Blimey! I'm a biker!!!

I did it folks! I am now a bona fide motorcyclist. Now all I need is a motorcycle. I shall be off to the dealers on Friday for a test ride on a Honda CBF500

 

Well done Chris, but wouldn't you prefer an Italian beauty instead ?

 

so are you going to start taking lsd chris?
cheers


julian

 

erm, you dont want Italian you want a nice propper English bike like Triumph.

tbh i cant say much i got a yamaha but i would like a Triumph.

btw if you like the honda i would recomend taking a peek at the Hornet CB600 its very nice i am tempted to get one myself.

 

I want a bike that won't break

My neighbour has a Triumph Daytona 955 in racing yellow. It's gorgeous

But alas, I am a newbie and need something safe and sensible (and that I don't need a mortgage to insure ). The CBF500 turns out 56 hp and will easily exceed 120 mph - that's a lot faster than I want to go. It will have more than enough acceleration for my humble needs. I just want to bimble around the countryside safely. I'm not interested in trying to go really fast or get my knee down or any of that b*llocks.

 

You must be referring to the fact that I am now a Lot Safer Driver

I think all motorists should be made to undertake motorcycle training

 

chris,
not quite, but nice play on words

i'd agree with you on all drivers should have to undergo m/c training. in fact i'd also add that you should have to ride a moped for a year to sharpen your road sense and anticipation of other drivers too.
cheers


julian

 

Nice one Chris.

 

ah, but you will !!!!
honestly, chris, once u've experienced the rush of pulling away from traffic lights, accelerating 0 to 60, or 0 to 100 :¬), very quickly, it won't be long until u'll need knee sliders.
cant go wrong with a honda hornet, yamaha fazer, or suzuki bandit (i have the latter).
all 600cc, all cheap to insure (my bandit is £180 fully comp, but then i do have full no claims), all bullet-proof engines.
that cbf only has 1 front disc. not that that's a bad thing, but it's easier braking from 100mph with 2. plus go for a screened bike if you can, like the bandit 600s instead of the 600n, gives u better protection from the wind.

 

Knee sliders on roads are just for poseing, or hurting yerself. All fair on a good track day, nice smooth tarmac etc, slider + pothole/rut on road = pain.

 

So does sliding off at a ton=14 acres of gravel rash, till the nice nurse(Female for me, male for Chris) in A&E pulls it out for you.

 

I won't be doing any knee sliding. There are few public roads where you have the kind of visibility necessary to corner at those sort of speeds, let alone the certainty as to the quality of the road surface. This is why so many bikers come a cropper. They ride too fast for the conditions. It's pure folly and I won't be doing it.

And I certainly won't be doing 100 mph. That would be breaking the law And anyway it gets a bit windy above 70. There is a fly screen available for the Honda and apparently it does have a significant effect.

Yes the 600s are nice but at £400+ to insure, I'll pass until I'm more experienced (and then I'll probably go for a tourer anyway to coincide with my early retirement and go off around Europe or something).

 

ya the hornet is a nice bike, a friend of mine has had teh fazer 600 and 1000 and they are both nice bikes to ride.

A sports tourer is an ideal place to start tbh.

 

So Chris, you're a GRUB (Gay Rich Urban Biker) Can't remember which film that was from, I think it was "Metropolitan".

Michael.

 

Does zummerzet count as "urban" these days

 

:lol:

Not really. Taunton and Yeovil are quite large country towns but to call them 'urban' is stretching things a bit. It certainly isn't urban where I live. I'm a rural biker

Sing after me (to the tune of William Tell):

'I'm a count... I'm a count... I'm a country lad'

 

Many people do reckon that doing motorcycle qualifications makes you a more aware driver, which is a good thing. Certainly IAM or something should be mandatory.

Right now I'm on my "people are idiots" stage having just been overtaken for going at 30 in a 30 limit.

Past a school.

With 4-6 year old kids outside being collected by parental types.

But apparently I'm the ***ker....

 

Oh, and congrats on the test chris. I was thinking of doing it sometime, but finances aren't too healthy right now.

 

I certainly think that cycling in London a lot made me a more aware driver. You get a kind of intuition about what other people are going to do. I've saved myself a nasty bicycle accident a few times when I've had a hunch that someone was going to turn left even though they weren't indicating so didn't come up alongside them.

Michael.

 

try the broker i use - http://www.biketeam.co.uk/
they were significantly cheaper when i renewed a couple of years' ago, and have remained so.