Review of a DR350W (1998)

This bike was a replacement for a Yamaha SR400, as we needed a bike that could go off road. It is a 1998 model as the Yamaha was, but it gets ridden, rather than cherished.
It was a bit of a mission finding an off-road bike that was also registered for the road,  and had pillion pegs and a large enough fuel tank so I can ride all day.


This bike met all those requirements, but it was in a bit of a state when when I got it, and needed wheel bearings, brake disc’s / pads and lots of TLC in general.
A perceived lack of compression was a concern until I discovered it has an automatic decompressor as well as a lever on the handlebars for a manual one as well.

We use the bike to ferry a passenger to an off-road park, then we hire just one bike bike for the day (instead of two), remove the mirrors, and away we go. it works surprisingly well off-road, because it’s still quite light at @ 130kg.

It has a wide range 6 speed gearbox, which means it’s possible to run gearing which works both on and off road. The bike does 50/50 road/off-road use, and I’m using a 14/44 tooth arrangement, which gives it a cruising speed of @ 80-90kmhr on the road.

The back tyre is a Dunlop D606 which works very well.

The front tyre is a Mitas E07 which is Ok until you find some mud. It just slides everywhere as if I’m riding on glass. I’ll be using a matched set of tyres next season.

The battle for my kids to be confident

I’ve been fighting a battle for years -teaching my kids how to be confident in themselves. It’s been a very slow process teaching the kids not to look at something as simply dangerous, but to evaluate the situation and work out how to deal with it.

My oldest daughter is naturally afraid of a lot of things -spiders, heights, the dentist, etc. yet she has the ability to recognise she is afraid of something, and then sets out to overcome these fears.

She is basically a bookworm at heart, so it was a surprise when she asked to learn how to ride a motorcycle!

Eventually after a few disasters with a road bike (daughter was OK, bike suffered gravel rash, etc), I got her onto an offroad bike and some professional lessons. she very nearly gave up after her first crash and it took an hour of encouragement to get her back on the bike again.

After that, we got her onto the learners track, where she got stuck at a slight incline. the bike was simply stalling because she was so nervous about using the throttle…

From then on she rode around the learners track all day, and several more days after that. She was as slow as a wet week, but was very consistent, and her laptimes slowly got better. She is now quite fast due to sheer repetition and has now got to the point where I struggle to keep up with her, especially if it’s been raining.

I feel that I have finally won the battle for confidence thou.

Last week we went on holiday, and after some discussion we jumped out of a perfectly good plane at 12,000ft. this gives you 40 seconds of freefall before the parachute is deployed. (it was a tandem skydive, where you are attached to a professional skydiver).

This week she went to the dentist with absolutely no hesitation. (Mum used to spend hrs trying to console her about it)

Proprecies of doom..

It seems like every year, there is a looming crises that will be the end of the world.

Recent ones are..

Covid-19 (it certainly ain’t anywhere as bad as the Spanish Flu for example)

That big forest fire in South America (it actually happens every year, it occurs naturally)

The really big Bush fires in Victoria & NSW in Australia (it occurs naturally every year).

The Ozone layer is disappearing..

Climate change (notice how it’s not called global warming anymore -it basically means they have a bet each way). See the link below to see how they have been saying this since the 1970’s (hat tip – No Minister blog)

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/ 

It’s also notable that any natural occurance is blamed on climate change these days.

It’s been getting more & more dramatic as the years go by. Who could forget Greta Thunberg been used by her parents as per the link below?

All this crying wolf has the effect of people not taking any notice, so I guess the doomsday people just try harder in response.