Muddy

Here in Jobsworthshire, Ingerlund

Welcome Phil. Whereabouts in SW France are you? I've a few friends I visit regularly in St Pons de Thomieres. I love that region. Fantastic roads.

That's the thing. That sort of shit is tolerated these days, when years ago you'd get asked politely at first to do a search and not to duplicate. Repeat offenders got flamed. These days people sign up, don't even introduce themselves and then start asking stupid questions, rather than lurk and learn. The whole damn world has got lazier and dumbed down drastically in the space of a decade. All bikes have their issues and a decent forum will have exposed and solved most of them. Which means there'll likely be a thread explaining a problem and fix in great detail. That was the case on CarpeTDM.

When I was researching new bikes I lurked on the few Tracer sites around, both MT09 & 07, and they were all very poor, mainly because the FB groups took the energy. The Honda CB500X forum was very good though, lots of energy. Carpe lost quite a few people to FB and was almost dead, then it picked up again in recent years. I've warned people that if they lose forums to FB groups, they'll regret it badly in years to come. Forums are like pubs and have their own unique identity after a while.

That 'Comarca De Huescar' sign with the scull and shadow people very cool. Can't work out if it's a 'welcome to' or 'stay the fuck out of' though.

My next helmet will definitely have a peak. In these northern latitudes the sun is very low in the sky in the winter and a couple of times I've been completely blinded and had to pull over quick. I'm not bothered about the aerodynamics as I rarely go over 60 mpg.

Hello there Mawsley

Hello and welcome That's a beemer that has seen some serious action, for a change.

Hello and welcome Sofia In a few weeks time you'll be saying to Pedro, 'eeewwww, what's wrong with those guys' and Pedro will laugh hysterically.

Yes and no. I vowed to sell the TDM when it reached 60k. By then I'd had the bike for 13 years and though the engine was good for another 60+k the plastics were falling apart and the bike was looking tatty. Truly a great bike the 9er and I miss it, but I wanted something with less plastic that I could service myself and the Himalayan fitted the bill. That said, I would now be the owner of a DL650 if the sellers word had been good. I had the train ticket bought and was in the process of getting insurance quotes when he phoned to say he sold it to someone who turned up at his door with the readies. This is the post-modern world and a man's word is worth nothing. Found a great deal on Ebay, bought the bike from a bloke in Glossop and rode it back up the M6. First thoughts were, 'bloody hell, this is no motorway tool'. And it's not, but on the country lanes it's a cracking bike. It handles great, has plenty of low down punch for the tricky stuff. It feels best at 50-60 mph and will return 80 mpg at those speeds. I was never much of a fast rider anyway in recent years, so it suits me fine. It's not as light as I would've liked, being almost as hefty as my 9er, but the weight means it feels nice and planted. I used to love riding the Kawasaki Super Sherpa and it reminds me more of that bike than of my old XT600E, which I didn't get on with at all.

Hiya Pete and the rest of you fellas. So it lives again. I thought FB had taken all your souls for good.