in Death Valley). Had a day of crazy side wind but no rain. All the other riders in our group went with open face/no visor and sunglasses, big mistake, the sand and heat in the desert air blasted their eyes to a pink bloodshot mess on day one. The roof roadster I used allowed me to carry 2 visors, one clear, one dark.

CasaB -nice work, roll on the springtime and some sticky tyres. Or maybe just a sticky front tyre if you're feeling brave by then....

Soul, I know it probably sounds obvious but make sure to pay close attention to hydration anywhere in the South West. It's so dry that your sweat wicks away at an astonishing pace - you can get dehydrated very quickly, even if you're not feeling too hot.

Took out my new (to me) RM250 for a bit of trail action up at Rowher on saturday morning and uncovered a few irritating gremlins....Carburation is not great on 1/8, through 1/4 throttle and combined with the light flywheel, it really makes the HIT hard when it comes on pipe. A REAL twostroke kick. The clutch is also god awful grabby, it's either trickle out at almost tickover, or full rpm dump...terrible for anything technical. Apparently, they're all like that and it's fixable with an aftermarket clutch basket. Most alarmingly, when we got back to the staging area, it had lost most of the coolant in the radiator somewhere. I'm hoping that it just boiled off as it was a relatively warm day and I was stopping and waiting for a friend a lot. Doesn't feel like it could be a head gasket or anything as the bike is fast as hell (nearly looped it several times...)

On the plus side, the handling and suspension is absolute ACES after the CR - it feels so much plusher and it a lot more pointy. A really enjoyable ride when you get moving.

Debating whether to give it another try, or strip the top end and clutch down now and fix them properly. Didn't really want to be on the hook for 400 notes in parts straight out the gate.

Motorbike crash behind Tate Modern this morning - what's that main road by London Bridge called? Looked to be not too serious: girl picking herself up off the floor, someone wheeling a big adventure tour bike away.

Minor woes with the bike, the front brake light switch snapped after the wind knocked my bike over - I can’t wait for the day I have a drive or garage.

I’ve realised my OEM tool kit is rubbish. I know down the line I should get some proper tools sorted and work out what crosses over from bicycle and inherited tools. In the meantime I’m just putting together the bare minimum to leave under my seat. There is limited space.

The questions I had were,

· Puncture repair kit – what do people use? The dynaplug one looks great and most importantly small. The "carbon" one is lightest and cheapest but will it hold up, and would the Alu be a safer bet? Also cheap ones can be had for a fiver. Thoughts?

· Jump start cables – could I just make my own out of some wire plus crocodile clips? A quick Google says I should use 12 Gauge wire wrapped in silicone. As I said space is limited so I thought making some might be smaller, lighter and cheaper.

Oh and are there any spares that are a must have? I've seen fuses / bulbs mentioned.

For puncture repair try to avoid the spray foam, it can go off under seats etc. The dynaplug is ok (as long as your bike has tubeless tyres). In the past I've ridden 10-15 miles on a deflated tyre, at a very low speed obvs. Are you going to be miles from civilisation? Credit Card and telephone is the modern solution. Of course it a usually happens on a bank holiday and you can't get internet reception to find the number of a local repair guy then you just have to get friendly with the locals and flag someone down.

I've never jump started a motorbike. In many years and bikes. If it's auto then a jump start might be the only way, but a normal geared bike, if you can't push start it you have a bigger problem than just the battery. OK maybe a Gold Wing would be a stretch to push start on your own. If you've got a battery to jump from, you've got a helper to push the bike.

You're not in Central London I guess. Planning on touring Scotland?

Ha! No this is for central London (well zone 2... for now). So I can always park my bike up and sort it later I guess.

But I'm just getting a bit more concerned after having a bit of bad luck.

The planned tool kit so far is literally Allen keys, screw driver, cable ties, puncture kit, etc.

But at the moment for my OEM kit doesn't actually have the right selection of Allen keys to take the bits off needed to get to the battery.

Ive bought a new battery, so maybe this is all misplaced. But it'll be a fucker if I need to make a small repair on a weekend/late journey home and can't.