Chris Sheppard

CR seat don't look right comfy Nice looking bikes though

I'm with Geoff on this one The original 200 (up to late 80's) is held in high regard by lots of people, the pre XR400 era 250 was just never quite competetive enough for the fast guys without a lot of work and the 600 was never going to hang with an LC4 KTM. Later on, the 400 (and the newly facelifted but still old fashined 250) was pretty much outdated by the time it was launched - Yamaha WR400 put paid to that! But, I'd still like an XR400 or XR600 for going rallying on Nice looking bike Always fancied a TE, but what aways put's me off is the amount of them you see on ebay needing top end work (though they are mostly 90's/early 2000's I've been looking at).

Like the others have said, Uniforest, Krpan, Tajfun are all worth a look, but for a 50hp alpine I'd be surprised if you can find an electro hydraulic one that will fit and work well with the back end of the smaller alpines. I used to have a 3.5t uniforest behind mine and that worked well enough, but the jump in size to the 4.5 was quite a bit, plus it was a good bit heavier from memory. Ideally it could have done to have the bottom link arm holes lower on the winch and I had to run the top link quite long, with the top of the winch leaning out a little more than I'd have ideally wanted. That was more to do with the back end of the tractor rather than the winch itself though. Like Dave said, ideally speak to someone who sells both winches and alpine tractors as they have quite quirky geometry. If you can find one, the old ratchet brake Krpan's fit very well as they are close coupled and pick up from low down. They're a totally different design to the newer style ones. The smaller Iglands are (or were) similar too and worked well on the Alpines.

At 50hp, you'll struggle to find a mulcher to work well - partly because of the weight but more importantly because of the power needed to work it effectively. Don't get too sucked in by figures in brochures. I don't have much experience of flail collectors but have worded alongside one a bit this year and on the right stuff it was great, however, the box fills very fast (so can spend as much time going and emptying the box as mowing) and on the whole they are either quite light weight or very, very expensive in comparision to a conventional heavy duty flail. On most of the conservation type mowing that I help out on, it's done with a conventional flail with hammers (rather than Y blades) and that's usually small thorn and gorse, brambles and rough grass. Plain old ride mowing and inter-row mowing is always just a normal flail too. Does your tractor have reverse drive? If so, try and find a reverse drive flail

Depends what you mean by low impact. There's lots of small, unmanaged woodlands out there that suit small gear because they're unviable for bigger machines, but the only way it's going to pay is by getting decent weight out - actual paid work for a low impact machine isn't massively common, other than if you can get in with some of the conservation bodies.

That's pretty much how I ran with mine, though it spent most of the time with a 3.5T winch on the back running stuff out to where the County could get to. From memory the JMS 900 trailers were something like 1.5T capacity and worked well behind my old one (50hp Carraro). The one I used was unbraked but was OK if the site wasn't too steep. We used to have a 4T trailer (4T gross but carried between 2.5 and 3t of timber) behind a 40hp Kubota (so physically a good bit bigger than the Carraro was) and that worked well - but I'd not have wanted to use it behind my alpine on anything other than decent firm tracks. That trailer's currently being pulled by a 90hp Ferrari Alpine and looks about a perfect match. (EDIT: see post below this ) Biggest drawback I found with mine was the lack of ground clearance - if it was fairly clear of brash and stumps were kept low, then it would go well beyond where I wanted to take it - fine if you're doing the felling/presenting yourself, but not ideal if you're going in behind someone else. I never did use a flail behind mine, but did some flailing with somebody elses (an AGT 835) and that worked really well on steep sites. I reckon a decent flail and a small PTO winch would be a good couple of implements to start with and then grow from there

I'm pretty sure those videos belong to Flaming Ace off here

I haven't, but there seems to be a few over on ADVrider - Powered by vBulletin that have them and know a fair bit about them. One of my neighbours has an old one with a modern BMW engine in it but it's not got the driven sidecar.

Agreed - burnt a fair bit of it and never had any problems.

Who knew - Santa rides Moto

Not me, or a jumper, but christmassy all the same.

Pretty grim here too - gusty wind and heavy rain most of the day so far

If it's bogging (rather than slipping), are you sure you've not just been a bit over enthusiastic with the file on the rakers?

Terrier has a cushion on the floor in our room but usually just before the alarm goes off she'll jump up and snooze by my feet for a bit. Husky's never ventured off the route from front door to back door - reckon if she did we'd never get her back out!

Haven't you finished it yet - we've been off three days now

I like that one I burn a lot of 2-3" diameter unsplit stuff at home and don't mind it at all - bit of a faff if I need to stack it but usually just hoy it out the trailer into a heap and use it from there.

Two weeks off, a motorbike that I'd been after since I was at school and a bottle of Jim Beam red stag to try (which accidentally opened itself last night - it's really nice )

Cheers Stevie, Old bikes are where it's at That's the thing with the Vinduro stuff, it's like being a kid again riding the same sort of stuff we used to (but in a lot better condition - mostly). The little XR's the same age as me Taking it racing on the 27th - was originally entered on the KTM but things kinda snowballed

Ta, Sort of. The XR's were marketed as Enduro bikes but the CR's were MX bikes, and then to confuse things there were the XL's too, which were pretty much a trail version of the XR's.

Cool Here's mine in daylight. Just had a quick blat up the lane on it and it's surprisingly lively, can pop the front wheel in third

Knew you'd like it Geoff it's a 1982 XR 200RC, registered and t&t til late next year. Bloke seemed a nice guy and had owned it since 1983, rode a few events each year up until a few years ago and then when he retired he went right through it and never used it hardly since. All being well it's going to take me to a top three class finish in the Clubman B class next year in the Northern Vinduro Series (I can but hope!). Bit of an eventful trip out to pick it up though - had a track rod end pull out of the steering bar on the 90 coming off a roundabout near Oswestry. That wasn't pleasant!

Santa just rolled up with this little beaut

Northern tool co. sell one very similar - called powerhorse or something like that. Don't think they are bad money for what they are, though they may be chinese.

I'd agree, pretty sure they go right in. Know what you mean about the oregon ends though

Cool, all done, should be on it's way tomorrow all being well. Scary thing is just how similar it looks to the original contents - though smells nothing like it