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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Anyone have experience/ thoughts on the versys 650? I'm in the same market and the versys really didn't impress me. Position wasn't comfortable and it's quite boring. Frankly both the cb500x and the vstrom 650 are much better. On another note, I'm strongly considering getting rid of my car and just living with my bike. How difficult is it? Is it worth paying the upkeep of the car just for that odd drive with the girlfriend or groceries? Are there any other goons that live with just a bike? The upside is I'll be able to use some of the cash to upgrade to something nicer than the cbr250. Barnsy fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 02:07
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Barnsy posted:On another note, I'm strongly considering getting rid of my car and just living with my bike. How difficult is it? Is it worth paying the upkeep of the car just for that odd drive with the girlfriend or groceries? Are there any other goons that live with just a bike? The upside is I'll be able to use some of the cash to upgrade to something nicer than the cbr250. I do, but I live in the middle of a city with fantastic public transit. When I have to take someone somewhere or pick something big up, there are carshare programs I rely on (e.g. Zipcar or Enterprise Carshare).
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Aug 7, 2014 02:27
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iwentdoodie posted:So, ARC with the Harleys went about like I expected. All you could hear all day was farting v-twins and scraping pegs/boards/kickstands at 4mph. It'll toughen up your skin and make it leathery and hard. Eventually you'll reach pro hog rider level and won't need riding gear at all.
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Aug 7, 2014 02:29
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Barnsy posted:I'm in the same market and the versys really didn't impress me. Position wasn't comfortable and it's quite boring. Frankly both the cb500x and the vstrom 650 are much better. I just keep coming back to the SV650. Which I guess isnt a bad thing. Someone with a fuel injected SV trade me.
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Aug 7, 2014 02:39
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Quite A Tool posted:Speaking of the FZ-09, has anyone here picked one up/rode one? The reasonable side of me really wants one, but the bike porn part of me wishes for more in the suspension department. Way late, but I got one mid-june and am absolutely in love. 5500 miles so far, and everything is holding up nicely, even the soft-ish suspension with my fat rear end. 
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Aug 7, 2014 02:53
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Barnsy posted:I'm in the same market and the versys really didn't impress me. Position wasn't comfortable and it's quite boring. Frankly both the cb500x and the vstrom 650 are much better. I do it - groceries I just throw in a backpack or if it's just a few things down the front of my jacket, lass I'm seeing at the moment just keeps my spare gear at her house for when we go out. Might want to get the bigger bike before you get rid of the car though, I can't imagine it'd be very enjoyable on a 250 with a pillion. A lot of the whether or not it's worth it on the girlfriend side of things comes down to whether or not she's a good passenger. I'm lucky - she is. I wouldn't want to be going somewhere all the time with her if she wasn't a good passenger though.
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Aug 7, 2014 04:40
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I like my versys, more so than my friends vstrom, though thats the 1L. Also I do car free, have done so for about a year. Just the moto and bicycles. Works out well enough with a giant topcase and I patch on my bicycle panniers when I need more storage until I get real soft side cases. Although my girlfriend lives with me and drives us around as needed. Gillingham fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 04:53
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Gillingham posted:I like my versys, more so than my friends vstrom, though thats the 1L. Yeah I'm getting the impression a spare car is a big help. If my girlfriend had a car I don't think I'd be hesitant.
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Aug 7, 2014 05:03
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When I lived in Vancouver I didn't even insure my car for about 2 years and just rode the bike. It was an old GL500 Silverwing so it had good storage and I made use of every cubic inch of space many times. I couldn't imagine doing it without good capacity luggage.
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Aug 7, 2014 05:22
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Barnsy posted:
Bike only here, sold the car about 4 years ago. It's pretty easy for me, but I live in the middle of a city with great public transit. Also able to walk to work.
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Aug 7, 2014 05:25
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Seems it's mostly people who live in the city. I'm out in the suburbs, and while I have access to trains it'd be a pain to use them to get to work. Hmmmmm
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Aug 7, 2014 06:02
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If you live in a city with public transit good enough to not need a car, you probably don't need a motorcycle either. I used to live three miles from work and could walk there and for errands for a significant chunk of the year, but a significant other chunk was spent solidly below freezing and frequently with inches a day of snowfall. Having no car would have been utter misery.
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Aug 7, 2014 06:09
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As mentioned, I do it, don't live in a city. Rural for me.
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Aug 7, 2014 06:58
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I just keep coming back to the SV650. Which I guess isnt a bad thing. Someone with a fuel injected SV trade me. Just going to throw out the words "Dorsoduro" and "Shiver". Do with them what you will.
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Aug 7, 2014 08:34
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Back update, for anyone who gives a poo poo!  So, I had my post op follow up visit with my surgeon on 08/04. Stitches are gone. Incision site looks great. Doc is wanting me to start physical therapy and wants me to see him again in 6 weeks. No driving allowed for another 6 weeks. argh.... Lol He'll grant me an exception for visits to a physical therapy provider, which I must find in the Pflugerville/Round Rock/far North Austin area. I'm still not allowed to sit for more than 15 minutes at a time, up to 4 times a day. At this point, it is safe to say I will certainly be out work of all this month, and at the very least, most of September, too. But, I did get to sit on my ST13 last night in the garage (just for a few moments!), without any sciatic or back pain. This is a huge step in the right direction.  I actually feel really good, overall. My bending and flexibility in severely limited from the surgery of course, making even easy household chores and tasks a pain in the... well... Back. Muscle spasms from the incision site are a motherfucker though , but so far I've been able to push through them. Slow and steady, step one is heal up, step two is continue dropping weight and getting healthier, step three is a ride to Alaska at some point. I have to keep at it, I've got places to go, dammit.
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Aug 7, 2014 10:12
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Good to hear man, follow exactly what the Doc orders with back stuff, it's horrible to go through (I know from personal experience) and can take forever but it's worth it.
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Aug 7, 2014 11:50
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Snowdens Secret posted:If you live in a city with public transit good enough to not need a car, you probably don't need a motorcycle either. Also, Raven457, always do the physio! It's the poo poo that heals you.
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Aug 7, 2014 12:59
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If it weren't for all the stuff I enjoy doing in the mountains (Hiking, Kayaking, Snowboarding, Shooting) I'd probably not have my truck and just use a car sharing program, but I live in a city.
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Aug 7, 2014 13:46
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Glad to hear you're healing up Raven. Be disciplined with the physio.
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Aug 7, 2014 14:13
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I just keep coming back to the SV650. Which I guess isnt a bad thing. Someone with a fuel injected SV trade me. Didn't you have one?
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Aug 7, 2014 16:25
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n8r posted:Didn't you have one? No, had a 1200 Bandit previous to the DRZ goddamnedtwisto posted:Just going to throw out the words "Dorsoduro" and "Shiver". Do with them what you will. I will not do much with them at 0c!!
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Aug 7, 2014 16:45
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:No, had a 1200 Bandit previous to the DRZ Nothing like an engine computer that can't do math on a 0.
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Aug 7, 2014 16:51
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Nerobro posted:Nothing like an engine computer that can't do math on a 0. Wait, what was this about again? Ola fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 17:01
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Ola posted:What, what was this about again? Won't start when it's exactly 0 degrees centigrade.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:03
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A while back I posted about renting a bike for a day while on vacation, it turned out the rental agency also carries the Horex VR6 and I couldn't pass that up. I didn't know they got past the 'first ride article in a magazine' stage. So that's what I'm renting next week.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:09
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KARMA! posted:Won't start when it's exactly 0 degrees centigrade. Because there was a bug in the engine computer? I seem to remember laughing at this but have clearly not laughed enough. Is there a detailed description somewhere?
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Aug 7, 2014 17:17
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Ola posted:Because there was a bug in the engine computer? I seem to remember laughing at this but have clearly not laughed enough. Is there a detailed description somewhere? I think the gist of it was that the ECU wouldnt allow the engine to start at exactly 0 degrees celcius. Anything higher or lower was fine. Presumably from a divide by zero error, which is hilarious and speaks volumes of their QC process.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:21
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I think the gist of it was that the ECU wouldnt allow the engine to start at exactly 0 degrees celcius. Anything higher or lower was fine. Presumably from a divide by zero error, which is hilarious and speaks volumes of their QC process. And, to be fair, the Italian climate.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:23
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Zero degrees? We don't make our motorcycles to work on the moon.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:30
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Ola posted:And, to be fair, the Italian climate. And apparently their non-domestic sales predictions.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:36
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High Protein posted:A while back I posted about renting a bike for a day while on vacation, it turned out the rental agency also carries the Horex VR6 and I couldn't pass that up. I didn't know they got past the 'first ride article in a magazine' stage. So that's what I'm renting next week.  Please please please post a trip report, that thing looks exactly up my alley (and completely unobtainable).
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Aug 7, 2014 20:00
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Wtf is a sovereign motorcycle?
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Aug 7, 2014 21:00
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High Protein posted:A while back I posted about renting a bike for a day while on vacation, it turned out the rental agency also carries the Horex VR6 and I couldn't pass that up. I didn't know they got past the 'first ride article in a magazine' stage. So that's what I'm renting next week. Please have your holiday at home so I can borrow that thing.
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Aug 7, 2014 21:14
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Perhaps it is literally a motorcycle possessing supreme or ultimate power.
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Aug 7, 2014 21:14
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n8r posted:Wtf is a sovereign motorcycle? It's the bike for people who think that helmet laws don't apply because the flag in the courthouse has a gold fringe. It's a free bike on the land.
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Aug 7, 2014 21:17
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:And apparently their non-domestic sales predictions. It gets slightly funnier, having now chatted to a dealer about it - turns out it's not actually a divide-by-zero error, it's a fencepost error (sort of). There's a programme for starting in freezing temperatures, and one for starting in cold temperatures. The freezing temperatures one works with negative numbers, the cold temperatures one with positive. TBH even if it wasn't fixed, it's the nearest to the bad kind of Italian "character" I've experienced with it in five years. The other issues I've had with it are ones I'd consider fairly normal wear-and-tear. (For the record - in the warranty period I had the cooling fan burn out (known, Piaggio-wide issue fixed in newer bikes) and back brake light switch fail (fairly unique according to the Aprilia forums). In the three years since the MAF sensor went (loving German components), the clutch slave cylinder seal failed and one of the front brake calipers partially seized. Oh and it has a really, really slight oil leak (less than 100mls per 1000 miles) from the output shaft seal but frankly I just treat that as a free chain lube. Considering my mate's Honda has been back to the dealers three times for a fuel pump failure, and my other mate's Striple is basically in the dealer every 3 months and also burns a ml of oil a mile, I'd call that pretty loving good)
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Aug 7, 2014 21:27
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Are you sure you don't ride my Buell?
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Aug 7, 2014 22:09
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goddamnedtwisto posted:
Holy poo poo you have some crazy Italian bike Stockholm syndrome if you consider that "normal wear and tear"
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Aug 8, 2014 00:27
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But it has so much soul you just don't get it. Things that have broken on my Kawasaki in 10k miles:
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Aug 8, 2014 00:48
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Holy poo poo you have some crazy Italian bike Stockholm syndrome if you consider that "normal wear and tear" Yeah, gotta agree - my bike's 8 years old and over 15k miles and it's... had the right fork seal develop a slow leak. Also oil and filter changes, new spark plugs, tires. You know, hardcore repairs. E: also have to clean and lube the chain every couple weeks, it's hard work keeping this thing running.
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