So here I am 8 months into biking and I thought I would share my adventures.
First bike: 2001 RGV150S.
So I decided to sell my cage and get a bike. Exciting! I sold the car off, and started looking for a bike. I wanted something reasonably cheap, with a little bit of power too. I decided on a RGV150 due to the price and the handy little learner features (gear indicator, fuel indicator etc). This is great, First day I get it home, Up and down my street. Next morning – can’t wait to get on this again, 6am down at the local park car park. I was going great practicing my braking and accelerating, all was going extremely well until I managed to give it a little bit too much gas and ended up doing a wheelie along the car park, I damn near shat myself, Now its time for a break and breakfast.
Next day I build up the courage to go down the motorway, now that sure was an interesting experience in rush hour Auckland traffic. Anyway needless to say I’m still here so it wasn’t that bad.
Weeks passed as I gathered my biking skills. Feeling rather (over)confident in my abilities I decided to see how well the bike went on a straight down the motorway, Got up to a decent speed, feeling quite happy, started to slow down again and then the back wheel locked up, my life flashed before my eyes. I managed to keep it upright and pulled over to the side of the motorway, kicked it over and away we go, I still to this day have no idea what happened.
Couple of weeks later my bike was getting harder and harder to start – me being such a newbie didn’t think anything of it. So here I was on my way home from Uni, just getting on the motorway and BANG! There goes the fucking back wheel again, I manage to keep it up again, pull over but this time there was no kicking it over. Bugger! To cut a long story short, Took it in to the bike shop, got a quote for $900 and my engine in bits with little pieces of piston all through it. I passed on the rebuild cost and decided to hunt for a new engine.
New Chapter: 1990 CBR250R
So while my little RGV was out of commission I decided to get a new bike. I managed to get a well priced CBR250R. This thing is great, nice and quick and great to ride. I have had lots of fun on it, although not without its problems as well, I took it in to have a service costing $500, where they did a whole lot of things and cleaned the carbs, it ran like a new bike. Only problem was the next day it stopped on the side of the bloody motorway, called the bike shop up, they came and picked it up and then said there was water in the fuel tank, no charge, excellent. Got it back and it was running fine again, until it stopped again on the motorway, (as a side note this involved me sleeping on the side of the motorway next to my bike until someone could come and help me – I had just finished working a graveyard shift and was bloody tired), this time the bike shop said the carbs were dirty and there was rust in my tank causing this (which I have had checked out and apparently there isn’t any rust), oh well, A small charge later and I was good to go (not to mention the ignition that was now not working after I got it back from the shop). So off I go again into the world, now not much happened for a couple of months.
Back to the RGV.
So I managed to find a replacement engine, spent a day at my mates house and awesome she is now up and running again. –as a side note I now hate riding the RGV as I find it far too small for me (I weigh more than the bike, lol)
Disaster strikes.
Cruising down the motorway on the way to work, ground a bit wet, changing lanes and, Weeeeeeeeee, the front drops out from under me. Bugger, I knew I should have worn my bike pants rather than my jeans. Needless to say, I landed on my knees (just because I didn’t have protection on them) and quickly rolled over to my back, it was a rather relaxing experience as a whole, no panic, nice and slow. Anyway, managed to stop the motorway, and I felt very popular as I can imagine I was the talk of everybody on the motorway behind me for the day. Hobbled around for a few days in pain, and then was back to my usual self. – Went down to get some good pants off Quasi, wore them on the way back up and I felt like jumping off the bike, I knew I was going to be safe. –I have never worn jeans on the bike since – and highly recommend Quasi’s gear. Bike wasn’t too badly damaged and managed to ride it without a gear change lever for a while.
Repairs
I managed to get my hands on some parts over the last month. Ignition is now fixed, as is fuel cap, and seat lock. New gear change lever fitted and new clutch/brake lever set. Got someone to come and change my fork seals and the forks are bent (creased), great. Have now ordered some new (used) forks, lhs/rhs engine covers (as the old dont look to good from the slide), and a new underseat plastic (as the indicators got ripped out and snapped the plastic from a separate incident which I may explain later if i feel like it)
RGV
Managed to almost crash the RGV on the motorway, hence my fore mentioned hate of the bike, it just really doesn’t like the wet and wind with me on. -love it as a little zip around bike in the dry at town speeds.
Mission
I have managed to get three of my other mates to get a bike since I started riding, and have one more coming very soon – with the purchase of my RGV J I enjoy riding greatly and despite all my negative experiences so far plan to continue for many years.
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Originally Posted by The Everlasting
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