Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Yeah West end, not on that Street though, had enough thefts and close calls to invite anymore now (30 going on 90 here lol)
Making a 5mm gap under the screen with washers has made a difference, lower frequency* now so step in the right direction
*but still brain shaking and unbearable at a road speeds.

So the xt600 i bought is missing the original bars, passenger pegs and skidplate. I've found someone who has all three of these, for 115 euro's. Will probably not ride 2 up a lot, some short rides with the girlfriend. The previous owner put on some shiny gold low rise bars which don't even match the gold wheels, so i want to replace that one anyway. Skid plate might be nice to have when riding off road, although i won't be riding real gnarly stuff, just gravel and some loose sand. I do want to make it as original as possible, should i just buy this stuff? I can't make my mind up.

Buy all the things. Originality is paramount for these old trail bikes, best to snap them up when you can ime. Then they don't appear again, or when they do someone on the eBay wants £££s

Also used (and no name) bars on an offroad type bike fills me with the fear

Got all the parts, will mount them this weekend as well as take the bike apart, clean everything and replace mismatching bolts etc., replace brake pads and new brake oil. Anybody here ever serviced a drum rear brake? I do have the workshop manual but it looks kind of intimidating taking apart the rear wheel, is it hard to do or not? The brake still works but i doubt they ever replaced the brake shoes in the 30 years and i don't want to fuck up the rear wheel. If it's hard, i'll just take it to a shop to get it checked out.

They're probably the easiest brake to service you can get. Take it apart, clean all the brake dust out, regrease any pivots taking care not to get grease on the drum lining or the brake shoes, reassemble then adjust the play in the pedal until it's where you want it.

As an aside, if you're going to do any riding in the wet especially off roading through any fords it's worth getting grooved brake shoes as they're much more predictable when full of water/muck. EBC usually offer them as an option with the same part number and the suffix "WG".

Thanks, replacing pads on my discs worked out alright so i'm gonna try this too soon.

Pretty sure you won't even need any tools once the wheel is out!

Shiiiieeeet

But Cat C with a whole non OTP steering. Much shifty eyes.

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Have any of you Vespa guys looked into electric conversions?

Saw this and thought it looked interesting

https://www.scooterlab.uk/stoffis-crank-e-electric-vespa-conversion-review/

Looks good. I can see it being an interesting time for electric conversions until a few poorly wired ones explode and then we'll all be back to nanny state bs (see vaping). My main problem with electric vehicles at the moment is charging them on the street. Removable batteries would work for me but that doesn't seem to be a priority for the designers yet.

Sill waiting on the electric Brompton. No licence, tax, storage in a vehicle boot or indoors. What are the MOT and taxation implications of a conversion going to be on a regular moped? Interesting times though.

The Tern Vektron is pretty damn good if you want a foldable ebike.

Fella came to my bicycle shop with this yesterday, fresh from china (eBay I think) almost definitely not legal.

Found it http://r.ebay.com/769kK7

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My main problem with electric vehicles at the moment is charging them on the street.

They'll mainly be uses in London I reckon, so there are already a few options. In a flat it could be tricky though.

Over the next 2yrs we'll see the start of wide spread distribution of ultrafast charging points. Given the size of the batteries in a scooter it should be <5mins to charge. In which case it won't be too dissimilar to filling with petrol.

I loved this back in 2011 when Sideburn built it, now it's for sale. No indocators and a Cateye bike computer for a speedo. Totally impractical, right? But a lovely little bike. Looks so fun.

https://instagram.com/p/BWhA0VSDyTt/

We don't even have fibre broadband in our part of Fulham. Probably be 20 years before we get a charging point. :)

I get what you're saying though. It's more that I don't use the scooter that much so the battery would likely be flat every time I wanted to use it, unless it was trickle charging indoors. Will have to see how things develop but i'm not paying £12 per day to ride into central london when the ulez comes in.

There are far less practical bikes out there! No indicators isn't that bad once you're used to it especially if you're used to do it cycling. Also the push bike speedo will be much more accurate than anything fitted by Royal Enfield...

Ha recently discovered my BMW speedo is quite a bit out.....
Was wondering why I was getting such bad buffeting at 55mph. It's because was actually doing about 75mph, it's that far out! Apparently a common issue from back when they were new, many folk reported the issue to BMW service and DOT but obviously not enough as never became a recall or "known issue"
Also explains why fuel economy looks so bad, it's because odo is 30 odd % under reading.....

I have wondered how accurate my Tranny is, might strap the Garmin to it and see what I get from that compared to the actual speedo.

My Vespa used to do 0, 30kmh, 50kmh and nothing in between. It's now got an electronic speedo which is all very exciting for me.

No indicators requires a daytime only MOT though.

There's no such thing as a daytime MOT, there's just a note on the MOT saying "No lights fitted at time of test". There are MOT/construction and use regulations surrounding indicators however if your bike is pre-84 then they're not a requirement at all, if it's newer than that and you have no provision to carry a pillion passenger you don't need them. There's got to be no associated switchgear/idiot lights though.

This bike has solo seat, no pillion pegs and no instrument cluster, so I guess it's all good. I used to hand-indicate on my Vespa because they were so flaky and only worked intermittently.

It's what my MOT guys used to call it when I rocked up on the battered TZR. I don't think it's pre-84 but they used to mutter some incantation and give me the paper. I suppose I could check the old MOT's to see what's written on them. Thanks for the detailed explanation though.

Yeah it's the common term for it but it's not a different test or certificate, just has a note saying there were no lights fitted and it's not related to indicators. Having said that not many testers actually know what the score is and plod aren't much better. I used to keep the MOT certificate, a highlighted copy of the MOT testbook and relevant construction and use regulations under the seat of my bike after having a couple of roadside discussions that didn't work out in my favour.

Somewhat conversely to that, when I had an Enfield (not a pre84 one) I whipped the indicators off and used hand signals and never got pulled. That bike also had a straight through megaphone exhaust and a black and silver plate. I think it just looked old enough that plod didn't look twice at it.