honourablegeorge – Member
@amplebraw – will the SWB Combi fit bikes in the back, wheels on?

Yes bikes will go in the back but at an angle.

I tend to take the front wheels off and pack them length ways standing up as I also have a dog cage in the back.

Don’t forget that the rear seats also fold forward so you’ve pretty much got the same length as a standard Transporter SWB give or take a few inches allowing for the folded seat.

Not speaking from personal experience, but my work partner has recently fitted some Lizard Skins bar tape and he reckons it’s fantastic. He too wanted some comfier tape and he’s been through a few brands before settling on Lizard Skins.

porter_jamie – Member

the R1 on the Isle of Man. Everyone should go once. No speed limits over the mountain.

Peel Breakwater 🙂

I was there myself today having a brew!!

Just to give you an idea on size, here is our SWB Transporter Kombi.

The rear seats can either fold forward or come completely out.

We’ve just been looking for a vehicle that would carry our two dogs, bikes, camping gear, could carry 5 people and would have enough room for two of us to sleep in overnight.

We spent months looking at vans, pickups and estate cars before finally deciding on a Transporter Kombi purely due to the extra space, especially height. The rear seats either fold forward or come out completely giving loads of room and the load area can be accessed from the front cab without having to get out.

We did look at an L200, but thought that the load space was too small and it didn’t drive particulary well. We found it a bit bouncy, uncomfortable and the steering was a bit vague.

I think the load length on an L200 is 1505mm against a Transporter which is 2353mm and the width is 1470mm against 1692mm in the Transporter. The main difference though is the height which I think from memory was around 900mm with a hardtop fitted, whereas the van is 1394mm.

We did very nearly buy a Renault Trafic LWB crew van purely on price, but the fact that it had fixed rear seats and bulkhead put us off. It meant that we couldn’t access the load compartment from the cab or remove the rear seats; unlike the Transporter.

Just for reference on prices, a 140ps Transporter Kombi with all electric, metallic, alloys, cruise control etc etc was around £20k +vat . A LWB Renault Trafic Sport crew van which comes with everything but the kitchen sink was £14595 +vat.

Haven’t had mine yet, but I didn’t think it was out until around the 20th October.

Issue 69[/url]

I can read issue 69 online through the mag archive though.

If you mean issue 68, it’s been out a while now.

One important point when advertsing is to take lots of good quality pictures. You can then e-mail them to anyone interested.

Take pictures of stuff like:

Close up of front and rear wheels / tyres.
Close up of front forks, both sides.
Close up of both sides of fairing.
Close up of engine casings.
Close up of shock and linkage.
Close up of both sides of fuel tank etc etc etc….

Also now the chilly weather has started to set in, some motorbike dealers have cheap winter servicing offers.

If it’s been a good few months / miles since the bike was last serviced, it might be worth while getting it done just prior to selling to make it more attractive to the purchaser.

I’ve used Ebay 3 times now to sell a bike and always got a good price.

I put them on as an auction but ended them early once someone had paid a deposit. I said that the bike was no longer available when ending the auction, rather than showing that it had sold to save on the fee’s.

If it’s been well looked after, you shouldn’t have much problem selling a VFR.

I’ve had 3 VFR’s over the years and think they’re fantastic bikes; especially the pre-vtec version.

My SP1 which I love to bits…..

I just use leather wipes or even baby wipes on ours.

John Tomac
Greg Herbold
Thomas Frischknecht
Tinker Juarez
Ned Overend
Tim Gould
Barrie Clarke
Dave Baker
JMC
Julie Furtado
Paola Pezzo
Alison Sydor
Chantal Daucourt

Maybe 1991??

Have a look at this link down the bottom of the page.

I always thought that ‘ooh arr’ mean’t that a pirate was in agreement.

Should we make them walk the plank? – ‘ooh arr’

Is that a parrot on your shoulder? – ‘ooh arr’

etc etc…..

Our Transporter isn’t too bad on fuel, it will do over 40mpg on a steady run. It’s a 140ps manual SWB Kombi.

It’s great on a long run as well for comfort, with loads of room in the front cab and acres of room for rear passengers.

I find the seating position to be comfier than our previous cars, particulary on a long journey.

One thing I will say though is that our Transporter has a single drivers and front passenger seat rather than the usual passenger bench seat. This means that the front passenger seat will recline the same as the drivers seat.

I think that most front passenger bench seats in vans are in a fixed position, so you are unable to recline the back cushion. Our Transit SWB in work has certainly got a fixed passenger seat back which I think makes it less comfortable.

Another fan of the Kona Unit here 😀

This is mine, although it’s now got Project 2 rigid forks fitted.

I run a 32:18 on it.

Cool 😀

We’ve not long bought a Transporter 5 seater Kombi with the 140ps engine and it drives just like a car.

The main reason we bought a van was because we need something big enough to carry bikes and dogs at the same time.

The main benefit over an estate car is the extra height inside, which I think makes them far more useful for getting changed or having a brew in after a ride.

I also drive a 115ps SWB Transit in work every day and it’s really great. We have a choice of Ford Focus and a Transit Connect in work, but the Transit SWB keys are always the first to go.

I suppose it depends on how old a van you are looking at, but most modern (ish) vans are pretty good to drive; although obviously not an Sri.

I would definately budget on carpeting the back out though, especially if it hasn’t got a bulkhead behind the front seats.

Having our Kombi lined and carpeted made a huge difference to the cabin noise. It’s now as quiet as driving a normal car.

Was this the pvc pipe rack?

Haven’t had the chance to have a look at the demo as yet….

Is there much improvement over to Forza 3??

We bought a Daewoo Nubira estate for £800 a while ago as a runaround.

It was a great car until we needed to get a few parts for it, then it turned into a bit of a nightmare.

It had a lot of bells and whistles for the money though.

My wife bought a Polo 1.2 (70ps) Moda in May of this year and it has been a fantastic car.

We’ve had a Polo’s before, but this new shape one looks, drives and has the build quality of a Golf. It’s a much nicer car than the previous model Polo.

We also looked at a Fiesta and Ibiza, but the Polo won due the fact that it felt better built and was a really nice drive.

Everyone who has been in it has always commented favourably on it.

Most are suprised on how smooth and quiet it is for a small car.

After us driving just over 5000 miles in it, we would definately buy one again.

Hula Hoops – ready salted
Fish & Chips
Branston Pickle Mini Cheddars
Quavers
Square Crisps – salt & vinegar

Not particulary in that order though.

Finally managed to log myself in after realising I was using the wrong e-mail. Nothing amazing and nothing that’s tempting me though.

Cool, I’ll try to log on again and see if it works.

I’m 5ft7 and all my bikes have been 16″ C-T and around 13″ to 14″ C-C and I’ve always needed a 410mm post to get the right height.

I have always paid more attention to the top tube length though to be honest.

With a 22.5″ effective top tube, I have run with a 90mm stem and with a 23″ effective top tube, I’ve found that a 70mm is around about right.

We bought a CBF125 for my missus after she passed her CBT and it was a great bike.

Obviously not sporty like an RS etc, but it was cheap to buy / run and really good to learn on.

A quick look on autotrader shows you pick up a brand new CBF125 for £2095 with a factory 2 year warranty.

I had a 100cc Honda Lead a few years ago to save using my R1 everyday and it saved me a fortune.

It would do just over 60mph and was much easier to look after as it had no chain and the mechanicals were completely covered in.

They also survive drops and low speed bumps better.

Multibike on my policy was around £300 for the Gilera and my ZXR.

Try H&R Insurance

I’ve been with them for the last 14 years and found them really cheap.

Just get a multi bike policy, I can add up to 3 other bikes for a nominal fee. My last R6 cost me £15 a year as an extra bike on my SP1 policy.

The scooter will be dearer as they’re stolen more than bikes and possibly beacuse you can’t use your no claims bonus on another policy.

I’ve used Trucker co a few times now for ESI grips.

They’re in the USA though, but are really quick to deliver.

I reckon that my stuff has always arrived in around 5 days.

Click here

I logged onto Merlin 30 mins ago and it refused to show the 10% discount.

The price of the new bikes is huge now.

I had a 2008 black and white Fireblade that cost me £8000.

Pretty much he same bike now is around £2000 more!!!.

I’ll be keeping my current SP1 for a while I think, none of the new bikes float my boat enough to pay out that much cash.

Having said that, if this new blade would have had a V4 in it; I’d have sold the SP1 immediately to fund one.

Lovely bike, but not enough for me to sell my SP1.

The Blade does everything well. It’s arguably the perfect sports bike for our roads.

+ 1

A fireblade is the quickest superstock bike around the TT course, averaging over 130mph.

I was hoping it would be a V4 😥

I like the dash and the multi spoke wheels.

The big piston forks should be cool as well.

It fortunately looks like they resisted the urge to fit a silly power map switch like Yamaha and Suzuki.

I used to sell motability cars a few years ago for Ford and they make usually make a good used buy.

I’m not fully up to speed with the current motability contract, but I can’t imagine it’s changed that much if at all.

People would basically get a new car on a 3 year contract and in that time they were limited by the amount of mileage they could do a year, which from memory was either 10k or 12k.

They did however get free servicing so the vehicles usually wanted for nothing.

Very few of the cars I sold had any adaptions and most came back after the 3 years unabused and very low mileage.

There are some bad ones out there though and some folks have been known to either get a motability car for another family member to use or to even alter the mileage.

I was once ordered a taxi to get home after a night out only to be collected in a vehicle I had sold on motability 6 months earlier!!!

The overall condition of the vehicle though will be a good indication of what life it’s led.

When I’ve bought a new motorbike, the first thing I’ve done is change the tyres.

The Kawasaki and Yamaha OEM tyres inparticular seem to have a harder compound and offer very little grip compared to the non OEM version of the same tyre.

I had a particulary scary moment on a Yamaha R1 a few years ago and I’ve never used OEM tyres on a motorbike since.

I was told by a dealer that OEM tyres on some motorbikes were often fitted to give a longer wear rate rather than any performance advantage.

It’s possible that the car you are looking at isn’t a Network Q vehicle and is just a standard used vehicle.

Just because the dealer is Network Q doesn’t mean all the used cars they sell are covered under that scheme.

I used to work for a Ford garage that was a ‘Ford Direct’ dealer (Ford’s version of Network Q) but very few of the used cars we sold were Ford Direct vehicles.

Here are a few bikes from their history