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greg_in_london

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Everything posted by greg_in_london

  1. greg_in_london
    Over here Harley aim at the middle aged rider who isn't interested in the latest crutch rocket, especially if they are a new biker or have returned after many years. Not everyone wants a heavyweight tourer, especially to commute in or out of town on. Apart from unreliability, Harleys have a reputation for slow handling and awful brakes. This bike is what CycleWorld said, an attempt to produce something for the European market with brakes and that goes around coners. There are a number of other bikes on the market that are low tuned versions of other bikes and this bike will probably compete against them. 122mph is a very staid performance in this day and age - and only 39mpg (35 mpUSg ?) average. Some people will buy it and be happy with it if it's what they've been looking for. I haven't seen any on the road though.
  2. greg_in_london
    I've had no problem with PayPal and I've been using it for at least five years. The fees are fairly high, but if you're sending money that doesn't affect you. For the trader/recipient the fees obviously eat into what they receive, but compared with the costs and troubles of having a first credit card merchant account (for small traders) in pre-PayPal days it's cheap and easy. It also allows me as a private person to accept credit cards, which is quite nice. Over here in the UK they've started a 'Verisign' system which I absolutely refuse to sign up to. The crazy idea is that once you've sent them all your credit card details you send them again to the credit card company for them to verify it. Insane - twice the chance of it being intercepted - and they're verifying it AFTER you've sent your details to the company. When it all goes wrong you can be sure they'll blaim you for their poor security. As you may have guessed, I prefer to use PayPal online.
  3. greg_in_london
    Probably not enough interest to justify enquiring then. An order of a hundred would run to a good few thousand quid and as only Brian answered I reckon I'd be well out of pocket unless I expected to do half a million miles in the next couple of years.
  4. greg_in_london
    Well I gave him a couple of weeks and then rang him as I said. He had been full of confidence, set the sidecar up next to the bike with all the fiitings around. And then just looked at it for about three hours thinking 'I don't know what to do next....' So today the plan is to collect a few boxes of fittings and venture out into the cold and see if I can point him in the right direction. Mind you, we went to the theatre last night (Jack and the Beanstalk) and had a few drinks afterwards and have been having a leisurely morning waiting for the headache and nausea to go away before we get up....
  5. greg_in_london
    I have a first gen so I suppose it could be different, but why do you remove your brake discs every time ? Are you that concerned about leaning on the discs ? [i've never had a reason to take mine off in twelve years.]
  6. greg_in_london
    Is this like when I get bought tools to fix her car ???
  7. greg_in_london
    RE: the brakes - Jimbob's directions are sound.If you're paying attention to brakes, adding stainless steel braided hose is just good maintenance. Eliminating the linked system is an improvement if you are used to conventional brakes. As PJ says, the standard springs can be upgraded. I think mine were 'Sonic Springs' and it was a great improvement.
  8. greg_in_london
    Mine wear evenly - certainly much more evenly than that. I would think that that great a disparity indicates a problem. On mine I have removed the proportioning valve and tend to be braking quite heavily, so it may be that either I continually clear out any obstruction, or the greater use keeps the pistons moving freely. If you are only having to use light braking, or only get low pressure transmitted because of the restrictors and proprtioning valves AND a dust build-up makes pad movement difficult, that could mean one pad is not used so effectively.
  9. greg_in_london
    I had a flying lesson once, but obviously that doesn't make me a flyer. From the video though, it looked as if the plane was being held up by the thrust from the propellor, rather than the lift from the wing. It was a stunt plane, after all, and some of them can just hang in the air on their prop. Mind you a bit of extra weight in stronger bolts holdig the wings on might have been worth the penalty..
  10. greg_in_london
    I don't understand .... there is another video of a radio controlled plane which the controller brings down safely, but it appears to be a different plane. Do you mean it's a photo-shopped fake or a deliberate stunt - if someone chopped their own wing off deliberately then, well .....
  11. greg_in_london
    My mother-in-law is so frigid that when she opens her mouth a light comes on.
  12. greg_in_london
    Never a truer word said. Top scoff all round. Our roast dinners can be pretty good too, though. And we count curries as a local dish too (cooked in a pot with biled rice of course). Modern scots cuisine has rather more batter than oatmeal from what I hear, though.
  13. greg_in_london
    Normal - that's boiled - keep the basic flavour - unless you boil it too long then it'll disintegrate. It's all in the timing. No argument there, you keep your rosty food to yourself, plain fare will suit me.
  14. greg_in_london
    Anyone doing this please be careful and wear goggles - or better still use a heavy copper mallet or similar. Hitting a hardened steel surface with a hardened steel hammer will easily send a steel chip flying off along with a spark. Nearly twenty years ago a friend had a chip go straight through the cornea and lens blinding him in one eye when he hit a gearbox casing in frustration. I haven't seen him for several years, but he was still blind in oe eye when I last saw him.
  15. greg_in_london
    Oops - I must have clicked on next thread instead of next page - I wondered how a big argument had started about frying turkeys. Bit like when someone flips channel during the adverts without you noticing and you can't understand what Batman is doing in CSI. As Squidley says, normal service will resume shortly.
  16. greg_in_london
    Did I say something ? I made a comment about frying turkey and then a storm kicked up, died down and got wiped out and everyone made up. When some cafes insist on deep frying everything, pork chops, lamb chops, burgers etc, it seems to leach the flavour out. I've even seen shish kebabs fried in Belgium (tasteless); in Scotland they'll do anything that way (Mars bars anyone). Batter usually serves to stop the fat ruining fish - cod and chips well cooked is great. Admittedly chicken usually fries pretty well. Is it just because the turkey is so big that the fat doesn't penetrate, or is poultry generally better for deep frying ?
  17. greg_in_london
    Best to attach a sidecar and fix the trailer hitch to that.
  18. greg_in_london
    DEEP FRIED turkey ???? Hmmm..... We'll stick with the oven, thanks. That's not causing some international offence, is it ?
  19. greg_in_london
    Just a thought that occurs. One of the American tyre companies bought Avon a year or two back. I'm given to understand that it was because of their capacity for short order specialist runs. Maybe we should work out a specification for a square profile for a first gen and ask how much it would cost for a hundred - how many takers would we have ?
  20. greg_in_london
    Couldn’t teach a dolphin to swim. Feet firmly planted six inches in the air. Couldn’t find his a%^e with both hands. (Person who was sacked) He left one step ahead of the boot. Not a putdown, but I like this: Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.
  21. greg_in_london
  22. greg_in_london
    Parked on the wrong side of the road, yes, but we had to lift that sidecar out of a front garden and over a wall. I'm not getting any younger and wanted the trailer as close as possible after that. Besides, we didn't see when we drove down the road and had to turn round and come back - that's where the parking space was - right outside, so I wasn't complaining. VW fetish ???? I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder...
  23. greg_in_london
    As you say, they're tough old beasts. When you make them work this hard, it's best to do it gently, though ....
  24. greg_in_london
    Well I thought I had sold someone a sidecar chassis - quite happy to make space in the garage, although I do hate seeing my sidecar fittings go - although I realised that I would be left with even more sidecar chassis-es (? plural?) than I thought I had. Ah well - he rings me up and says that someone has made him a better offer and would I come and look at it with him ! As I'm not ever going to make much money in business I obviously said yes and went over with the outfit and the trailer (which was for sale on Ebay but didn't.. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEUSX:IT&item=180306957313 ) It was a 1960s (?) Watsonian Ascot with most of the fittings, just not the ones for the bike. I'm going to give him a week or two to see how he gets on and then help with the bits he can't do. He seemed to think it would take about an hour ..... The guy selling it had had it for years and was involved with the London Sidecar Club, but dropped out about the time I joined ten or twelve years ago. Anyway, I know how people love slightly odd pictures, so here they are. http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/sidecar/DSCF0080.jpg http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/sidecar/DSCF0081.jpg http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/sidecar/DSCF0083.jpg
  25. greg_in_london
    So what's new ? It looks like a Reliant Realto or Robin, but with Renault styling. See www.r3w.co.uk for more on Reliants and other three wheelers. It's pretty slow, though - just 28hp - in the early eighties the Reliants turned out 40hp from an 850 engine with similar mpg. Cheap, though. Except if the best one they could get a publicity shot of has got dented doors, what will the rest look like ?
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