Bob T

You were liucky Piere in that you were driving your Tucson! Go on ask me how I know that.

Sound interesting Dog, but no use to me as a resident with UK plates on it, I understand that I would be illegal driving it on a UK plate.

Are you talking about Sky FTA?

Slightly off topic, I know, but is this a green tax? Does it do anything to stop the CO2 emisions? I understand that 1.6% of all CO2 comes from flying. The Junior minister who recently had a go at airlines probably got into his polluting ministerial car to drive home after putting his foot into his mouth.

Hello Pun, not able to answer your question, but I have been after solar water heating. I have looked all over to try and find a French company, preferably in the Dordogne who supplies and installs the system. There have been many threads on this forum (search under solar) but I cannot find anyone who has had a system fitted, with evacuated tube collectors, and is willing to pass on the name of the installer. I don't want to employ anyone who is not experienced and not a legal registered French business. I have trawled the web for ages, with my limited French, but don't seem to get anywhere.

Here are some that I use http://212.67.202.165/~boxertrix/phpBB2/index.php BMW R1100S site http://www.ukgser.com/forums/index.php BMW GS site http://www.visordown.com/forums/index.php Visordown bike site http://news.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/ridingInFrance.htm Good bike site about riding in France. There are more, but many are not very busy. I don't bother with the magazine sites as I am not to interested in what is happening in the UK or in te latest bikes. I never read MCN in the UK ayway.

You are lucky people. I had a C of C from BMW UK for my bike (free), and all the correct documents went back and forward to the prefecture about 5 times over a period of 12 months. I had given up and was going to keep the bikes on UK plates. Then I found this board and asked the question. The answer was that they must accept a C of C from anywhere in the EC, the poster gave me a link to print out. I gave it one final go with the printed link in my pocket, and the lady accepted everything without me producing the printout. If I spoke better french I would have asked why it had gone back and forth so many times with the same documents. Happy now that we have French plate on both bikes.

Know what you mean about BMW colours. I call Judes bike the Dyson [IMG]http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q259/bikesindordogne/Bikes%20we%20have%20owned/new1100s008.jpg[/IMG] Mine is just silver.

I have been looking for a good solar panel system supplier in France for ages. I also want to self install but have got nowhere. I have a lift pump which pumps water from the well into storage tanks and feeds the toilet and waters the garden, but don't need to redirect the grey water as the well is full even in summer. Can't help with any of the other questions though.

But it is true about BMW riders. While I was in the Uk I had a number of new BMWs and even went to one of the BMW owners club meetings. It was full of old men and their wives, sitting around in little groups. We found that BMW club membeers in the UK thought that Jude and I were hooligans because we have a R1100S each, the S has a sporty riding position and was designed to be faster than the other BMWs. If you look at the owners club website there is hardly a mention of the R1100S, so we have a site of our own, www.boxertrix.com and it is much better than the BMW club site. We tend to look after our bikes and service then ourselves, whereas the club members go to the dealer and get given hot coffee and a large bill. I am of course generalising, as there are good members in the BMW club, but they don't attend the meetings very often. To put matters into perspective, everyone thinks that a Ducati rider is a hooligan who just wants to ride fast all the time, but the R1100S has more power than many Ducatis. What is important is that we are all bikers and so are part of a big family. I bought my first new BMW when I was 18 and didn't smoke a pipe then. I have also owned many Japanese bikes and loved many of them, Jude still thinks that her Honda Blackbird was one of the best bikes that she has ever owned. Anyone with a bike with two wheels, apart from a Harley is my freind. [IMG]http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q259/bikesindordogne/francetrip041.jpg[/IMG] Judes Blackbird

Thanks Pun, What do you maen about older men? I am only 48! My wife has an identical bike to mine.

Had a nice ride this morning, thick fog when I left and sun when I returned. [IMG]http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q259/bikesindordogne/Sarlat%20ride/100_2453.jpg[/IMG]

BMF at Peterborough was quite an event It was only 20 miles up the road from us and that was a place where you could see some bikes. You could have as much fun walking around the bike parks as you could in the show. The biker weekend at Le Bouge (Dordogne) is also pretty good. The whole town is closed for the bikes. I'll post here when its on this year.

Would love to attend, but don't even know where dept 86 is. We have probably been through it though!

Polly, you can buy mopeds of any age here even very old ones!

There is another option, that is to fit a second hard drive to your existing PC. With 160gb hard drives at around €80 it is a very quick and easy option.

My best memory was 21st September 1977. At the age of 18 I collected my first new bike, a BMW R75/7. I loved that bike and would love to find a good secondhand one. 50 bhp seemed plenty then.

I think that it needs its own Carte Gris, so I assume it will be registered to an address. I am not a caravaner but have heard that it can be very difficult to import a UK van to France. Someone with much more knowledge than me will be along soon.

Could it be that it is not an age thing then? I can honestly say that I have never been nicked for any motoring offence, that is not to say that I have not comitted any!

Can't answer that as I'm not old enough to have seen one on the road.

For most people I would say that the above answers are the way to go, but that was not so in our case (no kids). We did a 3 week motorbike tour around the area in Easter 04, having never been here before. We saw a house that we liked and in Nov 04 we had given up our civil service jobs with the MOD and moved here permanantly. Would I do things different if I had the chance to? No. We never look back and enjoy France and the people.

I also agree that anything over 100bhp is not really much use, but there can be a downside to the restriction. Jude, my wife, wants a BMW K1200S which comes with 168bhp in the UK and Germany, but the French version comes with 106. By restricting the bike BMW have made it less smooth by the accounts that I have read. With full power the engine is fantastic all the way through the range but with the restriction there are areas of vibration and flatspots in the delivery. If she ends up getting one then we will test drive a full power version in Germany and compare it to the restricted one here and may decide to have it unrestricted. She will never use all the power and will have to remember not to twist her right hand all the way.

I doubt it, but aircraft tyres are very different to car tyres. They have to take the impact of an aircraft weighing many tons landing at a couple of hundred miles an hour and are used till the cords are showing through the rubber. They are a very hard compound and the runway surface is expected to disperse the water rather than the tyre, this is the opposite to car tyres. I would suspect that those aircraft that left the runway did so because of aquaplaning.

Well thats life, my SWMBO says that if I am having a new one then so is she!

Nice colour, I nearly bought a Daytona at one point, but opted for a BMW K1200GT at the time.