So far...

Motorcycling
1

Just finished the second week of work and thought I’d write some of my thoughts down.

Well starting work as a courier in winter is not a lot of fun, especially when it’s snowing practically every day.

The bike is pretty good though. A Honda CBF 600 with ABS it does the job well and is surprisingly flickable despite having a mini trailer where the pillion seat used to be.

I was coming around Vauxhall underpass, throttle pinned in 3rd, and literally flying along at all of about 40 mph :laugh: and the back end let go. It was quite funny though on this bike because it’s got so little power, it’s actually fun to feel a few slides…Not at the front though because this seems to confuse the ABS and is not nice when it feels like the front is washing out. :frowning:

Had a great ride home just now after being sent out into the dark wilderness which is Tadworth, spending almost an hour to find this country cottage on an unlit road with slushy snow all around, only to find the cottage and no one home :frowning:

Thanks controller :rolleyes:

Anyway, I took a few lanes back to civilisation, and as it was pretty mild today, I had a surprising feeling. Both tyres were gripping the road. So I took advantage of throwing the bike around. The Continental Road Attacks are pretty good actually. Might get a pair for the GSX-R.

In terms of the actual job though…Hmmm…It’s not going great.

I’m too slow getting around. My knowledge of London roads, despite living all of my 31 years here, is crap. I’ve given up on the sat nav because it seems to just slow me down even more, so now I’m using a mini A-Z.

Got in trouble because I keep forgetting to call the controller when I’m POB…It doesn’t seem 100% necessary because they gave me an XDA which is linked to the office and they send me jobs on it and it tells them when I’m POB and Empty. Also, the other controllers don’t ask me to do this…One of them was even sending me jobs purely through the XDA and not calling them through first.

We’ll see…Hope to be back at a desk job soon anyway.

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I first tried the Conti Road Attacks on a hired CBF600 from Hexagon last year. They are quite simply the best tyre I have used in almost 11yrs of biking. I ran the same on my Dylan 125 as well allowing me to do some mental voodoo mind warping sh *t in the corners. So confident was I back in the Summer of 2004 I was scraping the feck out of the side stand and belly pan in shorts and a T-shirt. No other bike tyre gives you soft grip with a whopping 7mm of touring tread and all for £150 a set!.

Likewise I will be fitting them to the CBR next season.

Your story tells of classic old skool Vs. new school controllers. The old skool only ever had a two-way radio and a list of jobs on a screen (sometimes just written on paper by the telephonists taking the booking). Now we have a blend of vehicle tracking, computer docket bookings, PDA allocation and the GPRS network. Every controller is different and have there way of doing things. Some rely on the technologies to make life easier, others keep it simple. Not a bad way of doing it as we all know computers will go wrong sooner or later!. Personally I always like to call POB on radio. Brings you to the top of the list in the mind of the controller for that moment and might get you an extra job.

Maybe try setting your Tomtom to shortest route?. How is it slowing you down?

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Alright mate…Yeah you’re deffo right about old skool vs. new as the guy in question was a courier many years back.

The TomTom just keeps losing signal in town. My Windows Mobile phone is the satnav. It has built in GPS which is crap. Need a better sat nav, and a way to wire it to the bike.

Actually, do you have a bluetooth gps unit I could borrow?

See you soon…PS. My mate still needs his Datatool looked at.

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Never used anything apart from the Tomtom Rider V2 when I do use sat nav. Works flawlessly in town, never looses signal and has a fast warm up time. Well worth the money in the long run (£260ish on Ebuyer). Not got any bluetooth gps receivers I’m afraid.

Remind me about your mates datatool?

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Well done for doing the courier work until you get a deskjob. In this weather, and under those conditions, I admire your hustle.

Hopefully you will get a chance to pack it in soon enough.

Stay safe :slight_smile:

6

you bugger you got a 6, they was changing them all to 600’s when i left:) ho wmany times have you whacked the box on the back of bus’s and van wing mirrors:D

you do get used to the bike moving around a bit, hit diesel once and still stayed on despite my speedway stylee:w00t::smiley:

as charlie said ALWAYS call in POB gives you more chance of more work=£’s, all about getting a few jobs onboard at once, get multi’s goign and you can earn. i too had jobs just appear on the XDAsomtimes its a good idea to just keep checking ya XDA In case;)

i take it your controller is Tim? i got on very well with him, good fella;)

i had pilot roads on the LDMS bike, when i moved to GLH i had conti attacks…i too found them amazing!! they were so good i started wearing my leathers whiel workign so i had my sliders on…marble arch…hyde park corner…parliment sq…london wall…even coming on to caledonian from camden…KD everywhere with sometimes sod all warm up times!

was very impressed with them tyres, i too might even try them on my SV;)

sometimes when your on the bike and its all goign nice its a GREAT job…othertimes its the worst job in the world.