The problem is that so much of what is circulating is opinion, not fact and a lot of the opinion has a basis only in nonsense. Ethanol attracts water and as such can cause some materials to have issues with swelling. There are lots of sorts of "rubber". It is therefore really important if you want the truth and an objective fact based decision of what fuels to use in what engines to get to the details. The easy way out is the lazy way and just blame E10 for everything and you will find no shortage of people that want to do that. Logically if ethanol is giving problems then E5 is going to be problematic but slightly less so. The shift from 5% to 10% is not going to give rise to a lot of the problems that are being attributed to it.
We have had E5 for a very long time and it is only the increase to 10 that has seen the nonsense start. A simple answer therefore is to stick to an E5 fuel which has a higher octane rating and a lower percentage of ethanol. If that has worked OK up until now it will continue to do so. The higher octane is neither here nor there and works fine. My lawnmower runs on Shell V Power because it is what I buy for the trials bikes and so it is what is in the can so it is what I put in the mower. I am too lazy and disinterested to buy seperate lawmower fuel to save 50p a year.
The majority of people are not even aware that unleaded has changed and just fill the car up like they have for years. As best I can see there is no epidemic of cars failing as a result, in fact there appears to be no issue whatsoever. The doom mongers predictions of the need to replace fule lines and pumps wholesale has not happened. But - of course - plenty of Internet reports of "a mate" who has had a problem.
I find it hard to believe a modern bike like a Vertigo would be manufactured with materials that are incompatible with petrol from a filling station and therefore require specialist fuel that is all but unobtainable anywhere. Such a difficult bike to refuel would be unlikley to find much of a market. I have a few friends that have Vertigo and none of them buy fuel mail order, none use Aspen or other specialist fuels. They all buy at the filling station. My TRS runs on V Power which is E5. The manual says "no ethanol" but it runs on E5 and has done since it was new in 2017, so five years of ethanol have done it no harm.
The Ducati forums were full of cranks and crackpots that predicted the end of the world with E10 and it fooled me enough to research it. Meantime the wife's Monster runs just fine on E10. I don't have a Vertigo but do like them and I am thinking about it as next bike. I am pretty sure it will be OK on the V Power that the TRS runs on. The wife's Beta likes the high octane rating too. Not sure I can actually see a problem here.....
Yeah , fair enough , might be nothing in it , but I'm not taking the risk unless it's necessary .
I have used E10 in my bikes and ancient car when I couldn't get E5 , however I tried to get them filled with E5 before I left them for any length of time .
There is some fuel stabiliser thing you can buy that is kinder to rubber seals ?. Is it worth buying , i don't know .
Hmm , been fighting with lever position / angle for a while now , it's doing my head in .
I used to have the levers pointing almost vertically down but recently I've been coming a bit further back nearer horizontal - a lot of people had commented that I was doing it wrong ....but I thought I knew better
Problem with having them pointing down is you can end up riding wrong and puting a lot of weight on the bars , riding with straight legs , and on steep downhils your wrists are bent in a terrible angle when you crouch and put your weight to the rear of your bike .
By keeping them nearer horizontal it encourages you to bend legs , keep weight back and you are also able to brace against the bars when hitting obstacles coming down hills etc .
I'm using short levers and do move them inboard a long way .
Recently bought a Beta Evo 300 . Great bike , great fun . You can ride it just off idle in any gear , loads of torque and nice and light .
Another guy I met was similar background to myself , a big guy and on a 125 , think he's doing better than me with the trials . Whether it's his bike or him I don't know , but it was food for thought at the time . The Beta 300 is a nice bike though .
After changing all the rear linkage bushes and shock bushes on Beta Evo 290 I have a bit of play after the first ride .
Looking closer it seems the shock mounting hole on the frame has elongated or worn due to years of hammering . A tighten up cures it but that only lasts as long as the first few rocks .
My initial thought is to ream the mounting lugs on the frame out and bush it . There is a fair bit of beef on the frame lugs .
Looking on ebay I can see 10mm OD , 8mm ID steel bushes - would it be best done in steel or alloy like the frame ?
Has anyone done this or is there a recognised fix ?
Also. With it being quite an old bike. Is there any way to see if its already registered with dvla? Would it have reg number already?
Reading that if you know someone with a trade account they can HPI the frame number . If you do it yourself on a non trade account or contact DVLA it doesn't work . Just what I read somewhere so might not be gospel .
Vertigo, E10 fuel
in Vertigo
Posted
Yeah , fair enough , might be nothing in it , but I'm not taking the risk unless it's necessary .
I have used E10 in my bikes and ancient car when I couldn't get E5 , however I tried to get them filled with E5 before I left them for any length of time .
There is some fuel stabiliser thing you can buy that is kinder to rubber seals ?. Is it worth buying , i don't know .