*** ELEVENSES *** Elevenses 398 Wed 3 Jan – motorcycle news, tips & views
in today’s show… welcome to 2024… elderly woman ‘left for dead’ by hit-and-run bike thief in Glasgow… electric bike dumped in Thames… Malay rider clings to tree after attempting to cross floods… three die making TikTok video in Punjab… Malays cause pileup with ‘Superman’ stunt… council pay outs for potholes… get trained with Honda… peripheral lighting for Lambretta’s new Elettra… the unfortunately-named, awfully-styled Tozzbike… Ola teases electric motorcycle… in-depth today – long-term repair or iffy bodge?
Make a brew, grab a biscuit and pull up a chair ready to tune in to the ‘ELEVENSES’ LIVE webcast. Join me, Kevin Williams, twice a week on Wednesday and Sunday at 11am at www.facebook.com/survivalskills for 30 minutes of topical news, controversial views and better biking tips!
Can’t make it live? Watch it here later or catch up at www.youtube.com/survivalskillsuk
or over at:
www.ko-fi.com/survivalskills
where you can also check out HUNDREDS of better biking articles for SUPPORTERS and SUBSCRIBERS from just £3!
—————————
My LIVE TALK EVENTS ARE BACK! Next talk is
JANUARY MONDAY 15 JANUARY 8pm – SOBS in-depth; understanding how camouflage works and the implications for clothing.
FIND OUT MORE – https://ko-fi.com/post/JANUARYS-ONLINE-TALK-EVENT–bookings-NOW-OPEN-E1E2SS569
BOOK HERE – https://ko-fi.com/s/132d2e9cb7
WATCH ON CATCH-UP:
DECEMBER – Workload; how the brain processes limited information but pretends to give us the full picture of our environment. It’ll be a good antidote to Xmas shopping.
BOOK HERE – https://ko-fi.com/s/a42d6984f9
NOVEMBER – Science Of Being Seen; full presentation
BOOK HERE – https://ko-fi.com/s/1c5766dfaf
(All talks cost £6 and your purchase supports my continuing UNFUNDED research into SMIDSYs)
—————————
ON DEMAND ONLINE COACHING from Survival Skills
Got a problem? Need some help with a riding issue?
Drop me a line! I’ll work with you via an online session!
60 minute sessions cost £40; info@survivalskills.co.uk
ENJOY THESE IN-DEPTH ITEMS? Got a topic you want to find out more about? Then check out my COMMISSIONS at:
https://ko-fi.com/survivalskills/commissions
——————————-
Want to create live streams like this? Check out StreamYard:
https://streamyard.com/pal/6313917521854464
Want to create live streams like this? Check out StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/6313917521854464
He [Applause] [Applause] A well good morning and welcome to eles I’m Kevin Williams or survival schools Rider training it’s uh Wednesday the not it’s not the third of December at all is it I’ve got third of December for some reason on the notes it’s uh in fact January isn’t it third of January
2024 and in today’s 11ths we have uh stories from around the world and we have some News and Views and tips as well so if this is the first time that you’ve looked in on this show and welcome to you and if you’re regular um well welcome back again as we move into
2024 so in today’s show um we’ll have a quick look at what I’m up to in the coming year the first story is rather sad one elderly woman was left for dead by hid run bike thief in Glasgow meanwhile an electric motorcycle’s been dumped in the temps that’s near the
Temp’s barrier a Malay Rider got away very luckily when he was swept off his bike attempting to cross the floods three have died though in uh the Punjab trying to make a Tik Tock video um whilst a bunch of Malay Riders doing much the same thing caused a pile up I
Always wonder why people do Dar stunts like that um councils if you’ve ever wondered how much they pay out on pothole compensation um I’ve got a story on that today we’ll also talk about how Honda are moving back into the mcycle training industry something I mentioned
A few uh posts ago on my Facebook and coffee Pages was use of lighting um but not in the way that we normally use Lighting on motorcycles and we’ll have a look at a lambreta which follows the concept that I was talking about and then we’ll have a quick look at the
Unfortunately named and awfully styled TOS bike tozz and Ola at Spanish manufacturer of electric scooters they’re releasing electric motorcycles and finally we’ll have a look at an in-depth piece um a long-term repair or an niffy bodge I’ll leave it to you to decide so stay with
Me for the next 30 minutes or so whilst I run through all those various stories now um let’s start with a welcome to 2020 4 um now as it 11 is and news is a bit thin at the moment today I thought I’d update you with some plans for the year ahead
Now I want to continue first of all to develop my online training courses to cover various aspects of motorcycle riding now I know that many riders still doubt that you can learn anything effectively online um all I can say to that is give it a go compared with an
Onroad course an online session really is a lot cheaper and it’s a lot more convenient because you take it in your own time you take it when you are in a relaxed frame of mood uh of uh mind you’re not um worrying about riding the motorcycle at the same time as you’re
Thinking about what you’re doing um so it really is a very effective way of learning it’s not the same as learning on road I’ll uh quite happily say that but it is definitely a constructive way to spend some time now after all um I leared myself I took an e-learning
Course on how to teach e-learning so I am a qualif etutor and it does work um I’ll be continuing to write of course on all aspects of motorcycle riding covering everything from beginners guide to advance riding technique Motorcycle Maintenance and mental skills uh now as
Usual posts do go up first for my coffee um followers supporters and subscribers that it’s perfectly free to go over there and sign up as a follower on coffee and you will get an alert telling you every time a new post goes up and the big plus over following me on
Facebook is is that you don’t get all the rubbish that comes with Facebook uh if you want to stay with Facebook then the post go up again about 8 hours later but the danger is of course unless you have be looking in the right place at the right moment you’re likely to miss
Them so if you become a Facebook um if you move from Facebook to become a coffee follower the bonus is that you don’t get all the other junk if you do want to follow my page specifically um you can also look out for my mini ebooks too and I do hope
Publish at least one full length book this year I’ve got at least a couple roughed out so hopefully one will get finished off I will of course continue to bring you this 11 News Roundup and I’ll also be adding videos regularly to my other YouTube playlists so watch out
For some different format videos too I’ve got some ideas about what I will release this year more on that soon um I’ll be continuing my online workshops on various issues including the science are being seen and all sorts of motorcycling topics that can be treated online um defensive riding uh Hazard
Awareness riding psychology they’re all perfectly capable of being delivered online and of course I am always open to community engagement if I’m I’m happy to work with riding groups anywhere they uh they are based to promote safer riding uh awareness of Hazards writing skills
Uh uh you name it I will talk about it I particularly of course want to bring my science of being seen presentation to all of those who want to sit and listen to it um that was of course creative for the award-winning biker down courses um
So you know book me up um I will happily come out to your own club or if I can’t make it uh in person we can set up a zoom um I also hope to rece some local riding meetups this year as well I I
Meant to do that last year and never got round to it for various reasons now I like I like to link all these up via my social media presence F Pi is obvious one um I’m also on the uh platform formerly known as Twitter and Instagram and I’ve also recently created a blue
Sky account which is a sort of Twitter replacement um as the weather warms up and uh dries up hopefully and the wind drops I’ll be restarting my post test and advanced training courses as well for all levels of writers from newly qualified to high experienced now in the
Fun case you’ll get a sound reinforcement to what you learn to pass the test plus um some fill in skills for things that often basic training misses out and just a reassurance really you’re doing all the right things you will learn new stuff believe me in the second
If you are an experienced rider you’ll get an um an introduction to an approach to writing which probably differ from what you’ve experienced before I hope it will broaden your thinking as well as introduce you to new ideas now um at the uh risk of sounding like I’m um begging
Um I will ask you for your support too now as you may have noticed I run an entirely advert free network I can’t do anything about the adverts that are popped in by the likes of Facebook and um YouTube but I don’t pepper my content with sponsor content um because I
Believe that they really dilute the content when you are sitting through five or six minute video and then two minutes of that is um advertising sponsor content I really get turned off by that so I don’t do that and um I don’t want to have a sponsor like many
Influences on social media um I just feel that they an annoyance and they subtract from the overall experience so the vast majority of my content is provided for you absolutely free and it will remain free and that includes my exus freeb incidentally uh that’s the uh
I fought the law and the uh to a score draw mini ebook um you can download that um from my coffee page best place to go is probably to find it here I’m just putting up on the um there we go there’s a link to the page on coffee that’ll take you straight
To the download you can read what that’s all about that’s available still to download for free um but I do know that having written over um well on online for many many years um it’s difficult particularly on Facebook where I’ve been writing most of my stuff since about 2012
2013 um it’s very difficult to find old articles and that’s why I’ve spent a lot of time since 2020 creating the coffee archive there are currently 1,000 articles that’s not a mistake it is 1,000 articles from the schools on Saturday and the tips on on Tuesday series that’s 50 each per year every
Single article on uh from 2014 to 2023 is now listed on my coffee site in the contents page so how do you get to it well basically uh most of that is now behind a pay wall I’ll admit some of it is there to for free but pay just3 price
For coffee basically and that opens up access to all those articles for a month and if you become a regular member that starts with £3 p a month too you can access a whole bunch of additional content too so if you’ve not yet been
Over there do go over and have a look at coffee.com survival skills to see what’s on offer your support is what keeps me writing video creating and webcasting and I thank you for your past support and I look forward to your future support as you join me for an exciting
2024 right that’s the personal advert bit over so we can move on to the web weather um now what’s been going on on uh the let’s get the right picture up there we go that’s the one um what’s been going on uh well Storm Hank you may have noticed breezed across Southern
England yesterday with a very late update to an Amber warning for wind and uh and it did in fact bring very very strong winds I think a 90 m per hour gas was recorded actually in land um and it was particular particularly strong along the South Coast during the early parts
Of the afternoon it was very Gusty here you in London uh but it has cleared the UK it’s left behind Sunny spells and blust through showers across most of the country but it has also left a lot of flood warnings so if you are out there
On the bike today be very careful there is flood water around in a lot of different places um rest of the day sunny spells blustery showers most of the country snow high elevations in Scotland but watch out for patchy Frost l later in northern England and in Scotland overnight now Thursday tomorrow
Promises to be another day of sunshine and showers mainly dry and sunny through the South heavier and more frequent showers for Scotland and stronger winds too for northern and western coasts now Friday and Saturday sees a mix of sunshine and scattered showers mainly dry and sunny across England and Wales
But the temperatures are dropping and it will reach just a four degrees maximum in the north and six degre in the south on Friday and it will be close to freezing on Saturday particularly where fog lingers so watch out for that Sunday too looks froggy uh foggy and Frosty and
With a maximum temperature of just two degrees um so turning very cold indeed now do keep an eye on the forecast there still seems to be quite a lot of uncertainty of the exact locations for all these things but whilst it is cold it’s still not to the beast from the
East that the trashier papers have been telling us is on the way right okay so we have um Christine has looked in good morning Christine um let me just turn that Banner off which is running irritatingly now um who else have we got here we have
Uh Kevin is also here today and Sue is Lo in good morning to you all and welcome to the first real show of 20124 now okay on with some news and as I said the uh unfortunately the first news story of the year is a fairly um
Disappointing one it’s a 20 um a woman who was hit by a bike thief and he left her just lying in the road now the incident happened around 800 p.m. on the 31st of November the six- old was crossing the road in C Donald in Glasgow she was seriously injured and rushed to
Hospital um but she is fortunately in stable condition ition the rider escaped on foot um he was riding a gray mt07 that had been stolen from Edinburgh on Tuesday the 19th of December now police said there were a number of people in the area and that they’re Keen to speak
To anyone who saw what happened particularly they have dash cam footage or CCTV that could assist with inquiries and they want you to call police Scotland on 101 now bike theft has been something that I have been talking about on numerous occasions over the the last few years on El’s and here’s a
Motorcycle um dumped in the temps uh just before Christmas it’s just Upstream I think from the barrier and it’s actually an interesting motorcycle because it’s a maving rm1 which is a British built electric motorcycle now it will set the owner back some 5,000 um hopefully it’s been recovered
And returned but I don’t know how well it would have coped with being inundated batteries don’t tend to to like salty water um continuing with the news now some years ago one of our UK magazines posted um a guide from an Overlander on how to cross flooded roads now I think
That was incredibly irresponsible because when our roads in the UK flood it’s often because a river is in Spate and if you try to cross a flooded River you are trying to get through a pretty powerful and fast flowing current uh just ankle deep water can knock you
Off your feet if it’s moving quickly enough as my brother discovered up in Yorkshire one year he was very lucky to actually hang onto a branch and managed to pull himself out of the river after he got knocked off his feet um and the power of a flooded river that was amply
Demonstrated by the tragic incident when three men drowned after they or attempted to drive through the flooded River esque on December the 28th and they were reported to be in a Range Rover now only the driver there managed to get out of a window and hold on to a
Tree branch in Malaysia 23y old man was rather lucky um he tried to cross floodwater uh on Monday January the 1st but um his motorcycle was swept away from underneath him and he was lucky enough to hang on to a branch after being dragged only about 7even MERS
Downstream the water was 1.5 MERS deep so Way Beyond anything that anybody want to attempt on a motorcycle the forign and rescue Department Personnel they managed to pull him to safety after an hour and uh the senior Fire officer aan Abdullah he said the victim had escaped
With out injuries but was quote slightly shaken by the incident um I doubt he’ll see his motorcycle again though now unfortunately it seems that U floods aren’t needed for Dar stunts and over the last couple of days I’ve come across quite a few um I’ve warned of the
Dangers of vlogging and riding at the same time uh on other previous occasions now uh in short the reason for this is that our cognitive resources are fairly limited and when we’re trying to frame a monologue it takes away our attention from riding uh and the road ahead and
That’s why my own uh bike safety videos they have the video shot from the bike but the commentary is recorded from the safety of my office now many riders still continue to try to mix and match um some years ago I featured a St and Lor’s video where a chef was riding
Along complaining about his customers and explaining how steak is cooked to order but failed to notice that there was an hgv turning right ahead of him until the very last moment now he got off likly three youngsters were sadly killed in the Punjab last month and they
Were trying to make a video um according to the police to go on Tik Tok when the motorcycle they were on collided head on with a car coming the other way and uh this bunch of idiots uh well I’ll just play you the video here um they were said to be University
Students and teens and they actually caused a pile up as they tried to record a Superman stunt and this was on the East Coast Highway in Malaysia a [Applause] Right I hope we didn’t def in you there I’ve forgotten that the audio on that was a bit on the loud side um but anyway the uh despite the crash it seems the rider still posted it up and the video of the stunt went viral and not too
Surprisingly the police used it to track down some of those involved so three students one 15year old boy they’ve been identified and they were charged at a court on December the 29th now you saw the riter at the head of the bunch suddenly lose control and fall off and
That triggered that domino effect as Rider after Rider failed to avoid hitting the bike ahead um so it’s it’s hard to see exactly how it was they believe they have a case for pleading not guilty to the charges they’ve been bailed to appear at later date right okay now don’t forget uh if
You have a question or comment on anything I am always happy to try to answer um if you miss these shows um do set a reminder they go out Wednesdays and Sundays at 11: they are almost always live occasionally recorded and very rarely I miss a show if you have
Missed anything uh you can head over to my YouTube channel survival schools and the for slth survival schools UK on the end of the YouTube bit um is the URL don’t forget that all important UK um right so okay on with the next story have you ever wondered how much councils
Pay out in compensation for p hole damage and injury well the mirror has been investigating and they uh they have summed up the totals for the councils that responded to their freedom of information request many didn’t uh saying it wasn’t something to reveal I don’t know why but they revealed that
The payouts since 2010 exceed 32 million and that’s just the top 10 payouts for each Council that actually responded um so it’s likely that the total payout is many many times that now Kent County Council they top the list uh with a total payout of no less than 4,926
18 and that was because one claimant received 4.25 million million for a pothole related incident in my old hometown of Maidstone that was in 2014 now I did look at up to see if I could find any more details but um nothing was in the news um about what that might
Have could been but I suspect it was possibly a cyclist or a motorcyclist now Essex County Council they were second on the list um 1,916 th000 Hartford Cheer County count Council were close behind uh 1.5 million s County Council 800,000 Durham County Council 800,000 now the rsc’s head of policy uh
Simon Williams always happy to comment on a road safety issue he said these shocking figures could have been far lower if councils had had certainty of funding from government years ago as it was the amount of Maintenance work such as surface dressing and complete resurfacing has suffered leading to roads deteriorating every year
Definitely case of stating the obvious there uh he continues this lose lose situation as drivers suffered expensive damage uh to their cars and what about motorbikes Simon you keep forgetting motorbikes and cyclists and pedestrians who trip over them too and then we all have to fight for compensation and the
Councils have to for count funds and he says it’s a wholly unnecessary situation that both parties could do without he also said instantly that the RSC wants to see 2p a liter from fuel Duty Revenue ring fenced for local Road repairs as that would give he says customers uh
Councils rather certainty of funding to continue proper long-term maintenance now you may have wondered how Riders get onto two wheels these days if you have held your bite license for many years as I have um and um getting on two wheels can feel a daunting task first there’s the training
Compulsory basic training and a full license then there’s the multitude of bikes to choose from Super Sport Bikes through to Adventure models and on top of that there’s all the clothing and safety equipment you will need now that’s the first paragraph explaining just why Honda are moving back into rer
Training the motorcycle manufacturer is now offering a range of courses for all potential new Riders said to be quote everything you need to get on two wheels and whilst helping quote spread the costs into monthly payments their full course includes up to six days of intensive training to go from novice
Through CBT to qualified with a full license the stepup courses for Riders who already have CBT and the theory test who want to move up to a full license either they say A1 A2 or a level um there’s a carrot with that particular course quote if you pass one of our
Honda School of Mo cycling stepup courses will also give you 500 towards a new bike uh which will will presumably be a Honda there are say Honda schools all around England Scotland and Wales who will teach you how to ride help you gain your CPT certificate and progress
Your full license now I did a search on my location uh I was actually simply directed to bike dealers so what I suspected immediately was that Honda have simply made links with some I’m unnamed local schools to carry out the actual training so um I couldn’t find any immediate details so I trolled
Through the terms of conditions now one of the first thing I noticed was how badly the terms and conditions page was actually written uh badly placed punctuation missing capital letters um but the first thing I spotted which was relevant was quote by purchasing a motorcycle training course you are
Entering into a contract with the licensed dealership and not with Honda or the contract Center through which your course is booked and you acknowledge you will have no claim whatsoever against Honda or the contact center in in respect of the course um so basically your comeback if anything goes
Wrong is against the dealership now the second thing I noticed was that quote the Honda School of motorcycling contact center is operated on behalf of the Honda School of motorcycling by the motorcycle industry Association call centers limited now of course it all comes at a price and as far as I can
Tell it’s all tied into the final purchase of a new Honda for example new Rider program provides that training test bike um it’s not entirely clear whether the deal must include uh basic riding kit but you’re likely going to need helmet jacket Ivy’s uh bib of course um training school should provide
That actually uh gloves of course too um it’s not whether they’re uh sold to you or borrowed I don’t know but anyway the online example is based on the CB750 Hornet you’ll need to put down a deposit of over 1,600 00 then the finance is available £89 per month across a
Three-year PCP deal now if you add on the cost of the training and they say ,400 for that uh and the tests is included in that cost that’s another 45 a month to go on your PCP which means that you’re now paying 13383 P Pence per month um and when you
Get to the end of the three years you have a final balloon payment of £ 3,837 and 86p should you wish to keep the bike at the end of the 3 years now it’s claimed that that’s far more likely to be manageable for many would be
Riders um but you know it’s borrowing is it a sound financial practice is it a way to run up more debt I’ll leave you to work that one out uh do the sums too um 133 um 83 P * 36 is £4,800 and some odd bits and pieces and in total you’ll be
Looking at a bill of around 6,400 100 if you include the deposit add in the final payment and then it’s more than 10,600 for your bike and training uh whether you consider that a convenient way of getting a bike um I don’t know all right
Um what’s me next story oh yes of course now a few weeks back um I was talking in a written post on S was being seen that I think perhaps we’ve been going about using lighting to enhance motorcycle cons Security in entirely the wrong way um by trying to shine our lights
Directly into the eyes of the drivers ahead of course the problem is we’re now competing with everybody else who has a light on so I mentioned that one of the easiest to see bicycles I’d ever encountered at night at least was illuminated um accidentally by a flashing LED there was actually a bag
White bag in front of the LED so what it was doing was it was bouncing the light back onto the rider and and it actually made her Stand Out extraordinarily well so my thinking was that we could perhaps take a leaf out of the airline industry and use something like this now these
Are called uh logo lights they are Shawn onto the vertical stabilizer of the plane and the idea is that they increase the plane’s conspicuity on the ground when somebody looks out the window see where the plane is on the TAC um now I showed a photo of this particular logo
Lights uh it’s on a Swiss airplane obviously um to show what I meant now response to the article was predictably mixed there were some who thought it was an interesting piece of left field thinking and there were plenty of others there who thought I was completely
Bonkers so let me show you the new lambreta Electra um this I showed you a couple weeks ago it was at at the a Milan show uh back in November um it’s electric from you probably guessed from the name but what I hadn’t actually noticed at the time um
Until I read another article about it was the this LED strip that surrounds the body of the scooter and as you can see what it does is it actually produces a sort of silouette of the outside of the bike which is visible from the front and sort of a slight frontal side on
Angle um now I don’t know whether the designers were thinking conspicuity when they introdu this uh the blur which accompanies the photo says the semi blue light lets the electric scooter glow in the dark its design accents High highlights the futuristic visuals of the scooter making the rider feel that they
Are cruising around on a in a cyber city which all sounds incredibly fanciful and also highly unlikely I doubt many people will be thinking about Tron or anything like that while they’re on the bike um two obvious thoughts um the first is that it does neatly Define the body work which could
Uh make it easier to identify this as a scooter not anything else um but the second is that uh where it’s actually placed it will be extremely vulnerable in the event of even a minor drop I wouldn’t even like to guess at the price of replacing it but I do think it’s a
Very interesting idea um let me know what you think about that as well I’d be uh interested to hear that um Richards looks in and so has Nigel uh well done uh both of you good to see you both um and Nigel says happy New Year yeah thank
You Nigel and the same to you to and everybody else who’s watching the show right now um I often wonder about marketing departments and who would um allow something like this to appear now this particular machine um to me looks more like a Playmobile than a working
Motorcycle um in the renders that the business has put out online um the blurry um image is actually what they have been promoting um and they say this is ready for a 2024 launch now it’s the incredibly unfortunately named TOs bike tozz and it’s a Joyce uh apostrophe 90
And it’s said to relive the vibe of the 1990s it has a signature popup headlight well popup headlights were actually probably 80s but anyway never mind it has a rather odd underseat rear light which actually seems to illuminate the bottom and back of the motorcycle so perhaps not unconnected with the uh air
Uh Swiss Air air plane we’ve just seen um if slightly less useful it has an integrated Bluetooth boom box and it gets this sort of dirt bike inspired design now rather bizarrely both Wheels which are fitted with chunky knobbly tires are actually 20 in which I’m sure
Will make the Tire Choice very limited indeed now it’s claimed it’s going to be launched in Europe in just a couple of months um but although it actually looks sort of vaguely like a motorcycle um I can’t see any visible switch gear I can’t see any indicators I can’t see a
Brake light on it so it’s certainly not road legal as it stands as a moped um and given the lack of pedal assistance if you look at the uh down at the bottom underneath the electric motor down there or the battery I suppose it is actually
Um you’ll see fixed pegs now how they are going to Market it as a pedal a pedal assisted electric bicycle as they say I have no idea on that front um so maybe they’ll rethink their marketing strategy and hopefully if they do they’ll rethink their company name too now this one is
More definite this is the Ola Roadster U rather more attractive I’m still not overblown Away by those sort of the front ends on these bikes but uh anyway it’s the front it’s sorry it’s the first of four Ola concept motorcycles which is about to reach production now this Spanish company they’ve previously and
Quite successfully launched some electric scooters and they recently revealed this particular working prototype um it features um more reasonable 17-inch Wheels um front and rear you get those kind of midheight clipon handlebars um which gives you a sort of allrounder riding position um there’s no word yet on the all important
Specifications um no word on performance or range for example but since the motorcycles equipped with a bolt-on rear subframe crafted from machine mached aluminium and given a polished finish it also gets a single sided uh rear Fork as you can see from the rear wheel there it
Gets a twin disc setup at the front and a single disc at the rear the implication is is this is not a moped uh probably not 11 kilowatt 125 equivalent either so it’s likely to be something with rather more performance no word on price of course either um but it
Certainly doesn’t look like a budget machine does it right okay so that pretty much brings me to the end of today’s news stories but uh if your bike is tucked up in bed for the winter um you can still ride if you want to by reading some books so why
Not take a look over at my um Bookshop lulu.com spotlights survival skills you’ll find all my paper Books available there to order direct from the publisher okay and so on with the final piece today uh long-term repair or iffy bodge now I’ll certainly admit there have been
Many occasions when I have been obliged to make emergency repairs um one of the earliest I recall was the rack that snapped on one side um that was a piece of wood um same internal diameter of the steel tube Hune from a handy branch and that was kind of
HED up inside the tubing then the remains of the rack hammered onto the other end of it I put as soon as I could I bought pipe clip put that around the outside to lock it all together um astonishing that that survived the life of the bike actually that particular
Repair um header pipe got blown out of the head of a mates bike um we managed to restrain that with some wire cut from a handy fence I’m sure the farmer didn’t miss it um and I’ve also managed to fudge a broken clutch with a pair of the
Honda pliers you may remember they unscrewed so what I did was I pulled the cable through um Twisted it around the little threaded bit that hold the held the pliers together and then screwed the screw down on it hard and that U enabled me to actually pull the clutch lever in
Um my favorite though was a ring spanner that was actually slipped over the actuating arm on the crank case um that was useful for another broken clutch cable that snapped into south of France unfortunately um when I didn’t have enough spare wire to do the uh the
Pliers trick um rode all the way back to the UK with that actually um Coke can um cut the ends off slit it down one side made it into basically a piece of tubing and that was wrapped around the collector pipe uh that had snapped under
The engine of my GSXR uh again a uh pipe clip um secured it on one end and that kept the noise down to tolerable and the other thing of course I’ve had to reply uh fix have I still got that picture of the motorcycle up
Online I don’t know um has been a front brake lever now another handy pipe clip and a small spanner um that extended the broken off stop enough to get the front brake working again and get me home that was a a Topp off actually at a standstill but the point is is having
Done these bodges they got me home but then I fixed them properly and safety always remains Paramount so let me show you um this particularly interesting repair let me get that up on screen there you are I think you can make out what you’re looking at there that is a
Front brake lever and look at it closely and what you’ll see is that the owner of the bike has removed it and he’s drilled two holes one on either side he’s tapped them um um and he has inserted a piece of Bolt threaded bolt he then cut head
Off um one end and now he’s going to screw the two halves together um and then he finished it off by brazing a repair over the whole lot um now there is a video that you can go and watch uh to accompany this little story so I’ll
Just pop that up on screen for you in a moment there it is all the link to it anyway um um now I have to say it made me raise my eyebrows because the the main worry is again if you look at it closely the bolt holes uh where they actually uh the
Screw threaded bit um look how thin the aluminium is on either side of that um there’s actually no aluminium there at all and you’re going to be putting a lot of stress on that point every time you pull the lever on um my fear is that pulling the lever repeatedly let alone
Hard as you might have to do in emergency will simply rip the bolt out of the remainder of the lever um regardless of the brazing because that’s never going to be as strong as the original forging now I’d like to think that the YouTuber replaced it with a new
Part for safety but I fear that the the efforts he taken to repair this and then braze it and polish up the repair to make it look uh almost like new um made me think he was probably thinking this was good to keep riding long term now of
Course the best answer is not to snap a lever in the first place ideally we would never drop the bike but it happens so there are some Alternatives now here’s the first one this is a rather expensive folding lever um many riders do fit these um particularly adventure
Bike riders where you are likely to topple off um some Racers do it too of course and basically what this allows is the end of the lever to Pivot vertically so hopefully uh not snapping the lever clean off obious is a little bit complicated in terms of the all the
Joints and things there this one is from TCH uh the pveers of expensive bolt-on bits for bikes and this one is actually an eye watering 160 so there is a cheaper option and uh this is it um basically um this is an example of a a
Brake lever um but a trick that I learned years ago when I was dispatching and I employed it on our learner bikes at the school was basically I I loosened the screws of the clamp off and you can do this on your own bike now you don’t
Want to loosen off so much that it’s flopping around um it should be stiff on The Handlebar when you pull it but if you slacking it off a bit what you’ll find is that if you bang it hard the lever will rotate around the handle bar
And that in many c times actually saves the lever from snapping if it won’t rotate by the way uh take it right off you may find a pin inside the uh clamp assembly which locates it into a fixed place I usually pull those out because they’re not actually needed um then you
Tighten the screws down the so so it doesn’t R move in normal use but it will be loose enough gives the lever at least a chance to rotate the whole clamp assembly around the bar and saved quite a few levers that way when Riders dropped the bikes on training Maneuvers
And even I confess a couple of times when I was a courier or you could just do what I did myself for many years as a courier which is basically have a couple of inexpensive spares tucked away under the seat they’re not exactly difficult to replace uh anyway you can watch that
Full video of the uh the bodge and see what you think I’d be interested to hear what you have to say about that right okay so um some comments before we go uh Sue says she likes the idea of making the bike visible like the uh um the
Lameta scooter I’ve just showed you um Kevin says re whes side profile anys on bike potentially a UK legal issue uh if white light seen from the rear when the bike is turning UK writing R Lighting RS are complex um yeah yes I wouldn’t disagree with that
Um Bluey white lights yes where are you going with those um yeah um however if they are um on the front of the bike then I can’t see a problem um you’ll often see the side of a headlight from the side as a vehicle turns um I wouldn’t have
Thought that they would be a problem because I’m absolutely certain this bike has been through all the uh EU homologation checks and it wouldn’t have got this far if it have failed those so um point taken but I suspect that um they are going to be road legal right
That is pretty much it for today um I just have a one more thing to talk about uh don’t forget that my uh live talk events are back the January event is going to be about camouflage and how it work works and what I want to explain that in context of is understanding
Better how motorcycle clothing works if we understand camouflage effects it’s far easier to get a handle on the um potential problems of clothing design so that’s Monday the 15th of January be 800m um the link to find out more I’ve just popped that up do come along and
Join me on Monday uh the 15th and uh if you do want to catch up with any of the previous talks they are still available from November and December and again the link information is just going up to those so that is time to wrap up the show um don’t forget of course
Um take a moment to subscribe to my channel if you possibly can um like the video if you possibly can and uh check out all the other videos on YouTube 60c Safety 60c Science all the few really useful information about riding but in that quick to watch easy to digest
Format and don’t forget tell your buddies too about survival skills whether it’s on YouTube on coffee or Facebook uh share links over to riding buddies and I’d be very very grateful indeed and uh that’s it for today hopefully see you on the next show and if you are out there onto the bikes
Today um do make sure that you stay shiny side out remember watch out for all those flooded roads out there bye for now and see you on Sunday I’m Kevin Williams and this has been 11 thanks