I've spent the last couple of weekends working on a 1969 Triumph Bonneville, to some, the pinnacle of British motorcycle engineering.  To me, it's the reason for the demise of the British motorcycle industry.  God what a pile of badly designed, poorly manufactured crap......

Well, the missus and I were at the radio 1 big weekend all day yesterday and were up to 5.30am,

So was I, but I was there from Friday and working.  Were you performing, working or in amongst the Jimmy Savillefest that made up most of the audience?  There was some noisy bastards there but most of them were on the stage......

You've got 3 options.  You could change the flasher unit for an electronic one that will flash at the correct rate no matter how much current is being drawn although I have no idea what sort of flasher unit is fitted and without going outside and taking my bike to bits, don't even know where it lives (under the tank or next to the battery I would suspect but I've never had cause to look for it) so can't tell you what sort you need.  You could put resistors in parallel with the lights so each one draws more current to fool the flasher into thinking it is driving a pair of 21W bulbs but you'd need 8 or 10 Ohm resistors capable of handling 10W minimum so they would need to be big ceramic things and not cheap.  Or, if you want to go for the cheap n dirty approach, just put a 12V 10W car sidelight bulb in parallel with each indicator.  You could wrap them up and hide them inside the fairing on the front and in where your toolkit lives at the back.

I'd second the older Peugeot diesels (as would Christo I'm sure).  Low tech diesel so don't cost a fortune if anything breaks and economical.  Downside is they are boring as hell.   Although they use less fuel than an equivalent petrol engined version of the same car, I worked it out for a friend once and found you need to do more than 9,000 miles a year for the diesel to be cheaper to run.  The VED on a diesel is higher due to the crap they belch out of the exhaust and fuel is more expensive than petrol. 

Hardly seems worth trying.  I was going to nip out to the Peterborough Lido but missed that one and hadn't even got my jacket on before the prison one was won.  No doubt someone will post a picture of their bike with a yellow car before I've even got the cover off the bike!

As someone earlier said, it's not what is said but it's how it's said.  Not only that, it's who is saying it.  About 4 years ago I was taking responsibility for removing London's many pirate radio stations and was being shown some of the less salubrious tower blocks in London where they put their transmitters.  We took one station off air and the guy I was to replace was explaining that the owner of this station would often turn up but was harmless enough.  At this point a tatty Escort van pulled into the street and drove slowly towards us.  Thinking it might be the station owner, we stood there watching it as it drove up.  As it get level with us the driver wound down his window, looked at us and said, "What's the matter, have you guys never seen a nigger before?"

So he can say it when talking about himself but nobody else, or at least no white person, can say it about him.  How does that work then?

Although a 2003 and will be one of the very last FZS600s so will have had stainless exhaust downpipes as standard, so not too much to worry about there.  Just look at the general condition, does it look like it's been looked after or has it been thrown down the road a couple of times/stood outside in all weathers, etc

sorry guys - this is not related to the topic but not sure where to post. just registered with foc-u and am seeking advice on a possible fazer purchase. if anyone can tell me where i should be posting i'd be grateful. many thanks, tom

Well General would be right but rather than replying to an existing thread, click the button marked New Topic at the top right of the page and start from there.

As to the original topic, it's not so much a distraction as what is happening while you are doing your lifesaver?  Guy I work with used to commute into work on his bike.  Had been doing it for years on and off and didn't give it a second thought.  On his way in one morning he came up behind a petrol tanker, did his lifesaver check over his shoulder, looked forward to complete the overtake only to find himself considerably closer to the back of the tanker than he was comfortable with as it had slammed the brakes on to avoid a car that had pulled out in front of it.  He missed it by fractions of an inch.

I was looking for a new jacket at the BMF last year (as it's only a couple of miles down the road for me) and RST jackets were about all I could find there.  Wasn't that impressed to be honest as they all seemed to have a plastic lining which I thought could get a bit sweaty.  Ended up buying a Richa Hatchet from Sportsbikeshop.co.uk.  The only thing I found was that the sizes are a bit small and had to send the first one back and get a larger size.

But could they give Nick the benefit of the doubt that his speedo may have been reading up to 10% less than what his actual speed was though?

It doesn't work like that.  To meet type approval a speedo may over read by up to 10% but cannot under read by any amount.  So what your speedo shows will always be up to 10% faster than you are really travelling at, never less.  So to be doing an actual 91 mph, I suspect the speedo would have been reading nearer the ton.

So you fill in the NIP (which if you look carefully is a Sect 9 statement of fact so by filling it in you are admitting the offence in a form that can be presented in court) and send it off.  Then you will get either a Conditional Offer which is your chance to accept 3 points and a fine (used to be £60 but I think it's now £100) or a summons to appear before the Magistrates.  If under a ton on a 70 limit dual carriageway you will almost always get the Conditional Offer but I'm not sure of the threshold on a 60.  If they request the pleasure of your company in some far flung Welsh court, then it's likely to be 6 points and a bigger fine.  They also have the option of asking you if you would prefer to get no points and attend a speed awareness course which you have to pay for.  Sit through a days worth of lectures from holier than thou's who think your brain will explode if you travel faster than 60 mph and go on your way with a clean licence.

There's an interesting parallel here.  Crimea is a region within the state of Ukraine.  Crimea recently had a referendum on whether it wanted to remain part of the Ukraine or become part of Russia.  The result was, allegedly, that a resounding majority wanted to become part of Russia.  Now the EU, NATO, UN and various other acronyms have all stated that the referendum is illegal as it would have needed to be a referendum over all of the independent state of Ukraine and not just the region of Crimea.

Following that logic, surely the vote for Scottish independence should be open to everyone that is likely to be affected, the entire UK?

I haven't displayed a tax disc on my bike for at least 4 years.  I keep the disc in the pocket of my bike jacket just in case I get asked for it but never have.