In the jungle

In my opinion the Honda HRJ216 is the best self propelled mower you will get in Thailand subject only to these qualifications:

(i)  It's a heavy beast at around 48 kgs perhaps best suited to large reasonably open areas.  If you have a small garden and/or one where you do lots of weaving in and out of trees and plants something smaller and lighter may be better.

(ii)  The blades are high quality but hideously expensive from Thai Honda dealers at around 1900 Baht the pair.  I get my blades from Honda dealers in Australia.  Exactly the same part at 300 Baht the pair.

On the positive side the quality of the HRJ216 is such that it is probably good for 20 years or more and to buy something comparable from Honda in Europe would cost double the price here. 

There is a 91 page long discussion of the problems with the K46 transmission on tractorbynet.

Avoid any ride on mower with a Tuff Torq K46 hydrostatic transmission.

Many of the models sold in Thailand have this transmission.

Google Tuff Torq K46 and you will understand why I am saying this.

That list of dealers is taken from Honda's website.

Honda only sell one lawnmower in Thailand.  The HRJ216.  

Brace yourself for sticker shock when they tell you the price.

Popcorn for the win.

Her idea to electronically tag tourists was pure genius.

I am confused.

I have an old Nokia 100 and I would prefer not to change it.  It is suitable for my working environment in that it has the worlds loudest ring tone, excellent battery life, good reception and is near indestructible.

The network is AIS and I am a post pay customer.  When I do *545# it tells me that I am on AIS 3G serenade.

Can I therefore simply ignore the never ending AIS SMS messages in Thai about migrating to 3G/4G?

I think *700*5*1# only works on AIS prepay as I cannot change AIS' messages to English.

For reasons unknown to me some time ago AIS sent me a free Samsung SM-B109H which is a 3G dumb phone.  My wife may have had something to do with this.  The phone sits unused in the box.  Together with the phone is a new SIM card but I have no idea if it has my number on it which I would prefer to keep as I have used the same number for 15 years.

If I have to I will use the Samsung but the ring tone pales in comparison to the Nokia 100 and the software is not very intuitive.  I don't need the web or GPS or other stuff beyond calls and SMS.

Any ideas appreciated.

Thank you for the video link.  Very informative.

I bank with GSB and live in Chumphon and have been curious as to why their ATMs have been dead for the last couple of weeks.

Of course as a mere customer they made no effort to contact me.

Add brake caliper sliding pins to your list.

Much as I dislike sliding caliper pistons they can work adequately if maintained.

I have just done this job on a Wave 110i so I can tell you the rubber seals are 100 Baht the pair.  I had to replace mine because one was split.

The correct grease for the pins is harder to find.  I am still getting by with the stuff I got with a Toyota brake seal kit years ago.  It's some moly based stuff made by Dow Corning.  Standard LM grease would be a bad idea on brake systems.  

"I've no idea how to get the bike there and bike, or what I'll do for a ~week without a bike."

Swapping the crank is a one day job maximum if the dealer is competent.

If they want the bike for a week I would look elsewhere.

Your actual words about the Diavel were:

"Its very frendly bike fo beginner."

So you already bought a Ducati Diavel which you consider a good beginners bike (your words) but in your OP you want opinions on the Diavel's merits against a Honda Wave?

Those are the preceding posts.

Two days after the crash I have bruising to the forehead just above my right eye, nose and chin but it is pretty minor.

Before using the helmet I did for motorcycling I did look into the different testing standards that apply to motorcycle helmets and race car helmets. From memory the main differences were:

1. Race car helmets have fireproof linings whereas motorcycle helmets do not.

2. Motorcycle helmets have provisions covering protrusions from the helmet such as vents so that they break off within a defined amount of force to minimise the risk of rotation injuries.

3. Motorcycle helmets have regulations that prescribe a wider aperture for better peripheral vision. I don't find this a problem with the Arai GP6.

4. Race car helmets have a higher standard for visor penetration.

Sadly Arai don't pay me to write my posts. I have to pay hard cash for my helmets.

Within this region the best place I know to buy Arai helmets (motorcycle and race car) at very good prices and other quality brands is in Hong Kong. I don't remember the name of the shop but if you Google Arai + Hong Kong you are sure to find it. It's somewhere in the New Territories and walking distance from the MTR.

So I've been to Honda so many times that I'm now dating the girl who works there haha! Even getting a discount. I suspect I'll be paying for it in other ways. ?

Looks like your going to be getting a Honda.

The Arai GP6 is a car racing helmet.

I have it because I do a fair amount of track driving outside Thailand and to be allowed on track it has to have the right approvals.

I have the cheap version which is around GBP 600. The GP6 goes up to about GBP 2500 for the carbon version.

I also use it for motorcycling because I find it way better than any of the motorcycle helmets from Arai or Shoei.

It is very comfortable, very quiet at speed and has an excellent but very simple visor mechanism with a nearly rigid 4mm thick visor. I believe the visor thickness is a regulatory legacy of Senna's death to reduce the risk of penetration.

It lacks a Thai approval sticker though

The truck driver did not stop but I don't think he did too much wrong by Thai standards.

He could not know that by forcing me to move to the left I was heading for not merely a puddle but a huge pothole.

My trip was a six km round trip to the Seven to buy a packet of cigarettes. Even for such short low speed trips I always wear my helmet.

I have a bit of a headache this morning and a bruised nose but other than that no injuries.

Fixing the bike will be relatively cheap. It's the helmet that is the big expense. It's an Arai GP6. Fortunately I have two though the other one is in BKK which is 400 odd km away.

This photo shows my helmet after a low speed crash today. The head impact was pretty big. It wasn't a glancing blow.

Without this helmet I would certainly have facial injuries and possibly a serious head injury. As it was I walked away with no obvious injuries..

Look at the damage to the helmet and imagine the same scenario with no helmet or a cheap open face helmet.

For a period of about 20 minutes after the crash I had significant memory loss. I called my wife but could not remember that she was working 500 km away as opposed to being at home.

My last crash was over 30 years ago.

This happened at night. In this crash I was forced to the side of the road by an oncoming truck that, I guess, was avoiding potholes on his side of the road. The result was that I went through a huge puddle that had within it a big pothole around 8 inches deep. I was doing less than 40 kph at the time.

I am not sure what happened next but the locals rushed out and pushed a bamboo pole with a plastic bag attached to it into the pothole so it's super safe now :-)

People around here laugh at me for always wearing a helmet. In some cases they die laughing.

The Scrambler has an engine that can trace its lineage back to the 1970s.and I think therein lies their problem with meeting modern emissions laws.

It's a big two pot, two valve per head air cooled engine.

Ducati can make it run right but they can't do that and meet Thai emissions laws.

.

Surely this calls for a reenactment of the crime.

They could dress him up in a bullet proof vest and helmet like the Koh Tao patsies. Much pointing and photos.

In extremis the helmet could be used as a receptacle.

As an aside the original battery in my Wave 110i recently died after four years.

Out of curiosity I kicked it over without the battery and it fired up and ran exactly as normal.

The only thing that did not work correctly with the battery out was the indicators.

Fuel injection every time..

In my opinion the adoption of fuel injection and engine management systems is the most significant improvement in motorcycles in recent times.

Ride the same bike back to back one with carburettor and the other with fuel injection and you will quickly understand that even a well set up carburettor is an approximation device in terms of fuelling.

Fuel injection bikes give a more linear response to throttle than a carburetted bike which means better control, safety and a more enjoyable ride.

The girl's story is that when she was 17 years old her employer tried to coerce her into going to work in Hong Kong. A place where the employer has only been twice in her life.

The employer states that Hong Kong is a source of her wealth but the detail given about a gambling win in HK and payment of taxes is suspect given that legal gambling there is heavily restricted.

I hazard a guess that the girl's employment would have been in Wan Chai.

Of course you could just put 550 psi in the tyres like Somchai at the village bike shop does.

I have an old Kubota tractor with tubed tyres.

The front tubes are made in Thailand. The rear tubes are made in Japan.

The fronts lose pressure fast whereas the rear pressures hardly vary.

It just seems to be a characteristic of Thai manufactured tubes that, in my experience, is common to all brands.

Surely a case for the Great Man to use the infinite power of Section 44 to make it all go away.except for the compensation.