Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i BIKE

My first bike was a Honda C90 when I was about 14. It had a boisterous home-made pipe, an air filter made from old tights, and XL185 rear shocks. It was used with gusto on local fields and tracks, until some bigger boys asked if they could have a razz… and simply rode off on it. Since then there’s been a variety of delights: from BMW Funduro to Suzuki GSX-R, from Royal Enfield Bullet to Kawasaki ER-6f, not to mention very many two strokes. (Some clunkers too, including a rather questionable Yamaha Majesty.) This picture was taken about six years ago. The Mobylette V50, Suzuki GT200 X5 and MZ TS250 Supa 5 have all found new homes, replaced by other equally varied metal. Accepting an increasingly hazy memory, I think…

Billy hits every obstacle so, so hard,’ Husqvarna’s Andreas Hölzl tells Bike. ‘We worked for many years to give the suspension enough durability so he does not break it. The sport [hard enduro] is developing really fast and now it’s far more difficult and dangerous than it used to be, so the bikes have to keep pace.’ The result is the TE300 single-cylinder two-stroke you see here. At first glance it looks like the bike you can buy in dealers for £10,349, but of course it’s not: this is a full factory machine. ‘For Billy’s riding style, you need different WP suspension,’ says Andreas. ‘We could not let him ride with stock suspension because it would not work. It’s not that the stock suspension isn’t good – it is –…

A side from the Harley-Davidson Sportster motor and wheel rims, almost everything on this bike is handmade – the frame, forks, swingarm, fuel tank… the lot. Even the two shocks (one for each end) are built from multiple other shocks. And if it looks like art, there’s a good reason for that: it is. It was commissioned from metal bender extraordinaire Andika Pratama by a Swiss gallery where it now sits, attracting admiration and dust. But it does actually work? ‘It’s surprisingly comfortable to ride,’ Andika tells Bike from his workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia. ‘The handling is stable, and the riding position is relatively practical because we made the bike low to give a more sporty impression. And obviously it becomes the centre of attention wherever you ride because of…

Clobber for you and your motorcycle PRICE £299.99 LS2 X-Force off-road helmet WHAT IS IT? A carbon fibre off-road lid in four shell sizes weighing 1200g. Fully-vented with removable cheek pads, and the first off-road-specific helmet to achieve FIM-2 homologation (MX, speedway, enduro). WHAT DO WE LIKE? A prime example of a top-end hat for a value price. If you’re a serious off-roader to the extent your exertions require a built-in hydration system, the X-Force has it. Nothing is as easy to use or as secure as double D-ring fastening – the X-Force has that. Need a shatter-proof peak to combat roost in extreme terrain? It has one. Even comes with a backpack for carrying, not a bri-nylon gym bag. Top item, decent price. HOW MUCH AND WHERE FROM? £299.99…

In 28 miles we’ll be at Scotch Corner, reckons the large blue sign. We’re heading north on the A1M, having brushed aside 150 miles since leaving Bike’s leaky shed in Peterborough. Thrilling roads, challenging topography and breathtaking scenery are our intended destination – the ideal environment to test BMW’s new R1300GS TE and Ducati’s hugely capable Multistrada V4 S. I’m already very impressed by the GS. Motorway miles can be a drag, especially if you’re on the wrong bike, but right now the 1300 is making this trip to the North Pennines an unexpected pleasure. Heated grips and seat gently warm my extremities, while the superb electrically adjustable screen protects my substantial torso from the autumnal chill. Two and half hours in the saddle, with not even a hint of…

Ready to scoot Riders line up their Lambrettas ready to head out on to the circuit at Cadwell Park. If you haven’t witnessed scooter racing you might mistakenly assume it’s a rather tame form of motorsport, but you could not be further from the truth. The BSSO (British Scooter Sport Organisation) essentially have three classes to compete in: Production – 200cc and strict controls on all parts to make all machines identical; Group 4 – again 200cc but tuning options are increased and more parts can be upgraded; and Super Scooters – pretty much anything goes here regarding tuning and bodywork but with a few limitations, such as the wheel size must remain as standard and engines must be from the same type of scooter as the frame. Knees down…

TRIUMPH ROCKET III 2004-2017 Engine: 2294cc inline triple Power (tested): 120bhp @ 5200rpm Torque (tested): 140 lb.ft @ 3100rpm Dry weight: 320kg Rake/trail: 32°/152mm Wheelbase: 1695mm Top speed (est): 130mph TRIUMPH ROCKET 3 2020 ONWARDS Engine: 2458cc inline triple Power (tested): 145bhp @ 5750rpm Torque (tested): 146 lb.ft @ 3850rpm Dry weight: 291kg Rake/trail: 27.9°/134.9mm Wheelbase: 1677mm Top speed (tested): 139mph I t weighs a humongous third of a ton even before you dump five gallons into its vast fuel tank, is longer than a Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar solo, and features a riding position a bit like flying a hang-glider while straddling a Hereford bull. The original Rocket III also has a whacking three-cylinder motor with pistons the same size as a Dodge Viper V10 car engine and the physical…

FROM £3750 CONTROLS & DISPLAY Deploy caution. The right-hand ’bar grip can work loose when the glue bonding it to the throttle tube fails, and sticking starter buttons are a common issue – and can cook the starter solenoid. Yamaha were aware of the issue and some switches were replaced under warranty. If you’re unsure if it’s been addressed, a Yamaha dealer should be able to tell you. Owners also cite the inaccurate fuel gauge as an irritation – the low fuel light flashes way too early. Tracers are good for 50mpg-plus under normal riding conditions, so should manage around 200 miles per tank. ENGINE ISSUES The 689cc parallel twin is reliable, with service intervals every 6000 miles. The valve clearance inspection is at 24,000 miles – most don’t need…

The B1176 is one of those roads you don’t expect in west Lincolnshire – it’s all yomps, blind brows and third gear corners. No Fenland tedium here. And the V-Strom 800 is well-nigh perfect to extract maximum giggles. A sportsbike would be excruciating over the bumps, a GS would be too hefty in the tighter corners and a big naked would have blown my head off getting here on the A1. We’re in V-Strom sweet spot territory. In fact, after 2600 miles on the Strom, there have only been twon roads outside the sweet spot. One was a wild, open stretch of the North York Moors that required a Kawasaki H2 SX to truly take advantage of the perfect visibility and lack of traffic. The other was a narrow part…

1 Jamie Turner 18 months ago our engineering genius wrote how amazing a single based on Ducati’s 1299 would be… and now here’s the Superquadro Mono. Jamie’s all over it. Tech, page 20 2 Jim Moore Experienced, straight-talking, Jim was dispatched north to put the new R1300GS and class-leading Multistrada beak-to-beak. Buying a big adventure bike? Read this first. BMW v Ducati, page 32 3 Mat Oxley Marc Marquez is the biggest name in MotoGP, and his move from Honda to Ducati is the biggest shock in years. Mat sits him down and asks the big questions. Marc Marquez interview, page 40 4 Martin Fitz-Gibbons Our resident alternative fuel nerd, MFG jumped at the chance to ride an electric Zero and win a 100-year-old ACU trophy. Nobody mentioned it’d be…

BATTERIES IN THE TAIL This gives extra capacity and helps shift the weight distribution backwards. Tacita have patented the design. LIQUID COOLING This greatly extends the time you can spend at full power. There’s enough to give the Discanto a top speed limited to 94mph. GEARBOX Yes, an electric bike with one. The five-speed gearbox is claimed to increase range and performance. It also adds a bit of noise. This Tacita Discanto electric bike is – hopefully – now whirring across the dunes in Saudi Arabia in the Dakar Rally’s ‘Mission 1000’ class for electric and hydrogen vehicles. The route isn’t as long as the full-on Dakar – the ten sections are limited to 100km each – but the terrain is the same: nightmarish. ‘The Dakar is part of our…

Because motorcycle engineering is beautiful Joy of joys: another new engine. Not as all-up new as the BMW R1300GS, but it’s required expenditure by Ducati. And it’s a desmo, so there are double reasons to celebrate… But more on that later. The Superquadro Mono is effectively a single-cylinder version of the 1299 Panigale’s V-twin. They share the same bore but have different strokes, the Mono’s being 62.4mm versus 60.8mm for the twin. But it’s definitely not all they share. The Mono is a great business case as it uses slews of 1299 parts – effectively it’s the front cylinder canted upwards, given a new crank and balancing system, then swiping the heads, valves, camshafts, cam drive, piston and presumably other parts apparently wholesale. That’s real common-sense thinking. Long-time readers will…

Land's End Wednesday, 7.46am This may be Land’s End, but our journey is just getting started. For centuries this legendary Cornish headland has marked the beginning and the culmination of countless crazy quests. Weirdly, I’d imagined something more magical than a damp, desolate car park. Arriving before sunrise, we’ve unloaded a pair of Zero DSR/X electric motorcycles and are now shivering from a mix of nerves, anticipation and a 5°C winter’s morning. We are mercifully oblivious to the fact this is the warmest our trip will get. Six strangers, two bikes and two support vans. For the next three days and two nights, this travelling circus is on a non-stop adventure round England, Scotland and Wales in search of a place in history. Our prize, should we succeed, is the…

Hyper buyers Extraordinary motorcyclists live among us. These exotic creatures stalk showrooms up and down the land, buying bikes at a rate that seems utterly outlandish to the rest of us. They get itchy wallets after weeks or months, buying new motorcycles almost as often as we go through earplugs. And they’re not millionaires or traders. These are ordinary blokes (and they are all blokes) who love the thrill of the new so much that all the usual ball-aches – depreciation, changing insurance, road tax, etc – are insignificant. Welcome to the world of the hyper buyer… Ken Clarke Bikes owned: 824 Age: 82 Average number of bikes bought per year: 12 It’s a measure of Ken Clarke’s fantastical motorcycling life that buying a BMW S1000R (163bhp, 167mph) when he…

Adventure Something was different. What was it? I tried to pull my mind back into focus from the early afternoon reverie it had drifted into, aided by the soporific hot sun. The bike was running well, no odd noises, just the regular beat of the single-cylinder motor. No strange handling to indicate a puncture. My luggage was still secure, too. Dust. Where was the dust? That’s what was missing. I pulled up on a rocky outcrop and turned my engine off. I could see across the harsh Nevada landscape for miles in all directions, and nothing stirred. No dust cloud spearheaded by the dot of a motorcycle. No engine noise. No sounds at all, in fact. I shouted as loud as I could. Nothing. My son had disappeared. When I…

» …And never has been with Ducatis. The 848 ran from 2007-2013 and remains one of the niftiest and real-world swiftest Dukes. It’s flat-out pretty, too – not an acquired taste like a 749 or 999, just neat, tidy and unfussy from any angle. Still with underseat pipes, too. You don’t need a flash EVO, Corse, or SE version either – the bog-standard 848 is plenty. Here are the numbers: 122bhp, 66 lb.ft, 166mph, 166kg dry. If you believe you require more than that on the road get a 1098 – and regret it. A decent 848 is £6-8k – lithe, zippy, aurally rewarding, no major vices. The current SuperSport 950 is heavier, less powerful, and £14,495; the Panigale V2 is over £17k. Little math required.…

Your attitude and behaviour when you’re pulled over by a traffic cop can sometimes make a big difference to the end result. Get it right and you can get what we call ‘words of advice’ rather than a ticket. Things not to do? Well, if you’ve just been pulled for speeding and stay sitting on the bike with the engine running and your arms folded, you’re setting a tone. Add a bit of ‘what did you stop me for? I wasn’t doing anything’, and I guarantee the copper won’t be thinking of words of advice. The key here is honesty. If you were doing 90, insisting you were only doing 70 and that the cop is wrong will just wind them up. A better approach would be to turn off…

[ Watching ] ‘Follow Pecco’s practice woes, qualifying recovery and title celebrations’ Racing: Behind the scenes While we eagerly await lights out for MotoGP 2024, remind yourself how 2023 ended with this short documentary following Francesco Bagnaia at the Valencia finale. Practice woes, qualifying recovery, title celebrations, and a red jacket that only a world champ could pull off… YouTube search: #BACK2BACKgnaia | Ducati and Pecco’s intense showdown for MotoGP glory Nostalgia: Finding yourself Several years back my brother-in-law trawled YouTube for nostalgia with his dad, ex-racer Geoff Went. They found this: the 1974 BP Bill Ivy Race at Brands Hatch. What they didn’t expect was the comms at the end of lap one: ‘The leader is number 94… Geoff Went.’ Yup, they’d stumbled on footage of him. And great…

ELECTRONICS TFT screen comes from other 660 models. There are three rider modes instead of two though – Sport, Road and Rain. Bluetooth connectivity comes as standard. ENGINE 660cc triple delivers 17 per cent more power (94bhp) and nine per cent more torque (51 lb.ft) than the Trident. Service intervals remain at 10,000 miles. SUSPENSION 41mm Showa big-piston forks are a step up from the Trident’s, as is the Showa rear shock. ‘It’s nowhere near as sporty as the old 675 Daytona, but it’s closer than many hoped’ CLUTCH Improved slipper clutch for smoother corner entry when you stamp down the ’box. Quickshifter is an optional extra. Triumph are gunning for the blossoming middleweight sportsbike market harder than we predicted; rather than just sticking a fairing on the excellent Trident…

BATTERY This uses lithium iron phosphate cells but instead of going for a high amp-hour (Ah) rating it goes for a high voltage (320V) like an electric car. Nominal capacity is 6.4kWh. MOTOR Peak is 40kW (54bhp) and torque is a ludicrous 420 lb.ft (but there’s no gearbox multiplying grunt, like a petrol bike). They say 0-62mph in 4.9sec, which suggests the Kemper isn’t light. WHO ARE YADEA? A massive Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer – they were founded in 2001 and made the most electric two-wheelers on the planet between 2016 to 2022. Yadea employs 1000 staff… just in R&D. If this 10-minute claim was bandied about by a start-up company, we’d dismiss it out of hand. After all, a high-end Energica takes 40 minutes to do the same thing.…

Time was running out. At sunrise, my girlfriend and I would depart Midlothian, Texas, on my BMW R1200RS to attend an antique motorcycle show 202 miles away in Burnet, Texas. The special guest scheduled to appear at the show was 500cc world champion Kevin Schwantz, so my pre-ride preparation included finding something for Rev’n Kevin to autograph. I was at a loss until that afternoon when the November 2023 issue of Bike arrived in my mailbox. Flipping through the issue, as you do, I found what I was looking for – an article that included Q-Tip sharing his greatest weekend. Perfect! Just in time – into the pannier you go. Arriving at the show, I grabbed my copy of Bike, opened it to page 39, and asked Mr Schwantz if…

First Ride Big wide ’bars, a comfy seat and a screen that offers a decent amount of wind protection. That’s all a lot of riders look for in an adventure bike, and these are all things that Triumph’s revised Tiger 900 delivers. But for me? Well, I want more. I want an exciting engine. I want a capable chassis, crave bundles of tech, and of course pretty much insist the ability to go off-road too – and I mean yumps, jumps and roosters, not just plodding between the hedges. With its updates for 2024, the Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro doesn’t just tick these boxes, it moves the game to the next level. Here in the mountainous landscape of southern Spain, there are more twisty roads and hefty off-road trails…

BUCKET AT THE READY Clearly, the Scrambler targets jacket ‘n’ jeans sunny-day riders, but it doesn’t need much more than a wet road for the rear shock and pipes to get plastered. Ducati don’t offer an accessory hugger; other firms do, but they spoil the minimalist look. Keep a sponge handy instead. PROPER DOOCARDY Seems these days that every other new bike is a parallel twin with a ‘V-twin-alike’ 270° crank. But there’s still something nicer about the noise of Ducati’s trad’ air-cooled, two-valve-head Vee. Pipe is just loud and deep enough to sound proper without annoying neighbours. THE DEVIL'S IN… Plenty of pleasing details, including machined finishes on the 803cc motor and a machined ’bar clamp with etched logo. Scrambler Icons come in red, yellow or black; our bike…

HJC C80 Dual Sport modular helmet Used for: 10 months Price: £259.99 Info: oxfordproducts.com » My first helmet was an old thing swiped out the Bike lock-up. It had a visor and some padding and was perfectly fine – I was an excited 16-year-old who’d just got his first bike so a bucket with a slot cut in would have done. I replaced it with a used HJC I70 that was lighter, comfier, plusher – just nicer all round. It was an ‘ah, I see’ moment. And this C80 is a step on again. The vents are better (I particularly like the large easy-to-press one on the front), the aperture is ample, and the side-mounted control for the drop-down sun visor means you don’t have to feel around on top…

Know How [ Weird & Wonderful ] When a factory dominates the 250cc and 350cc classes of Grand Prix racing for four years on the trot, it would be remiss of that firm not to offer some sort of celebratory creation off the back of it. Kawasaki put various badges on their lamentable Z250 four-stroke twin, along with green paint to mark their four 250cc world titles (Kork Ballington 1978-79, Anton Mang 1980-81) and four 350cc titles (Ballington 1978-79, Mang 1981-82), but it was hardly milking a comprehensive drubbing of the opposition. In 1983 they revealed the KR250 at the Tokyo Show. It shared no parts whatsoever with the track machines, but did boast Uni-Trak rear suspension like the racer and was largely green. And the engine layout nodded to the…