Martin Barrett

Mine are the same as Jason's. I didn't use the spacer though. Wire frame means it will bend to fit. But also means it can break Photobucket slide show of my Tekno bag photos

Great, keep them coming. Looking forward to daily updates - take it that you're not camping - internet provison permiting. Obviously when you all meet up the atraction of the may get in the way and we will understand. You're posting a greater picture/text ratio than I normally manage

Popped out and did the last two this morning. 35 miles and just over an hour Whilst in Letchworth found the UK's first roundabout. Just have to process these last two photographs and burn them all to disc to submit for verification but I confident thats another 100% all rounder. I've yet to total the mileage up. Landmarks: 2- Luton, Hart Lane water tower 3- Letchworth Garden City, Tribute to Joseph Howard Moore

I don't think it uses batteries Nog thinks it's clockwork Okay I'm going.

I'm sure it's a spoof. It is isn't it?

I've been playing with MS Photostory and thought I'd give this a try and get some value out of my photobucket hosting fee. Seems to work so you may well get treated to these untill I sort out proper movies. I can tell you're all thrilled. so as Orange would say "Click the picture" EDIT - 6mb and 2mins 49 secs long

BoTM - Bike of The Month - Front page totty

Looking good Greg, put it up for BoTM or I'll send mine in. I'll listen out for that "zing" next time I'm out, but can't say I've noticed it before - am I not braking hard enough - Feredo Platinum pads? do I need to try harder?

I also use mine every day. On the occasions where I've left her a week that's the time she's blown a fuse. Yes I've had niggles show up and on 2 occasons I've then had to go for the car instead. But she's still the best thing about going to work other than the cheque at the end of the month. I haven't washed her down after every ride and she is a little bit tatty but I love her Even in the rain and my leaky waterproofs I'd still take her over the car. sorry distracted by Danny Pedrosa on the grass she can cope with the commute - yes you will have the odd bit of maintance but you get those on tour also. It was a pleasant change to do over 1,000m last weekend and have no niggles , thats twice now on the bounce plus comuting in between. It's becoming a habit. Hayden just gone quickest but caparossi has just aced him Go for it Guy, just give her some TLC

Yeah my sister has cats. Every year we visit for a week, taking the four horse people. This re enforces in her mind that she made the right decision every time I check my bank balance I'm reminded how rewarding children are from a couple of years ago And Slug you are a very bad man. Last year we had kareeoke machines, keyboards and drums at Christmas. Yet another reason for me to go Bah Humbug. Great rocker

codpiece

Has to be synthetic as you can't dig it out of the ground, cos it keeps slipping of the shovel

You've seen mine- used daily. You might prevent yours looking like mine if you wash it down daily, but it's not what you will feel like doing every day, Perhaps it's not so bad working normal hours, but I definatly don't when getting in after nights. My collegue managed on his BMWs using a spray bottle of "muck off" and a hose. So perhaps it me. Your garage is looking a bit snug, Have you got room for another in there? Big traillie would give you another string to your motorcycling bow. A hack would just be a hack.

Richard Reid swears by them.

Very common occurance. Heres Antonio assisting Jaap remount his on the German Treffen this year and yours truely remounting his last year It always seems to be the left. I had a spate again this year and ended up spliting the rubbers I over tightened it and perhaps hadn't quiet got the clamp fully over the stub. It has been said it's a good thing that they do pop off as means the throttle plate won't get bent. I don't know what the actual cause of the initial backfire would be and if is anything to worry about, I supose it would depend on it's frequency. EDIT - There you go two similatious posts agreeing in principle

I'm not sure he was actualy calling owls raptors. But with a user name of KeS will defer to you Welcome aboard anyway

I finaly wore my new Arai Astro R some 18 months after buying it at the BMF show at 1/2 list price- end of line sale. Only 3 months after buying an Arai SV to replace my 11 year old Quantam E. I noticed a few things straight off. 1- The snugness of the brand new uncompressed liner 2- The clarity of a brand new visor compared even with freshly cleaned old one. 3- Increased wind noise due to a greater number of vents, was very particular to the angle my head was at. In my normal position there was a slight whistle but lift the angle slightly it would go completely. I don't know if this would bother me over longer trips. 4- Despite the helmets with graphics costing more than plain ones you can't see them when wearing them.

It was quite cool over night, I had felt it the previous day riding and was glad I'd put my liner back in my jacket it must have been gone 9am before I'd stopped noticing being chilled. I woke with cold feet, I'd only brought a light weight sleeping bag as the medium was too large to fit in the tecno and I'd not bothered with the extra bedding available. So I was back on my way before 7am. Going east straight in to the low sun. I perservered untill my first point and then cleaned the few bugs off my visor I'd collected the day before. I had a bottle of drinking water and tea towel in my tank bag. I had a lesuirely stop at my first point as a herd came out from milking and took several minutes to pass before I would have been able to return. I continued east into the sun, but with my cleaned visor not so much of a problem, also the sun was climbing. Lots of bikes out. As I went past the Brighton turns lots more coming towards me and again when I turned around and went north on the Brighton - London road. When I checked in at home the previous evening I found that one of my work collegues had tried to contact me. I'd returned his call. There were two motorcycle events over the weekend from the ACE cafe, on the Saturday a "Kill Spills" a ride to downing street protesting about diesal spills. On the Sunday a run down to Brighton, apparently Brighton council were expecting 40,000 acording to MCN. He was contemplating going on his Pantah rather than his AJS and wonder if I'd fancied going. Tempting as it was I'd stick to my plans. There were loads of bikes coming south as I went north. I think I paid more attention with what was occuring on the other carriageway than mine Saw a couple of Guzzi, a Jota, a K1 a couple of GT750 kettles and loads of vintage bikes and Harleys, and lots of modern stuff I couldn't identify all look the same at a closing speed of over 160mph. I swung around the London Orbital and there were still a fair few bikes out collected my next two points and headed further west for my third. I could have done these either on the previous day, but would have had too much of a knock on effect with my timings back to my mothers and would have been dark at either or both ends. This is in Marlow [6] whilst looking for a statue of Steve Redgrave It was only just past midday so I decided to do my remaining cotswold points and not have to come out west on another day. Glorious sunshine now, there are still lots of bikes out, saw two Vincents. This was looking the other way from [9] Bagged my last two points. No simple direct route back so I decide to go through Stratford on Avon [12] and head cross country from there. I could do my last two remaining landmarks, but I didn't bring the info on them. I know I can find the one in Letchworth having had a sneak peak at it before Easter, but the one in Luton I'm not sure I'd find it. They're not far from home I can easily do them both in a couple of hours later. I'm home for 5:15pm 418miles today. A weekend total of 1015miles Landmarks: 2- Havant, Gravewatchers hut 3- Findon, Castellated toll house 4- Alfriston, Lion and Market cross 5- Chobham, Chobham Cannon 6- Marlow, Monument to Sir Steve Redgrave 7- Long Wittenham, Pendon museam 9- Eastleach Turville, Keble's bridge (clapper & walk) 10- Long Compton, Lynch gate 11- Offenham, Maypole

There was now only less than two months to complete the event. I’m getting short of available days and the weather seemed to have turned into Autumn. My next three sets of days all off are either weekends or I’ve got other arrangements. The weather forecast was looking promising so I arranged to do my two day trip despite it being a weekend. I planned to do it the same way as I did it last year. Down to Cornwall and back along the south coast, overnight with my mother in the New Forest complete the south coast, as I’d already done the Kent one head back and do the ones just to the west of London. That would leave the three/four (depending on how I did day two) in the Cotswolds and the pair within 20 miles from home for another day. Usual early start, well that’s not quite true. I decided I need to be at my first landmark just after daylight so I left home at 4am. I’d had a couple of large G&Ts the previous evening to help me drop off and On waking I then worried that I might still have alcohol in my system. I didn’t think I’d be over the limit just worried it might impair me long with a bit of fatigue. First stop a self service card petrol payment to fill up. No problems just motorway down and around the London orbital and the westwards. I filled up on the motorway as there was a service station just before I wanted to come off. 123miles and all completed by 6am and sky lightening behind me. The moon had been large and bright but a bit high in the sky for a good shot, obviously can’t stop on the motorway and I wasn’t going to stop to hunt for place to stop, and I parked in the wrong place at the service station. I left the motorway and across the high ground it was very misty. But this cleared as I dropped down in to Bath and was clear as I came out the other side to my first point.[2] Continued west but this time on the A39 , could see Glastonbury Tor but didn’t stop for a picture. There were road signs warning motorcyclists to take care and advised of heavy speed enforcement. I thought it would be too early in the day for the vans to be out and saw no fixed cameras. The costal road was very spectacular, the hills steep and straight up from sea level and not running along too many joining ridges. I did my next landmark [3] and then up the nearby Porlock Hill 1:4 steep hill, no problem on the Guzzi but didn’t get a clear run up any of the hills as always come up behind a car and not always sensible to overtake, laid back enough to chug up behind until a good spot. I did stop for one picture. Not a particular steep bit but the edge of the hill running down into the sea indicates the general geography. I reached Barnstable I’d done 125 miles since last fill up so I took the opertunity to do so (13.6l), even though the light hadn’t come on. I just left the service station and there coming the other way a Rosso Corsa, we waved I spun around behind him and he pulled in to the service station. A German couple had the bike since last year with 19,000KM on it. Over for 3 weeks now on the way to London for a couple of days before heading back to Germany. They said all the Guzzi riders they met had been very friendly. I found this millennium monument at Bude where my next landmark [4] was. There were fibre optic in it that showed the star postions. And more in the pavement detailing the constellations. I wasn’t going to wait for dark as it wasn’t even midday (just). The Bude Light 2000 I then crossed over to the south side on the Lizard peninsular where Marconi made his transmissions to the US [5] The tide was out in the nearby cove. I was told at my landmark {3} that they’d had the highest tide for 100years that night and a higher one was expected tonight. Here I was told that the sea doesn’t normaly go out as far and exposed all this lovely sand. Shame the holidays were over and only the locals were enjoying it. I retraced my steps partially and was contemplating how far to stretch my fuel when I came upon standing traffic on a roundabout complex near Truo so I went into the petrol station off the roundabout. It was confirmed as a motorcycle/car accident. Having fuel I continued I filtered past the traffic until I came upon the accident. It seemed to be a yellow sports Ducati. The police were on scene and directing traffic past. I was in the middle of a double white centre line system on quite bendy heavily wooded road. There was a house driveway. I can only think the car was turning into/out of the driveway and collected the Ducati. Further land marks at [7]; [8] & [9] It was much pleasanter this year as dry and not having to stop to keep reattaching my exhaust. I braved ferocious creatures to acquire my last land mark. Then another 10 miles to my mother’s caravan. I’d done 597miles it was now 7:30pm. We had dinner and a couple of glasses of wine finished me off and I turned in just after 9:30pm. Day two follows Landmarks: 2- Wellow, Type K6 telephone kiosk and memorial trough 3- Horner, Packhorse bridge 4- Bude, Old sea locks 5- Mullion, Marconi memorial, Poldhu Cove 7- Plympton, Triangular Folly House 8- Briantspuddle, War memorial 9- Salisbury, Pepper box tower

Glad that you're okay, and able to type. As regard with the tow, if you've got fully comprehensive insurance cover they should cover the tow. The garages on our rota that we call out charge a flat fee of £105 for a tow and then £12 a day storage, Most are local I think the furthest distance one could possibly be required to go is just under 30miles, but most are considerably less.

Excuse me but do we have to have the Aussies. Can't it be Euro v US & OZ No seriously a good balance in all respects on here, even those who've not yet converted or strayed from the light

Mine is about 60* off the vertical, no problems with it just about to turn 28K, thats the kiss of death The speedo drive can be problematic there are several threads on it - we worth a search - for the various solutions/repairs/bodges On the Le mans "2002" microfeche pdf the part number appears to be 04 76 83 00 . I think this PDF might have been down loaded from the yahoo moto guzzi group. Does cover the 2002 model - with the balance pipe between the headers, but there have been a few detail changes and model specific changes since. The PDF is 6.9MB I might beable to e mail it or burn it to a CD

I use GBSpares which is part of corsa italiana - 0208 5407155 but others use TLM - banner at top of page - and agostini 18 months on I'm still waiting for OYB to tell me my balance pipe gaskets are in I sourced them myself 17 months ago and since then a second set also

Have a good trip. I had feared that you were moving on having seen your harness up for sale. What are you doing luggage wise? Remember lots of pictures and a ride report please.

Well I tried to flush them out for you (can't find the post) so you may well end up with mine