Land rovers

In article , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

And you say the 205 doesn't need lowering :)

For some reason my 205 sits quite high, so i was quite lucky. Last night (when i wasnt there) a mate was there in his 309 GTi, and like me he was powering up the white road at a stupid speed and saw a huge bump and like me, choose the headge rather than smashing the sump off. His was scratched even worse. Lucky none of us are too concerned about our paintwork!

I've got a XLR 125 (Honda 4 stroke traily), road use one tho, never really likes it when its made to go off road :) My mate used to have a Kawa KDX

125, that was mental, fast as hell (for a 125), and another mate had an Aprillia RS 125, that was quick, it was de-restricted with a fancy Arrow exhaust, would see over a ton on the speedo, which, for a 125, is pretty respectable! He lost intrest tho when he fell off it in greasy conditions and it went under a car...

Hence my preference for un-metalled carriageways, not many vehicles to run you over there. You just have to listen to the occasional whinging old fart when you ride tracks you shouldn't. I know which I prefer!

KTM 125exc should be quick too. Not certain if it comes road legal as standard though. The 400 certainly does.

They are full-on enduro bikes but certain models were very popular with trail riders, so they started fitting the full road kit to them as standard. Competition riders can remove all this if they want to.

The Dervboy

Indeed, both vehicles have their merits. The guy who owns the 90 is selling his lightweight V8 landie (not the muddler), which is very tempting as it'll be cheap as its just broke (again). Insurance would be a killer though, but might see if i can get someone to share it with me and look for a classic policy.

The one i was playing in was aluminium :) well the body panels were.

that would be perfect, except i couldnt afford a new bike :( might start looking round for a cheap second hand one. I could probably maintain it myself - 2 strokes cant be that hard to work out! any suggestions for something cheap? i dont know bikes at all, so have no idea whats good and whats not.

Nah, just off the A36 near Salisbury.

I never bothered with small capacity bikes, except mopeds when I was 16. I did the test on the training firm's bike, and then went without bike for 2 years until the 33bhp limit was lifted and going striaght to a 400 trailie, so I have little knowledge of the 125-250cc range.

Suffice it to say that most 2nd hand 125 bikes are knackered. I'd be wary of any 2nd hand enduro bike as they are most likey to have been used by young lads doing enduro's and hence mistreated and badly maintained.

Top-end problems on 2 strokes are easy to fix though, with the most common problem being piston, ring and possibly bore wear. But they sometimes kill the crank bearings if they get a lot of water in or run with cheap oil.

The Dervboy

uk.rec.motorcycles

Very very active group, lots of extremely knowledgable people, but for a group of roughty-toughtie bikers they're surprisingly rigid about netiquette. Not that you would, but don't even *think* about top-posting.... ouch. And they have their own song, imaginitively called "UKRM Song":

:-)

Steve.

'roughty-toughtie bikers' are too stupid to use a computer, that lot are just a bunch of Moped riding p00fters.

Case so firmly rested, it's practically comatose :)

And you're clearly new to this group if you think we haven't had this discussion many *many* times with the 'biker boys'.

...about the time you bought an RS Turbo with a hidden dodgy history?

-- JackH

->Just had a go at off roading in a mates Defender 90 TDi. Oh my god - what

->great fun! The things it can do is simply unbelievable. We found a big mud

->pool whilst we were white roading and thought we'd have some fun. the pool

Do you mean green laining ?

->was about 3m below ground level with roughly 45 degree slopes all the way

->around. The mud at the bottom was about 0.5m deep. The 90 just powered

->through the mud and up the slope, all 4 wheels spinning at full chat in 2nd

->or 3rd, amazing to watch and even better to drive! After about 30 mins of

->abuse, all we had was a bent bumper. Unfortuanely an arsey dog walker came

->and moaned at us so we had to leave, Bastard! But i so want one!

Have a read of

Then

->

->Ummm, thanks, but didnt really tell me anything i didnt already know.

->

So you know about people chewing up the lanes pissing off the locals so they have more ammo to get the lanes TRO'd and then closed ?

Yes i do know all about it. Being involved in road rallying i get to see many people (usually walkers/ramblers) getting irate about vehicles using 'their' white roads. Its beside the point that we would normally only use the roads a couple of times a year, and often we (as in road rallying people) would actually clear out the lanes to make them passable for

*everyone*.

And if you were having a go at us directly, we were not 'chewing up the lanes'. As at least half the group have done green laning regularly before in daylight (unlike road rallies) and so we were taking it easy and only following roads marked on an OS map. Besides, the ground was very hard and rocky so its very unlikely to have cut it up, and we only did the one white road anyway. Incidentally the first half of it is regularly used as it leads to a popular viewpoint and car park.

->And if you were having a go at us directly, we were not 'chewing up the

->lanes'. As at least half the group have done green laning regularly before

->in daylight (unlike road rallies) and so we were taking it easy and only

->following roads marked on an OS map.

You said in your original post

"round. The mud at the bottom was about 0.5m deep. The 90 just powered through the mud and up the slope, all 4 wheels spinning at full chat in 2nd or 3rd, amazing to watch and even better to drive! After about 30 mins of abuse, all we had was a bent bumper. Unfortuanely an arsey dog walker came"

Sounds to me like you spent 30 mins messing about on the same bit of the lane, please correct me if I am wrong.

This is exactly the sort of behaviour the anti's love to see, gives them ammo in their quest to close off the lanes.

->It was a track that is used regularly by other people (for many years so i'm

->told), just off the actual white road. Although we were not sure, we were

->under the impression that it was fine to use it. Besides, there were no

->houses anywhere in the area that we could have distrubed, so i cant see that

->we were doing any harm. When we saw the man, we shouted to the driver to

->stop so there was no danger to the bloke or his dogs. We were very polite

->to him yet he had a moan at us. We didnt argue and left to save any further

->disagreements. On our way out we see his Land Rover parked halfway up a

->verge, hypocrite!

You're digging the hole deeper for yourself (pun intended) not only were you messing about tearing up the lane it sounds like you were using a bit off the lane that should not be used at all !

No we werent tearing up the lane (i dont think i ever said that). If i had been tearing up the lane, my 205 would probably have been teared up first (it got some battle scars as it was) And like i did say, this is a widely used piece of land by bikes and 4x4s, and from what i understand has been so for many many years. Its not like we drove off into a wood and found a dried out pond - this hole had clearly been dug out at some point, probably for this exact use.

->No we werent tearing up the lane (i dont think i ever said that). If i had

->been tearing up the lane, my 205 would probably have been teared up first

Not tearing up the lane but tearing up a bit off the lane, this is even worse !

You can't spend 1/2 a hour driving the same obstacle with all four wheels spinning (your words) without doing damage.

->(it got some battle scars as it was) And like i did say, this is a widely

->used piece of land by bikes and 4x4s, and from what i understand has been so

->for many many years. Its not like we drove off into a wood and found a

->dried out pond - this hole had clearly been dug out at some point, probably

->for this exact use.

->

Just because other people do it does not make it okay, if you want to go offroad seriously why not goto a pay and play site usually 20 quid you can tear up the ground as much as you like and would probably find it more of a challenge.

Why not? From my basic description, you have no idea what the conditions were like, so please stop assuming you do. FYI the ground was rock hard, so spinning the wheels probably had no effect at all. And when the wheels werent spinning up the slope we were driving very gently.

I dont want to go offroad seriously. We noticed the track as we were driving down the white road and we stopped so we could all have a taster of what driving a landie was like. At the end of the day no harm was done.