My trusty CB500 is for sale on Ebay. Bidding currently stands at £45.
Bid now and get a bargain!
Showing posts with label motorbikes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motorbikes. Show all posts
Friday, 5 December 2008
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Bike or Car?
It's starting to get cold again and as I ride my bike in to work in the mornings I am reminded why I wanted to get a car so much earlier this year.
My reasons were: sick of getting wet; sick of getting cold; sick of not being able to carry much stuff; sick of not being able to turn up looking smart to work; sick of being confined to Oxford or wherever public transport will take me.
I did try to buy a car last month, but found the credit crunch had closed the doors to all reasonable loans. I tried to apply again to the AA for a £7000 loan - the lowest they will give. Refused! If they won't give that to me who will they give it to?!
So once again I am torn by the car situation. Should I spend a few grand on a car - a depreciating asset that will cost loads to run; or should I spend a few hundred pounds on some new winter bike gear and just keep riding the bike?
Problem with getting a car is that I don't want a crappy small car. Problem with bikes is that riding them in Winter sucks.
My reasons were: sick of getting wet; sick of getting cold; sick of not being able to carry much stuff; sick of not being able to turn up looking smart to work; sick of being confined to Oxford or wherever public transport will take me.
I did try to buy a car last month, but found the credit crunch had closed the doors to all reasonable loans. I tried to apply again to the AA for a £7000 loan - the lowest they will give. Refused! If they won't give that to me who will they give it to?!
So once again I am torn by the car situation. Should I spend a few grand on a car - a depreciating asset that will cost loads to run; or should I spend a few hundred pounds on some new winter bike gear and just keep riding the bike?
Problem with getting a car is that I don't want a crappy small car. Problem with bikes is that riding them in Winter sucks.
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
Misty me
Last night's ride home from work was one of the scariest ever.
Set off at about 8.30pm. Took the turning onto the A4074 and quickly found that because of the thick mist I could see about 10 yards ahead of me. I decided just to stay behind the one car in front and follow its rear lights seing as I couldn't really tell where the road was.
Then I got onto the A40 after the Headington Roundabout and it was all the same. I couldn't see a thing! I was bricking it that someone would just drive straight into the back of me. Before I set off I actually decided to put my rucksack under the bungee on my back seat, just so that the reflective strips on my Derrick day-glo vest would be seen from behind. Made me feel slightly safer.
Added to that, the mist was misting up the outside of my visor every few second further reducing visibility. I was wondering why my hands seemed so slippy, then I realised it was freezing fog. Hurrah! I was covered in a layer of frost!
I see it is just as misty this morning. Let's see how I get on...
UPDATE 0928h: Well that went even worse than expected. Tried to turn the key in the ignition: frozen solid. Spend ages spraying WD40 which does nothing. Eventually go for the old "heat up the keys with a match" trick, which actually eventually works! So then I try to start the bike, but no luck. Pretty quickly the battery runs down. So I think I will just bump start it again. Oops - the clutch cable is frozen solid. Dumbass here tries to just keep pulling it in figuring the ice will give up its hold soon. Maybe it would have, but not before the clutch cable gave up and snapped!
So now I have a day off...
UPDATE 2: Well, special thanks to Kate for going to pick up my replacement cable for me and braving the treacherous driving conditions out there. The price for my day off (and a new clutch cable) was £18.70! Grrrr!
Set off at about 8.30pm. Took the turning onto the A4074 and quickly found that because of the thick mist I could see about 10 yards ahead of me. I decided just to stay behind the one car in front and follow its rear lights seing as I couldn't really tell where the road was.
Then I got onto the A40 after the Headington Roundabout and it was all the same. I couldn't see a thing! I was bricking it that someone would just drive straight into the back of me. Before I set off I actually decided to put my rucksack under the bungee on my back seat, just so that the reflective strips on my Derrick day-glo vest would be seen from behind. Made me feel slightly safer.
Added to that, the mist was misting up the outside of my visor every few second further reducing visibility. I was wondering why my hands seemed so slippy, then I realised it was freezing fog. Hurrah! I was covered in a layer of frost!
I see it is just as misty this morning. Let's see how I get on...
UPDATE 0928h: Well that went even worse than expected. Tried to turn the key in the ignition: frozen solid. Spend ages spraying WD40 which does nothing. Eventually go for the old "heat up the keys with a match" trick, which actually eventually works! So then I try to start the bike, but no luck. Pretty quickly the battery runs down. So I think I will just bump start it again. Oops - the clutch cable is frozen solid. Dumbass here tries to just keep pulling it in figuring the ice will give up its hold soon. Maybe it would have, but not before the clutch cable gave up and snapped!
So now I have a day off...
UPDATE 2: Well, special thanks to Kate for going to pick up my replacement cable for me and braving the treacherous driving conditions out there. The price for my day off (and a new clutch cable) was £18.70! Grrrr!
Thursday, 27 July 2006
Tuesday, 25 July 2006
TomTom Rider - Cheap!
Today was an exciting day. Days like these don't come around often.
There were many exciting points about today. These points included things that might seem very mundane to the ordinary man, but when you know what the day holds ahead, even the very mundane things become elevated to exciting things.
Today my TomTom Rider arrived!
When this baby first came out it was priced at £600. Ha! £600? I could get a new bike for that! Much as I salivated over the prospect of owning this little GPS baby for my motorbike, £600 was a little out of my price bracket. When I was in Spain the other day I was on the look-out for cheap GPS units, but I forgot that satellites don't go over Spain so they don't sell GPS.
No worries, when I checked the price on Amazon
the other day, I saw it was down to £350.
I used Kelkoo.co.uk to try and find the cheapest price, until, using ciao.co.uk I found my beloved TomTom Rider for £320 inc. p&p at Oyyy.co.uk. I paid for next day delivery, and I am very glad to say it did indeed arrive next day. They even phoned to confirm delivery address, so thumbs up for their service.
Oh how I love the touch sensitive screen. How I love the thought of downloading all the speed cameras onto the thing. How I wish I had had it when I was in Spain!
There were many exciting points about today. These points included things that might seem very mundane to the ordinary man, but when you know what the day holds ahead, even the very mundane things become elevated to exciting things.
Today my TomTom Rider arrived!
When this baby first came out it was priced at £600. Ha! £600? I could get a new bike for that! Much as I salivated over the prospect of owning this little GPS baby for my motorbike, £600 was a little out of my price bracket. When I was in Spain the other day I was on the look-out for cheap GPS units, but I forgot that satellites don't go over Spain so they don't sell GPS.
No worries, when I checked the price on Amazon
the other day, I saw it was down to £350.I used Kelkoo.co.uk to try and find the cheapest price, until, using ciao.co.uk I found my beloved TomTom Rider for £320 inc. p&p at Oyyy.co.uk. I paid for next day delivery, and I am very glad to say it did indeed arrive next day. They even phoned to confirm delivery address, so thumbs up for their service.
Oh how I love the touch sensitive screen. How I love the thought of downloading all the speed cameras onto the thing. How I wish I had had it when I was in Spain!
Saturday, 22 July 2006
Oxford Flooded
After a few days of unbearable humidity, the heavens have decided to open. There has been some quite impressively heavy rainfall over the past hour or so. My bike is getting flooded so much that the water is over the back wheel. I'd guess there's been about 6-8 inches of rain in the past hour. Everytime a car goes past my bike it gets covered with a big bow wave!
...and it is still raining heavily. Should make the paintball tomorrow a fairly damp experience!
Wednesday, 28 June 2006
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