Two wheels good.

[Hooli]

Ive been running the Hornet on E10 since it came out and had noticed a big drop in range, from 140miles to reserve down to 115 or so. I knew it wasn't feeling quite as lively either, but either I got used to it or it was worst on the first tankful.

Anyway I put super unleaded in it this morning and by the time I hit 2nd gear I could feel it getting faster and more responsive, if the range comes back too then it'll be cheaper to run it on the expensive fuel.

[Jerzy Woking]

It's boring to ride over though.

Never ridden over it-I can't see it for what it is if I do.

Great shot Branders. Bit of a tight schedule so couldn't spare the time to get that close

[Hooli]

I've was on a timescale heading home and went over it around dusk. You can hardly even off the edges, not that I'm complaining as I don't do heights.

[brandersnatch]

It’s hard to get the scale of the bridge. I was pretty much lying in a ditch to get the angle.

3C53792C-4EAC-4894-97E0-456C6C4BD961.jpeg (788.28 KiB) Viewed 1574 times

[Jerzy Woking]

No matter how close or how far from it you are, it is a wonderful sight.

I also passed the Garabit Viaduct, designed by Eiffel. Impressive

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[Eddie Honda]

The Chinese, a great bunch of lads

Chinese built 150bhp V4 motorcycle engine breaks cover

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The unit you can see above is built by Benda, the unfortunately named firm...

https://www.visordown.com/news/general/ ... eaks-cover

[Hooli]

Who's gonna ride a chinky benda & admit it though?

[Eddie Honda]

First I've heard of them, however I haven't read the Carl Fogarty News regularly since, well, it was full of CFN.

[Warren t claim]

This Saturday marks the 18th anniversary of my first day as a trainee instructor.

Probably the only previous job I actually miss.

[Warren t claim]

So I'm not clogging up the main board with migrated topics and posts I thought it might be a good idea to reproduce my Confessions Of A Motorcycle Instructor onto our Two Wheels Good thread so here goes...


Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction so here goes. Let's assume the following story is a work of fiction written in first person perspective.





Part one. (No pun intended)





Back in 2003 a mate wanted to do his full bike ticket and asked me to run him to the training school he'd chosen as he'd be wearing full bike gear and couldn't drive in it. I agreed as I was a biker up until 1997 and was interested in seeing how learning to ride had changed since my day of a test consisting of a trip around the block on a GP100 as it was in my day. I got chatting to the instructor and we hit it off so when it came to the road element of my friend's CBT he threw me the keys to one of the ER500 Direct Access bikes and invited me to come along for a laugh and obviously I agreed as it'd been 5 years since I'd had a bike. When we got back to the compound the senior instructor was for some reason impressed with my riding and laid back attitude and made me the offer of being down trained as a CBT instructor giving newbies lessons in both the classroom and on the road on our scooters and CG125s. For some reason I jumped at the chance as it gave me the opportunity to ride bikes and get paid for it.





Now time for a little description of what the bike school set up was like. Every other school had instructors that acted and behaved like wannabe police motorcyclists, even down to their choice of ex plod BMW and Pan European bikes they used for lessons. We were somewhat different in being a school who were more interested in the fun aspect of biking and didn't take ourselves too seriously. When the call came out for marshals to assist on the annual Wirral Egg Run we declined due to not wanting to have anything to do with authority. The other main training school in the area had an after Egg Run family friendly get together at their premises involving bouncy castles and a BBQ while our effort was different, the senior instructor had a pub as well so we had an after run party involving a bawdy rock band playing while our girlfriends served drinks dressed in fishnets taking it in turns to dance in a cage.... Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself so let's get back to the story. As I had yet to attend my instructor assessment course in Cardington I was only allowed to teach CBTs and our younger learners who weren't allowed to do Direct Access due to their tender age. Some were genuine bikers in the making but I also had to deal with scores of 16 year olds who knew it all and wanted you to finish so they could ride home on their scooter and suffer two wheels until next year when they could buy the Corsa of their dreams. A good 90% of these already had the machine control element pretty much licked before they got to us, the other 10%, mainly girls, were somewhat challenging to say the least. The number of times I asked the question can you ride a push bike only to be answered in the negative is more than I dare remember. One such girl who I shall call Chantelle-Marie for the purposes of this post was a particular pupil who illustrates this point perfectly. She came to us as she had a job offer and the DWP did/does have a scooter commuter scheme where if you had a firm job offer but public transport wasn't an option they'd bung you a new scooter, helmet and CBT to get you off the dole queue. She was utterly fucking hopeless. Both myself and the senior instructor tried to get her to stay upright on our Honda Vision without any great success. When we eventually got her to go in a straight line she'd promptly fall off to one side when she was told to stop. Undeterred I ended up running around the training compound in front of her getting her to aim for my arse! Sadly she was distracted by one of our fence posts and as your eyes are connected to your head, which is connected to your body which is in turn connected to your arms she made a full throttle beeline for said post uprooting it and writing off our scooter at the same time.








Part Two to follow next time I'm at home drinking.

Fucking hell. Was this really 18 years ago?