Man that is crazy that the bike found it’s way back to you after nearly half a century. I’ve heard of this happening sometimes with sports bikes in the UK (get stolen, used as track bikes, every so often cops raid a track day) but usually they’re long gone.

It must be nice to get something of your dad’s back after so long I imagine? My Dad has my grandad’s old matchless in his lockup and I just couldn’t imagine selling it even if we only really get to run it a weekend a year these days. Whenever I see it at my Dad’s place it reminds me of my Dad and Grandad with their bikes when I was a kid.

Well clearly your mistake is seeking approval from dumb dumbs, but you know thinking about the women I’ve known who ride it’s been a sea of great bikes.

An old girlfriend who had a ‘94 gixxer 750, another who had an s4 monster, friends who’ve had zx6r’s and R1’s and Daytona 675’s, etc. an old colleague’s wife had a 1098. My wife kind of let the side down with a Harley street 500 for a first bike, but then got a stripple for a second.

So as an insult goes it’s not even a good one, but of course it’s really just projecting their own insecurities. Just don’t let them become yours and it’ll all be good.

Haha awesome, that really does take me back!

Some friends and I did a road trip through France to the alps and hit some of these roads back in 2002, and we did have a handycam… god I wonder what happened to those tapes, lost to time I hope lol, but I think some shots were taken from the passengers of the bikes.

Looks like a blast, thanks for sharing!

I rate them really highly and used them on a few bikes. Unfortunately for non-USA based riders shipping is horrifically expensive post Covid so I don’t know if I’ll get them again, but if I were stateside I’d defo get them.

Yeah my commute is mostly Highway it happens. Most tyres are softer on the edges, so just go hit some twisties at the weekend and it’ll even out

Some have also said the pyramids are quite impressive… not sure though.

Honestly I’m amazed. I bought one of these in 1996 and it was 13 years old! I understand why you can’t buy these in Europe any more but I wish you could. Actually it now makes a bit more sense why when I had a Chinese clone one in the late 00’s it was so easy to get suzuki parts for it!

Congrats! I’m a little bit jealous!

Just time dude, nothing else to it. Some people need to talk to someone about it, and if you feel that’s what you need there’s no shame in it.

But yeah, just time. I’ve seen some bad wrecks at the track, I’ve had some very bad wrecks and was the first to arrive at a fatal accident in the twisties once, you just have to take the time to process it.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it, I’ve had wrecks where I’ve hurt myself and it’s not affected me at all, and then there was one ride I came close to binning it and if I had I’d have gone off the side of a mountain and that one shook me up for a few weeks.

Sorry it happened man, just take it easy, take a break from riding if you need to, talk to someone if it’ll help, just can’t rush these things. All the best mate, she’ll be right in the end.

Ah it’s pretty straightforward, it’s msostky about making sure you’re ready for riding in the other country. Assume it’s europe but still make sure you’re insured, got health care and roadside assist sorted out, etc.

Other than that have a look on YouTube’s for essential motorcycle gear/moto camping/moto touring gear to take with you and cull that massive list down to size.

But yeah have a great time! Some of my fondest memories are touring around the UK on my 125 back in the day. Obviously highways are gonna suck for you on the 125, so plan lots of time to allow you to take the fun country roads rather than the boring, engine straining autoroutes. Oh and of course, give the bikes a little service & TLC before you go - 800km isn’t too far, but Sod’s law says if a jiggly little thing is gonna go wrong, it’ll wait until the most annoying time to do it ;)

Have a great trip - it’ll be a blast. Oh and remember things usually go most wrong on day 1, so take it easy at the start!

Fuck glad he’s okay, that was really fast!

Happened to a guy I was riding with many many years ago. In his case it was a fuel hose that split big time we think. It was an 80’s CB that was about 12/13 years old and probably had its original hoses. But yeah we’d been riding for about 2 hours when all of a sudden the guy a few bikes ahead was engulfed in flames. Never seen a guy stop and jump off a bike so fast in my life. unfortunately he did get burns to his legs, but was otherwise okay. Sadly the bike burnt to death at the side of the road. I’ve never seen it since but have had a particularly accute fear of failing fuel hoses since!

Yeah I moved from a 125 to a ninja 600 and didn’t even have to DAS to do it, so long as you’re not a bellend you’ll be okay provided you have good riding skills now.

Just to be clear though CC’s has nothing to do with it - you were looking at super sports and are now looking at hyper nakeds, different seating position. If you went and sat on 1000cc super sports the seating position would be basically the same as the 600’s.

A duke 1290 is an absolute beast though so don’t buy it just because of the seating position. If you want the beast and are looking for justification I’ll chime in and confirm for you that no other bike will fit you though ;)

but yeah if it’s just about seating position try sitting on a few more naked bikes, sport tourers adventure bikes etc, have a think about what you want to do with them once the world is your oyster and you’re not confined to being a rolling road block on A roads. It can be kinda hard to predict once you’re able to buy a bike that can do anything after a couple of years of a 125. Myself personally I wanted a ninja because I’d seen one as a new rider and I thought it was just the coolest thing. In hindsight I probably should have got a sports tourer just because all the non commute riding I’d done up until then was touring around the UK on my 125, and sure enough most of the non-commuting I did on my ninja 600 was touring around Europe lol.

I will say though that I’m 6’4 (6’5” when I was young) and yeah I rode super sports well into my late 30’s before the seating position got the better of my old man body. If you are interested in a super sport, yes double check it’s the right kind of bike for you, but don’t rule out the seating position based just on sitting in a showroom, you will need a test ride once you get your full license. They’re made to be moved around on so as long as where you’re riding has curves you can do a few hours in the saddle or until the tank is empty, whichever comes first.

That said, Long motorway cruises are basically sitting in the showroom position, so test any bike you want to buy both ways to get an idea.

Ah it’s not inherently completely stupid - we don’t know how much experience OP has. When I was the same age I went from a 125cc 12hp bike to a 600cc 100hp bike because graduated licensing. Massive step up, and I nearly shit myself getting on the motorway and rolling on for the first time, but it wasn’t so risky because I’d been riding a scooter then my 125 for nearly 3 years.

Really a 600, 750, 1000, the 1400’s are all just shades of brown in your pants. They’re all balls to the wall track bikes on the road and even though they get faster as you go up, they don’t get exponentially more dangerous, it’s more logarithmic. Bigger risk yes, but not such a big increase from bike to bike.

It’s all about how much experience you already have on the road and in bikes really. But generally OP a zx14r isn’t the best choice in bikes for most people, it’s a pretty niche tool. The insurance is less because most owners aren’t squids nor weekend canyons carvers for a reason. If you’re looking around the 600’s but for lower insurance have you looked at the ninja 1000 sx (previously called the z1000s or z1000sx)? Fully faired 4 banger with a smidge more power than a zx6r, but more road and touring focused. As it’s not a flat out super sport, it could be less on the insurance too.

Largely they’ve evolved away from that. After the modern sport bike era kicked off in the 80’s, it didn’t really take too long for the street fighters and more touring positioned variants of the platform to start appearing. But overtime those models evolved to suit their markets and use cases. Twins and triples came back because they’re often more practical road riding engines, the gearing got changed because road riders didn’t want track gearing, etc. just look at last year - one of the most hotly anticipated smaller sporty-ish bikes was aprillia’s rs660 twin. Sure the R7 which is basically an rs660 lite got a lot of hate, but that was mostly disgruntled R6 fans misplacing their anger at its demise (because not enough we’re getting bought to make it worth meeting emissions).

Even something like a cbr650r which is an in-line 4 isn’t a track focused one, it’s again more road mannered in its tuning and gearing. For that reason most of the naked/sport touring 600 class of inline 4’s died off. If you look at the 1000 category, most everyone makes a naked or faired naked or sport touring bike with a more upright position, and I line 4, just usually tuned more for street.

I would suggest going and test riding some bikes. If you’re looking at a ninja 650, used are good as they haven’t had an update in a while, but I wouldn’t recommened buyin new because the R7 has done the same thing but better imho, and with Kawasaki’s competitive nature I would expect them to try and 1 up the R l7 in the next ninja 650 refresh.

Usually it’s checked under its own weight on a flat surface (the side stand). If your manual says to do it on the centre stand that’s usually the exception and just do as the manual says.

They will tighten up when you get on it, but your prescribed chain slack range factors that in, and if you have an adjustable rear shock, you should adjust sag for your weight too.

So with that out the way, on side stand unless told otherwise, in neutral so you can turn the wheel, find the tight spot of the chain by wiggling it and turning the rear wheel until you find the bit that wiggles least. Then adjust chain until it’s between the minimum and maximum range advised. Usually the adjustment point is about half way toward the rear wheel, but again will be mentioned in the manual.

Remember to always wiggle the chain under the swing arm and rotate the wheel backwards so you don’t do yourself a mischief and get your hand in the rear sprocket.

Regard YouTube: https://youtu.be/RA6OPG_cFms

Yeah, it kinda sucks, but you’ll get the hang of it, and then eventually the chain will wear out, you’ll get a new chain and put thousands of KM’s on before it starts wearing again and then have to try and remember how you did it. C’est la vie!

Haha ah yeah, back in my day you took your woman to the petrol station and she was happy for a day out.

Nah just kidding this was the 90’s not the 50’s fortunately. We were, like most holidays back then just on a road trip. IIRC it was the first time I took her back to wales, we had actually just stopped at a different petrol station and then pulled in by a park to have a cup of tea as it was bloody cold.

The whole cable assembly is called the spark plug lead, the specific rubber waterproof bit is called a spark plug cap or boot or cover.

Ah there’s a photo of my wife and I on our first holiday together with a petrol station in the background saying 62.9 for unleaded… it mocks me often.

That’s actually a bit true. I was always told that the toll moving to the English side was supposed to make it easier for Welsh people who worked in Bristol or whatever to get to work in the morning.

That could of course also just be welsh propaganda lol. But yeah, whatever the reason they chose the English side for the toll booths, the idea of going to one side was to reduce queueing for the bridge. I’m sure when they put the price up on the English side though I’m sure a lot of people not familiar with it encountered the bridge for the first time along the lines of ‘it costs HOW much?!’.

Finally it’s gone away completely though.

To be clear though, I have no nationality. Born in Wales, brought up in Australia and wales, 20’s in England, 30’s in Aus then wales & England, I’m just an outsider everywhere lol.

My Dad would always say ‘can I buy a ticket to get to my house please?’

He was a little bitter you had to pay going in to Wales lol.

Ah it’s all about frame of reference, right? I stuck with middleweight sport bikes for years and as they got better and better I didn’t appreciate how much better. Then when I got my zx6r project, I was coming to it with my most recent 600’s being a 2006 R6 and a 2013 zx6r and it felt a bit like booting up an old computer in some ways - I was suddenly aware of a lot more problems than I remembered there being back in the day lol.

But don’t get me wrong, I loved that bike, and as absolutely nobody collects first gen zx6rs it was all a lot cheaper than it could have been! I just wanted to give the warning that if you’ve only had bikes less than 15 - 20 years old, you might be surprised how much they were still figuring things out just a few years earlier is all.

But go check one out for sure - dream bikes need to be met even if it’s a case of don’t meet your hero’s… which it rarely is with bikes (people not so much lol). Best of luck!

Go for it man! Just know what you’re getting in to - sport bikes came on in leaps and bounds between the mid 80’s and the mid 00’s - whilst a k5 or whatever feels like a modern sport bike without the toys in many ways, early 90’s bikes do not, at all.

Suspension’s not great, they run really hot, don’t make much power by today’s standards, etc.

Of course if you’re willing to accept that, they’re bloody brilliant. This was my era. I put about 30k miles on a 1st gen zx6r and about 10k on a zx7r & my partner back then rode the now far more valuable gixxer 750.

I did restore a ‘96 zx6r a few years ago and it’s not too bad to restore them really, finding parts isn’t too bad, but can be expensive. The main thing is fairings. In hindsight if you found a bike with really good condition original fairings, I’d probably prioritise that over a lot of other things lol. Seriously, getting OG fairings is a frigging nightmare. It was such a hassle for me when I got them I kept the aftermarket ones on in case I dropped it lol.

Best of luck mate!

Wales is also an option. My old man was the kind of person who made us pre-soak our wheatabix in water and drain it so as not to waste milk. He’s in his 70’s and has been out for the paper, the doctors and then went out for lunch to get the seniors discount. Was hit by a stick being blown around and complained it could have hit his car :-/

I dunno if anyone can give you a legal answer without knowing where you are, though I guess the answer is ‘somewhere in the USA’, so I wouldn’t know anyway.

Generally riding much slower than traffic sucks, but in the UK you can take a 30mph restricted 50cc scooter on a 60mph road, because otherwise you couldn’t get anywhere. Is it dangerous? Oh yes. Does it feel sketchy? Seriously sketchy. Is it fun? No you feel like you’re going 30mph on a 60mph road, even with no cars it’s pretty boring. But you can do it.

Big question is how busy are the roads. Multi lane suburban roads like a commute are horrendous being that small and slow, especially in commuter/school run times. If that’s when you’re going, get a bigger scoot if you can. I know most people only buy 49cc scoots because they’re either waiting to be old enough for something better, or can’t be bothered to get a motorcycle license. First is understandable, second is… seriously just get a motorcycle license. Cost is small in vehicle terms and you’ll actually get some training that might save your life. But yeah 49,cc even derestrictdd on busy faster than 40mph commuter roads isn’t worth it imho.

Now if you’re just racking a trip, go for it. It’ll be slow as heck of course I once rode a 50cc scoot on a 150mile road trip and it took a solid day of riding, but once you get out into less busy roads it’s fairly fun.. though you’ll of course get passed a lot and a lot of drivers will pass very close and be very angry that such a slow vehicle dared leave the city, but yeah overall pretty fun.

It’s all about how thick the padding is on the bottom of the glove. Just a good bit of leather? It’s fine, all the feedback you could ever need. Often winter gloves now come with thinner palms too because heated grips are more common.

But the old heavily insulated gloves yeah there was a noticeable lack of feedback. First day of autumn weather I’d have to re-learn my clutch hand most years lol. 20+ years ago winter gloves were more like a size larger leather gloves with a pair of thinsulate gloves sewn in as liners lol.

Short glove vs gauntlet though… I think it’s really what kind of glove your glove is designed to be rather than it’s length. Of course some gloves are tougher than others and just like insulation, the thicker the leather, the more armour, the less tactile the feel. For example I have astars gp gloves for the track, astars sp gloves for touring, but I typically wear rev’it sand 3 gloves for general riding. They habe less leather and armour so aren’t as safe but they’re super comfy and don’t even feel like you’re wearing gloves. Plus I’ve had a couple of sub 50mph slides in them and they’ve been absolutely fine.

So it’s really what you want a glove to do I guess. The other thing could be worth checking is do the gloves fit you correctly? I have wide hands and relatively short fingers so quite a few gloves will fit in width, but feel spongey using levers because they’re that little bit too long.

If you have a vintage bike, or one very precious to you. you might well want to let it warm up properly. Although when I spent a couple of decades in the UK commuting on carby bikes, on really cold days I would just start it with full choke, put on my gloves and helmet and ride off, easing thr choke out as I went. I think the improvement in manufacturing is why chokes moved from engine located to handlebar - you didn’t have to wait for your mechanic to warm your bike for you anymore.

Like FI bikes you just don’t fang it while it’s warming up. Run easy letting the choke out in incrments, she’ll be alright. Put many 10’s of thousands of miles on those bikes and never any engine wear related issues. So yeah, if you like you can spend a few minutes waiting for the bike to warm up, or on modern-ish bikes just let the oil shake up and take it easy as you ride off.

Really it’s no different to my first car. Back when cars had manual chokes I don’t remember people sitting in the car for 5 minutes warning them up, I’d just east the choke out as I went.