Two wheels good.

[paulplom]

Did anyone ever crave a marina though. The professionals never drove marinas

[Jerzy Woking]

Back then I would rather have had my mates Marina TC Coupe than my mum's 1300L MkII Escort.

Not so sure now

[Arthur Foxhake]

My Cagiva SuperCity was bought for £1700.
It'll whip the arse off an RD125 but it's worth nothing compared to one of them.
It's faster than my old Mito and my current one, it has a 34mm carb, my Mitos both had 28mm carbs.
Has a reduced squish band for more compression and a massive air box. I had 95MPH indicated in 6th gear on bovingdon airfield before running out of road/runway.
It has 7 gears.

[Warren t claim]

Back then I would rather have had my mates Marina TC Coupe than my mum's 1300L MkII Escort.

Not so sure now

No you wouldn't! I had a 1972 1.8TC four door. I took it as a straight swap for a Datsun 180B SSSSSS that nobody would buy because of its dog leg gearbox. To saw the Marina was a lethal handler would be an understatement, if I booted it on the motorway it would jump a lane!

[Warren t claim]

Just for a laugh I thought I'd share this tale from the WTC memory banks.

It was 1987 and a 17 year old Warren was due to take his bike test in a couple of weeks. Back then there was a long wait for a test slot as the new, harder, following test was due to be introduced. Obviously I wanted an easy pass which just involved me riding around a road section of local promenade showing correct procedures, ovservations, a feet up U turn and an emergency stop all while an examiner observed on foot with his clip board. I think the pass rate was about 95% and I was confident I'd fly through on my trusty Suzuki GP100.

In anticipation of my certain pass I went to the local bike butchers and bagged myself a tatty Yamaha 250LC for not many GBP to have as my first "big" bike.

I collected it with a couple of friends and in the absence of any transport we took it in turns to push it home. Being clever we took a short cut of jumping on the Mersey Ferry at Birkenhead, sailing to Liverpool and then taking it back to Seacombe Ferry terminal which cut a few miles out of our long push.

When we got back to Seacombe we were greeted by the sight of a long pedestrianised section of promenade pictured below.

ep1.PNG

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As the prom was deserted I decided to give the LC a bit of a run to see what it was like as I'd bought it without a test ride. I hop on helmetless and kick it into life. Giving it some I pull away and soon hit 6000 rpm and run it through the gears. I'm like a pig in shit! The thing was so fast compared to my GP100 and I was king of the world!

As I was turning around to get back to my friends I see the headlamps and blue lights of a Merseyside Police Traffic Cavalier heading towards me! Fuck! Now I had no choice but to give it some and fuck off sharpish! I had a decent head start so nailed the Yamaha just as plod hit the sirens. They chased me up and down several side streets until I managed to shke them off riding in between some bollards that put me back not far from my friends. Wondering what the fuck to do and hearing the sirens approaching I noticed a (now bricked up) public toilets. Using brute force and willpower I manage to not just get the LC in the bogs, but also into a cubicle standing on its back wheel!

I rejoin my friends just as plod arrive. The passenger window rolls down and we're asked if we've seen someone on a motorbike! My friends give it their best "he went thataway" and plod scream off. According to my friends, plod never noticed me in the distance until I'd hit the brakes and they saw my brake lights.

We leaave it a couple of hours before retrieving the LC and continue our push home. We made it to about a quarter of a mile from my house when we encounter a certain Mk2 Cavalier! Passenger plod jumps out and puts his hand on the engine of my now stone cold Yamaha. He fucking knows it's the bike they were chasing but without any real evidence lets us go on our way!

My first 250LC tale!

[paulplom]

The boys bike wouldn't start this morning for college so he had to use pedal power.
Using the battery tester Eddie made me buy, I used it for the first time. It recognised it was 12v but I didn't know the amp hours so just put the lowest which was 3ah. It came back as failed with no crancking amps. Although reading 12.22v.
It seemed to spin the bike over okay but it just wouldn't fire. I got my brilliant small booster thing and connected that knowing it was now 12v. It fired straight up.
Now it's firing first click off it's own battery. I might be being a bit thick here but does it need replacing?
Anyway he's away to footy training 15 miles away with my booster in his top box and itstructions not to cross the streams or it'll explode.
The bike has been standing since last Sunday. Maybe it's just not holding charge.

[paulplom]

Give him his due he went straight on amazon to buy another but I told him to take the old one out first to get the details.
He thinks I've forgot the £220 insurance money and £22 ved. I'm just letting him build his bank balance up a bit with wages before I empty it.
The fucker spent £73 on a preorder of fifa on his ps5. £73 for a fucking computer game!

[Jazoli]

It seems a lot but when you add up the hours played they aren't bad value, although FIFA is a pisstake releasing the same game every year and folk lap it up.

[paulplom]

I suppose so. If all his mates buy the new one I presume he wouldn't be able to join in.

[Arthur Foxhake]

They were £40 a game when I played them.
That was 1996 though, £70 doesn't sound too unreasonable to me.
Expensive? Yes.
So was £50 in 1996.