clearly at your age you havent yet been to many bikers funerals. I followed my good friends hearse on my bike while his 2x 5 yr old children waved at me out the back window.

Luckily he was fully comp and their future is a little more secure.

Sadly on bikes "learning from your mistakes" is very hard to do when your in a coffin.

The gap between a skid on gravel as per the OP and sliding across the road into an oncoming car doing 60 and dying is a very small window.

But hey, Im' the arse that tries to pass on advice to keep you alive. You go on learning your own way and ignore the advice of people who have been there and done it, and call them names instead.

so I'll say it again, without calling you names - GET SOME MORE TRAINING - you'll live longer.

Double post.

I think you are confusing personal injury cover with fully comp insurance.

I never said idiot, I said eejit as it's one of the least offensive things I could think of.

I do have 3rd party, and if I crash I will suck up the costs of getting my bike fixed as with fully comp I'd be paying more for the premium than what the bike is worth, let alone the additional £800 excess. Also whenever I take out insurance, I opt for the usually small sum for personal injury cover which gives you something like £6000 if you lose a finger/toe. However, unlike yourself I do not have any children and I'm single.

As for benefits of 3rd party, they are minimal. Claiming from insurance at my age would be detrimental to my policies for the next five years, I would only ever claim if the money I receive completely outweighs this.

The only other benefit I can think of, I'm a student. As everyone knows students are tight for money so it's either have 3rd party on the bike I do, or cycle everywhere. Even though I only live 50 miles between university and home, it'd be a 3-4 hour cycle, rather than less than an hour down the M1 on the bike. A car is not an option, I've tried quotes and they come back as £2500+ for 3rd party, fully comp is more than £4000. Not only this, I couldn't live without my bike, even going on holiday for a week makes me think about going home and riding.

I don't mean this to sound like I'm having a rant, this is the reason why I chose 3rd party and a motorcycle.

Got some nice parcels from the posty today

Clutch before:



Clutch after:



Screen before:



Screen after (not sure if i like it yet but it was very cheap and i will always get my money back on it):



Number plate before (not quite legal / cracked / monkey before had fitted it poorly):





Number plate after:





And one of my tarty signed tank



Sorry about the amount of pictures

In exactly the same boat! £1500 to insure my (fairly breathed on!) 1985 Mini, or £590 to insure my little CBR125, both TPFT... Would be £2.5k+ just to insure a euro stbox. Just insane. I've always wanted a bike, so going to get some miles under my belt on my 125 (1000 down already!) and aim to get my restricted licence by January before all the changes...

Then i've got my eyes on a ZXR400. Hoping if I don't have any accidents on the baby CBR (touches wood) I'll get a good chunk of my £1650 back from it, to buy a ZXR400 with good history that needs some cosmetic tidying, and add some cash to the insurance policy for it.

Then hopefully by next summer, with a year of no claims (yet again, touches wood!) I'll be having fun on a 400 for around what the 125 cost me to insure (a fraction of any crap car, let alone something with ~5secs 0-60!)

The dangers of being on two wheels are apparent everyday, but I am loving it, and it's even better that it makes total financial sense right now. (and it's far more fun than cycling everywhere like before!)

New mirror bracket ordered for £35

Also am in talks with a guy on BCF that may have some fairing panels, and i am watching a left hand fairing on eBay that is close by. Looking positive now

Good to see your not downbeat about the bike and have already started fixing it. Will look good as new in no time.

As for insurance I am only covered third party fire and theft and that was enough so didn't see the point of fully comp. for what it's worth if I have an offI will fix it myself. As for injury cover I have a separate policy that covers me so if I'm on the bike or not and I get injured I'm covered for all circumstances.

Exactly that, unfortunately though it cannot be changed and people will carry on doing it, so I've just got to wait a while until I'm out of the 'idiot age' zone.
With the bike I've currently got 3 years no claims, coming up to 4 very soon (touch wood). But as of a car, I have zilch. Firstly because I don't want a car yet, but also it's too expensive to get the insurance to achieve no claims.

Yeah make sure you get it done by then! You don't want to have to go through the massive phaff of the new system. The ZXR is my favourite 400 by far. Not only has it got proper 600 dimensions, IMO it looks the best with awesome handling and a decent supply kick when you rev it a bit. Oh, and the 0-60 is more like 3.3 seconds if I remember correctly

Yep, poorly thought out, already apologised for my personality above.
The reference was to the number of deaths by bike engine size - I dont have the stats on me, but sports bikes do in fact have a higher death/injury ratio.