• 4 Posts
  • 303 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • NC7s a good pick.

    But don’t blur all 2k+ beemers into the same group. I had a 2004 GS for a good few year - my first proper bike. Not as solid as the CB or NCs that’s true, but that big solid boxer engine is lovely and a superb motorway cruiser. The 04’s were the last of the oilheads, widely considered the most reliable engines, But even then, BMW were over-complicating shit, and it’s much worse now.


  • Dingaling@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlhow do I accept that my father is declining?
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    4 days ago

    /If/ he’s declining (I like spankinspinach’s answer) through dementia, then as someone who’s watched their very intelligent mother, their step-father and their uncle all decline with it - my answer to “how do you accept this?” is - you can’t.

    Oh, you can be rational, and sympathetic, and take steps to protect them and get them the care they need - but emotionally? Dude, it’s fucking hard. Seeing someone go through their own denial in the early stages, how they try to trick you into thinking they’re okay. As it progresses and they have to surrender, then the oblivion that inevitably follows. Watching my own mother forget every single fact about our shared memories to the point she didn’t even know who I was, then worse, when she thought I was my father. Then her regression to a little girl. (That sounds linear but it isn’t)

    If he is going down that route, then the only thing to do is try to prepare yourself for a whole world of hurt and anger. Be strong, be the parent for them, but die yourself inside.


  • Good luck with your licence. I found it a hard test when I did my DAS a few years ago but did pass first time, doing both MOD 1 and 2 back to back.

    You say you’re not fussed about top speed, but smaller bikes are very buzzy at the top end of their range (as you know on a 125) so don’t be afraid to go bigger for motorways and it’s nice to have power in reserve. Big bikes ride better there and less twitchy in side winds, but are less agile in the city.

    If you want a solid commuter bike, you can’t go wrong with Honda cb500 or similar. There’s a lot of older ones still chugging away - tatty and less stealable, but ultra reliable and cheap to maintain. 70mpg, more than enough power for the motorway, not too fat to filter.

    Some of the older (2000-2010) BMW 1100-1200s are fairly good, either GS or RT. Lovely torquey engine, good presence, comfy and nice on the motorway. A bit fat for filtering sometimes.

    Good shout on keeping your 125. They’re a hoot and great for bombing around the lanes or cities.












  • I don’t disagree that some are like that, and the only reason tax laws in many countries in particular are so complicated are because of politicians squeezing in exceptions that benefit them.

    But it’s far, far from “all laws”. The quality of life and legality for average people has changed a huge amount for the better. Even in my lifetime in the UK. When I was a child, it was illegal to be homosexual. You were openly discriminated for being black, Irish, foreign, fat, old, young. Now there are laws to protect against that. My wife’s mother had to get her brother to sign the paperwork to buy a house because even in the 1950s, women couldn’t get a mortgage without a man guaranteeing it. Those are just a few examples.

    If you’re American, then yeah, maybe your system is skewed far to the rich beyond what most countries do. It’s long been the case that justice in the US doesn’t apply to the rich, but the US is not everywhere and not everything, despite what the current news cycles might tell you.