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Post by armstrongracer on Jan 17, 2021 14:45:59 GMT
Guess there's a few here who havent been out for months, if at all in the past year. What's yer plans for when it's all safe again.
I pretty much ride everyday to work and back so I'm not gagging for it so to speak. Havent ridden abroad for a long time and not done a GP for years so thats No1 on my fantasy destination list. In particular, I would love to witness a Motogp bike around Potamao, that would be awesome. Plus I love the country, the people and the food. Unfortunately it's a reserve circuit for 2021 but hopefully the slow rollout of the vaccine will kill a few of the early rounds and it will be back on the cards.
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Post by Eddie The Bastard on Jan 17, 2021 15:03:18 GMT
Guess there's a few here who havent been out for months, if at all in the past year. What's yer plans for when it's all safe again. I pretty much ride everyday to work and back so I'm not gagging for it so to speak. Havent ridden abroad for a long time and not done a GP for years so thats No1 on my fantasy destination list. In particular, I would love to witness a Motogp bike around Potamao, that would be awesome. Plus I love the country, the people and the food. Unfortunately it's a reserve circuit for 2021 but hopefully the slow rollout of the vaccine will kill a few of the early rounds and it will be back on the cards. is your man for Portimao tips. |
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Post by beefus on Jan 17, 2021 20:51:46 GMT
Guess there's a few here who havent been out for months, if at all in the past year. What's yer plans for when it's all safe again. I pretty much ride everyday to work and back so I'm not gagging for it so to speak. Havent ridden abroad for a long time and not done a GP for years so thats No1 on my fantasy destination list. In particular, I would love to witness a Motogp bike around Potamao, that would be awesome. Plus I love the country, the people and the food. Unfortunately it's a reserve circuit for 2021 but hopefully the slow rollout of the vaccine will kill a few of the early rounds and it will be back on the cards. I have friends who live in Ferragudo, a short drive away from the circuit, so I’d like to schedule a visit that coincides with the MotoGP...if it’s confirmed at some point. Not sure about a bike trip, as in where to go. |
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Post by Diego the toe clipper on Jan 18, 2021 7:18:54 GMT
I certainly notice the lack of biking time since I don't have to ride to work any more. From using my bike every day, I have gone to using it hardly at all.
On one hand it's a good thing, no commuting means less wear, less dirt. I was using a Bagster tank bag system for the last couple of years because the laptop in a rucksack was playing havoc with my herniated disc in my neck, so I was pretty pleased to get the tank cover off, luckily it doesn't seem to have caused any significant paint damage to the tank while it was on there.
The bad thing is that I feel like I never ride! Last time out was a day whizzing around the mountainous roads near Madrid, and that was good enough for me.
But the goal for me after the Covid lockdowns (our 3rd wave lockdown hasn't even started yet), and after the snow and ice has cleared (we still have roads in Madrid which are barely driveable in a car) and if my new job ever settles down, is to get back on the track. Thanks to Google photos I was reminded recently that it has been 9 years since my last trackday... got to do something about that this year.
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Post by Diego the toe clipper on Feb 22, 2021 7:24:45 GMT
Getting fed up with waiting for all this to blow over... so I've decided to take the plunge and sign up for a track day with a riding course.
I'm not sure I really need a course, but it's only 20€ more than the normal price and if it ensures that I don't get put in a group which presses me into an uncomfortable pace from lap 1, it will be worth it.
Now the headache of which new tyres to put on begins... any recommendations? (I am running Michelin Power 2ct at the moment which I love, but they need replacing and I'm a bit worried that they might not be up to the job at the track. When I got the bike it was on Dunlop d211s but I found that they were difficult to get them up to a decent working temperature on the road).
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Post by spentcase on Feb 22, 2021 12:59:28 GMT
At the risk of outing myself, I currently don't have a bike, so when things do return to normal I will have to get myself some wheels.
I don't know whether or not to go for a rapid thing, or get something that I can blame for me being slow.
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Post by mekon on Feb 22, 2021 18:34:53 GMT
At the risk of outing myself, I currently don't have a bike, so when things do return to normal I will have to get myself some wheels. I don't know whether or not to go for a rapid thing, or get something that I can blame for me being slow. I didn't have one for 9 fucking years Spents! Highsiding my Zx6 when my wife was pregnant put the stoppers on it until I returned to such levels of cuntery in my car that she realised I may as well have a bike anyway. I lasted 7 years with the Hyundai i20 but after a couple of years the urge for cuntery was brewing underneath the surface. Playing Gran Turismo, even with a wheel and driving frame with bucket seat could only go so far. After much argument about me having 2 cars I sold the i20 (mistake) and got the Audi TT. Whilst the Audi was a welcome upgrade in speed and I could banish some of the more disagreeable cunts who used to annoy me on the way to work the itch was still there. Then the cunt next door bought something and the revving up in the back garden started and I could no longer hold back. After initially agreeing I would just get a 125 I somehow managed to convince her the VFR750 was a sensible old-man's bike and that would do. I must say the fucker blew my doors off for the first few days. I was used to wringing the TT's neck but this thing was warp speed. A few months later I was sort of bored of it but a new exhaust kept me amused and I was so fast in straight line to about 120 that it would blow away all cars I came across. Then I fucked my shoulder and I got pissed off with pain pushing the cunt about the driveway and garage so I started to think about getting a Royal Enfield. Fuck knows why but I like them. The end result of this was I then had the urge to buy a RC390 because I wanted to recapture my youth. Now after getting my knee down again I am bored as fuck of it and wish I kept the VFR as my shoulder is ok-ish now. The moral of story is.....buy whatever you want Spentcase. You will probably want something different whatever you buy ! |
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Post by Diego the toe clipper on Feb 22, 2021 19:01:29 GMT
I have had a bike ever since I was 16 without more than a few months break (even in Thailand I owned and rode a bike even though it was a CBR 150!), but I feel more like a born again twat now than ever.
I've spent 10 years riding either that shitty 150 round Bangkok or a GSXR on a 70km daily commute. Last time I got my knee down was when I crashed...
Hence the course! Do it now before its too late!
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Post by spentcase on Feb 22, 2021 20:01:54 GMT
At the risk of outing myself, I currently don't have a bike, so when things do return to normal I will have to get myself some wheels. I don't know whether or not to go for a rapid thing, or get something that I can blame for me being slow. I didn't have one for 9 fucking years Spents! Highsiding my Zx6 when my wife was pregnant put the stoppers on it until I returned to such levels of cuntery in my car that she realised I may as well have a bike anyway. I lasted 7 years with the Hyundai i20 but after a couple of years the urge for cuntery was brewing underneath the surface. Playing Gran Turismo, even with a wheel and driving frame with bucket seat could only go so far. After much argument about me having 2 cars I sold the i20 (mistake) and got the Audi TT. Whilst the Audi was a welcome upgrade in speed and I could banish some of the more disagreeable cunts who used to annoy me on the way to work the itch was still there. Then the cunt next door bought something and the revving up in the back garden started and I could no longer hold back. After initially agreeing I would just get a 125 I somehow managed to convince her the VFR750 was a sensible old-man's bike and that would do. I must say the fucker blew my doors off for the first few days. I was used to wringing the TT's neck but this thing was warp speed. A few months later I was sort of bored of it but a new exhaust kept me amused and I was so fast in straight line to about 120 that it would blow away all cars I came across. Then I fucked my shoulder and I got pissed off with pain pushing the cunt about the driveway and garage so I started to think about getting a Royal Enfield. Fuck knows why but I like them. The end result of this was I then had the urge to buy a RC390 because I wanted to recapture my youth. Now after getting my knee down again I am bored as fuck of it and wish I kept the VFR as my shoulder is ok-ish now. The moral of story is.....buy whatever you want Spentcase. You will probably want something different whatever you buy ! Cheers Meeks Thank fuck for that, I thought it was just me. I did have a 208 Peugeot sport GTI, the half red, half matte black one. That was alright up until the shocks going tits up. The main family car is an A6 biturbo, so it's quick enough for a family estate, I'd say it's about as rapid as my old 2001 M5. But cars are just, well, cars really, it's never the same as a bike is it. I don't mind admitting that I am much better in a car than on a bike having had a lot of fast road driving training, but I am distinctly average on my best day on a bike. I think that would make me keep any cuntitude at bay when I'm next on 2 wheels. I reckon I would be okay on a quick bike now purely because I've got enough self control to keep it safe depending on the conditions until I got used to the bike. |
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Post by mekon on Feb 22, 2021 20:26:48 GMT
Ha, I am the same, I can get more of out a car than I can a bike. I'll always be a driver who took up bikes. Even when I not driving I'm still driving in VR sims on the PC (trouble with that is people bend the physics to cheat with odd setups). You just can't replicate motorbiking though, on any bike.
One of my mates raced at fairly high level and I could mostly get the better of him in a car but the fucker would toy with me on two wheels. Tbh I don't think I would have gone as fast without him but then again maybe I also wouldn't have crashed a couple of times. He eventually gave up the road and only kept a 125 to bimble out on,
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Post by Diego the toe clipper on Feb 22, 2021 20:42:22 GMT
I'll always be a driver who took up bikes. Interesting quote that. I had been through a Suzuki X1 50, an RXS100, 2 RG250s an RD200, an X5 200, an IT250, an RGV250, a GPz750 Turbo, a GPZ600R and an FZ750 before I passed my car test and bought a Mk1 Golf. I spent the first couple of years as a car driver shitting myself because I felt "trapped" in a car. I even had nightmares in which the car slid off a cliff with me trapped inside. I will always be a "biker" (I hate that word though) who had to get a car. |
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Post by spentcase on Feb 22, 2021 22:16:33 GMT
Despite my mediocre to shitness on a bike, I was always bikes first and never owned a car until I met my old lady.
When we met my sole form of transport was a 748SP with a single seat, so I couldn't even take her out on the back and she didn't dig the straight through Termi's either, the fucking godless savage.
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Post by mekon on Feb 23, 2021 9:01:33 GMT
It's more to do with the skill level. I've always thought if you don't get into something before you're 20 you'll miss the window of natural learning if you know what I mean. It's the same with guitar. I'll always be a bassist who can also play guitar or an axeman that learnt the piano. Wish I'd taken up the piano first now.
It' the same with bikes. I wish the penny had dropped when I was 16 but at 16 I had skateboarding, which I got quite good at and cars were also a gateway to fanny. This said I had to learn in a fucking great in 1983 Passat with no power steering and it wasn't until my old man brought a golf home that something fired off in my brain and I started being a cunt in it.
The motorbike thing was like a bit of divine intervention. I'd kind of peaked with the skateboarding and a loss of interest mixed with injuries that were stopping me being up to my old standards. I also got full of Foggy vinegar piss as a couple of kids I'd kind of tutored got really good and one got sponsored. Instead of being pleased for them I got pissed off as I'd once been better blah, blah in my day. Anyway as me and my mate who was a BMX master were just sat around one day were talking about moving on from it all but not knowing what to do......then 2 cunts on sportsbikes rocked up to the traffic lights and gave it full launch. That was the new direction. It was never an equal relationship as he already had a bike licence, had been riding trials since he was about 10 and bought a 400 when I had to start on the 125.
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Post by beefus on Feb 24, 2021 9:02:39 GMT
I was a car driver first but had been into bikes from around 11 years old (early 70's). As a kid I used to "design" bikes with my set square and ruler!!...lol....From 16 I would borrow my mates Fizzy occasionally and later his RD250 to do my bike test on in 1980. But I didn't get my first bike until I was 23 or 24, a GPZ750...I wanted the GPZ900 but couldn't afford it.
I was also a keen skateboarder, I guess this was the "1st wave" that came from the US in the mid to late 70's... Peralta, Adams and co. A bit different to the street 'boarders you see now. We were all about California Slalom "trucks", Kryptonic or Yo-Yo wheels, Fibreflex boards...We'd build "ramps" and slalom courses and dream of riding in a proper skatepark with a "bowl". The nearest I got was a skateboard hall in Whitley Bay, it was a roller rink and they built some ramps...did the job!..
Happy days!!
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Post by spentcase on Feb 24, 2021 10:34:44 GMT
I never got into the skating thing, but I grew up out in the sticks where you had to get on your Raleigh Grifter to see your mates so there wasn't really the chance.
I got my bike licence on an Armstrong 500 (rotax single) in Germany and a group of us would go out every night in the summer, it was mostly 600s, 750s and the odd 900 blade.
We'd get warmed up on the 5 minute ride from camp to the autobahn and just loiter at normal speeds in the slow lane waiting for any car that had the taps open then take off after them. Man, I used to love those nights. I wouldn't ride like that now though.
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