Craig.

Nice one.I thought you would know about it so my post was more to inform others. Must be a good mate if he will let you ride his old banger! The track looks awesome and I have heard great things about it from guys who have attended in previous years. I'm only spectating this year but am looking for an early 80s bike so that I can attend as a rider in the future. I just need to sell this first as I dont have the room to store too many toys; http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2009-Yamaha-R1-/290431900922?cmd=ViewItem&pt=AU_Motorcycles&hash=item439f171cfa As for the track behind the shopping centre you mentioned, there are better tracks than that up here too. Gum Valley is the best track in the Mackay area.

Speaking of old two bangers with no suspension travel, I will be down on the Sunny Coast over the June long weekend to attend Classic Dirt 7. Thi sevent is set an Conondale on a couple of Natural Terrain MX tracks that will bascially be pegged out just before the start of the event. http://www.vmxmag.com.au/03_news_events/CD7_poster_3.pdf VMX News and Events - what is going on in VMX Its probably the biggest VMX event in Aus, so if you have been involved in bikes for a while it would be worth going for a nostalgic step back into the past.

If you think the Cr500 is a good thing, you'll really like the look of this baby. Honda CR500 aluminium frame CR500af BIG 2 STROKE - eBay Honda, Trail Bikes, Motorcycles, Cars, Bikes, Boats. (end time 12-May-10 21:32:54 AEST)

I'm not sure how that is going to make it any cheaper for me though mate. I still have to pay for two keys to be cut at $70 each. Are you saying get one cut here and then wait to get the other cut somewhere else cheaper when I am in Brisbane?

I may do a ring aroung. If I cant get the two of them cut fot less than $100, I am going to sell them.

Hi guys. Just wondering what others are being charged to get these keys cut. I got a price off a key cutter in the local shopping centre yesterday of $70 each. I have 2 keys so I am up for $140. This seems a bit steep but then again, it is Mackay so you have to allow for Miners tax up here. Should I sell the keys on or wait until I head down to the Sunshine Coast in June and see if I can get them done cheaper down there?

Bullsh*t! Unless you are superman, whether you are doing 80 or 100 at the point of impact you will either die, or wish you had due to the injuries you then have to endure. Whats more, there will be more accidents at such a low speed limit on these long isolated roads, because at an inappropriately low speed for the road conditions your mind wanders, your brain isn't on the job and you don't pay the same attention that you would at 110-120kph. Whats more you are out on the road for longer so you have a longer exposure, therefore more fatigue related problems occur. More death and life changing injuries will result, not less! Yet you sit here and tell me that the human body will do just fine in an 80kph crash. Talk about misinformation mate! You may live but your legs will be smashed to smitherines under you pedals, your head may be alright depending on whether you have an airbag fitted, if you hit something at an angle because you tried to correct you probably have a broken pelvis, as well as multiple spinal injuries, unless you have side curtain aibags ( currently onlty fitted to a very small % of cars). Well Kevin Rudd and his Cronies have spent about $40 Billion on pink batts, overpriced upgrades to school libraries and a $900 payments to everyone as part of this stimulus package so that you can buy a chineese LCD TV. Why don't we just spend the next 40 Billion on upgrades to the roads system? The increase in jobs would do a better job of stimulating the economy than giving everyone a once off $900 payment would.

The relevance comes back to the point where if you had done a few 1000+klm trips on single lane hwys in remote areas of the country in you time, you would know what a poor decision making them 80kph zones is. You have said you thought it is a good idea to make anything that isn't an undivided multi lane road 80. I am saying that if you had to use them then you wouldn't support this. that's all. Nothing personal meant by it mate. Just making my point that you live in a small state with a very well serviced road network compared to the rest of the country, so you probably haven't experienced the roads which I have to drive on a daily basis. If you did, you would get my point. Same result though. Permanent, life changing injuries would be a best case scenario. Death at worst. Surviving a crash isn't neccesarily the best scenario if you end up a vegetable. Better to just make the roads safer and then increase the speed limits if anything so that people can get off the roads before fatigue gets it's chance. No one wants roads that aren't seperated by a barrier closed down. It would literally close the country down. If we closed all of the non undivided lanes down there would be no road network in the vast majority of the country. These roads bring you your food, fuel,etc remember. You obviously do or you wouldn't even bother with a reply. No need to explain it. I worked it out all on my own a long time ago.

Mate I am vary familiar with the Bruce either side of Gympie myself. My parents are on the Sunshine Coast so I travel that road often to bring the grandkids down to see them. The problem with it is that it carries too much traffic. If the government had spent the money on a dual lane freeway all the way to the Harvey Bay turn off when the 4 lanes were done back in the 80s ( or was it the early 90s), then this would hae saved a lot of lives. Instead, they drop it back to 90. People geteven more frustrated and do even dumber sh*t than they used to. As a result there are probably more deaths lost along this stretch than when it was 100. The thing that really makes me laugh along that stretch is that on either side of Gympie in the 90 zones there are a couple of old country schools. The school zones are 80 zones during the appropriate hours. Every time I see this I chuckle to myself because this has to be the only place in Aus where the school zones are 80 instead of 40. Elsewhere, if you get caught doing 46 in a school zone you cop a fine, yet here you can do 80? Does this mean that the kids in the Gympie area bounce of a bonnet better than anywhere else in Aus? Are they just bred toughter? Does this not make a mockery of the 40 school zones in urban areas?

I am not here to debate the difference in impacts due to crumple zones. I am basically referring to moving objects travelling in opposite directions at the same speed versus a moving object hitting a stationary one. I'm not here to discuss the theory of the effect of crumple zones and their role. Depending on the angle of impact this can have a major, in the case of a front on, or very little effect in the case of a car getting side on and being T boned. What I am more interested in, the way I believe we should be heading, is actually putting things in place so that we are avoiding these single and multiple vehicle impacts in the first place. Rather than saying that we need to drop the speed limit to a point where WHEN people do hit each other or a tree, they may have a greater chance of survival ( and lets face it there are lots of variables here which is why setting an 80KPH limit is wrong) lets engineer ourselves out of the problem all together like other countries around the world who seem to have no issue with roads with limits currently much higher than ours on open hghways. Oh and you still haven't answered my question. Have you ever actually done any long distance driving? Been behind the wheel all day? Crossed a time zone while driving? I feel the answer is probably no based on the simplistic solutions you present to what remains a very complex problem that the government has no real intention of fixing unless there is a buck in it.

3000+ posts and most are as useless as the above. I feel that my post was worth asking so whats with the bullsh*t attitude! I'm trying to work out why you are such a *beep*! Were you beaten as a child or something? Maybe you just get the sh*t kicked out of you at work every week in real life so you come on here and be a keyboard hero? Why not contrbute something rather than just putting people down and posting at them like they are dogs. If you have nothing usefull to contribute, just STFU!

Are those sag measurements taken from bike under its own weight to bike and rider, or are these measurements the difference between bike with back wheel off the ground to bike with rider on board?

Cool. I want one of these. I just need to move my current ride as I cant justify having both to the minister of finance. What year? Any pics?

I agree. Whatsmore, that 20 odd billion that was handed out as part of the stimulus package so that everyone could go buy a chinese made LCD TV with their $900 payout would have been better spent on improving our roads.

Have you ever done any long distance driving? Perhaps up the Newell through Western NSW to SE QLD, or even over to Adelaide? The rwason I ask is that I don't think you actually have any concpet of what most of Australias roads are like if you think that 80 on our national highways is a good idea. As you live only a stones throw from the CBD and live in a physically small state with above standard roads, you probably don't have the need to do any real long distances behind the wheel, and those that you do travel on are a lot better than the average QLD,WA or NSW highway. Our country is huge and many people travel vast distances to get form point A to B. I work 150klm from home for example. I regularly travel from here to Brisbane. Its 900klm of substandard, dangerous highway and all but the last 100klm is single lane highway. Much of it is in remote areas with nothing to look at and towns are anywhere between 100-300klm apart. Fatigue on a road like this is a real issue at the current speed limit. Slow poeple down 20-30 KPH and it is likely to increase those killed. It will definitely increase those injured due to fatigue. While this may not impact on the road toll, it will affect more peoples lives as they have to live with the consequences. Not pretty. As for your claims that an 80klm head on is survivable, do you realise that this is the equivalent to hitting a tree at 160kph? Survival is unlikely.

Please explain to me how fines have a direct ( or indirect) corelation with the ability to operate a motorvehicle safely, either way? The number of fines someone has had is usually in direct proportion to how many klms you do, as it is always a matter of time IMO. After all, its not like anyone gets off with a warning anymore and with coppers hiding behind trees in the most likely place to get their quota ( all in the name of saving you from yourself of course), the only way to escape a fine is to catch a train or bus. Your state government depends upon it!

You sound like you have had some previous experience riding dirt bikes. Have you considered getting into Vintage Motocross (VMX) or Vinduros? The old bikes are easy to work on and it seems to be a growing sport with guys of various ages. They have different classes available depending on the age of the bike and the racing isn't taken as seriously as some other forms of racing. Its also relatively cheap to get into, compared to racing modern bikes that is. You can buy an old beat up bike and restore it yourself, or buy something that someone else has restored, or buy a low usage original from dealers that bring such bikes in from the states, such as Dirty Dog Racing ( www.ddr.net.au ) or Shoreline Motorcycles in Cleveland.

These statistics would not change a hell of a lot with a reduction in speed. In fact they may increase due to more fatigue related accidents meaning people falling asleep and running off the road into a tree. Our bodies aren't designed to come to a sudden stop at 110,100 or 80kph, so at any of those speeds the inertia created by the sudden stop as you hit an oncoming car or a 100 year old gum tree will turn your internal organs into something that looks a little bit like sausage mince. The only safe speed for the human body to come to a sudden stop is less than 25kph. Is this what we should be enforcing? Or we could do the obvious and eliminate single carriage way roads as highways and replace these with dual carriage way roads with barriers to prevent head ons and from drifting off the road and into trees. Isn't this a more possitive step than making everyone drive around at a snails pace? Oh hang on, that might cost a bit! Wouldn't you rather see your income tax spent on something like this though, rather than some of the frivilous crap that it is spent on at the moment?

I like 'em.

1. aussie_dozer 1 2. MitchellO 1 3. GMKILLER X 2 4. turboknapp x 1 5. craiginmackay x 2

Yeah you'll be in some discomfort for quite a while I am afraid. Cartlidge takes a long time to repair due to a lack of blood supply to it. Longer than bone or muscle injuries.

Understood. I'm just saying it works both ways. Not trying to cause a stir. I can see where Hanra is coming from. My point is that its a pic of a car he used to own and the pic is available on the net and isn't covered by copyright. The current owner is doing nothing more than using a pic of HIS car. Regardlees of who took it, its his car in that pic. The current owner could be just as upset that the previous owner is using images of a car no longer under his possession.

Once its out on the web it really isnt your property anymore mate, unless you have some kind of copyright thing going and you are a professional photographer. Here is a couple of questions for you. How do you think he feels about you having a photo of HIS ute on your facebook page? After all, that is his property now ( the ute that is). Do you think he would take offence at you posting a pic of HIS ute in this thread? Does the fact that you used to own it give you the right to post pics of it now that it is someone elses property? Kinda cuts both ways, don't you think?

Sorry mate but I am not a fan of the color of these wheels on anything other than maybe a white car. Maybe! In any other color than white, this style of wheel would look awesome on your car.

So those of you that have been (or still are) in the police force are telling us that there is no way to get off this type of thing despite the fact that the guy may actually be innocent? This sits badly with me, the fact that you are screwed regardless of whether you were speeding or not because of a police officers word, even though he is human ( apparently he might even have his feelings hurt if you don't be nice to him while he is booking you for speeding) and can make mistakes too. I would like to think that in this counrty at least, innocence is presumed until proven otherwise, so if someone has a genuine beef with a ticket, it would be nice to think he had at least half a chance if some doubt can be shown. Sounds like this isn't the case. I suppose in the name of revenue raising this basic cornerstone of our legal system goes out the window?