DAE go on the Motorworks site for a new battery...

...and see they have a few old R1200GS for not very much money and think "Well, you know..."

I mean, back in 2006 I went and test-rode an F800 thanks to Balderston of Peterborough when they had a day at Whitlingham (near Norwich) but they also had a 1200GS which I took for a short spin and enjoyed immensely, but didn't have the money for at the time. And here I am, with a perfectly good F800S which I haven't ridden much in the last few years, and I was thinking, perhaps this is the year when I dig it out from the garage where it's been hidden behind the odds and ends we took away from the in-laws' house when they sadly died four years ago, and I know the battery's fit for nothing but a doorstop by now, so off I go to look for a new one, and then without ever intending to I find myself digging down the back of the sofa for spare change.

Motorworks dropped off a very nice clean-looking 1200GS first thing this morning, actually a year older than my F800S but with a reasonably low number on the clock, and while I have yet to master actually getting aboard (as I am quite short-legged for my 5' 11'') I managed it at no more than the third attempt and it turns out I haven't forgotten to ride yet. Just a quick run out for petrol and then to work this morning, and home again by way of a short trip where some bint in a Kuga didn't want to wait her turn to overtake the car two places ahead of us on the A11. Cut me up, will you? I can stomp you into the dirt any time I like and don't you forget it...!

It's a fun machine. We're both getting on towards retiring age and I think we'll enjoy growing old disgracefully.

Dew yew now take care bor!

And welcome

Welcome to the forum.....

Thank you, both! Actually reading the instructions has helped with getting aboard, along with lowering the seat height, and I took a spin into Naaaritch this morning to a very old stamping ground of mind, Tinklers (which I remember from the 1980s, and not even the late 1980s at that) as my old helmet is many years past its sell-by date. Starting to get the feel of sitting in the bike rather than on it and the little nuances of foot placement and weight transference that make wheeling it around and putting on the mainstand a less fraught task.

I think the old Frank Thomas oversuit has a few years left in it, but nothing dates it quite so thoroughly as the size of the mobile phone pocket - it's way too small for the mini-computers we carry around these days.