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22 Aug 2017, 17:00 (Ref:3760981) | #2751 | ||
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Ho my gosh, I can't believe it, a Dream Super Sport!!! My first real bike, a special import from Germany by Psalty at Paris, was nearly the same but with a 125 cc engine. In a distance it looked so much alike the famous CB77, its 350 cc cousin which inspired the Laverda design (also called LAMIERDA because of relative reliability). It was easy to match my friends Honda 125 which had a poor handling and only 1 carb instead of two. I got mine 30 minutes after the test, it was on august the 12th of 1967.
Mine had a longer rear mudguard and ugly turn indicators. Reliable if you except the wheels spokes prone to break under heavy conditions. Yes, yes, yes, very Happy Days ! |
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22 Aug 2017, 17:18 (Ref:3760984) | #2752 | ||
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Passed bike test first time and that was getting lost as well . The examiner said keep turning left around the block . Anyway he found me waiting back at test centre. Gave me a *******ing then sent me off again . Jumped out in front of me and I managed a perfect emergency stop . Passed that test but took four goes at passing car test . Took two goes to pass HGV . Failed on the Friday of the two week corse but examiners all agreed I should of passed so I came back Monday morning had a test and passed .Also failed my cycling proficiency when at school . No one at my school realised I was soon to become a failed racing driver . 😀. Yep happy days .
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22 Aug 2017, 17:49 (Ref:3760990) | #2753 | ||
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 5,889
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Got my HGV Class 1 just on grandfathering rights having seemed to have spent half my working days rescuing delivery drivers who were incapable of manoeuvring into our premises. Also having to recover our own trucks that were being stolen when loaded overnight on an almost weekly basis. What pee'd me off was that the loads were not even worth that much, but the extremes that they took steal the loads was out of proportion. We even kept the loaded trucks in a secure lorry park, and they would steal another truck, drive it into the lorry park, take the registration plates off the stolen truck and put them on ours' so that they could drive them out of the lorry park. They would then drive about 10 miles before transhipping the loads to yet another stolen truck, leaving ours' usually in a layby.
Whether I should have had one is another question. |
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22 Aug 2017, 18:23 (Ref:3760994) | #2754 | ||
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 6,863
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I took my test on a Honda CB250. Not the K3 disc brake model but the older one, dreadful drum brakes so that I nearly knocked the examiner over when he did the emergency stop! First attempt at my car test I failed because I was driving *too slowly* (OK those of you who watched me racing can believe that :ROFL: )
Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk |
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Midgetman - known as Max Tyler to the world. MaxAttaq! |
22 Aug 2017, 19:13 (Ref:3761002) | #2755 | |||
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Posts: 2,886
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22 Aug 2017, 19:25 (Ref:3761004) | #2756 | ||
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Not for Bob, who's older than Methuselah, but did any off you have to learn and use all of the hand signals on your test?
I know that I did, but never once used them after I passed and got my licence. |
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22 Aug 2017, 19:58 (Ref:3761006) | #2757 | ||
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 9,441
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My old bike a DOT scrambler was hardly capable of getting to the test centre and had Knobbly tyres on it so I borrowed my mates 250 "Fanny B" and passed I passed my car test in an Austin A40 at the first attempt at 17 and the examiner was impressed with my parking and manoeuvring, however seeing that I had experience of driving cars in and out of garage bays from aged 15 the test was easy, I wonder if I would pass now though ?
I know that we had to learn hand signals but I can't remember if we had to use them in 1964 ? |
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Balls of steel (knob of butter) They're Asking For Larkins. ( Proper beer) not you're Eurofizz crap. Hace más calor en España. Me han conocido a hablar un montón cojones! Send any cheques and cash to PO box 1 Lagos Nigeria Africa ! |
22 Aug 2017, 20:17 (Ref:3761010) | #2758 | |
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 1,685
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Bike test, failed twice on my Royal Enfield Continental GT so carried on using it with L plates and just used the BSA650 and subsequent Honda 400/4 for the odd Sunday jaunt.
Car, passed 1st time in the instructor's HB Viva which Baub will be pleased to hear was still in use over 10 years later, presumably not on the same clutch. HGV1, trained with a lady (2:1 pupil ratio was normal) who was 8 months pregnant. There was a 6 month wait for a car test at the time and she wanted a licence before the baby arrived, you could get an HGV test at a fortnight's notice. Barely fitted behind the wheel of the D series Ford! |
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22 Aug 2017, 20:18 (Ref:3761011) | #2759 | |||
Ten-Tenths Hall of Fame
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Quote:
Come on, what's the one for turning left then....... (in a RHD car.) |
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Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. (Einstein) |
22 Aug 2017, 20:39 (Ref:3761013) | #2760 | ||
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Hand out the window and make like you're winding the window down?
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Midgetman - known as Max Tyler to the world. MaxAttaq! |
22 Aug 2017, 20:42 (Ref:3761014) | #2761 | ||
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Balls of steel (knob of butter) They're Asking For Larkins. ( Proper beer) not you're Eurofizz crap. Hace más calor en España. Me han conocido a hablar un montón cojones! Send any cheques and cash to PO box 1 Lagos Nigeria Africa ! |
22 Aug 2017, 20:46 (Ref:3761015) | #2762 | ||
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 9,441
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I remember when the coppers stood in the road and held their arm up in the air to stop you, I went between two at 90mph on my old Bonneville !
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__________________
Balls of steel (knob of butter) They're Asking For Larkins. ( Proper beer) not you're Eurofizz crap. Hace más calor en España. Me han conocido a hablar un montón cojones! Send any cheques and cash to PO box 1 Lagos Nigeria Africa ! |
22 Aug 2017, 20:51 (Ref:3761016) | #2763 | |
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I think you still had to know and be able to use hand signals right through the 60s but were not expected to actually use them on the test.
Parents decided that it might be a good idea to have a few local test route familiarisation lessons so I was signed up for 10 over a two or three week period as I waited for the test date to arrive. The chap involved had an HB Viva 1200 with a very quiet engine and very "loose" controls (at about 80k miles) compared to the Cortina GT I was used to. Steering standard - Vauxhall "very vague", clutch lite no bite, brakes OKish, gearshift "gentle". Accelerator pedal had about 5 inches of movement before anything seemed to happen. About 5 mins into the test I stalled setting off from lights at a T junction. Trying to be too gentle and unable to hear the engine at all - hot day, windows open. About ten minutes later I stalled again pulling out of an angled junction (almost a slip road) downhill onto a main road that then went up hill. No way was I going to pass so I relaxed and completed the route. Presumably the bloke decided that my prompt and full recovery from both stalls augured well for the future and gave me a pass anyway. A pal of mine, very competent driver and enthusiastic motorist, failed twice for "not looking in the mirror". Realising that is was because you was not making the action extremely obvious on the third occasion he abandoned good skills and leaned towards the mirror in the most obvious manner two or three times per minute, passing with consummate ease. |
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22 Aug 2017, 22:34 (Ref:3761034) | #2764 | ||
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Smugly can report that I passed my car, motorbike and IAM Advanced car tests all first time!
Car test (on March 27th 1974) was taken in a blue Datsun 120Y (like a Ford Escort only better made, and the examiner uttered the immortal I'm sorry to tell you you've passed your driving test line. Bike test (November 1978) was taken on a borrowed Suzuki Super Six 250cc flying machine, wearing a borrowed open face helmet with goggles clipped to the top so that the examiner *could see where I was looking*. At the same time as mine there was a gut taking his test on some sort of trials bike and using similar routes around the test centre, I could see him flailing. At the end of my test we went back into the stair well of the test centre and stood by a window as I identified various road signs befre being given the good news that I had passed. Muppet on trials bike was taken past me to the next window up, and as I left the centre I looked up at their window and could see his examiner flipping through his book of road signs, looking hopefully at him and shaking his head as he'd obviously got another one wrong. I ceremoniously ripped my front L plate off and ripped into shreds & threw it in the air. looked up at his examiner, gave him the thumbs up, kicked the bike into life and wheelied off up the road! My Advanced test was in February 1980, taken in my trusty Viva GT with an examiner called Bob Hardisty who must have been at least 90 years old and at least 7 feet tall (well, that's how he seemed to me then). We had a very interesting 90 minute drive through parts of Leicestershire that I didn't know existed with Bob chatting away and offering encouragement and suggestions all the way. I has convinced because of this that I must have failed so was bowled over at the end when he told me I'd passed! Mind you, I've never found cheaper car insurance because I'm an Advanced Motorist! |
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Incognito: An Italian phrase meaning Nice Gearchange! |
23 Aug 2017, 00:24 (Ref:3761047) | #2765 | ||
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23 Aug 2017, 05:50 (Ref:3761076) | #2766 | |||
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23 Aug 2017, 07:50 (Ref:3761101) | #2767 | ||
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 9,891
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Some years ago the IAM ran an open day in Luton, offering advice, and explaining the aims of the organisation. Considering myself a most advanced driver I went along to see if it was worthwhile joining. When I realised that the only topic was 'safety', I lost interest, my concern was going faster.
Reading several of Viv's last few posts, I wonder how he can reconcile being a member of the IAM with his escapades on the road? |
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When asking; "Is he joking?" Best assume yes! |
23 Aug 2017, 08:26 (Ref:3761107) | #2768 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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A Continental GT - how my youthful loins ached to sit astride one! It was launched in the year I became old enough to take my bike test but still at school, there was no way I could afford one.
However, I worked throughout the summer holidays, at a nursery that grew carnations, folding the boxes they were packed in and stashing away every penny earned. The objective, to buy a school friend's Royal Enfield - a Crusader from memory, with an Airflow fairing and in metallic blue. It was the most unsexy motorcycle (apart from a Noddy bike) that had ever been made but it would soon be mine. One thing scuppered my plan: my birthday was at the end of November (still is...). During October my Dad was posted to Germany and the whole family left mid-November, just a few days before my birthday. I never did buy a bike, never took my bike test and to cap it all, when my Dad bought a new car in Germany the Morris Minor Traveller that we travelled there in and which he'd promised to give to me - he P/X'd for a dishwasher - a ****** dishwasher...!! BTW: prior to Germany we lived in Hampton where there was a Met police garage. The cars I most remember there were the Daimler Darts and I see that Win Percy's is to be auctioned at the Goodwood auction, I wonder if it's ex-Hampton? |
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David |
23 Aug 2017, 09:42 (Ref:3761130) | #2769 | |||
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Quote:
I admit that I certainly did get up to some wild motoring antics in my youth on two, three (I was pretty mad on a motorbike & sidecar) and four wheels, and realise that I am very lucky to have got away with this without actually hurting myself or anyone else (although at the time I was convinced that this was due to totally natural skill and driving talent). Despite all of that, I have also always taken great pride in my driving and do get a lot of enjoyment in completing any motoring challenge to the best of my ability. |
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Incognito: An Italian phrase meaning Nice Gearchange! |
23 Aug 2017, 09:42 (Ref:3761131) | #2770 | ||
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I had a Datsun Sunny Estate as a company car for about a year in the early 80s. A solid and competent little thing with decent quality trim and fittings and a half decent performance from 1.5 ltrs. Nothing special but a whole lot better than the Morris Ital that preceded it and the Austin Maxi before that. |
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23 Aug 2017, 10:03 (Ref:3761134) | #2771 | ||
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Datsuns, Hondas, Toyota, Subaru... they're all just Jap Cars to me.
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When asking; "Is he joking?" Best assume yes! |
23 Aug 2017, 10:29 (Ref:3761139) | #2772 | ||
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When I was a skid pan instructor we used to dread the IAM coming...they knew the rule book inside out but had no concept of car dynamics or even in some cases how to drive outside their own little box on wheels. The ROSPA version (ROADAR) were much more skilful drivers.
Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk |
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Midgetman - known as Max Tyler to the world. MaxAttaq! |
23 Aug 2017, 10:49 (Ref:3761145) | #2773 | ||
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When asking; "Is he joking?" Best assume yes! |
23 Aug 2017, 10:51 (Ref:3761146) | #2774 | |||
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Quote:
VivaGT!!!!!! |
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When asking; "Is he joking?" Best assume yes! |
23 Aug 2017, 11:26 (Ref:3761156) | #2775 | ||
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Incognito: An Italian phrase meaning Nice Gearchange! |
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