Learner Restrictions

[SRADkneedragg...]

Hey this brings up a question that I have wondered about for a while. You have tiered licensing there and Beginners have an "L" plare for a while. How do they know if your Beginner/L plate bike has been De-Restricted? Do you have regular yearly inpections where they pull the carb or expasion chamber? is it the honor system? How would the Police know if your Bike was restricted or not?
Marie
HBR
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192MPH
Sponsored by Brock's, Tiger Racing, Nitrous Express, FamilyPowerSports, GenMar, and the Lightfoots HeavyBusRacing.com

[Kickstart]

Hi

That is a can of worms. I will split this reply off into a seperte thread in a moment, but going from the top.

In the UK at 16 you can ride a bike of up to 50cc with a top speed of 30mph. No limit on power as long as it is within the other restrictions. Very few stay legally restricted and I suspect most police know this. Some do get tested and then ticketed for it, but pretty rare. Not really that easy to test on a dyno as the easiest way to limit the top speed is to limit the power, and it would still give a top speed way higher than 30mph on a dyno (top speed recorded on a dyno is really just a test of gearing rather than power).

At 17 you can ride as a learner (with L plates on the bike) on a bike of up to 125cc with max 11kW (~14.5hp). No limit on top speed. Again many are derestricted and the police occasionally get people for it.

Pass your test and you are limited to 25kW (~33hp) for 2 years. No capacity limit. Again many ignore the restriction and a few get done for it.

If you do your test when you are 21 then you can avoid the 2 year / 25kW restriction by doing Direct Access. Pretty much the same test just taken on a larger bike (typically 500cc commuter bikes) with a min power output (35kW maybe, not certain).

There is no official test to check if something is restricted. Indeed for the 33hp limit there is no real legally acceptable proof (those selling the kits give a certificate but it has no legal standing).

Many 125s are 2 stroke, and many of these were designed originally for markets that allowed learners on 125cc bikes of any amount of power. Hence plenty can be easily derestricted to somewhere above 25hp.

All the best

Keith
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[The Original Muzza]