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| Trasler |
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Trasler
Scooby Slapper
Joined: 12 Apr 2012
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 Posted: 17:53 - 27 Jun 2012  Post subject: Motocross, Green Laning and A new look? |
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MAYBE some of you know me or remember my constant questions.
I haven't found a bike yet, been an incredibly busy few weeks. 2 holidays, some tough time with cadets and lots of job hunting has meant i've had no time for bike searching.
But i've been watching some more motorbike vlogs. Not just the sport bikes like Baron Von Grumble but motocross bikes.
My questions, i guess, would be;
How do motocross bikes fair on the road? I mean, obviously they're ride-able but as a newbie rider, my worry is the tyres, being too bumpy for roads lol. I also like the idea of green laning so it's another reason why i've been looking into bikes like the yamaha YZ125.
Stories, points and answers please  and i expect bad karma xD |
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| rhys1005 |
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rhys1005
Crazy Courier
Joined: 02 Oct 2010
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| Trasler |
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Trasler
Scooby Slapper
Joined: 12 Apr 2012
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| Posted: 18:18 - 27 Jun 2012 Post subject: |
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Certainly something to think about and something i'll keep my eye on. But there's not much (apart from £2000 dealers bikes) near me. I'll keep my eye out for both the bikes you suggested.
Thanks |
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| Teflon-Mike |
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Teflon-Mike
tl;dr
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
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| Posted: 19:08 - 27 Jun 2012 Post subject: Re: Motocross, Green Laning and A new look? |
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| Trasler wrote: | MAYBE some of you know me or remember my constant questions.
I haven't found a bike yet, been an incredibly busy few weeks. 2 holidays, some tough time with cadets and lots of job hunting has meant i've had no time for bike searching.
But i've been watching some more motorbike vlogs. Not just the sport bikes like Baron Von Grumble but motocross bikes.
My questions, i guess, would be;
How do motocross bikes fair on the road? I mean, obviously they're ride-able but as a newbie rider, my worry is the tyres, being too bumpy for roads lol. I also like the idea of green laning so it's another reason why i've been looking into bikes like the yamaha YZ125.
Stories, points and answers please and i expect bad karma xD |
Oh Boy!
YZ125 on green-lanes... and L-Plates I presume?!
Dose of reality vs overactive imagination needed me-thinks.
Fist off, how far wrong am I on the L-Plate notion? Do you have a licence?
If not forget all elce, prioratise that one.
Next up; green-laning. Green-Lanes a re public roads, you need a ROAD LEGAL vehicle, and you need to be DAMN sure that whatever track you head down does have vehicular rights.
Spend more time looking for 'green-lanes' in most parts of teh country than you will riding them.
They are also NOT MX tracks, to go rutting up at 60 per. I believe there is a 'blanket' speed limit of 25mph on unsurfaced routes now, curtecy of the NERF act.
You do not need or WANT a dedicated MX bike, with no lights, a TINY petrol tank to be filled with pre-mix every 20 minutes, and a piston life measured in hours, on the public road...
YEAH you can use them and some are nutty enough to try, but they are NOT the tool for the job.
MX tyres apart from being illegal for road use are like riding on square wheels on tarmac, while as said, the service intervals on a pure dedicated cometition bike, intended to be used in 15 minute 'heats' and rebuilt three times a year, and has NO street-equipment and is 'awkward' to add street equipment to, is NOT a great starting place, while a YZ125 with around 30bhp is about as 'Learner-Legal' as a GSXR600
125's for Green-Laning? Yes great 'tools' and something like a KMX or a DT125,m or even a four-stroke XR125 is MORE than 'adequete' for what ought NOT be an attempt to see how 'challenging' a track you can ride, or how fast....
For them kind of thrills go to an MX practice of go do an Enduro!
Thing with 125's is they are light and manageable, great for a newbie, but they aren't wonderfully comfy for long haul road work.
450 or 600, you could probably tolerate for 50miles to and from a green-lane ritch region, a 125 would be hard work....
And apart from a few headline 'Long-Trails' in the national parks, you WILL be doing a lot of tarmac miles BETWEEN short stretches of 'rough'.
My kind of green-laning does not involve bunging a bike in the back of a van along with twenty yerry-cans of pre-mix, and some 'spares' , it IS about simply getting 'off' the beaten path...
For which a ROAD BIKE is the more apropriate and less compromised tool.
Vans, tools, spares and riding loops around that 'base', may as well go do it properly in real competition to my mind...
So; YZ125 is not a great starter.
Learner-Legals - brings a different set of questions
What your IDEA of green-laning is yet another
WHERE you hope or expect to do it, yet another....
Elaborate on your plan, please!
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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| Trasler |
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Trasler
Scooby Slapper
Joined: 12 Apr 2012
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| Posted: 22:32 - 27 Jun 2012 Post subject: |
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I have a provisional so no, no license. Aha.
Trust me, i didn't expect to be doing jumps over mounds of dirt and kicking it up to 60 in mud.
The bike i'd be using would be mainly a road bike with the ability to go down green lanes if i had a sunday free so i can have some fun. And by fun, i mean having an explore around the countryside on a bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqgEl53x7CM&feature=g-u-u
That video is a vlogger doing a green lane, albeit failing at it aha. That's the type of lane i expect.
I feel like i stepped on a nerve. Lemme get something straight. I've not just brought the damn bike and NOW asking about it. I've been looking at small commuter bikes; CG's, YBR's and others of the sort. I dismissed anything thin and wailing as a 'chavvy' bike on the streets but i'm trying to see them in a different light. I ask these questions because I SIMPLY do not know.
I'm in Northampton, we're not lacking greenery if i go 5 miles i'm in the countryside. If we have greenlanes, i don't know. Any bike i'm going to get will be used MAINLY on roads and then have the ability to be able to do basic off roading so i can explore.
Thank you for your long and detailed answer but please do understand, i'm asking questions because i don't know. Don't bite my head off for looking down other avenues. |
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| Teflon-Mike |
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Teflon-Mike
tl;dr
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
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| Posted: 03:22 - 28 Jun 2012 Post subject: |
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| Trasler wrote: | I ask these questions because I SIMPLY do not know. |
OK, well a shuftie round my webbie ought to help illuminate you:
| Trasler wrote: | I have a provisional so no, no license. Aha. . |
Start here
I want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do I start?
Ypu will find THIS helpful
Recommend Me a Learner-Bike!
Read THIS bit carefully:-
Dirt-Bikes
| Tef's-tQ wrote: | OFF-ROAD Adventure
The style evokes ideas of off-road adventure; but the reality is, that in the UK, you really CANNOT do much 'legal' loose surface riding, unless you happen to own a farm! You CANNOT head off down any dirt-track you happen across. Chances are its not a legal right of way, or if it is, chances are it doesn't have 'vehicular rights'. See: What Is Green-Laning . Its a 'fun' pass-time, but not something I would recommend you get too keen on before passing your tests!
Dirt riding can be great fun, and a great way to build confidence and machine control skills... but you tend to do that by falling off a lot!
Dirt-Bikes tend to be pretty robust, and they have plastic mudguards and stuff so they can take the odd 'knock'; but I can tell you from hard experience; if you want to keep your bike 'nice' and road legal, and not be worrying about bent or cracked indicators, cracked mirrors or snapped levers.... don't go hacking it about the 'rough'!
Doing it competitively a very long time, I have learned the hard way, that if you do it; you'll spend more time doing repairs and maintenance as you will riding!
Far too often, dirt-bikes sell on the 'idea' of riding off-road, rather than the reality, and if you are 'keen' to try off-roading, you would probably soon find the short-comings of a road-biased 'Trail-Bike' and want a 'proper' off-roader for competition, or something more off-road orientated for 'serious' green-laning.
So, 125 Dirt-Bikes CAN be a very expensive 'indulgence' towards aesthetics, and aspirations for off-road adventure, without actually delivering it, while, being something of a liability, with the theft risk!
I would SERIOUSLY caution any-one considering one to weight up the costs and the actual 'usefulness' before jumping in and buying one. But onto practicalities. |
These MIGHT help you get a bit more clued up on what Green-Laning ACTUALLY is.
What Is Green-Laning
'Tread Lightly'
Info-Super-Highway on a Muddy By-Way!
| Trasler wrote: | I'm in Northampton, we're not lacking greenery if i go 5 miles i'm in the countryside. If we have greenlanes, i don't know. |
I do, just gobe and checked my marked map of the district/ Green does NOT mean Green-Lane!
Its actually NOT such a bad area of 'laning, but its not wonderful. Withing a 15 mile radius of the city, you have probably 50 or 60 'tracks' that MIGHT be driveable green-lanes, but most are prettyy short, a mile at most, and they are mostly at the outer reaches of the circle.
BIG ball-ache researching legal status of THAT number of itch-little tracks to find out of they ARE actually legally driveable.... I have just been through and had to scratch about half on my marked map, becouse they were 'Road-Used-As-Public-Path' or 'RUPP' which is a 'redundant' classification, since the NERF act, and nearly all of them will now be foot-paths, bridleways, or 'Restricted' Byways you cant legally drive or ride.
So of whats left, you have to scrap about checking the legal status of each 1 mile section, independently to find out of its got legal rights to take a motor-vehicle down it.
Once you have done THAT you have to check status and make sure that none are TRO'd or 'Closed' by the council becouse of surface conditions.
THEN you have to go FIND them on teh ground, which even with a GPS can be tricky, and this year, with so much rain, many are so over grown they just look like a frigging HEDGE... and even if you DO recognise them... whether you can get DOWN them is another matter... whether its a widfe idea to even TRY yet another again.
A LOT of 'work' to ride not a lot of loose, which at best, if you wanted to string together a good days riding? Yeah, I could probably plot a nice circuit around the area, linking trails together... and I might get perhaps 15-20 miles of loose for 50-60 miles of tarmac between times.
Its not National-Park, and there aren't any headline 'Tourist-Trails' popular with the Ramblers, and the oine thing I can say about the area is that the 'Natives aren't too hostile'! Though you still get Nimbies....
Its not a bad area, IF you want to get into it, to 'cut your teeth', there are SOME trails, and likely not to be TOO 'challenging', and as long as you dont hack them up like an MX track, respect the speed limit & the code, you may not have much hassle.
BUT, I'd NOT be too keen to have a crack at it on L-Plates.....
ONLY takes you to head down one track that, this year has big mud-hole....
https://s178.photobucket.com/albums/w269/teflons-torque/030_016_Southam/smlimag0005.jpg
Archive shot from a run in a pair of Rangies, five years ago on the Northampton Warwickshire boarder. Summer much like this; wet & warm, and consequently VERY over-grown with lots of standing water on the trail surfaces.
That particular quagmire hid a hole deep enough to 'loose' a ten year old up to his middle!
You find something like that, on a Sunday after noon, and as a newbie, spend half an hour slipping and sliding through it, then revving teh nuts off trying to get out a hole up to your crank-cases, then get further down and find the trail so over-grown as to be impassible.... and do it in reverse...
If there JUST happens (and there usually IS in such circumstances!) a cottage backing onto the lane, and you have ruined some Nimbie Townies rural idiom, when you get to the end of the track and are about to turn back onto the tar-top and head home..... if that Nimby has called you in.... and of course likely to be on the parish council and on first name terms with teh Chief Super at the Golf-Club....
There is a coppa waiting for you....
You are plastered in mud.... so he'll go over the bike, and styart warning you about 'obscured Number-Plate', and ;'defective' tail lamp, and then look at your indicators, that are probably cracked or half filled with muddy water, and warn you about those as 'defective' equipment; and THEN start lecturing you about 'Section 59' - Antic-social Use of a Motor-Vehicle, and consequent vehicle siezures, and you will be LUCKY, if he is feeling generouse and ONLY does you for lacking the L-Plates you have left back in that ruddy 'hole' back there!
I dont want to discourage you, I want to point out the REALITIES.....
Its great fun, but it is a CONTENTIOUSE activity, and you HAVE to cover your own back-side in triplicate making sure you dont ride bridle-ways or foot-paths, and that the bike doesn't have a noisy pipe, and you dont get the anti's backs up......
Nice Sunday? You might not have done anything wrong, or attempted something, in your nievity' thats a bit more challenging that you are ready for..... BUT, three groups head out from town ahead of you, and start blasting past that Nimby... who calls it in, and YOU just happen to the the only bike left when they turn up..... YOU will be the one the cops will give a going over, and loosing an L-Plate to an errant branch is ALL the opportunity they need.
Meanwhile; as on the webby; off-roading is a great way to make a lot of hard and frequently expensive 'maintenence' and deny yourself the use of the bike for stretches at a time, when you have had a good weekend and bring it back 'mangled'!
Bikes are more expensive to buy, more expensive to insure, more expensive to run, and HUGELY more likely to be stolen....
Then you take them off road, and make yourself a Cop-Target, becouse muddy bike, they WILL presume you are a Twocker when you head back into town.....
AND you will be chucking even MORe money at the thing to repair dings and damage, and bushes and bearings worn out fro hard work in hostile enviroment.....
On a bike you want to use as every day transport? A bike you want to look 'presentable' to get tests on?
THINK LONG AND HARD about it!
Its far from all shit & giggles, and I reckon that for perhaps two and a half hours 'loose-surface' driving/riding, I am doing perhaps 10 hours of research pouring over maps, putting together potential routes, and status-checking them.... and to aid me, I have a fancy mapping system, with the trails marked as over-lays linked to the green-lane data-base so one click on a track gives me 90% of the trail date instantly, on view.... no pigging around trying to cross reference grid-references and typing them into search engines! Or trapsing off to look at dfefinative maps or anything!
Its far from grab a bike, grab a map and go ride dirt tracks!
And here & now, with third directive licence system looming and barely 6 month window left to get a licence worth the paper with a 125, I would NOT be inclined to risk my chances, buying a bike that was more expensive, more likely to get nicked, more likely to get ME 'knicked', and THEN go risk bending it, falling off tackling the loose...
I'd play it cautiouse... YBR would get a licence and minimise risks and sell easily when done.
THEN with a full licence 'sorted' if I wanted to go do some trails.... well, plenty of dirt bikes out there that are nicely 33bhp complient, and an old XL250 or similar, maybe even a Dominator 650 with restrictor plate..... bit LESS atractive to the twockers, though still fairly atension grabbing... but cheaper than a 125, far more useful, and if I ding it? Well, dont have to worry about finding dosh to get it fixed before test date at least!
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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P.
Red Rocket
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bhinso
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