Wednesday 30/03/05
I just wanted to take a few lines to explain and apologise for the pop-ups that are now appearing on the site.
For years I have used the V3 URL redirection facility that allows this site to run from the
http://BenManton.go.to and http://go.to/BenManton web addresses. During all of those years, I've been paying for a
'premium service', so that the people who visited the site (ie: You) were not bothered by pop-ups and banner adds. Why did I pay for this to get nothing in return? Because I know how annoying they can be and I don't want to annoy visitors to my site, the whole point
is to help people, not annoy them.
Recently however, V3 have totally removed their "Gold" service and are now only supplying
a free service with pop-ups promoting themselves. I am not very impressed that
so many years of my loyalty and on time payments has led to this situation.
I would take the money that I have been spending on the V3 account, and spend it on a new domain and hosting
service, even if it meant throwing in some more money to make it up, but that would require a change in the URL, meaning that all the links on
all the web pages on the internet, and all the search engine facilities would no longer work because they would all still be pointing to the old URL. This is obviously not a
viable solution as the site needs to be able to be found by people to be of any use. It's taken
many years to get it to the point it is at now, and the thought of starting all over again is too much to think
about, particularly with all the other things going on in my life at the moment.
So for now, we're stuck with the pop-ups. I am sorry that this is the case, and I wish there was something I could do about it, but if you
are annoyed and you want to complain, please complain to V3 and have a go at them for removing their
"Gold" service. You can contact them here:
support@v3.com
There are other alternatives to combat the growing problem of pop-ups on the internet
though, and here's some tips if you are not aware of them.
1. Use a program which will run in the background and prevent any windows from opening unless you specifically allow them to
open. eg. Pop-Up Stopper® FREE Edition
- Pop-up ad-blocking utility for Internet Explorer and Netscape. This program is completely free, and does not require registration to use or download.
2. Use FireFox as your web browser rather than Internet Explorer.
Firefox has a built in menu option that allows you to stop pop-ups from opening altogether.
This program is also completely free, and does not require registration to use or download.
3. You can also allow Firefox to open pop-ups (because stopping them altogether may stop certain sites from loading altogether), but to open them in background
tabs so that they don't interfere with your web browsing and you don't even know that they're
there. Personally, I find this to be the best option these days.
Monday 12/07/04
I
have decided to cancel the addition of the accident page. It’s too difficult
a task, somewhat painful mentally, and ultimately has no redeeming factors or
rewards at the end of the project. If
you want to have a look at any of the pictures from the hospital, or check out
the x-rays, and trust me, they're definitely worth a look, or view the pictures
of the bike, you can see them all by clicking here... Broken Ben & His Broken Bike
This will take you to the address http://www.ozvfr.net/gallery/Benjamin/
which is one of my galleries on the OzVFR
site. For now, here’s
the most concise version of the story I can manage.
It was Sunday the 25th of May 2003, at about
With all of the water on the road, I couldn’t have seen the massive pot
hole that was completely covered, and sitting dead smack in the right hand wheel
track, where I just happened to be riding. After hitting such a large hole in
the road, and adding the combination of so much water on the road causing some
aquaplaning, I lost control of the front of the bike, and the bike went into
what’s known as a tank slapper. To make matters worse, there was a very long
and extremely slippery tar strip, which had been used by the council to fill a
crack in the road, and it ran for about fifty metres, straight down the line I
was riding on. This added even more to the slipperiness, making recovering from
the tank slapper impossible.
After fighting with the bike for what seemed like forever, it eventually spat
me off, and I ended up sliding down the road on my back. Feeling the white
painted lines go under my back at one point, I knew I had crossed onto the wrong
side of the road, and as I looked up I saw the oncoming white car and knew my
time was pretty much up. I said to myself, “That’s it! I’m f#%^$d!”, and
in an attempt to protect my arms, I crossed them on my chest, closed my eyes,
and somehow by the grace of God, I passed out. If I didn’t pass out, I don’t
remember anything of it anyway. In fact I don’t remember much at all for the
next few months. I have since found out that the bike followed me under the car,
making the impact of the road initially, then the car, then the bike, enough to
pretty much write me off completely.
Keep in mind that due to the fact that I was wearing all the proper gear, I did not break the skin anywhere on my body. There was no external injuries at all. All the external marks on my body now, have originated from the surgery to fix my internals. My insides, on the other hand, where obviously a total mess, from all the impacts I sustained, and most of the injuries I suffered were indeed life threatening. My family was unable to get answers about the possibility of my survival for the entire week I was in ICU, and it was touch and go for a long time after I was transferred to the orthopaedic ward as well.
I know I will never be the same again physically, but thanks to the medical
teams, the nurses, and the surgeons at
This massive multi-trauma has left me with a list of injuries that is pretty
nasty, and I couldn’t even begin to break it all down, but here’s some of
what we’ve had to deal with…
· Right forearm broken in six places
·
Right elbow fractured
·
Right femur broken in two places and
a five inch section in the middle was totally crushed
·
Right femoral neck fractured
·
Left pelvis fractured
·
Right wrist completely crushed
·
Crushed nerves from the centre of my
right palm to middle of my right forearm
· Permanent nerve damage and some loss of feeling down parts of my right arm
·
Left wrist broken
·
Four broken ribs on a snapped off,
free-floating plate, which crushed my lungs each time I breathed out, so that I
couldn’t breathe in again.
·
Very heavily bruised lungs which were
full of blood most of the time
·
Right lobe of the liver sliced in
half, down to the main/mid vein
·
Spleen damage
·
Very heavily bruised kidneys – with
very extensive right kidney damage
·
A heavily bruised heart
·
Pulled ligaments under my right knee
·
Tongue split down the middle
·
Crushed ‘private parts’
·
Extensive bruising to my whole body,
legs, back, arms, groin, chest
And whilst in hospital I had the privilege of having these little extras
present themselves…
·
A pulmonary embolism
·
Blood clot in my lower right leg
· A large skin graft to put my right arm back together after the initial operation
· A bone graft from my left hip to reconstruct my left wrist
· Nerve damage around the left hip area resulting from the bone graft surgery
· A golden staff (or MRSA) infection, which I gained during some of the 40 odd hours worth of surgery that I’ve had in RNSH up until this point
There's still more surgery to go yet. I need to work on
the graft a couple more times, and I need to remove the giant hip to knee nail
and screws that are currently still in my femur. These screws in my leg are what
are giving me the most grief these days, but I’m coping, and I’m getting by
with most stuff, most of the time.
Don't forget, if you haven't had a look at the pictures from the hospital, or the x-rays, and trust me, they're definitely worth a look, or seen the pictures of the bike, you can see them all by clicking here... Broken Ben & His Broken Bike.
I began work on the accident web page today. All the details and pictures will be available soon.
Well on 25th May I had a near fatal accident on the VFR which has left it near snapped in half, and well and truly written off. I have just returned home from hospital after three months, and am finding it hard to type too much given the limited movement in my fingers and wrists. I will put up more details when I'm able.
Added some sounds of the Arrow pipe on my VFR. I just had the digital still camera sitting in the Ventura bag recording in movie mode on the way to work this morning and extracted the audio from it when I got home.
Added some more pictures of the VFR taken today.
Updated the Links page.
Lisa added a whole bunch of new stuff to the About Us page and there's a ton of new photos too.
Modified VFR800 Tools page. Modified Introduction page.
Added a VFR800 Tools page which lists the bits and pieces I carry under the seat. Added another picture to the VFR Pictures page. Half way down Thunderbolts Way, on the way back from a quick two week trip with Lisa.
I've updated the VFR800 Thoughts page with a few things since modifying the suspension. Next move will be a couple of mm increase in ride height with a shim above the rear shock.
I re-vamped the VFR800 FI Service Schedule page. The page should be quicker to load since you no longer have to wait for the pictures of the manual to load. Thanks to Chris Coote for creating the service schedule, which I've modified slightly, and you can download in MS Excel format if you wish to you it as a checklist, guide, or record.
I've moved the site to a new host. It is now all in the one place and not spread out over several different locations. The URL remains http://go.to/BenManton as it has always been, but it now redirects to a different provider for the contents. Please advise me if there is any problems with the delivery of the site to you by the new host by leaving a message in the Guestbook. I will only know that I need to fix problems if you tell me that they exist.
I added five more PDF files to the ST4 list (including ST2 and ST4S files).
Added a VFR Service History page.
Added some brand new race style gloves to the For Sale page.
I added an HTML page of exploded drawings for the VFR800 and the FJ1200. The ST4 ones are already there in PDF format. I also added a page showing the modifications I had on my FJ1200.
I tidied up a few more bits and pieces that had been screwed up on the site, like a couple of the ZX9 sounds that weren't working, and added four pics from our short trip up north. I was annoyed by the fact that the 20klms of winding road sign was on the front of the site all by itself since every time I saw it I thought of the opposite side of the road where the 45klm one sits (making a total of 65klms of GORGEOUS riding). So while the 45klm sign is a little worse for wear, I felt it had to take pride of place at the the top of this page, to remind me (and others I hope) of the joys that can be had if we get off our butts and go try new things, places, etc.
Well I'm not sure if the site has been up lately. I haven't been able to check it for a while now. We had to move house and we got screwed by our ISP. It appears the cable internet connection they said we could transfer to the new place, isn't available at all, so we've been without internet access for quite some time, and without internet access I can't reliably research internet providers (Catch 22). To prevent draining further money from my accounts into Telstra's accounts and to prevent the new owner of our old unit taking advantage of my predicament, I unceremoniously shut down the account where key parts of the site were stored. Unfortunately I did it without thinking about the effect it would have on the 100 - 150 people a day that come by and visit this site. As it happens, all this also coincided with both of us being on three weeks holiday from work so we couldn't even use the work computer to check and see if the site had been closed down along with the account.
I humbly apologise to all the people affected, and hope that you'll take my word for it when I say that this is the first time in this site's history where anything like this has occurred.
But now... new ISP... it's a crappy dial-up connection and offers me less space to host, but that shouldn't have much of an affect on you guys since I've been spreading the site out for years. I'll do my best to spread it out even more if that's what's required. The only problem is that any direct links you had to 'bigpond' addresses are no longer valid, but you shouldn't have had direct links anyway. http://go.to/BenManton should always be your front door to the site for the very reasons in these paragraphs, ie. Now that I've got some more storage space, I can redirect the site without it affecting any of you or your bookmarks.
I added a new
group on the front page. It's for the 'aus_vfr' group,
set up by Chris Coote, obviously for VFR riders in
Can you hear that sound? No of course you can't. That's because I don't have to crack the whip anymore! :-) Lisa finally sat down and typed something to place on the 'About Us' page. Have a read. Let her know if you want to hear more by leaving a message in the Guestbook. No promises though... It only took two and a half years to get her to do that bit :-}
More pictures added to the VFR section too. They've taken a while to put up there for some reason, no excuses, sorry, they're from our trip to Philip Island for the World Superbike Championship in April. Yes, that's right, the one that got rained out :-( The ride down there was great though. The weather only got nasty when we got to Melbourne, and then progressively worse from there to Philip Island.
I've added a guest book to the site. It provides plenty of space for any comments you'd like to make, and asks some questions which you obviously don't have to answer, but they will give me a better idea of what I should be focusing on with the site. The reason I'm moving away from the direct e-mail approach and heading towards the guest book idea is two-fold. First, I'm getting hammered with spam from unscrupulous people who scan the web for e-mail addresses to send their garbage to, so this should circumvent that. And second, I figure that if someone leaves a message on the site which is constructive, it might give other people something to think about too. Intelligent conversation hopefully leads to greater knowledge, at least, that's the plan! So please use this facility, good or bad I'd like to hear what you think. If there's something I can do to improve the site, you people dropping me a note will help get that process happening, I can't guarantee I'll ever know what you're thinking otherwise, though I do try :-)
It's been about four and a half months since I've done any form of upgrades on the site, as you can see by the last date listed below. This was partly because I was happy with how the site was looking, partly because I hadn't managed to find a decent html program for my new computer, partly because I haven't really done a lot of riding other than going to work and back every day because it's been so damn cold down here, and partly because I've been so busy with work. But I figured it was time for an upgrade, so over the last few days I've been changing things around a little bit. Just modifying the general look more than anything, but I have made some interesting additions. I've added more pictures of our VFR on the appropriate page. I've also added a both a VFR and a ZX9 sound page, with a few different types of exhaust systems listed for you to have a listen to.
I've been a bit busy over the last few days. I've created the VFR800 Specifications and VFR800 Service Schedule pages. I've added a page which shows you the riding gear that Lisa and I are currently using. I will post some pictures with it soon. I also created a For Sale page, which has some things on it that I have sitting around that I thought I might get rid of. If anyone's interested, you can leave a private message in the Guestbook for more details. I will try to get some pictures of those items for sale onto the site as well in the near future but with the trip to Philip Island for the WSB coming up shortly, I may not get the time. I also added a page for the VFR800 to show at a glance, the modifications that I've made to Zoe so far. And to top it all off, I added a whole bunch of VFR800 links to the Links page and a couple more files to the .pdf page of the ST4 section. Enjoy...
I just went to the bottom of the ST4 History page and added a whole bunch of thoughts and opinions based on some of the questions I've been getting in e-mails. I hope that the new paragraphs provide you with some idea of what's in my head.
I'm in the process of redesigning to accommodate the new bike. I've left all my original sounds files, pictures, etc. here, but removed the extra stuff that's available in other places on the net so I'm not wasting your time and bandwidth or my space. I've added more pictures of the Ducati with the Bagster tank cover, bag and C/F Omrae pipes, and I've added a couple of pictures of the new VFR800 with the new Arrow high mount brushed alloy oval pipe. They didn't come out quite as well as I would have liked so stand by for some more at a later date. You can also maybe expect some sound files of the VFR.
Monday 22/01/01
I would just like to take this little bit of space here to thank everyone who has bothered to send me an e-mail in the past 14 months, it doesn't matter if it was to ask a question, just to say hi, or to say thank you. I appreciate every one of them. It's wonderful to know that the work put into the site is appreciated by those who view it.
I'd also like to point out that I may forced to move some of the site to another server soon. This may or may not affect the quality of service. I'm not sure yet. The point being two fold:
1. I'm sorry if there are any problems but please don't let it stop you from trying again in the future. I do make every attempt to keep everything about the site running well at all times.
2. PLEASE let me know if you're having problems with anything because I can't fix it if I don't know about it.
I've added some more .PDF files to the contents of the site. The ST Owners Manuals for 2000 and 2001, and the Exploded Parts Diagrams for the 2000 and 2001 models. Unfortunately I don't know where to get hold of previous years, or if they're even available. If anyone knows where I can get them or if you have them, please drop the details in the Guestbook.
I've just stuck some pictures up on the About Us page so anyone interested in having a look is quite welcome.
I updated ST4 history page with the latest. I'm SOOO unhappy with the dealer. I can't even tell you how angry I am that this problem has taken 14 months to get sorted out. Anyway moving on... There's some new pictures coming soon. I still haven't managed to get my scanner working properly but I've found some other pics to put up there so look out for those soon.
Monday 30/10/00
Just added some more pictures to the other ST pictures page. There's almost 60 there now. Some of the new ones include the new ST4S which will have some carbon bits as standard, an Ohlin's rear shock, a 996cc motor, and a few other pits and pieces. The upgrade looks interesting, but we'll see just how much they want for it. For those in AUS, shipment is expected about March but they're taking orders now.
Monday 23/10/00
I've just quickly put together a few recordings of the ST4. Some with the stock pipes, and then some with the new Omrae C/F's. It's the first time I've played with a mini-disk recorder and fiddled it into my computer though so excuse me if they're a little crude. I may be able to refine the process over time. Now I've just got to get this scanner working so I can get those new pics in.
Sunday 22/10/00
Ok. 30,000klm service is now complete. It cost me an arm and a leg, but at least this time, for the first time, I know that it's been done right without question. The bike handles beautifully. I got a whole list of things done that weren't supposed to be done at this service, but only because I'm sure they weren't done properly at the previous services.
To sum up my feelings on the bike now... I LOVE the 14 tooth front sprocket. It makes such a huge difference when riding in the traffic and the bike now pulls from down around the 2,000 rpm mark rather than 4,000 rpm. The K&N air filter and the Omrae slip-ons sound bloody superb and you can feel them in your gut from anywhere within 50 feet. Got to love that!! :-) Pictures and comparative sound files to come shortly I promise.
Mon 11/09/00
I've gone through the links page and added some new links. I've pulled out the one's that weren't working, and I've fixed the frame problem that seemed to exist. I would have fixed it sooner but I didn't know it was there until now when I found it by accident. Anyway, it's fixed as of now, so you should be able to click the links and they will open into new windows automatically rather than locking you into the frame like they used to.
Fri 08/09/00
OK. Here it is. I've finally got around to making up that history of my ST4... Check out the new link on the left. This should give you a basic rundown of events so far, and if you have any specific questions, you can leave a message, as always, at the sites Guestbook.
Tues 13/06/00
I've done a bit of a re-design of the site. I've dropped a few useless pages and added a site map to a frame on the left hand side. For those who don't support frames, the site can still be navigated from the site map page, though it's a little more of a pain to do from there. I hope you like the new look. Let me know what you think.
Sun 11/06/00
I've added the reasoning behind my comments on the thoughts pages and explained a little more, in the hope that it makes a bit more sense to some of you, and I've updated the links page. I'll try to add a few more ST2/4 links soon.
I'm also getting a lot of requests for info on any problems I've had so far like warranty issues, so I'm going to post a comprehensive list, the first chance I get.
The site is
now has a permanent URL. It is http://go.to/BenManton
so
bookmark it, or add it to your favourites menu, or
whatever it is you do, and let anybody else know who you think might be
interested.
Sat 10/6/00
I've finally
got myself a Bagster tank cover for the ST4. I'm
continuing to use the original bag that I got when I had the FJ, but I got the
red cover to match the bike. It's not a bad match actually, and I've had a lot
of complements on it so far. Personally I think it probably takes away a little
from that raw Ducati look but hey, it's not a 996,
and these things are practical as all hell as far as I'm concerned. I'll post
some pics as soon as I can take them.
The pics
should also provide a look at the rear tyre I've been using for a while now
which is the Pilot Sport 180/55/17. After trying a few sets, I decided I didn't
like the ME-Z4 170/60/17. I'm just waiting to put a Pilot Sport on the front as
well, and I reckon she'll behave perfectly.
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