Re: update on Ford Escort foglight switch.

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This was a Honda QR50; they have a screw and locknut arrangement that lets you limit maximum throttle opening down to almost nothing.

The machine is for my 7 years-old granddaughter. My son was the one chasing around behind her. It was a strange thing for me to see; I was chasing around behind him on a QR50 when he was 7, 25 years ago!

My son rode one of those in schoolboy trials, then moved up to a 125 Fantic, and finally a 160 Gas-Gas.

Chris

Good idea too (I think the PW50 had similar). There's nothing more frightening than being that parent and watching them heading towards some barbed wire at 30 mph. ;-( [1]

Yup, and I bet it doesn't seem like 25 years eh?

I'd have loved her to do something like that but most of it seemed to be held 'up Norf'?

I loved re-building her TY (It was bought quite tatty but still expensive for it's age. First spoked motorbike wheels I'd ever fully rebuilt myself as well). A full spec but small scale motorbike and quickly gave her the gears / clutch thing. In fact it was quite nice for her to be wheeling her bike through the pits and have the 'lads' asking .. 'ere, has that bike got gears' and her to reply 'yeah' (most of theirs were autos). It was also a 'gentle' bike as such with the largish flywheel, happy to potter along at walking speed but then power straight up a pretty steep incline.

I'm sure all that experience helped her 'get' the car gear / clutch thing (she has hardly ever stalled anything she's driven since) just sometimes I think she forgets she's not on a bike by the speed she approaches just_Ka_width gaps! ;-(

Are they the ones that look little like 'motorbikes' as we know them with their low cut down frames?

Cheers, T i m

[1] The one big off she had was on the PW50 where we found a new tarmac access road beside the bit of waste ground we were using. She came wanging past me on full chat and heading straight for the end of a 6"sq fence post I'd spotted sticking out from the side of the road. She went down like a bag of spuds and carried along the road on her front for quite a distance. Apart from wrenching her shoulder and getting a burn on her knee through the several layers of material she was wearing she was ok but did learn several (good) lessons. She admitted she was just in a world of her own, enjoying the moment (well, up to that moment). I convinced her to gently ride it home (I couldn't move the bike and assist her etc) and by the time we got home she was pretty well ok again. Mum was a bit concerned of course but couldn't say anything as she was riding a scooter when pregnant with our daughter and had an XV750 herself at the time. ;-)

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No. (Apart from when I'm grovelling around on the floor working on the QR!)

There's two very active clubs in the SE. I'm in Berks, and one year we managed 40 trials. I got involved in helping organise events, eventually getting my clerk of the course licence from the ACU.

Also, many adult clubs run schoolboy classes.

I deliberately found a tatty one so my son might learn something of the "joys" of motorcycling other than riding. It turned out to be a bit more of a heap than I'd imagined. I had trouble getting it to run cleanly mid- range. Eventually, I found that the carb needle had been replaced with the steel part of a pop rivet!

They still change hands for surprisingly large sums.

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And no doubt gave her a greater awareness of bikes on the road.

Yes, and "seats" that are painted on!

My son rode adult trials for a while, although "grown-up" things put a stop to it. His 250 Gas-Gas that he bought is still in the shed. I need to dig it out and get it running soon.

When my son was five, we attended an event where you could pay to have a go in a roped-off area on PW50's. The operator sat my son on a running one, and told him to touch nothing, whilst he prepared the other riders. Son decided he knew what to do, and opened the throttle to the stop. He went the full distance of the roped-off area, accelerating all the time, until the rope caught him across the chest, and pulled him from the machine.

He suffered no broken bones, but had a badly bruised chest for a week. Didn't put him off bikes though; he's had road bikes in past years, and I'm sure would get another if finances allowed.

Chris

I'm with you there. It didn't seem that many years ago when laying under a car or sitting on my legs beside a bike for hours was easy. I've just replaced the steering column / lock / plastics on the Astra and kneeling on the floor and getting upside down in the foot well isn't as easy as it once was! ;-(

Nice. We had one of those tow-bar mounted racks that stuck the TY80 across the back of the Sierra so speed / distance wasn't really an issue but it all adds more effort and cost to the day.

A nice feather in yer cap.

Nice pics. Good to see the real littleuns getting stuck in as well. ;-)

Doh! I think the KMX60 she rode of a friends may have had the same (digital) system. ;-)

I really can't understand why Yamaha stopped making them (even then). I guess 4/'s and emissions come into it now?

I think it gave her a greater awareness of *everything* on the road! ;-)

It's funny. On her CBT the 'other' rider was a lad and he bottled it half way round and went home. On a pre test lesson another lad did the same (I wonder if they couldn't cope with being 'outdone' by a girl, not that she's like that etc) and on a subsequent pre test lesson watched an older lady rider go up the pavement and into a fence (luckily no real harm was done to rider or bike). She said she watched it all in slow motion and to this day has no idea why the woman did what she did. When they first set off on the road the instructor shouted over the intercom for our daughter to slow down. He ;later apologised because (his words) it was obvious once things got going that she was 'already a very competent and confident little rider'. Prior to the formal lessons she'd ridden alongside me in all weathers and road types and I know the riding side was ok. She just need to do the things 'for the test'.

So I saw in the pictures. Mind you, I guess if you are on the pegs it doesn't really matter.

I bet that's a beast.

Ouch.

I think something like that early on can be a good thing ... they experience the consequences of their actions and *hopefully* save them form something worse later on.

And nothing is cheap these days, especially when it's now sometimes cheaper to TAX a 1400 car compared with a 250 cc motorbike? ;-(

Cheers, T i m