Two wheels good.

[Warren t claim]

Have you bought that FZR on AS yet Warren? If not why not?

Someone beat me to it.

[Warren t claim]

What about a geared bike?

Yes it's fine there's no need to retake it.

Yep, unless the consultation that I posted earlier is implemented overnight.

I often used to lob a 16 year old on a CG125 for his compound work if he was paired up with a 125 CBT to even things out a bit and to stop him from getting bored.

[Warren t claim]

Have you bought that FZR on AS yet Warren? If not why not?

We had a 600EXUP on the fleet that was usually used by the senior instructor until it developed charging issues and he clipped a parked car on it while pissed, smashing it's custom Vance and Hines paintjob and leaving bits of it at the crimescene that I had to recover. We got it plastic welded and resprayed pale yellow with loads of GENESIS stickers on it. It honestly looked like the owner was a huge fan of the band!

To it's credit, even though it would never start on the button it could be bump started within three yards, hot or cold. I could even cope with the riding position for a two hour road lesson but the fucking thing suffered from terrible flat spots meaning many revs and clutch slipping was needed to ride smoothly. It did go like fuck when thrashed though but it really was the last bike any of us would choose to take out with a hangover. We eventually part ex'd it against a tidy RF900 that had an appetite for chain and sprocket sets even during mild instructor riding. As a bonus, it had a sausage roll holder built into the fairing that came in handy.

[Warren t claim]

As I didn't start a separate Confessions Of A Motorcycle Instructor thread on here when maybe I should have here's another thread tangent.

Instructor bikes. Here's a screen grab from the training company that pitched me to join earlier this year.

rjh1.PNG (602.88 KiB) Viewed 476 times

It goes without saying that we never got a perk like that.

While I was being down trained I used to arrive in my car and use whatever ER5 wasn't being used for lessons at the time to shadow the instructor and learn how it's done. Once I was signed off I was told to go to a bike dealer that we did business with to collect my "company" bike. It was a K plate GT550 that the training school had being trying to sell for £1500 for the last two years. I was told that I'll spot it in the showroom as it's the one with "the fucking TV screen headlamp".

Fucking hell it was rough! Even from ten yards I could see why it hadn't sold for £1500! It only had one rear footpeg due to the other one sheering off on its casting. It took ages to start and the clutch rattled like a cunt. Still, someone else was paying so who am I to complain?

It did have its good points though. The shaft drive required no maintenance, it was a comfy place to sit for two hours at a time and it did pull well. Bad points were leaking front forks and scary brakes.

But at least it had the famed GT550 reliability proven by millions of DR riders right? Errr... No. Within a week the oil cooler pipe sprang a leak causing it to spurt a Peter North style money shot of oil over every parked car I was passing at the time. Another time I was treating a Mk2 Golf GTi owner a physics lesson regarding power to weight ratio when the gear lever fell off leaving me stuck in second until I could find a place to pull over. The starter eventually packed in meaning I had to bump start it, not a problem when hot, only embarrassing, but a nightmare when cold as Kawasaki had fitted a spring loaded choke lever. I soon discovered that the cap of a Bob Heath visor spray would hold open the choke slider just enough to start the brute on a cold day. Did I mention road tax? Well the company policy was to park it out of the examiners sight at the test centre.

kawa1.PNG (69.4 KiB) Viewed 476 times

That's funny. It was metallic red.

More to follow if you want.

[Warren t claim]

Due to its unreliability, we were having to issue more refunds than we wanted to. Plenty of times I'd have to take a Lifan or CG125 home as it'd thrown a shit fit somewhere in Wirral and needed recovery home. There's nothing more shameful than having to hijack a pupil's CG125 and put him on the back to return to base.

I went back to hopping on whatever was in the garage at the time, including some customers' bikes that they'd left with us until they'd passed their test. Usually a Hornet, 535 Virago, 600 Bandit of one gay lad's SV650. This was all done with their permission of course!

Occasionally I'd strike lucky and the training school's owner would have his '98 VFR800 left in there that I could use but one day, just as I was about to take some punters out the phone rang. I ran back into the office leaving the Honda ticking over only to have one of my learners shout me that my bike was pissing out liquid! The VFR had boiled over! I shut the engine off, waited five minutes, topped up the rad with tap water and went out on my lesson with no long lasting damage!

Give me a minute to remember more!

[Warren t claim]

Let's talk about our DAS bikes for a bit, V234/5/6MFM, all Kawasaki ER5s which were the training school bikes of choice at the time.

I'd borrowed V234MFM to run an errand to Bootle, about 5 miles away, and was ragging the fuck out of it as it wasn't mine when it decided to go onto one cylinder! Bollocks! I manage to get back to base through the Mersey Tunnel by keeping the revs up and trying to discover Jesus. I drop it off at the bike shop who we had an account with (the same place that spent two years trying to sell the aforementioned GT550) and trot the quarter of a mile back to base pondering what excuse to give. V234MFM is officially diagnosed with a fucked motor. As luck might have it, the bike shop has an engine out of a written off GPZ500 that should fit nicely. The following day I go and collect 234 and I'm given the keys. I hop on and try to ride away only to discover that the gearbox is now a one up, five down affair! The GPZ lump has some sort of rearset lever in its natural setting!

I'm enjoying this! Are you? Please let me know!

[Warren t claim]

For some strange reason, the senior instructor has no issues with V234MFM, the backwards ER5 so I'm happy to leave it to him.

About this time the owner chops in his VFR800 for a Y plate Fireblade. First thoughts amongst us staff were the impressive Fireblade "boot", which meant that lunchtime subs and nudgers could be carried back to the school. I'm left in charge of it through lack of any other option to use for the road work for my CBT that morning. I'm handed the keys from our owner, a scary night club bouncer, and told to be careful as it's, and I quote, "the apple of his eye". No probs, my CBT is just a couple of 16 year olds on scooters so I'm hardly likely to rag it, at least until the CBT is over and then I have every fucking intention of giving the 'blade a good spanking!

Fucking hell! Pottering about for two hours at 30 mph on a 160 bhp sportsbike is one massive pain in the wrists!

All goes reasonably well but one lad is struggling with roundabouts. This may be a problem as we're fast approaching this double roundabout...

cbt2.PNG (1.04 MiB) Viewed 500 times

I take the executive decision to lead by example and show them how it should be done. I negotiate the first roundabout with expert precision but fuck up the second. As I'm talking them through it I look down and see that I'm about to bounce off the kerb of the second which will spit me off and earn me a good hiding! Somehow I manage to will my way around it without falling off, fuck knows how!

[Eddie Honda]

But at least it had the famed GT550 reliability proven by millions of DR riders right? Errr... No. Within a week the oil cooler pipe sprang a leak causing it to spurt a Peter North style money shot of oil over every parked car I was passing at the time. Another time I was treating a Mk2 Golf GTi owner a physics lesson regarding power to weight ratio when the gear lever fell off leaving me stuck in second until I could find a place to pull over. The starter eventually packed in meaning I had to bump start it, not a problem when hot, only embarrassing, but a nightmare when cold as Kawasaki had fitted a spring loaded choke lever. I soon discovered that the cap of a Bob Heath visor spray would hold open the choke slider just enough to start the brute on a cold day.

Within the first 5 months of GT550 ownership (a six year old G4 in blue), one of my oil cooler pipe let go and pissed everywhere. In 1997 the oil cooler was £180 new, let alone the pipework. One of the threads got damaged and so a local bike place spun up some sort of adaptor to reattach to. The flexis got binned and new braided sections crimped onto the old rigid pipes. That was around £60 for the pair. I could've got another from a breakers, but they knew how much Kawasaki were charging and I knew how much of an unknown quantity I was getting.

Front brakes were indeed shit and I had an inner pad fall out because it isn't pinned in and got too thin.

Before I headed to London village to despatch, I lent the bike to a biker burd I knew so she could get down to Leicestershire to see her mother. I got a call from her whilst I was in the taxi office on break saying that she was in Southwaite services as the gear lever had fallen off and was waiting for the RAC. They got her going again and the rest of the journey went ok.

When I was down south, I spent a lot of time bump starting it first start of the day, not because the motor had died, but because then rollers in the starter clutch had worn. It would start fine the rest of the day. Eventually cured when I splashed out on a new starter clutch and split the casings to fit it. Complete fuckaround.

That bastard assembly 13913, plus the rubbery bits in the starter cush drive 92075

b06332c75f17fb7de0c4e5c481bebb6e.png (115.41 KiB) Viewed 497 times

422000c0ad80f95ec27be372db7f1be4.png (121.7 KiB) Viewed 497 times

[Warren t claim]

But at least it had the famed GT550 reliability proven by millions of DR riders right? Errr... No. Within a week the oil cooler pipe sprang a leak causing it to spurt a Peter North style money shot of oil over every parked car I was passing at the time. Another time I was treating a Mk2 Golf GTi owner a physics lesson regarding power to weight ratio when the gear lever fell off leaving me stuck in second until I could find a place to pull over. The starter eventually packed in meaning I had to bump start it, not a problem when hot, only embarrassing, but a nightmare when cold as Kawasaki had fitted a spring loaded choke lever. I soon discovered that the cap of a Bob Heath visor spray would hold open the choke slider just enough to start the brute on a cold day.

Within the first 5 months of GT550 ownership (a six year old G4 in blue), one of my oil cooler pipe let go and pissed everywhere. In 1997 the oil cooler was £180 new, let alone the pipework. One of the threads got damaged and so a local bike place spun up some sort of adaptor to reattach to. The flexis got binned and new braided sections crimped onto the old rigid pipes. That was around £60 for the pair. I could've got another from a breakers, but they knew how much Kawasaki were charging and I knew how much of an unknown quantity I was getting.

Front brakes were indeed shit and I had an inner pad fall out because it isn't pinned in and got too thin.

Before I headed to London village to despatch, I lent the bike to a biker burd I knew so she could get down to Leicestershire to see her mother. I got a call from her whilst I was in the taxi office on break saying that she was in Southwaite services as the gear lever had fallen off and was waiting for the RAC. They got her going again and the rest of the journey went ok.

When I was down south, I spent a lot of time bump starting it first start of the day, not because the motor had died, but because then rollers in the starter clutch had worn. It would start fine the rest of the day. Eventually cured when I splashed out on a new starter clutch and split the casings to fit it. Complete fuckaround.

That bastard assembly 13913, plus the rubbery bits in the starter cush drive 92075

b06332c75f17fb7de0c4e5c481bebb6e.png
422000c0ad80f95ec27be372db7f1be4.png

Fucking hell! You've lived my Kawasaki life!

[Hooli]

Oil coolers and pipes never seem to last on anything do they?
I've had custom coolers made for my GSX14 and the Sprint GT I had as it was cheaper than genuine and better.
Had new flexis crimped on the 14's solid ends twice before I had to replace the load when the solid bit rotted too.