Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2017 i BIKE

>> This issue of Bike is inspired by daily life in the Bike office. How so? Well obviously we love motorcycles and spend a lot of time talking about motorcycles. We talk about new bikes, and classic bikes. About great rides and great roads. About riding technique and crashing idiocy. About all forms of racing (especially on a Monday morning). We talk about new technology and engineering. We talk about handling and braking and paint finishes. But the thing that seems to get us most excited is the trawl through all manner of places where you’ll find bikes for sale. Lunch hours are idly wasted on various internet sites, itchy fingers hovering over ‘Buy it now’ buttons. On Wednesday lunchtime the classifieds in Motor Cycle News are scoured for bargains.…

‘The thing of interest is the crank pins being offset by 70˚ and not in phase’ WELCOME TO THE future of Ducati’s large sportsbikes. As we predicted in September’s issue, the Italians’ have ditched their Superquadro V-twin for this – the Desmosedici Stradale V4. It’s a road version of their MotoGP bike. The 90˚ V4 shares the racer’s 81mm bore but has a longer 53.5mm stroke, for 1103cc and more midrange. The racer has gear-driven cams, all on one side; the Stradale’s front cylinders have a cam chain on the right, driving the inlet cam (which is geared to the exhaust cam), and a rear chain on the left driving the exhaust cam (geared to the inlet). Inlet valves are 34mm, exhaust 27.5mm. Compression ratio is a heady 14:1, inlet…

>> 7-8 October CRMC Race of the Year, Brands Hatch Not just old boys on Nortons, but 1970s two-strokes and 1980s sportsbikes too. Saturday is championship stuff, Sunday is the Race of the Year, with longer races and bigger trophies. Plus Team Bike paddock display. crmc.co.uk >> 28-29 October Classic Bike Live, Peterborough We’ll be there, gawping at old bikes, rifling autojumble stalls and talking nonsense. John McGuinness and Colin Seeley head up the VIP guest list and there will be loads of Nortons on display and a Bob McIntyre feature. classicbikelive.co.uk…

>> Nov 9-12, 2017 Horizons Unlimited Travellers Meeting, South Africa Talk to the eager travellers (and of course the wild animals) at the fabulous Elgro River game lodge and conference centre near Potchefstroom. horizonsunlimited.com/ events >> 24-25 November 2017 LA Barstow to Vegas Ride, USA Now in its 34th year, this rightly famous 400-mile off-road ride takes you from the City of Angels, across the California and Nevada desert, finishing in Sin City itself. What happens in Vegas stays… labarstowvegas.com…

>> 12-15 October Slidetober Canggu, Bali, Indonesia Deus Ex Machina are the Australian brand who had a massive hand in shaping the new generation custom scene. They have a handful of flagship stores around the world, including Sydney, Milan, Los Angeles and Bali. The latter hosts a festival of motorcycle riding, art, music and surfing every October. Bali: the perfect escape from dreary autumn. deuscustoms.com >> 9-12 November EICMA Milan, Italy The biggest motorcycle show in the world now has a large custom element. Don’t try to do it all in one day. Don’t drag along a partner or spouse who isn’t interested in bikes. Tickets are cheap and there is a train link to the city centre. Late-afternoon/early evening go to via Thaon di Revel, a street with a…

Honda XRV750 Africa Twin £3500 Original and iconic ‘big’ adventure bike. This 1994 model from a dealer is good money without being OTT – they can be twice this price. Honda CRF250L £2999 Friendly road bike of the CRF family is ideal for some easy greenlaning. Bulletproof, easy to ride and easy to maintain. This one looks in top nick, too. Beta X-Trainer £3500 X-Trainer is the bike you should buy if you want to get into enduro but have no experience. This 2015 model is well priced. Yamaha WR250F £1800 Ex-police bike, so it’ll be in pretty good nick (pardon the pun). Looking closely at the pics that’s clearly true with little or no scratches and scuffs. Vertigo Combat Titanium R £9495 The best production trials bike around, but…

Triumph Thruxton £9800 >> Period charm and top details, with wheel-lifting torque and modern handling – old-school jacket ‘n’ jeans biking at its best. Dig and get as much as £700 off. Harley-Davidson Iron 883 £7995 >> ‘Proper’ Harley with best-ever ride and finish. On-trend, fine-looking, feel-good thrumming, and cheap – just £129 a month and they don’t want a deposit. Bimota SB6R £6995 >> Hand-built superbike for less than a CBR650F. Tuned GSX-R1100 power, glorious chassis, ace looks. Cost £18k in ’97; that’s £31k today. Honda NC750X £5999 >> Exciting? No. Comfy, flexible, efficient, adaptable, well-made, bombproof best friend that’ll run forever? Yes. List is £6749 but there are loads of hot deals. CCM FT35 £3750 >> Can’t afford a CCM Spitfire? It’s not their first bespoke-frame limited-edition retro.…

Zero Type 5 £17,995 >> The engineering and attitude of a shed-built custom, but from a (small) Japanese factory. S&S V-twin, springer fork, hand-built rigid frame. Guaranteed to get neighbour’s curtains twitching. Kawasaki Ninja H2 £19,000 >> Whooshing, chirping, utterly mind-boggling evidence that superchargers are essential. Pampered two-year-olds save £6500 to spend on back tyres. Ducati SuperSport S £11,895 >> Nobody else makes a bike like this. A trad’ Ducati sportsbike with connection, feel, fondness for lean and an eager V-twin, but with ride-it-all-day comfort and modern civility. Brilliant. Best of all, a new pre-reg S (Öhlins, quickshifter) is base-bike money. Yamaha XT1200ZE Super Ténéré £10,995 >> Long legged, high quality, hugely underrated. Full-on ZE is £13.5k, but unregistered ’15 models are £11k and identical apart from paint. Triumph Speed…

NCR M16 £100,000+ Is your Ducati Desmosedici a bit ho-hum? NCR’s version has carbon frame, swingarm, tank, wheels, and weighs 145kg. Built to order with a donor Desmo, which’ll have cost you £50k... Voxan Boxer VB1 £34,000 All-French sportsbike: 996cc twin by Voxan, quality chassis by Boxer (who build Broughs, below). £34k gets bike 20 of 30 made in 2000, new, unused. Brough Superior SS100 £52,999 Machined titanium frame, bespoke twin, odd front-end, great to ride – and, crucially, feels like a fifty-grand bike worthy of the name. Suter MMX500 £90,500 Twin-crank 576cc two-stroke V4 with 195bhp, in a race-ready chassis with an all-up weight of just 127kg. Hell yes. This has to be the ultimate trackday toy... Suzuki GSX-R1100 £100,000 Not any GSX-R but the first – a hand-built…

PERFORMANCE TESTING >> Dry, mild conditions, maybe the suggestion of a tail wind, and the Suzuki is the quickest bike we’ve ever datalogged – zero to 60mph in 2.95 secs and the standing-start quarter in 9.98s. Staggering. These times are achieved with the traction control turned off, and an experienced hand on the throttle. But even with the traction in level one or two, and pretty hamfisted throttle abuse, the GSX-R repeatedly hits 150mph in 10 secs. And 187mph flat out isn’t shabby... FACTS AND FIGURES >> The GSX-R is sharp, with a steeper head angle and less trail than Yam’s razor R6. Lower-spec non-R version (£13,736 otr) has the same geometry. TYRES >>The tyres indicate Suzuki’s suggested use, being Bridgestone’s semi-slick RS10 – that stands for Racing Street. They’re…

This isn’t a limp brochure-style round-up of all the bikes you can buy. No, your guide is far more useful as it only contains bikes that we have tested, with comparable on-the-road prices plus data, expert opinion and must-know detail gathered by fussy full-time testers. We do hundreds of thousands of miles, dyno, datalog, weigh and answer the big questions. Don’t buy a new bike without reading this first. WOLF IN SHEEP’S... Harley-Davidson race a Street Rod in NHRA Pro Stock that does a quarter mile in 6.7 secs at 199mph. It does this by not actually being a Street Rod at all – the bespoke racer has a 2600cc, 350bhp, 60˚ V-twin by Vance & Hines that has no H-D parts. Rivals Victory use engines by S&S. Everyone…

John Westlake >>Contributor Small jobs aren’t usually an issue for me, but bigger projects such as a 24,000 mile service are. But not this time around… DOING THE FZ1’S 24,000 MILE SERVICE – it’s the big valve clearance one – costs £531 at a Yamaha dealer, £100 or so less by an independent. That’s a lot to spend on a £3500 bike. So, with the luxury of a second bike to ride while the FZ is off the road, and space to store the partially dismantled Yam, I adopt a patient DIY approach: 1. Print off the official Yamaha service instructions (God I love the internet). 2. Go through the checklist and order the oil, filters, spark plugs, coolant, seals etc. 3. Work through the checklist as and when I…

Ben Lindley >>Staff writer Getting to really know a new-to-you bike is all part of the fun. Good and bad. Mostly for me and the Triple it’s good… WE’VE HAD TWO MONTHS with Triumph’s Street Triple R on the fleet – two months of adrenaline-pumping commutes and long thrashes. So what have I learned? HEADLIGHT CONTROLS >> There are two types of running light on the Street Triple – LED and traditional headlight. . Switch between the two with a slider on the left switchgear. On a recent night ride I realized my headlight bulb had failed, forcing me to use a combination of LEDs and full beam. Those LEDs don’t give much vision at night. FUEL GAUGE >> It packed up at 1800 miles: the gauge reads empty and…

Hugo Wilson This month: testing two, four and six cylinder bikes; Indian Scout, Ariel Ace and BMW Bagger. And of course being hopelessly distracted by the very many options on this month’s additional Chooser pages. So many bikes… Ariel Ace on page 80 Mike Armitage This month: you’d think testing BMW’s revised S1000XR in the crisp, pure light of an autumn morning would be a highlight. And it is. But our new bike expert had just as much enjoyment compiling all this month’s Choosers. BMW S1000XR on page 64 Mark Gardiner This month: American correspondent Mark Gardiner has been following the quest to be the first motorcycle to reach 400mph for years, but didn’t expect that the scene of the action would move from Bonneville to Bolivia. Inside Bolivia speed…

£750 of goodies Suzuki V-Strom Suzuki’s V-twin is easy to overlook, yet the 650 is a hero of British biking, rated by everyone from commuters to tourists. The latest is the greatest yet, and looks even better with £750 of free accessories – you just pick what you want, from luggage and heated grips to riding gear. But be quick – the offer ends at the end of September. Interest-free Yamaha Tracer 700 Perky yet practical, fun but friendly, and amazingly adaptable – there’s lots to love about the two-cylinder Tracer. It includes its £7139 on-the-road price... although even that’s irrelevant with the 0% finance offer. Part-ex your old £2500 runaround, and a new Tracer is just £4.24 a day for three years. And that’s you-own-it HP, not PCP renting.…

YOU COULDN’T HAVE scripted what happened at Silverstone. You had Shakey, Haslam, and Hickman all going through to the Showdown and O’Halloran just needing a few points, so everyone else was fighting for those last two spots. Then Josh Brookes won a race, so he was through, and coming into the final race Mossey, Dixon and Iddon were fighting for the last Showdown place. And it was absolute carnage – wet, really cold. There were 20 crashers – that’s 20! – and only seven finished, one of them being Dixon, so he’s through to the Showdown in his first year of BSB. You’ve got to feel so sorry for Mossey because he’s been brilliant this year and yet hasn’t made the cut. Similarly with Iddon – he only needed to…

BMW HP4 Race £68,000 I fell in love with this on the launch, and I’m gutted I haven’t get a spare £68k for one at the moment... What an exquisite motorcycle. It’s so sharp, the engine is a masterpiece, and all the carbon is ground-breaking. 1998 Yamaha YZF-R7 OW-02 £25,000 I loved my R7 racer so much, and I’ve always thought it was the most lithe, sexy bike ever. I wanted Haga’s bike – the closest I got was his hand-me-down factory forks stamped ‘NH’. I’ve since nearly bought one twice... 1984/86 Nico Bakker Honda RS500 £50,000 (auction est £35-65k) For days when you need a Freddie Spencer hit. I adore these and you don’t see them come up that often. It doesn’t bother me it’s not original or the…

An Italian Harley 1968 Harley-Davidson SS250 £1199 >> Looking for a project? Prices for most 1960s Italian bikes have gone bonkers, but Harley-D badged Aermacchi project bikes, made at Harley’s Italian factory, are in plentiful supply and most parts are available. With a horizontal cylinder, ohv engine they’re nice things to work on too. This one is probably too much money, but you’ll find one cheaper. Slowly does it 2007 Royal Enfield 500 Bullet £1600 >> If you want the sedate British bike experience for sensible money you want an Indian Enfield. 500s can cruise at 70, but happier at 65 and this one has only done 7800 miles from new. Worth paying for a bike that hasn’t been messed about with and, through the filter of a computer screen,…

The sensible choice Honda CRF250L, £4649 >> This is all you need for the journey to Timbuktu. I’ve been using one for a year, and I love it. They buzz along at a fair speed, but there’s certainly plenty of time to look at the scenery. You don’t want to rush an adventure. There’s a Rally version too, with a slightly bigger fuel tank, a taller seat, a screen and extra bodywork. But obviously you’ll smash the bodywork when you fall off. The new kid in town Royal Enfield Himalayan, £3999 >> OK, so you can’t actually buy one in the UK yet, but they are due soon, and any motorcycle called a Himalayan must be a good adventure bike, mustn’t it? 411cc air-cooled single should be rugged and simple,…

Storz 1200 Nightster £19,500 >> The core of this timeless tracker is a recent Harley Evo Sportster, about as bulletproof as new bikes get. Sprinkled with beautiful parts too. Down & Out SE Bonnie SE £9,000 >> 2010 Bonneville SE that D&O have changed the mudguards, switches, handlebars, carb tops, footpegs, exhaust, sidepanels, seat, paint, tyres and more… Hogtech Absolut £44,000 >> Homologated to EC regulations. Yes, really. And clever engineering mean this chopper handles much better than it looks. XTR Pepo Sake Racer £9200 >> Fresh from Madrid’s XTR Pepo is the newly completed Sake Racer, a 2001 Honda Hornet given a very convincing makeover. Not a bad price too. Panned Substance £25,000 >> This Santee-framed big twin is inspired by the trad look, but is updated with proper…

Imagine my surprise when I took delivery of my new Honda Fireblade SP. I was very happy and dutifully started reading the owner’s manual and suddenly stopped dead in my tracks when I got to the page about carrying capacity. Apparently she has a limit of 110kg. For the record I’m a 6ft 2in tall, 105kg, 50+ biker who has had three previous Blades. I worked out that with my biker gear and boots etc I’m nudging 120kg, fully loaded. Especially if I have a biker breakfast. On hearing my weight limit enquiry my dealer banned his own chunky sales assistant from riding their SP. He raised the issue with Honda technical and waited for a reply, and waited… I was never told about the limit when I purchased the…

BMW F650 Funduro £1000 Ignore miles and cosmetics. Find a scruffy 20-year-old with history, well-kept chassis and lots of extras for £1k, and it’ll be your loyal workhorse for years. Lambretta V125 £2999 Not a clone, but a proper new scoot from the Italian firm with steel monocoque. Scrape a few quid more and there’s a V200 version. Due in December. Kawasaki Ninja 250 SL £ 2999 List for this baby Ninja is almost £4k on the road. Go pre-reg, and a spanker is less than £3000 though. Thrashable, fit 249cc single and laugh-out-loud agility make quiet lanes hilarious, and it’ll do 75mpg on the trundle to work. Has to be green mind. Ducati ST4S £2600 Sporty sports-tourer from 2001 has fine riding stance, proper screen and boxes, with grunty…

There’s a range of official accessories from Suzuki for the GSX-R1000/R. These are the adornments proving popular with owners. Fitting is extra. DOUBLE-BUBBLE SCREEN Slightly higher screen makes it easier to tuck out of the blast. Tinted or clear, with small GSX-R logo. Pay £115. SEAT COWL Reduce the quantity of unwanted pillions by converting to single seat. Straight click-in swap for the rear seat. A slightly salty £145. TANK PAD Designed to stop unsightly scratches from your riding clobber. Given the look of this £28 stick-on pad, we’d be quite OK with scratches. LEVER ASSEMBLY Tidy aluminium flip-up levers, both with span adjusters, and race-style protectors. Brake and clutch assemblies are £190 each side.…

>> Roads in the Black Forest have more twists than you can wish for, especially if you’re riding the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse. This ‘Hochstrasse (or ‘high road’) is the northern part of the B500, running along the main ridge of the Black Forest from Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt. A second section of the B500 runs south from Triberg to the Swiss border, but it’s the northern section that’s famous. >> Ride the B500 south from Baden-Baden for a twisty start as the road climbs up from the town. Corners are tight and technical around here, but the road is generally wider than you expect. That means more space to correct mistakes. Stop at the Ruhestein Schänke for expensive drinks with a brilliant view. South of Ruhestein, the bends smooth out and the riding…

‘You don’t so much run out of fitness. You run out of bravery! You’re running through these houses and stuff, going so fast for so long, you can’t wait to get to a slower corner’ Pete Boast >>Road tester and trackday instructor The Classic TT is every bit as dramatic and exciting as the main event earlier in the year. And racing there has been my ’17 highlight… NOW I’M BACK home, reality has hit: ‘Aaaarrrgh! How much money have I spent? I’ve got to pay the mortgage again and I haven’t really worked for a month. All I’ve done is thought about the Isle of Man TT.’ Why do I even do this? It’s a question that keeps coming into my head. It’s a love affair, I suppose. It’s…

‘Ideal ergonomics. Flawless roadholding. Mind-blowing’ Rupert Paul >>Contributor Northamptonshire to the Isle of Man with pillion comes with its challenges, given the wrong bike. But given the right bike… AS THE CLASSIC TT APPROACHED, I cast about for a suitable bike to carry Fiona and me to the IOM. Our MT-07 was out of the question. Likewise Bike’s Ducati SuperSport – miserable pillion. But then Jonathan Pearson’s big KTM became available. OMG: the solo ride back from his place combined wind blast and a thudding V-twin with the composure of a space ship. I mean, an engine that wheelies in fourth at 100mph. Electronic preload, damping and riding modes, selected by the best screen and interface in the world. Cornering headlights. Ideal ergonomics. Flawless roadholding. Mind-blowing. Fiona did not appreciate…

Jonathan Pearson » Off-road Editor Just when I thought KTM’s 2-stroke EXC couldn’t get any better… IF I’D KNOWN THE KTM 250 EXC TPI that I raced at the Erzberg Rodeo would be the same bike I’d end up with in my garage I might have treated it a bit better. Actually that’s a lie. Bikes aren’t ornaments and though already battle-scared I welcomed the 250 TPI onto home soil with a mud bath. The traditionally cold and rainy month of August (?!) threw up some challenging riding conditions in the hills near Oswestry for the final round of the British Extreme Enduro Championship. At Fast Eddy’s tough event it was easy to see why the more responsive power character of a 2T engine is favourite with extreme riders.…

‘God is a biker... or should that be baker?’ Paul Lang >>Art Director I don’t usually need much of an excuse to go for a Sunday ride, but a tour of East of England windmills and a full English did it… BLAME DEREK HENDERSON. His tale about visiting British lighthouses ( Bike , November 2016) inspired me to take on my own adventure. There aren’t many lighthouses near my home in Rutland, but we have windmills so I decided I’d spend a day visiting those. I wanted a sidekick to join me so I called Bike’s ex-deputy editor Tony Hoare, a man crazy enough to join me on a 600-mile, one-day journey to Germany in a vain search for a road sign ( Bike , October 2015). His decision to join…

ENGINE NOISES >>We have a new favourite engine noise at Bike . Search YouTube for ‘Detroit Diesel’ and the sound of supercharged two-stroke diesels. Up there with a JPS Norton rotary. GRASS TRACK >>The ace Lincolnshire Poacher Grass Track was the weekend of the British GP. Fast action and a Bateman’s bar made Wainfleet more appealing than Silverstone. SCRAPYARDS >>Thanks to R & Z Auto Salvage of Loughborough for reminding us about the fine smell of old oil and mangled metal. Need a Lexus V8? They might be able to help. WINDMILLS >>Our exciteable art director Paul Lang loves a pun, and an excuse for a ride. A tour of windmills on his BMW Urban G/S delivers both. Flour Power is on page 122 .…

on Saturday afternoon – civilised times to watch Jonathan Rea take his third consecutive championship. Probably… worldsbk.com 21-22 April 2018 24 Hours Le Mans The more you learn about endurance racing, the more you’ll get hooked – it’s like normal racing but much, much more complex. This is the first biggie of 2018 and only a four hour ride from Calais. fimewc.com 21-22 September Thundersport GB Finals, Donington Haven’t been to a club race for a while? Try this one. There’s a huge array of classes, ranging from 1990s superbikes and 600s to all the modern stuff. Loads of action, chilled atmosphere. thundersportgb.com 3-4 November World Superbikes, Qatar The final round of the championship, with one race on the Friday night, the other…

‘What I did doesn’t compare to riding eight laps’ 60 YEARS AGO, during the Senior TT, Bob MacIntyre recorded the first 100mph lap of the Isle of Man Mountain Course. He was riding a four-cylinder 500cc Gilera that maybe made 65bhp, had minimal suspension travel, drum brakes, skinny tyres and a massive dustbin fairing. The road was bumpy, narrow and there were fewer safety concessions than there are now. MacIntyre was wearing flimsy leathers, a pudding bowl helmet and goggles. He lapped at 101.12mph, but his race average, over a staggering eight laps, 301.84 miles and 3h 2m 57 seconds, was 98.99mph. That’s hardcore. To celebrate the anniversary of Bob Mac’s achievement, Classic TT organisers thought it’d be a good idea to get current Mountain Course lap record holder (at…

‘I could not see any potential and I wondered who was going to visit this small dying village’ >> Where are you right now? I am in my house in the Motocamp. This is the first day of our big annual event – the Horizons Unlimited travellers meeting. >> How do you describe Motocamp ? It’s a home away from home for motorcycle travellers, in the village of Idilevo, central Bulgaria. We provide services for riders preparing for trips and a rest stop for the ones coming back from their journeys. We have cosy rooms, WiFi, a workshop and tools, laundry, a bar and BBQ area with cold drinks and snacks, a games room with a library of adventure books and maps, a projector, billiard table and a small shop…

‘We just want to create different bikes’ Z PROJECT IS A bike that ticks all my boxes. Built by a French duo going by the name of Sur Les Chapeaux De Roues (SLCDR), it has enough radical elements but isn’t so unnecessarily wacky as to become a liability or a dreaded ‘art bike’. With a more sober paintjob it could be an early ’80s factory concept. There’s no higher praise in my book. The basis is a 35-year-old Z1000 shaft-drive frame and a later GPz1100 engine, but it’s the bodywork that elevates Z Project. Yann Collet, SLCDR’s paint and bodywork maestro says, ‘I saw a Cadillac concept, just a drawing, and said, “It’s possible to take the same lines” and we created this bike. It’s been popular, because it’s strange.’…

THANKS TO SLIMMED down proportions 2018’s RM-Z450 is one of the most eye-catching motocross bikes around. But these reduced circumstances just scratch the surface of a host of changes for the new model. A Balance Free Rear Cushion (BFRC) Showa shock absorber is arguably the biggest change for 2018. Sharing technology with the GSX-R1000R, Suzuki can claim this is the first production off-road bike to have Showa’s race-proven, balance-free shock. New sprung forks (air forks came, didn’t work very well and have now departed) are slightly bigger at 59.3mm. Like all new off road bikes the 2018 RM-Z450 is a better bike overall because it is easier to ride. Chassis tweaks are at the root of the improved feel. A 1480mm wheelbase is 15mm shorter, plus the headstock is 10mm…

30 September – 1 October Motocross of Nations, Matterley Basin, Winchester The biggest and best team event in motocross comes to Britain this year at the spectacular natural bowl in the hills just outside Winchester. It’s a rare treat to see the genuine best in the world competing against each other. France are the nation to beat, the United States are always strong and the British on home soil need cheering. mxon17.com 13-15 October Weston Beach Race, Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset Can it really be that Weston Beach Race time of year all over again? The annual festival of beach racing in John Cleese’s home town attracts a huge rider entry and big spectator numbers each October. It’s a true spectacle to watch with its flat-out mile long straight and snaking return…

ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS Early R1s suffer electrical problems caused by water getting in to connectors towards the front of the bike. Dodgy lights are a telltale sign. Buy decent waterproof connectors – Yamaha sell them in packs of 50. Cut the offending parts back to good wire and solder in a new piece with the waterproof connectors. Yamaha’s part numbers are: 90890 then 05311 to 05314. EXUP VALVE The exhaust powervalve is supposed to add low-down grunt, but it doesn’t make much difference on the later bikes. It’s really there to make the engine quieter by pushing exhaust gases through a tiny hole instead of the full bore of the system. Because of this, don’t be afraid to buy a bike that’s had its EXUP wired open. SUSPENSION UPGRADES I’d suggest…

‘A motorcycle approaching in a straight line is hard for the brain to perceive’ The Highway Code speaks of drivers ‘looking but not seeing’ motorcyclists. It suggests, rather diffidently, that high visibility clothing might help but beyond that is there anything we motorcyclists can do to make ourselves more visible, and if we do not is the law unsympathetic? The law is straightforward. You as a motorcyclist are not invisible. If you are there to be seen on a proper look then not being covered in fluorescent material is not something the law takes into account. In any event, the jury is out on whether day glow makes any difference for motorcyclists, especially in a ‘looked but did not see’ collision. This line is occasionally argued but in 25…

‘The Morini – over the mountain it’s fantastic. You don’t have to shut off’ 1979 Morini 3 1/2 Strada Joe Coward >> I’ve had it just short of 12 months. It came from a friend of mine. He’d had it goodness knows how long, and it hadn’t been on the road in 28 years. All I did to get it running was buy a new pair of silencers, tidy up the wiring a little bit, because Italian electrics are terrible, and fitted a new battery. Apart from a bit of paintwork it’s how it left the shop when it was new. I first came over to the Island in 1995 with my brother Paul, who was racing an outfit. Between then and 2007 I only missed three years. I came…

Steve Herbert >>Digital art editor I can’t say I’m a natural retro bike target – they’re not really built for trans-European camping missions. But this Guzzi… WHAT A SPLENDID THING this Moto Guzzi V7 III is. 52 horses, an 8000rpm redline and a single front disc is not the type of bike I’m used to, so life with the gorgeous, retro, transverse vee 750 has required an attitude adjustment. It’s all about loving the bimble. Sure, hurling it around Rockingham at Bike’s August trackday ( Bike , October 2017) was a giggle, but the Guzzi’s not really interested in being ridden hard. Limited ground clearance and power mean it sets its own pace. Accept that, and it’s a lovely, lovely thing. Few retro bikes get the styling this right. The…