Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2023 i BIKE

5 BIKES THAT REALLY MATTER THIS MONTH [NEW BIKES (ISH)] ‘A fully faired XSR with similar looks will appear in 2024 – and an R9 will come after that’ File this one under ‘why didn't I think of that?’. American Josh Merrill wanted to give his XSR900 a sportier look while sticking with the XSR's retro vibe, so he fitted a fairing copied from a 1992 YZF750 factory racer. The result is a bike that looks like an extremely well-finished Yamaha R9 prototype. Coincidentally, just as Josh finished his XSR900R, Yamaha revealed the Racer – an XSR900 with a nose fairing and single seat conversion (see below). A Yamaha Europe insider told Bike that a fully faired XSR with similar looks to Josh's build will appear in 2024. An R9 will…

BMW have a long and distinguished history of breathing deeply from the crackpipe of insanity and they've been at it again. With the new M1000XR, the German funsters have taken the ludicrously fast S1000XR upright sports tourer and given it an extra 35bhp, removed 3kg, uprated the brakes and added some carbon fibre wings. BMW's product manager Dominik Blass describes the new bike as ‘a long distance sports bike with high long-range capability and supersports riding dynamics for the road as well as the race track’. We thought the 165bhp S1000XR already had that angle covered, but clearly there was room for improvement. As Bike goes to press, details are sparse. BMW say the 999cc ShiftCam engine in the M XR makes 197bhp which suggests a slightly different state of…

Summer: then and now… ‘Singing Scorpions’ Wind Of Change at 2am with sloshed Dutch fans is a memory I'll hopefully never lose’ WHERE: All over that there Europe WHEN: 2000 WHO: Mike Armitage, editor » The plan was to go to the Assen round of World Superbike, so the obvious route was down through France, across the Alps and around Switzerland, a meander up through Germany and into the Netherlands. We'd camp and stay at the more scenic sites for a couple of nights. You know, make a proper trip of it. My badly attached tailpack fell into the back wheel on the first day, destroying my waterproofs and spare visor, and locking the wheel – the resulting skid put a huge hole in my brand-new tyre. I lost the group…

Summer: then and now… ‘I did my first GP, aged 18… I was lining up with the likes of Biaggi and it was amazing’ WHERE: All over the country… actually, the world WHEN: 1982-on WHO: James Haydon, ex-GP, WSB and BSB » The picture above is 1982. My dad had his XT500 for years and gave us all rides around the garden. I'd ride myself. I couldn't touch the floor so had to be caught when I stopped. I had a TY80 too. I'd ride it in the woods or fields until the police kicked us off. After racing motocross I moved to Ministocks on a TZR125, aged 16. The picture far left is outside our house and smiling for an attractive girl doing a photography project. I had a…

Go, go green laning There's a secret world out there. It's hiding in plain sight, just slightly beyond the one you know. Tucked inside, around, along and inbetween England's ever-expanding, ever-congested roads is an intricate, delicate network of green lanes. Gossamer-thin capillaries of gravel, grass and stone that feed off and join together the main arterial highways. These are completely legal routes that never received a covering of asphalt, but still possess legitimate, proven, historical vehicular rights. And they're routes you need to ride this summer – even if you don't own a dedicated dirt bike. For those prepared to cut the tarmac umbilical cord, green lanes are like discovering a hidden room in your house. They unlock new riding you never knew existed right on your doorstep, revealing spectacular…

Group test For the past four years Yamaha's Ténéré 700 has been living the high life. Virtually unchallenged in the way it deftly tip-toes the treacherous tightrope between road bike civility and off-piste ability, it's Bike's go-to adventurer for riders who fancy getting muddy from time to time. Affordable, reliable, manageable and desirable, the T7's recipe is so compelling it leaves you dumbstruck no other Japanese manufacturer has copied it… …until now. For 2023 a pair of suspiciously similarly spec'd alternatives have arrived in the shape of Honda's XL750 Transalp and Suzuki's V-Strom 800DE. Both also use mid-sized parallel twins with 270° cranks, share fundamentals with stripped-down streetbikes (Hornet and GSX-8S), and feature de rigueur long-travel suspension, large spoked wheels and veteran model names. On top of that, the newbies…

SKKKRRRCCCCCHHHH. The V-Strom's footpeg clanks sharply into the ground, briefly kicking up a loose handful of sparks. The unexpected impact disrupts the Strom's mid-corner stability and serenity, while instantly tripling my resting heart rate. Behind me, Boastie is on the Transalp no doubt shaking his head. I genuinely wasn't expecting to deck it out. After all, this new 800DE boasts, as Suzuki point out, ‘the highest ground clearance of any V-Strom model to date.’ With its long-legged 220mm of suspension travel (more than even the Ténéré offers) this is supposed to be a big, tall, high-rise roadster, riding way up above the ground to ensure it can genuinely survive the rough stuff off-road too. Seems I've just brought it – or, perhaps, it's brought me – back down to earth.…

Have you ever seen an R18 on the road? Ridden by an actual owner? Chances are your answer is ‘probably not’. This isn't because the biggest-ever boxer is a terrible motorcycle. Far from it. As we say in our listings section, it's a ‘just so balance of modern rideability, quality and classic feelings’. But a steep price at launch and clear cruiseriness have affected sales. And so the Bavarians have addressed their R18 situation by introducing the Roctane, which has less shiny stuff and the promise of an improved dynamic. Sounds good to us. The Roctane's launch is a two-day ride around Bavaria and, wisely, BMW have brought along other R18 variants for comparison. It's clear from the start that the Roctane offers more accuracy and cornering intent than any…

» A couple of Vespa 200s (out of four that started) finished the 1980 ParisDakar Rally, yet it took until 2017 for a factory to see the light and build a trailie scooter. Honda already had the estimable Integra 750 on the production line, so just think of the X-ADV as an XL125 to a CB125. Where trailie bike wheels are generally 21in front, 18in rear, the ADV's are 17 and 15, with knobblies on. It kinda works off-road, but really is way too heavy at 238kg to properly cut it. But on tarmac it's way more amusement. Keep it in full DCT transmission mode, wind on full gas at every turn, and it bings along nicely. It's taller than those lower-slung scoots, so you can see above traffic and…

When Norton's cafe racer prototype debuted at last year's NEC show there were rumours the 185bhp V4 would cost well over £25,000. In fact, the price for the V4-powered naked is £41,999 – over £10,000 more than Ducati's 208bhp Streetfighter V4 SP techfest. ‘I'm not afraid of the £42k price point,’ says Matthew Gilder, boss of Norton dealership Via Moto. ‘If it was £35,000, £25,000 or £15,000, people would still say it was too expensive anyway. It's built in Britain and the factory is staffed by British engineers and that's not a cheap thing to do. If they were making it in India [Norton is now owned by Indian company TVS – Ed] I'd hesitate about getting behind the bike. But I can completely understand that a low volume British-built…

It's a measure of KMR Racing's dominance of Supertwins that no-one batted an eyelid when Richard Cooper won the 2023 North West 200 Supertwin race on this hotted-up 2010 Kawasaki ER-6. And that was despite Cooper being up against the latest cutting-edge Aprilia RS660s, Yamaha R7s and purpose-built Paton race bikes. Even more amazingly, KMR Racing is not a vast team with loads of resources. It's essentially a bloke in a shed – albeit a remarkable bloke; as a racer, Ryan Farquhar won three TTs and more Irish national road races than anyone, ever. ‘I don't class myself as an engine tuner,’ Ryan tells Bike from his workshop in Dungannon, Northern Ireland. ‘I'm a plant fitter who started racing motorcycles and has a passion for Supertwins. I've just been tinkering…

Summer: then and now… WHERE: Bol D'or, Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, France WHEN: 1982 WHO: Hugo Wilson, former Bike editor » All of those clichés about the Bol d'Or in the 1980s are true. The famous endurance race was an end of summer rite of passage on which the sun always shone. In 1982 I rode to Circuit Paul Ricard on my Moto Morini 3½, with Paul and Robyn on a Laverda 750 and Tony and Andy on a BMW R90/6. We were led at speed down arcing roads in the Massif Central by a local on a BMW R69/S. We were flashed by prostitutes on the outskirts of Marseilles (whose propositioning technique was to lift their skirts and shout ‘Oyoyoyo’), raced up the Autoroute d'Soleil barging through…

Summer: then and now… WHERE: Manx Grand Prix, Isle of Man WHEN: 2014 WHO: Dave Collister, road racing photographer » I have a real soft spot the Manx Grand Prix on the Isle of Man. The event still has a genuine hark-back feel about it, especially when you mix in all the heady two-stroke fumes that the TT lost a long time ago I love how in this shot the bike is almost lost in a sea of green, the signpost giving an indication of where to look. The picture is of Dave Hewson – who's crew chief for Franco Bourne, see p134 – on his way to sixth place in the 2014 Formula 2 Classic TT on a 1991 reverse-cylinder Yamaha TZ250. This makes the picture even more special…

This is the first launch I've ever attended where the key question is nothing to do with how good the new bike is. Instead of ‘how much faster?’ or ‘how much comfier?’, the question is simply ‘why?’ Why go to all the trouble of heavily updating a bike that hardly anyone wants? At the world launch of the new Niken GT here in Sardinia, Yamaha won't say how many Nikens they've sold since the model appeared in 2019, but one sales graph suggests it's around 2000. That's less than 500 a year – globally. By comparison, Yamaha shifted more than 80,000 Tracer 9s and 40,000 Tracer 7s. Even the old FJR1300 sold 20,000. ‘Yes, there was a discussion about whether we should stop making the Niken,’ admits Yamaha's European product…

Though it doesn't get your head spinning or turn your insides all gooey, we like CFMoto's 700CL-X. The Chinese-made 693cc parallel twin is chirpy, eager, has a decent specification, doesn't take itself too seriously and is nicely made for its £7349 OTR asking price. We ran a Heritage long-term test bike a couple of years ago and it was enjoyable, practical and reliable. Now, this new CL-X Adventure makes it more, well, adventurey. Key changes include a more relaxed riding position, blocky tyres, natty luggage mounts, passenger grab rail, plus a screen tacked on. Truth be told it wasn't originally intended for the UK, but the success of other models changed all that. And it's brought here by KTM. Their parent company Pierer Mobility AG have a long relationship with…

Suzuki to Sahara: the end Tomorrow I will ride the GSX-S1000GT on Erg Chebbi, the biggest sand dune in the Sahara. Apparently it's 150m high and covers almost 100 square miles. ‘A road leads into the sand at Merzouga near the Algerian border,’ says my new friend Hassan. He's one of three lads who run the riad (a Moroccan house/hotel mash-up) I'm staying at, and is a fount of useful information. ‘That word you keep saying,’ he mentions after handing me a tagine, ‘is not what you think.’ This is worrying because ‘shakran’ – which I thought meant thank you – is the only Arabic word I've got the hang of. ‘Yes, but few people speak Arabic here,’ says Hassan. What? My face drops. I know my research can be…

Metzeler's modern M7 RR revives our 1990s Kwak » Replacing the old rubber on our very secondhand Kawasaki ZZ-R600 with something contemporary and sporty didn't feel entirely like the right thing. Increasingly pessimistic with advancing years, I assumed tyres ‘derived from experience in road racing and engineered to empower sport riders’ would either a) be rather poorly matched to the chassis of a squidgy sports-tourer from the early 1990s, b) not get into their operating range bimbling down back lanes, or c) both. How wrong I was. Metzeler's M7 RR is a tyre crafted using race-inspired profiles, but it's got lots of silica for wet grip (the front is 100% silica, the rear dual compound) and fancy water-shifting grooves. The ZZ-R steers, corners and holds a line with new-found eagerness,…

That the Tiger 850 Sport is a decent motorcycle is not up for discussion. Its three-cylinder engine gargles out easy-access drive, the quite softly-set suspension swallows the sinkholesize imperfections of my local roads, and things like the headlight and brakes are all good. The 20-litre fuel tank and nigh-on 50mpg are welcome features in day-to-day use, as are the modest rear rack and ample bungee locations. It's all pleasant. Three months with the bike has confirmed all this, not to mention various other nice things. They're accepted facts. However, now our time with the 850 has ended I find myself struggling to remember any of the actual rides. It's just not made memories. Back in the April issue we took the Triumph around the superb Snowdonia 360 route alongside the…

Know How [ Racing ] In the spotlight There are more pit garages at Donington than at some circuits, and as we were leading the championship we got allocated one. Franco was signing autographs in the pitlane walkabout – the lad's alright with this sort of stuff. Trying times This was a difficult weekend. Franco had a minor tip off in FP2, a bit of arm pump, and then false neutrals in the race which made him run into the gravel at Redgate. ‘Things like this happen – it's how you respond and bounce back that counts’…

Summer: then and now… WHERE: Kent Custom Bike Show WHEN: 1988 WHO: Chippy Wood, legendary photographer » Our club was the Wydoz, named after the gang in Any Which Way You Can (born at the BMF rally after a drunken argument with a man twice my size - I waved a fist of burning straw under his beard, asking if he thought he was ‘a Black Widow’). Kent Custom Show was run by the Kent Hells Angels on Romney Marsh. Eight of us rode down on Friday morning, the flagstones cracking before high noon. What a feeling - in my teens, not a care in the world, Kawasaki Z650 beneath me on my longestever trip. The rally was packed, thousands of bikers with the same idea as us: get pissed,…

BMW M1000R v Ducati Streetfighter V4 S These two motorcycles make mahoosive amounts of the horsepowers. Not just for a naked. Oh no. We're talking ginormous numbers regardless of type, style, or genre of bike. The bewildering 999cc inline four in BMW's new M1000R pushes out 208bhp, while the 1103cc V4 at the centre of Ducati's Streetfighter V4 S has an equally potty 205bhp. Add in superbike levels of electronic wizardry and trackday slaying chassis capabilities, and they take the successful supernaked formula to a brain-scrambling new level. You could go as far as to class them as hypernakeds. So, let's do that. They're hypernakeds… It's not stretching things to whack a ‘hyper’ tag onto the M1000R. New for this year and costing just under £20k, the BMW is essentially…

It would be all too easy to dismiss Harley-Davidson's new 120th Anniversary CVO Road Glide Limited simply because of its price tag. Which is £50,677, just in case you're wondering. But, for now, let's not get bogged down in the unpleasantness of money, instead let's deal with the bike, simply as a bike… We'll get to the financial bit at the end, no doubt. So, just what do we have here? Well this particular Road Glide is all to do with the Motor Company's 120th Anniversary celebrations. And as the oldest motorcycle manufacturer in unbroken production, celebrate they should. Just 1500 will be built and of those 20 are coming to the UK and Ireland. So not many. Engine first: in place of the stock Road Glide Ltd's Milwaukee Eight…

Group test Parked in a layby, whipping out our jackets’ thermal liners as we bask in balmy late spring sun, Boastie and I spot it almost simultaneously. A gravel track, starting just a few feet away from where we're standing and leading oh-so-temptingly deep into the heather-lined wilderness. The surface looks dry, rut-free, hard-packed and plenty wide enough for, say, a middleweight adventure bike to trundle down. The same thought runs through our minds: ‘I wonder where that goes…’ Disappointingly, we don't have time to find out today. But if we were taking these three bikes away from the tarmac and having a nosey down a freshly discovered byway, there's no doubt which key we'd be fighting for. Toweringly tall and supermodel slim, the Ténéré 700 feels way more of…

TT 2023 RIDER:Peter Hickman TEAM: FHO Racing BIKE: BMW M1000RR WHEN: RST Superbike TT, 4.34pm, Sunday 4 June 2023 GEAR 6 SPEED 186mph THROTTLE POSITION 100% Crosby is a small village between Glen Vine and Greeba, on the A1. This corner is four and a half miles into the lap – it's a few hundred metres past the start of the 30mph limit, just after St Runius Church and just before the handily located Co-op. Hickman approaches with his M1000RR on a wide open throttle in top gear, rolls off momentarily to 40% throttle, then drives through the turn on 100% gas. At this point shown he's oversteering, the drifting BMW pointing at the inside wall at 35 degrees of lean, at a datalogged 186mph. WHERE: A1, entering Crosby, 30mph…

ANY TWIN TROUBLES? The air/oil-cooled parallel twin has proved to be sweet, smooth, free-revving and entirely suitable. There are no major reliability concerns although some find dealer servicing expensive so choose to do it themselves – so check for some sort of history evidence. Popular engine upgrades include fitting a freer-flowing air-filter and an aftermarket exhaust/silencer, both of which improve power and aural quality, but shouldn't add much to the asking price. Some owners swap the gearbox sprocket from the 16-tooth standard item to a 15-toother, for more relaxed cruising. CYCLE PART WOES Brakes, suspension, wheels and tyres all perform perfectly fine. The brakes were the subject of the Interceptor's only safety recall to date in May 2020 when they were replaced due to corrosion fears. Owner suspension upgrades are…

Know How [ Out and about ] There are definitely more attractive locations than a McDonald's car park, but our rendezvous point has benefits. The most obvious is it's close to the main arteries that'll carry us on our way, but the illuminated golden arches and dubious odour will also be easy to find for six bleary-eyed fools early on a Saturday morning. Last summer the Sons of Atrophy Motorcycle Club had a happy jaunt around Yorkshire (with only one breakdown), and the year before had a joyous romp in North Wales. For this year's group excursion, the plan is to meander through the Cotswolds and nip into the Mendip Hills on our way to enjoying the coastal delights of Somerset and Devon. For which the obvious tool is a hairy…

[ Events ] ‘The big dog when it comes to bike nights is London's Ace Cafe’ Ashby Folville Bike Night LE14 2TE every second and fourth Tuesday » Ashby Folville sits between Melton Mowbray and Leicester and their bike night happens at the village local - The Carrington Arms. The pub does food and expect to see beer from the likes of Grainstore and Charnwood. You might even run across editor Armitage, it's pretty much his local summer bike meet. Search Ashby Folville on Facebook Willingham Woods bike cafe LN8 3RQ Wednesday evenings » If you live in, or fancy a ride out to, the East of England think Willingham Woods bike cafe. There's a huge carpark which draws in bikes pretty much all week long. However, the ‘official’ meets…

Know How [ Weird & Wonderful ] Hey, it's not easy being a small Italian factory. You have to innovate to survive. Having launched the excellent (but expensive in the UK) 350 Strada and Sport V-twins in 1972, Moto Morini unveiled a 500 for 1977 and had already begun work on a turbocharged 500 in 1976. Morini's 72º vee was hardly an ideal candidate for forced induction. One big snag was the exhaust ports. Because this clever, compact engine used the same cylinder head casting for both front and rear heads, the front cylinder's exhaust port exited front right, the rear's rear left – two entirely different directions from which to harness exhaust gas for the turbocharger. Engineer Franco Lambertini (architect of the V-twins) was not going to let either plumbing…