Cautioned in Adelaide!

My impression of Australia is from a college buddy in 1976. His family's tales and pictures of Perth in W.A. were quite an eye opener. He was amazed and disappointed in Tucson USA at the same time. He knew his way around a beer though. And he did very well in college, advancing rapidly in HVAC. Last I heard he and his wife moved to Houston...always wanted to see Perth I can't see
The
Right side
of my screen
as I
type
so
I'll have
to write
like
this
SOMONE
PLEASE
REMOVE
THE
ADVERTISING
FROM
THE
RIGHT
SIDE
OF
MY
SCREEN.
Now it's OK, it needed a beating.

I was going to bring
up the topic of the
waterfall of advertising on
this site.
But thought I would be
making waves as a new comer.
So, what's with all the advertising?
Shouldn't becoming a member
dispense with
all this distraction?
As you mentioned, you can't even
see what you're typing on the right.

A work around to this
mess is moving your
browser window
over to put one side
or the other off screen.

Shouldn't we get paid
for providing the
content that brings viewers here?
I'm in favor of members
not having to put up with all of it.
Come on "cookie makers",
give the content providers
a break!
We deserve it.

Running a forum cost money...the advertiser help pay for this, without them there would be no Motorbicycling.com

You need to set up your monitor resolution in my opinion

I can't see any advertising? If you are using firefox as your browser there is an add on called CUSTOMIZE GOOGLE, I never see ads unless I need to and then I merely disable it briefly whilst I search for what I am after...

As for Australia, asthetically it is absolutely phenonamal!!! It is mind blowing at how diverse the country is... I have travelled here and abroad quite extensively and appreciate it all the more when I "go walkabout" somewhere and return, however, politically we are ruled by a government that has the the ambition of Rome...

You can't fart in the privacy of your own home without them analysising to see if you have breach some law and if they can grab some revenue from you... Just yesterday I was reading that there was a poll done (if you are to believe polls) and the result was that Aus was the most unaffordable country to live in, I can say that whilst other places seem more expensive to get by in, Australia is up there with some of them easily from my experience!

I know that bang for buck against your wages it can be a nightmare, the last government ensured the divide between the rich and poor deepened like never before and it will never recover from that episode... Food is now a good 75% dearer, House prices are now over 500% dearer (Seriously) and utilities have become privatised with increases beyond recognition.

To give you an idea, the house I live in I purchased 12 years ago as a fishing retreat, I paid $9000 for it, it was a shack (until you had to buy the formerly leased land) and now it is (officially, all because you had to buy the land)a home... There are 49 here (only 2 residents and the rest are very seldom used), no services and when I bought it everyone said why the **** would you want to buy that place??? You must have rocks in your head... I had to spend $19000 when we had to buy the land and that included a septic system and all fees... One of my neighbours sold his pad only 3 weeks ago and got $265000 for it...

This place has become ridiculous, I just don't mean here, I mean the whole of Australia... The median housng prices Auswide are a ******* joke and it is only getting worse, whilst the government are currently offering a $21000 grant for first home owners, the builders and realesharks are just adding that into their costs... What is $21000 when you have to spend over $300000 on a home in the capital cities (if you are lucky you could get a s**t heap for that in the slums of Sydney)

Australia is becoming somewhere that is going to implode in the very near future...And because they took most of the guns from people they can pretty much herd everyone around like lambs to the slaughter, when I was a kid, 1984 was but a bad dream... Here it is todays reality!

for the ads on the screen.....simple, turf internet explorer and get firefox. i havent used firefox for few years now cant understand why people do actually.

as for australia being one of if not the most expensive place to live in terms of wage to house price ratio then yes it is true. if u go to DEMOGRAPHIA: Demographics Development Impacts Market Research & Urban Policy they do this market research for housing affordability. ok, its only for the major english speaking nations like UK, USA, Aus, Canada, NZ etc but its pretty frightening when the listing for most unaffordable has Sydney above London!

i could never really understand why house prices got so expensive here in oz, i mean ive lived in europe and travelled quite a lot and yes i do appreciate where i come from a lot and our standard of living but i cannot justify the cost of living that we cop now especially when many other countries have the same if not better standard of living as ours. plus the major drawback we have is geographical location, we are so isolated and far from any other real big place like the US or europe.

a lot of people say that the property bubble is going to burst soon in oz but in reality the demand for housing is still there and always will be. and do we need to talk about rents? aslong as they keep our borders very open and people from other countries are wanting to come live here (which is always) then the demand will always lower the supply plus the fact that certain state govts (eg.NSW) are not releasing new land parcels where they should which too keeps prices fairly high.

yes thanx to johnny and very cheap money in the last 10 years has made for a unique mess that many people are in right now, not everyone but a lot are thats for sure.

KG78

Hey, Firefox works good at blocking. I didn't have it set up right. Now I can read the messages in comfort.
So Oz is catching up to the rest of us eh? In Canada things went extremely crazy about ten years ago. Wages are going down to 1970 levels, (except in the nation's capital) and everything else is leaping forward even more since the big cash grab with oil last year.
When I see a loaf of bread more than three times the cost of what it was five years ago, I have to wonder (no pun intended).
You guys had the guns rule come into effect long ago and watched house invations go up. That's just starting to happen here.
A good four bedroom house here cost about $28,000 on a nice piece of property in 1972. I know that's a long time ago, but right now across the street a two bedroom, nothing but a box house is going for $425,000. Wages haven't gone up enough to cover that.
And about motorbicycles, remember those? I'm running a four stroke engine on mine, but it seems like everyone else is using two strokes. Any other four stroke engine users out there?

I figured out that if I hold Control key down and tap Minus key the screen shrinks down enough to see everything. No problem with ads, I click on them to generate some revenue for Cruiser. He works hard at this site, and I've promised some stickers...soon.

I love and respect the Aussie fierce spirit of independence and self reliance. The history and frontier attitude are very similar to the American west, where I live. It is so aggravating to hear of the plight of the regular people ( our brothers and sisters in spirit) in Australia. I didn't know the government is disarming the populace, that's a "Red flag" that worse things are looming on your horizon.
An unarmed citizen is called a slave.
Illigitimati non carborundum ! ( hope my Latin is spelled reasonably)
Don't let the bastards grind you down!

i saw a guy wizzing around on a motorbicycle other day whilst doing some shopping and noticed that it was spewing out plumes of smoke from the exhaust.
i think to help matters here in oz to keep as much of a low profile as possible with the law i think its highly important that people use the best 2 storke oil possible and try to keep smoke to a minimum.
once u get the 'greeny' people complaining about pollution from these things it could be a double whammy for motorbicycles no matter what mileage they get.

KG78

kg78 said:

i saw a guy wizzing around on a motorbicycle other day whilst doing some shopping and noticed that it was spewing out plumes of smoke from the exhaust.
i think to help matters here in oz to keep as much of a low profile as possible with the law i think its highly important that people use the best 2 storke oil possible and try to keep smoke to a minimum.
once u get the 'greeny' people complaining about pollution from these things it could be a double whammy for motorbicycles no matter what mileage they get.

KG78

Click to expand...

Gday KG78.

yeah, I agree. I've been following legislation in Oz for a year and I believe that it is tightening up.

The pollution bogey is real interesting. 2-stroke engines on motor bikes have never been regulated in Australia. Now that (next to) smokeless oil is available and catalytic mufflers, it would be nice to think that a bit of common sense might prevail.

I'm in Hobart and I've actually organised a display of motor-assisted pedal cycles (bikes and a trike) for Tuesday (24-2-09) lunchtime in Hobart. It will be interesting to see what interest pops out of the woodwork.

I saw today, an announcement that a memorial will be held for the 209 souls that perished in the fires in Victoria. Our sympathies for the families that have lost so much.Being a victim of an arsonist, I can relate to this disaster in a small measure . Our thoughts and prayers are with you, our Australian brothers and sisters.
(We had our own fires here a few years ago that destroyed a small community in the Santa Catalina mountains next to Tucson. Only some of the damage is still clearly visible from the valley floor, a lot more is visible from the road into the range. The damage was exacerbated by the Federal Government's reluctance to allow deadwood cutting and the Governments method of extinguishing all small blazes that would have reduced undergrowth that fueled our fires)

Gday KG78.

yeah, I agree. I've been following legislation in Oz for a year and I believe that it is tightening up.

The pollution bogey is real interesting. 2-stroke engines on motor bikes have never been regulated in Australia. Now that (next to) smokeless oil is available and catalytic mufflers, it would be nice to think that a bit of common sense might prevail.

I'm in Hobart and I've actually organised a display of motor-assisted pedal cycles (bikes and a trike) for Tuesday (24-2-09) lunchtime in Hobart. It will be interesting to see what interest pops out of the woodwork.

Click to expand...

i think its only a matter of time unfortunately, i only hope i am proven wrong and that they remain out of the spotlight and free of any form of stringent regulation. but as i am seeing more and more of these things wizzing around someone in higher places is finally going to put their foot down me thinks.

I saw today, an announcement that a memorial will be held for the 209 souls that perished in the fires in Victoria. Our sympathies for the families that have lost so much.Being a victim of an arsonist, I can relate to this disaster in a small measure . Our thoughts and prayers are with you, our Australian brothers and sisters.
(We had our own fires here a few years ago that destroyed a small community in the Santa Catalina mountains next to Tucson. Only some of the damage is still clearly visible from the valley floor, a lot more is visible from the road into the range. The damage was exacerbated by the Federal Government's reluctance to allow deadwood cutting and the Governments method of extinguishing all small blazes that would have reduced undergrowth that fueled our fires)

Click to expand...

yes memorial was today, didnt get to see any of it as i was sleeping in today from nightshift. i still feel sick to the stomach at what happened and just cant understand what would make someone do such a ridiculous thing in lighting fires. i wouldnt hesitate in chucking the people responsible into a fire myslef i would love to see them suffer but then again what would this prove it would do nothing for the lives and properties that were lost.

there has been a lot of finger pointing and the blame game didnt take long to start once the devestation was fully realized and yes it is coming out that the councils (local governments) and greenies have some form of blood on their hands.

they were showing on some current affair program here where this guy had built his new house on a large property in the middle of the fire zones and he wanted to clear some trees from his property surrounding his house. he put the application into council and they knocked it back and he cut some down anyway to create a firebreak and ended up going to court as the council fined him i think. the guy almost went broke as the fines, legal fees amounted to over $100,000 but his house still stands in the midst of all the ashes. this guy alreay had 1000's of trees on his property he didnt want to slash every tree in sight he only cleared about 40-50 which posed the greatest risk near the house. the council would look like d!ckheads at the moment knowing this. but the greenies have been twisting peoples arms for years now with this stuff. back burning hadnt been done for years too to burn excess fuel. but then again no one wants responsibilty for this and again greenies are against this. but it is proven that if there is no fuel it will be hard for a fire to get out of control and easier to contain. even if they do start doing back burning/fuel burn off like in previous years after bushfires it will be done for a few years and stopped altogether, its just the mentallity i think which is terrible because people have to understand that either they clear the fuel that is present every year or 2 or accept the risks associated with living in a tinder box. especially since australia is going thru one of the worst droughts in centuries and summers are so dry in victoria in general.

sorry for the long rant but i say it how it is.
KG78

kg78 said:

i think its only a matter of time unfortunately, i only hope i am proven wrong and that they remain out of the spotlight and free of any form of stringent regulation. but as i am seeing more and more of these things wizzing around someone in higher places is finally going to put their foot down me thinks.

Click to expand...

I'm of the opposite pursuasion.

In the Netherlands and France and probably elsewhere, mopeds were unregulated for decades but they have seen fit to introduce regulation. Unfortunately, teenagers are most at risk and casualties match those of motorcycles, which are 20x - 30x worse than cars, depending on how you look at the statistics.

The result is that someone has to manage natural teenage enthusiasm and devil-may-care attitude until the brain cells kick in.

Also, the other problem with operating an illegal vehicle is that you cannot carry insurance. That's ok when everything is ok but otherwise could be tragic.

I think motorbicyclers should accept the inevitable and work towards a responsible framework for general use as well as have a bit of fun too.

well, some time back now in this thread i mentioned how my folks saw some old guy getting nicked by the cops with his MB.

i can now say that my dad does know this guy on a hello-goodbye basis and he told him the other day that he had to go to court because he was riding his MB on the road.

i dont know the full extent of the fines and penalties but that fact that he went to court is a big thing i think.

apparently his excuse for having the thing in the first place is that he has complaints with his feet and he has pain pedalling.

ill keep u posted when i know more as im pressing my dad to get more info from the old guy but as a sydneysider this isnt good news for other MB riders.

KG78

kg78 said:

ill keep u posted when i know more as im pressing my dad to get more info from the old guy but as a sydneysider this isnt good news for other MB riders.

KG78

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The problem in Australia is that MBs are headed for prohibition unless common sense prevails. Common sense is:

• Engines should not be operated on bicycle paths and footpaths
• Engine size should be regulated. The legal Australian moped is maximum 50cc
• Top legal speed on road should be 50 kph but what you do on the paddock is your business.

Carbon footprint of 25% that of a motor scooter is achieveable with an MB. We need to remind people who want us off the road that MBs are a very low carbon mode of personal transport.

agreed, i'm getting more than 50 real world km per litre of fuel.... which is more than 5x what i would get in my car.

The problem in Australia is that MBs are headed for prohibition unless common sense prevails. Common sense is:

* Engines should not be operated on bicycle paths and footpaths

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then where are people supposed to ride these things because the old guy my dad knows that got pinched was riding on the road.

i think anyone that rides a MB on the footpath is being stupid anyway.

kg78 said:

then where are people supposed to ride these things because the old guy my dad knows that got pinched was riding on the road.

i think anyone that rides a MB on the footpath is being stupid anyway.

Click to expand...

agreed, road is where these belong.

what could the cop say if you're on a 'road' bike....... also pushing 60km/h nothing....