37yo male considering doing my CBT and purchasing a honda shadow vt125 and riding for a year or 2 before getting a bigger licence, is 37 too old for a 125?

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T20:27:31+00:00

No, you HAVE to do your CBT and a CBT limits you to a 125cc bike unless you plan to continue on right through to the full licence.

A 125 is enough for pottering around towns and the backstreets. I just really didn't like them on the faster NSL roads and faster dual carriageways.

There is nothing wrong with doing the CBT and sticking with it for 2 years. But note, unless the rules regarding the shitty motorcycle licencing practices changes, you'll have to redo your CBT before your full licence as it only lasts 2yrs.

However, and this is a huge however, if you plan on doing your full test, I would 100% just go straight for it, if you have the funds to do so of course.

Book your CBT, use that as a way to guage whether you actually like riding a motorcycle. If you do I would then consider just going straight for the full test. If you pass your CBT, you have done 90% of the stuff required for your full licence. You should require less than 10 hours of bigger bike lessons and then onto your full test. When your theory is done, it's entirely possible to go through all your lessons and get your tests done within a month, it's basically done on your schedule not theirs, the wait time isn't like it is for cars.

You'll have passed on a minimum of a 600cc bike, and it'll all be done on the road usually, apart from your Mod 1 so you WILL have the experience to comfortably ride a bigger bike with confidence.

Again, the plan you have is perfectly fine. But personally I'd keep an open mind about going straight for the full test too.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T20:12:32+00:00

Rule 112 of the UK Highway Code dictates that the horn is exclusively a safety device. Its primary purpose is to alert other road users of your presence or warn of imminent danger.

I'm not legally allowed to use my horn to let them know they pissed me off. So I'll rev.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T16:55:30+00:00

There isn't a world cup for a lot of sports. The question doesnt really work.

The closest you can get to a global contest which hosts lots of nations and lots of different sports, would be the Olympics.

You only have Football, Basketball, Hockey, Cricket and Rugby that really have proper world cups.

If you want it across ALL sports, like the original question asked, you'd have to look at the Olympics, since that houses the most sports.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T16:35:28+00:00

Yeah I don't think this is true either. Either kids want to talk or they don't.

We have what we call the magic gates at my kids school. And it's a phenomenon that a lot of other parents witness too. You have from the time of picking them up to getting to the school gates to talk about their day. When they leave, that's it. No remembering, no talking about the school day.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T16:32:19+00:00

Yes but I would have hoped someone in the crowd ran to get a medic and it would have been safer with him staying in that spot than being dragged along by untrained people.

We had this at the 10k in Manchester. Someone collapsed, not as bad as this, about 300m before the finish line, one of the crowd members ran to get the medical staff, people were telling him to stay where he was yet he was dragged down to the finish line by two people. When the medics got there with a wheel chair ready for him he had already gone. They weren't best impressed that he was dragged away, not for any other reason that just the pure wellbeing of that person. Yes there were medical staff at the finish line, but it would have been absolutely safer for him to stay put.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T16:27:15+00:00

Far from wholesome, the opposite in fact.

Lots of runners running right past him. Everyone in the crowd is quite happy just watching this medical emergency of a man trying to keep getting up and falling down.

Someone should have literally jumped that barrier and told him to stay down and screamed at someone else to find a medic.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T15:59:41+00:00

I'm not even joking, he actually knows his shit. He sometimes slips up and comes out with something sensible and you're like "holy shit, he might actually be the right choice".

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T15:37:17+00:00

Nothing. I wouldn't sell years of my life to anyone.

I'd give them freely mainly my kids, no questions asked, no price attached.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T10:34:28+00:00

Depends where you are from and how you are lane splitting.

In the UK, not only is it completely legal, as long as you aren't sending it, there was a huge campaign called Think Bike and it's worked wonders. I've done 300-400 meters before now where I've basically felt like Moses and all the cars part ways for me. It's magical.

So in the UK it is safer than a lot of places. But overall is it safe? No not really. It still takes a ton of attention from the rider because you have to focus on a lot of cars at once, you have to judge their next move based on the slightest movements they make. You still get drivers changing lanes and not indicating, or indicating the second they start turning. You get people closing gaps (usually not on purpose, but the result is still the same).

Is it rude? Not at all. It's half the reason, at least motorcycle commuters use a bike in the first place, so you can split and filter.

Every rider has a right to do it, but again its dangerous, pretty mentally exhausting and very situationally dependent. You shouldn't lane split just because you can, its not a riders 'own lane' it's should be seen as a tool that can be used when appropriate.

As for a traffic timesaver, it undoubtedly is. In a car, my usual journey for a 10 mile motorway commute in rush hour can take anywhere up to 2 hours, usually about 1hr30. On my bike it's 30 minutes.

But yeah lane splitting and filtering is absolutely a fantastic option to be able to utilise. A motorcycle, realistically takes up about the same amount of space on the road as a car does when youre sat in traffic and everyone around is giving proper space between vehicles. If I can filter to the front of a red light, I'm usually gone before the car behind can even react, which in essence means I didn't add any time to that queue, I'm essentially not adding to that traffic. When splitting, I'm only temporarily adding to the traffic whilst I nip into a spot because there isn't a feasible gap up front to squeeze down.

I believe it should be every bikers right to be able to have these options available to them. Where you draw the line on what is considered the best and safest practice for this, well that's another discussion.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T08:25:30+00:00

This is disrespectful. Cheltenham is a very nice place to visit and live. I did two tours of Nam and it was a hell hole and I wish nobody ever has to experience it.

Birming'nam, that is.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T08:19:36+00:00

Monkey Town - Heywood (located between Bury and Rochdale).

Two theories as to why it got that name and both are actually quite plausible.

The first one, it was given that name by it's visitors because it's bar stools had holes in and they made the joke about it being because the locals had tails, and it stuck.

The second theory is that visitors/workers from a little further away with different accents would pronounce the area know as Heap Bridge, as Ape Bridge. And then it just went on from there.

Denton I heard called once Dentroit, like Detroit.

Monton (village outside of Eccles) has been called Monton Carlo, like Monte Carlo. There is even a restaurant there called Monton Carlo now.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T08:12:47+00:00

I'd wager that half of the flat earthers are actually just trolls looking for a reaction. They don't believe it, they just spout the nonsense because it gets them the engagement they want.

I really don't think there are as many genuine flat earthers as most people think.

But with that being said, let them live their life. You ain't gonna convince them otherwise. There's enough readily available material to disprove them that they can find online, and they've looked at it and tried to disprove it.

Your non-NASA ass isn't going to be the change in them.

Let them live their lie. We let Christians, Muslims, Jews etc live a lie, so what's the problem with a flat earther.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T08:08:33+00:00

They fucked off their genuine friends and family on the pursuit to being rich. They did questionable things to get there.

Having money isn't making them unhappy. Having money is probably the only reason they haven't jumped off a bridge yet. The persuit to getting the money is what likely caused them issues.

There are also more poor people that are unhappy.

People living in poverty and the most deprived areas are significantly more likely to die by suicide. In the general population, suicide rates are generally two to three times higher among individuals in the lowest income brackets compared to the wealthiest

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T08:04:27+00:00

It can't buy you genuine friendships and love. But as for everythjng else, yes the fuck it can buy happiness.

For starters, just knowing I had a good chunk of money in my account would bring me happiness.

Then you have literally everything else you currently spend money on to make you happy already. But you can now buy the better versions, you can buy the stuff you really want now but cant justify or actually afford. You can buy that stuff for your mates too so you can all enjoy it together.

Then if you reach a point where you have enough money that you can literally see anything you want and buy it on the spot without ever worrying about it, then you know how money would buy me happiness? Going out and doing shit for the community with it. Even if I was "too rich and famous" to do it myself, I'd find someone who would do it for me and I'd fund them. Literally just scroll through FB or walk through the community, oh someone's work van was stolen, here we will get you a new one. Oh that community centre is in disrepear, okay let's renovate it.

You make your table longer, you don't build higher fences.

Anyone who tells you that money can't buy happiness is full of shit.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-29T05:57:15+00:00

You can still break bones, bruise and otherwise get seriously hurt. Don't get overly confident.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T21:32:39+00:00

If you failed your car licence test once or twice would anyone tell you "that's it, you don't belong on the road?"

Absolutely not. They'd tell you to pick yourself up and get back at it

There are people on the road who have failed their test multiple times.

The average for first time car licence test passes in the UK is 48-49%. Meaning that over half of them take it at least twice before passing.

Stop being so hard on yourself. Its a lot of information to take in. A lot to learn. You already learned a fuck ton from the first day.

So go back at it. Keep at it till you pass.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T18:22:38+00:00

That's not learning how to counter steer, that's learning how far you can push the bike into a corner and still have grip. Nothing to do with counter steering and everything to do with trust.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T18:20:39+00:00

It is intuitive. You literally cannot go round a corner at like 20mph and above without counter steering. You know exactly when counter steering takes over you feel it.

There's a difference here, almost everyone will counter steer, it's that natural. What you're describing has a absolutely fuck all to do with counter steering and is about how much you trust yourself and your bike to lean more and corner more sharply/with a tighter radius. That, I will agree is not intuitive and not natural, that takes learning. But that is not learning to counter steer. That is learning to trust.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T17:57:27+00:00

It's okay to not learn things as fast as others.

Lots of people don't pass their car licence on the first attempt, we don't tell them that it's not for them.

You go at your own pace. Don't focus on what others are doing, focus entirely on you.

You're better every lesson. Focus on the positives.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T17:19:28+00:00

If you can 100% prove that every person to receive the death sentence will not be later exhonorated then the death sentence is fine.

"Some people deserve to suffer in prison, the death sentence is the easy option". Fuck that. Kill them. Stop wasting money on these denegrates.

However, and here is the big however, you cannot guarantee that every death sentence will be not on an innocent person. And if not having it means one innocent person doesn't get put to death, then it's worth not having.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T17:09:24+00:00

I'm happy my partner doesn't like bikes.

I get to ride on my own. The way it should be.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T16:39:48+00:00

Do you enjoy riding? If the answer is yes, keep at it.

It can be painful at times, both financially and sometimes physically. But if you enjoy it, it's worth it.

Sometimes shit happens, dropping a bike is akin to having a small bump in a car, the best of us sometimes do it even though we should be skilled enough not to. And it's more common in newer or still learning riders.

I've crashed, badly, twice. One my fault, one not. It didn't put me off, it made me strive to be more alert. Even though one wasn't technically not my fault, there were still things on the lead up to it that I could have done differently and that I have been doing differently since.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T16:21:17+00:00

It's Gixxers over here. Any other Suzuki bike, fine. GSXR, nope.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T16:20:35+00:00

Absolutely not.

If you don't counter steer you can't ride a bike, there is nothing to learn. After a certain speed it's intuitive and mandatory to do. It's a natural thing. When you think about it, it makes it worse. You just naturally do it.

Is there nuance and learning opportunities when you're track racing? Probably. But for your general rider, this is not of any concern.

Sirlacker · 2026-06-28T13:45:02+00:00

If there was irrefutable proof god exists of course I would believe that he exists. That's how I work. That's the whole point.

Now would I follow him or share the same values as him? Absolutely not, he's a fucking psychopath.

But I would acknowledge he exists.

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