Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2020 i BIKE

This concept bike is the new Triumph Trident, an entrylevel middleweight aimed at tempting buyers away from Yamaha’s MT-07 (£6695), Kawasaki’s Z650 (£6495) and Honda’s CB650R (£6999). In Triumph’s 2021 range it will slot in below the Street Twin and Street Triple S - both currently priced at £8100. ‘This bike is going to be aimed at people who have been riding a while but this is their first, new large-capacity machine,’ says Steve Sargent, Triumph’s Chief Product Officer. ‘It’s going to be competitively priced but we’re sticking with Triumph’s roots to maintain a premium presence in that market.’ Bike’s translation:around £7000. The new three-cylinder naked will have ‘class leading technology as standard’ according to Triumph. That presumably means riding modes, cornering ABS and lean sensitive traction control. The concept…

The Malle Mile This year’s Malle Mile is a three day August shindig in the grounds of Kevington Hall, Orpington. Imagine a stylish cross between a music festival and a scramble. Then do more imagining involving on-trend bikers and hardcore seasoned racers camping overnight and racing through the day. The only aim? To have a laugh. The organisers sum it up thus: ‘everyone is invited to race almost anything on two wheels and no one is expected to win’. ‘It’s the first bike I’ve built… And if I fall off who cares?!’ Lining up for the start ‘Competitors’ line up and wait to be called forward for the start of the sprint race. The Malle Mile is renowned for its eclectic and wonderfully bizarre collection of riders and bikes, and…

A motorcycle with its style one wheel in the 1970s and one in the near future. A motorcycle that goes and handles like a sportsbike but isn’t so extreme you need to be a Cirque Du Soleil contortionist to sit on it. And a motorcycle that’ll make your brain fizz when you bury the tacho needle. MV Agusta’s new three cylinder Superveloce 800 is all this and more. As you’d expect from MV nowadays you get lots of design, modern tech and beautifully detailed and finished components. The Superveloce 800’s snout, slender suede-covered seat unit, fake leather tank strap and fuel cap buckle all nod to what racing bikes looked like when the world was black and white. But then there are LEDs, a single-sided swingarm, chunky brakes, sticky tyres…

Ding-dong. Ding-dong. There’s a bell clanging in my ear and a voice shouting, ‘brekfis, brekfis’. I emerge from my slumber, swing my legs over the edge of the hammock and get handed four crushed rolls and a cup of coffee. Yummy, breakfast in bed, albeit a hammock on the Amazon River. I see my husband, Brausch, is already up and dunking. At 80 years old, he’s rather enjoying the river breeze and lazy days lying around on a hammock, even if we are sharing the barge with 700 others, packed closely together, feet, knees and bums bumping as the boat chugs along. We face each other, knees interlocking, kiss ‘good morning’ and burst out laughing. How on earth did we land up here? . Our journey together, to the Amazon…

ELECTRICAL GUBBINS On early RRs the generator can overheat, causing a stator pole to burn out. If this happens the generator stops charging and the battery dies. Running the bike low on oil exaggerates the problem and thick, stinky oil indicates something’s getting too warm. Reg/recs can fail too on bikes between 2003-2008 and bikes from the end of this period are more prone to issues. Also watch for warning lights on the dash, as electrical items such as cam sensors and gear position sensors can be expensive to replace. RELIABLE SCREAMER Inaudible revs and a top-end rush mean the inline four engine gets worked hard, but you should get no problems from the engine internals. Spirited use does mean the CBR can slurp a litre of oil every 1000…

One moment I’m thundering into the balmy dusk. Next, I’m coasting to a dead halt at a country roadside. No sparks. No missus to call for a lift home. She’s up North visiting family. I’ve no mobile anyway. I’m miffed, having just spent a grand on a clutch, primary drive, generator and associated electrics. Now the 1967 Triumph’s blown its aged Boyer ignition box. It’s Sunday evening. I’ll have to hide the 650 safely from sight, hitch home or hike the South Downs. I heft it up a track and behind a farm gate. It’ll be fine. I find the farmhouse and interrupt a shirtless chap’s dinner to explain the dead bike in his hedge. He asks when I’ll get it recovered. Erm. ‘Second question,’ he says. ‘How are you…

Airhawk DS motorcycle seat cushion Used for: 1500 miles Price: £120 Info: motohaus.com » Over inflating the Air Hawk ‘comfort seating system’ results in a strangely wobbly ride. The secret is to inflate it (by blowing into a simple valve at the back of the seat) and then release pressure gradually until you have got the perfect level of posterior support. I’d been meaning to try one for a while, but the prospect of six successive 250 mile days on an Enfield Interceptor made it imperative. Fitting is easy, as long as the seat is removable, with two adjustable straps. There are models in different sizes and shapes to suit different styles of bike and pillions. This is the ‘Dual Sport’ version. It literally saved my ass.…

At a distance, my 2005 Triumph Sprint 1050 looks alright – the fairing is in good nick and it’s never been dropped so although there are a few dings, there’s no major trauma. But while sorting various mechanical niggles I noticed the situation was far more unsavoury behind the plastics. Paint was flaking off the subframe and engine covers, rusty fasteners were everywhere and the remains of an old alarm dribbled from every cluster of wiring. Time for a sort out. Almost all the paint is flaking off inaccessible places, so I decide to do an intermediate refresh now and remove the subframe over winter – I suspect it’ll be a fiddly job because of the underseat exhaust. Scraping with a screwdriver removes acres of paint, all with that horrible…

‘Dani Pedrosa has been testing the KTMsince last year, and hisinfluence should not beunderestimated’ KEY SPECS Engine: 1000cc DOHC V4 with pneumatic valves Power: 265bhp+ at 18,000rpm Weight: 157kg Fuel capacity: 22 litres Fuel economy: 15mpg Suspension: WP, fully adjustable Brad Binders win at Brno - the first MotoGP victory for him and KTM - stunned the racing world. It wasn’t just the fact Binder’s a rookie, it’s also that his KTM was presumed a middle order scrapper, not a race winner. So what happened? Here are the key factors: » The RC16 has taken a leap forward. The KTM was never short of power, but now it is faster than last season - at Brno, Pol Espargaro’s KTM was fifth fastest through the speed trap, ahead of the Yamahas,…

Most convincing race replica ever built? This new Petronas R1M is right up there – winglets, a sprinkling of MotoGP trinkets and the perfect paint job makes it look more convincing than Honda’s RCV211V-S or even Ducati’s Desmosedici. Surely only a late 1990s Rothmans Honda NSR250 can rival the R1M’s ‘I’ve just stolen a GP bike’ vibe. It couldn’t come at a better time either. As Bike went to press the Petronas squad were rocking it in MotoGP, with Fabio Quartararo having won twice and leading the championship, and Franco Morbidelli coming second at Brno. Not bad for a satellite team, albeit it a megabucks one. The bike is an official special edition, put together by the Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART) who run R1s in the World Endurance championship.…

Peraves » Swiss firm Peraves have been on this gig for decades, first with their Ecomobile and later with the updated Monotracer design – later renamed ‘Monoracer’. In 2010 Peraves won the Automotive X-Prize - a $2.5 million award designed to, ‘inspire a new generation of super-efficient vehicles’ – with the electric X-Tracer version, which developed into the 204hp electric Monotracer MTE-150 production model. However, prices over £100,000 mean only tiny numbers of Ecomobiles and Monotracers x have ever been made. In 2014 the company mooted a cheaper enclosed bike using a 10hp electric motor, but so far it’s come to nothing. Cost aside, the main sticking point of electric bikes is range, and the thing that kills their range most is high speed. One option is to use bigger…

‘Slouching in the plush saddle you can feel the big pistons sliding in their bores like this is some kind of Victorian era steam train. Doff… doff… doff’ Press the button on the BMW R18 and the starter gear engages with a light clonk, the cylinders fire and the bike settles into a low, rumbling 950rpm tickover. Slouching in the plushly upholstered saddle you can feel the big 107.1mm pistons sliding in their bores like this is some kind of Victorian era steam train. Doff… doff… doff. The rest of the bike can feel the pistons moving too and gradually the wide bar, and then the whole front end of the bike including the wheel, start to gently wobble from side to side in a mesmerising low speed shimmy. It…

Miles ridden: 1571 Riders: Hugo Wilson and Mike Armitage Tyres fitted: Bridgestone Battlax Adventure The all-new Triumph Tiger 900 has a tough act to follow because the old Tiger 800 was a great bike. And the adventure category is packed with strong rivals. So this had better be a really good machine. The new Tiger is available in two versions, the road biased GT model and the off-roadable Rally. In addition there are ‘Pro’ versions of each range, loaded with electronic gizmos. It’s the Rally model that’s the standout – the white painted frame, tall stance and wire wheels giving it stunning visual appeal. Over a month we subjected the bike to a 350-mile two-up day, Welsh B-roads, the M25 and the Peak District, as well as local roads and…

» Built on the 1170cc boxer from the GS and using bits from the RT, the sports-touring R1200ST was a flop. Something a bit trad’ BMW wasn’t exciting next to the new, lighter, faster Triumph Sprint ST, and being styled like a cross between a 1955 Edsel and that robot from Lost in Space didn’t help. But there’s little amiss with the Beemer. You get the same punching engine as a GS, great ride quality and secure handling from the Telelever-equipped chassis, and proportions that suit real-size humans. Exclusivity too - it was only made from 2005-2007. Best of all, prices are at least £1000 less than an equivalent GS, starting at just £3k.…

Four wins, a lap record, two seconds and two thirds… can this really be Boastie we’re talking about? Bike’s favourite racer is drenched in talent, but glory is often scuppered by appalling bad luck and the occasional faux-pas of his own making. But at the Barry Sheene Classic at Oliver’s Mount in Scarborough, Boastie and his crew were on fire (not literally, not even once). ‘I was riding four bikes,’ he says, ‘I had the supermono [a KTM 690 single in a Tigcraft frame], which I had to ride in the twins class, my GPZ600, a 1972 Honda CB500KI in the Classic 500 class and the GSX-R750 in the Classic Superbike. ‘We managed to get Guy [Martin, who lives down the road from Boastie] to ride with us as well…

There’s nothing like the Honda Ron Haslam Race School anywhere. Sure, there are other track riding schools but nowhere is quite the one-stop-shop to improve the skills of racers, road-riding track virgins, youngsters or absolute first timers. Or was. Sadly its time is now up, for 2021 the trade support that made it viable isn’t there. And that’s particularly sad for me as I have a close affiliation and deep love for the whole deal… I’ve worn my Haslam instructor’s bib for eight years, mostly on their one-on-one Elite course on datalogged Fireblades. By the end of each school day I’d have done over 300 miles around Donington and my head would be spinning. I loved the buzz from the customers and seeing the seemingly never-aging Ron Haslam fire past…

There are loads of reasons to visit north Wales – it’s got the snow-capped mountain scenery of Snowdonia, swooping valleys (with low-flying fighter jets), fantastic A and B-roads with more grip in the wet than most English roads have in the dry and the full Welsh breakfast (think full English plus laverbread, a fried seaweed and oat patty). There are also plenty of good routes into the National Park. A-road arteries include the A5, A494 and A458 – all good riding in themselves, and they get better as you get closer – but to avoid the motorhome/caravan procession try the varied and entertaining B4391 from Penybontfawr to Ffestiniog. Coming into Penybontfawr from the east, the road passes through classic rolling Welsh farmland, all high hedges, green fields all year round.…

Kawasaki’s first V-twin was the VN750 in late 1984. Tagged the Vulcan, this 55” liquid-cooled V-twin joined the Yamaha Virago in the battle to be a better Harley-Davidson than an actual Harley-Davidson. It laid the foundations for a line of laid-back twins that’s still going strong 35 years later. But the VN750 wasn’t Kawasaki’s first cruiser. Though they were also attaching high-rise ’bars to Z-LTD inline fours, the award for Kwak’s first true ‘factory custom’ surely goes to the fabulous and miniscule AV50, which had folk reaching for a tasselled jacket in January 1982. Though Honda are kings of the mini-bike, the popularity of their Monkey models caused many equally-diddy rivals from other firms. Kawasaki’s first attempt was the MB1 Coyote, little more than a 3bhp pull-start generator engine in…

Flip up a panel on the right side of this extraordinary art deco custom and you’re presented with a selection of 100-year-old silver cutlery. Pop the saddle and there’s a bottle of wine below, with a corkscrew held on the underside of the seat. ‘This gentleman racer was supposed to embody a time when design, technology and speed played a significant role,’ says Dirk Oehlerking of Kingston Custom in Germany. There’s far more to this bike than a few picnic-friendly touches though. Dirk made the flowing fairing himself, for example, from 2mm aluminium sheet. ‘I started to build the cladding with wire frame and tape, which I then coated with cardboard and paste to create the design and style.’ Then he replicated his papier mache creation in aluminium. Underneath the…

If you think celebrity owned custom bikes don’t get ridden, then Grayson Perry’s Gobstopper is a breath of fresh air. ‘My perfect thing is to get out of London before afternoon rush hour and ride up through Essex and Suffolk for a couple of hours,’ explains the artist. ‘It’s done about 5000 miles, though it’s not a wet weather bike, the water comes off the front wheel and then gets blown back into your face.’ The bike was built by Neil Sefton at Sykes Harley-Davidson in Sussex, working to Grayson’s brief and using a mix of off the shelf aftermarket parts and custom made components, including the super wiggly exhausts. Gobstopper has also been to America as part of a three part TV series; Grayson Perry’s Great American Road Trip.…

This T-shirt celebrates the world championship win of my boyhood hero, Jock Taylor and is the original T-shirt from back then. It’s old, worn and fragile now so I have also had a replica made and wear that with pride. I saw Jock race, early in his career at Knockhill and Beveridge Park. From there he moved on to national and then world championships, and the TT. Like me Jock was Scottish, which drew me to him. And he was a natural rider and a born winner. He also didn’t let fame go to his head. It was a joy to see and hear his restored outfit at Knockhill. Jack Muldoon did a great job resurrecting it. Ian Seath, email Lycra louts Back in the late sixties/early seventies 1 raced…

» In normal times there would have been a ‘normal’ press launch for the R18, instead of which I lowered myself onto the bike for the first time at 9am on a Sunday morning at Mey, on the northern tip of mainland Britain. It was ridden there, as part of the Great Malle Rally, by Bike contributor Jordan Gibbons. There was no engineer’s briefing and minimal information about the new bike. Ahead was a one-day, 570 mile slog back to the East Midlands, so the most important question about BMW’s most significant new bike in years on this chilly morning - does it have heated grips? The R18 might have been made for the Pacific Coast Highway, but the North Sea route between John o’ Groats and Inverness is almost…

If you want a hot-poop middleweight sportsbike you would surely have to be a whacky-haired fruitloop to consider a screaming supersport 600. Yes, they’re engaging and thrilling. But such focused devices are also cramped, unforgiving and bloody hard work when you’re not in the mood to ride like you’re leading the Isle of Man TT. As a road rider it’s surely far better to go for something with loads of presence and trackdaywinning performance, but less torturous ergonomics and with a nod towards usability. It’s why Triumph’s Street Triple RS, the potent 765cc class-topping naked, has been the default setting for lovers of midsize excitement since rocking up in 2017. Refreshed for this year it’s got more technology and grunt than ever, but also has a worrying new rival in…

Ducati haven’t so much jumped on the Scrambler bandwagon, they’ve stolen it and piled it high with a huge number of slightly varying versions on the same theme. First the 800, back in 2015, then the slightly uninspiring 400 in 2016 and then the 1100 jostled its way into the loading area in 2018. And, of course, it’s not just one of each flavour. Oh no, you can have an Icon, Full Throttle, Classic, Urban Enduro, Flat-track Pro, Cafe Racer, Mach 2.0 and the Desert Sled. And that’s just the 800cc range. Thus far the 1100cc range has boasted nowhere near as many variants, but we now have two new ones to consider - the PRO and the Sport PRO. The blingiest is the Sport PRO complete with fully-adjustable Ohlins…

‘Our levels of idiocy mean it is very difficult to take any ofit seriously’ Peak hilarity occurs at 2.36pm when chief instructor Peter Boast (ex-pro speedway rider, British and European flat track champion, TT racer and sometime Bike road tester) has to get past ex-Bike editor Dickie Fincher (first time on a flat track bike, two false hips, likes a pie). Dickie knows Boastie’s coming because that’s the nature of this particular race - the fastest rider on one team has to lap the slowest rider of the other one to win. Boastie closes on Dickie like a peregrine falcon diving on a pottering pigeon, but he hasn’t reckoned on this pigeon’s cunning. Instead of taking the racing line, Dickie hugs the inside of every corner, leaving Boastie no room.…

MotoGP Live on BT Sport, and don’t forget that Moto2 and Moto3 races often serve the most entertainment. 11 October French GP, Le Mans 18 October Aragon GP, Aragon 25 October Tereul GP, Aragon 8 November European GP, Valencia 15 November Valencia GP, Valencia 22 November Portuguese GP, Algarve British Superbikes All are triple headers, one race Saturday, two races Sunday. Live on Eurosport, highlights on Quest and ITV4. 3-4 October Donington Park 17-18 October Brands Hatch World Superbikes One race Saturday, Superpole and second race Sunday. Live on Eurosport. 3-4 October Magny Cours, France 17-18 September Estoril, Portugal Subject to further Covid confusion…