G'day, I'm in the buy/sell secoundhand business. A lot of the time the things I buy need repair, like the CB250 I just bought. A large part of fixing things is finding information and resources for the project, this is how I ended up on 2fiftyCC. Have to say I am totally impressed, such a large amount of help and information in one place is amazing. Trying to find resources for anything on the internet is a minefield, so many fake links, dead links or misinformation, but not anymore for 250cc motorcycles. Something I'm interested in is "the right to repair". I believe if you buy something it's yours. If you wish to get your hands dirty fixing or modifying it you should be able to, and the resources to do so should be easily available or even supplied with the original purchase. Increasingly this isn't the case, companies actively hunt down with "cease and desist" the sharing of resources for older products and the new products are weighted down with licensed software and proprietary components making it harder to find information without breaking a terms of use, warranty clause or paying through the nose for something you already own, just because a "company" has figured out that if they glue the battery in your device you'll be forced to buy the next update in a year once your battery is dead. It's a big part of why I'm in the buy/sell game, fixing and keeping things working I feel...is the better option than unbridled consumerism. Disclaimer: Well that was a bit of a rant, I'm not really that uptight...I am also passionate about bikes. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
Welcome. I've always been a fix and repair person as usually didn't have the money to be able to pay someone to fix things for me (and living and working on a farm 35Km from town wasn't able to just run to the shop to get things) so just had to learn to do it myself. The 'right to repair' is causing a big sh*t fight with modern John Deere (and others) machines where the company will sell you the machine but not the software to be able to diagnose computer faults and want the farmer to drag his machine to the dealers to plug in the diagnostic tool to find a fault, which could be simply a dirty contact. The farmers in USA are taking Deere to the high courts over who owns what. There are now private technicians who have pirated software who will come to the farm and diagnose and repair for about 1/10th the cost of taking the machine to the dealer. It's a crazy consumer driven world now, but glad we have a small rational corner to sit quietly and play with old motorbikes.
Welcome to the forum I agree with the right to repair too, i've had to fix way too many thing's in my life
Hey Brownsnake Welcome to the forum mate , you make a valid point in consumerism and I think you will find a boatload Of support here, many of us have bikes where there is no longer support from the manufacturer. Necessity is the mother of invention Kiff
Welcome Mr Brownsnake, agree with you 100% and love your rant. I started my little business because I couldn't buy the parts I wanted without paying the planet. Since then it has grown and mostly because people want parts that no one else has (even if I am slow to get them finished). The other issues are that I don't need or want a 200hp motorcycle and I don't like any of the new bikes anyway. Also agree with you about this forum, it has a lot of smart cookies and they are helpful too. If you like fixing stuff check out some of Murdo's threads. Cheers Blair
Welcome to the forum Brownsnake! You will only find a bunch of legends here! I too believe in keeping things alive, as opposed to the throw away society that exists today!