Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i BIKE

The CB900F was Honda's flagship sportsbike from 1979-1983, taking on the likes of Suzuki's GS1000 and Yamaha's XS1100. Freddie Spencer made his name racing them in the States, and they were endurance raced a lot in Europe – hence the Bol d'Or name over here. In fact, the merry band of ne'er-do-wells in Team Bike can claim a smidge of credit for that moniker, as they campaigned a CB900 at the Bol and took one to 10th place at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1982 (see page 44).…

If you like the idea of a comfortable touring motorcycle with a top-notch stereo but would prefer it to accelerate like a Patriot missile, we have just the thing: the new Harley CVO Road Glide RR (CVO standing for Custom Vehicle Operations, Harley's fancy-dan department). It's a hilariously accurate replica of Harley's King of the Baggers factory race bikes, with a 2153cc V-twin putting out 153bhp at 5750rpm – the biggest and most powerful production engine Harley have ever made. Peak torque is a gargantuan 150 lb.ft (twice that of a V-Strom 1000). If anything, the chassis is more astonishing. Like the race bikes, the swingarm is machined from a single block of aluminium. The rear shocks are remote reservoir Öhlins that allow for ride height adjustment (important if you…

Bike: The voice of motorcycling since 1971 You had to tip your cap to Yamaha's engineers when the FZ750 hit the streets in spring 1985. After several previous flawed attempts, they'd finally done everything right. The FZ was the firm's first great four-stroke sportsbike – a brilliantly fast, fine-handling, high-tech four. Yamaha's only problem was that Suzuki had just launched the GSX-R750. And while we didn't know it when the two scrapped for space on Bike‘s July cover, it wasn't the FZ but the light, racy, aluminium-framed GSX-R that was set to shape the future. Yamaha's challenger impressed just about everyone who rode one, though – this writer (and already GSX-R owner) very much included. After thrashing the Yam for a fortnight on often damp UK tarmac I gushed that,…

Be a riding sensation Wheelies past the pub? All well and good. But to really be a biking master this summer you need to go to the next level. Our wild-riding experts reveal how. Extreme skills, page 32 Bike of the season Triumph's new Tiger Sport 800 is like their greatest hits album. We retrace the iconic 1905 test of the first all-Triumph bike on this summer's must-ride model. 120 years in the making, page 52 Make every ride shine Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. Same with your riding. Here are the must-know tips to make your two-wheel life really glow. 52 expert tips, page 40 Summer in a bottle Warm nights, a party atmosphere, and race bikes being thrashed around the clock. Team…

Shafts of late evening sunlight scatter like strobes through a great arch of birch branches reaching overhead, enclosing the arrow-straight road in a clawed tunnel. I frown, dazzled by the flickering contrast. We're ten hours into the ride, lost in that beautiful, mesmeric zone of furrowed concentration where the Triumph's haptic feedback – suspension, engine response, tyre grip, steering – is entirely absorbed into the rider's perception of the world. The road is bumpy and ill-kempt, ripples and potholes shuddering through the bike – and, thoughts drifting in the flashing daylight, my imagination plays tricks. For a moment this isn't 2025; it's 120 years earlier in 1905, right back in the formative years of motorcycling. And the Triumph isn't a brand-new Tiger Sport 800, it's the very first all-Triumph motorcycle:…

‘Art thou base, common and popular?’ asks a low-ranking soldier of the concealed king during Billy Shakespeare's war-mongering word salad, Henry V. But ‘popular’ here doesn't have today's meaning – Henry isn't being asked how beloved he is, or how many followers he has on Tikstagram, but whether he is odinary; normal; ‘of the populace’. In recent years ‘popular’ bikes haven't always been ‘of the populace’, with sales charts regularly topped by big-ticket, high-end, high-tech flagships. Elite S1000RRs outsell everyman CBR650Rs. Ducati shift more big-money Multistrada V4s than entry-level Scramblers. Fully loaded GSs eclipse affordable Ténérés. All brilliant bikes, no doubt, just a long way from the reach and the means of the average British rider. But a notable exception has arrived. A fresh style of bike that's proving to…

» Louie is restrained by a four-point harness. He can lie down and move around, but he can't get out. » Louie wears Rex Specs goggles. We trained him by simply giving him his dinner in them for a few days. » Louie can lie down and sleep or sit behind the screen in the sidecar. When he sticks his head above the screen so his lips flap, it's for the sheer joy of it. » Chain lube does not come out of a Dalmatian's coat. Ever. But at least it looks like a spot. » Travelling with a pet to Europe is a massive bureaucratic headache. The UK system is an Animal Health Certificate (AHC), and you need to pay for a new one every single trip. An EU…

Let's get straight to the crux. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm pissed off at getting old. The big 60 is beckoning, and Bike‘s ‘Italian Issue’ (May 2024) arrives at a moment when I'm struggling with that fact. Searching for comfort in the magazine's pages – what American shrinks call ‘restorative nostalgia’ – I grumpily argue with myself over the top ten Greatest Italians of All Time, Victor Meldrew-like tendencies fully apparent. My mind drifts back to 1977. It was the year of the glossy poster. Farrah Fawcett, Star Wars, the Bay City Rollers – and of course Barry Sheene – papered the walls of teenage Britain. My favourite, however, was smaller and less glossy; a magazine centre spread that fitted perfectly inside my school desk:…

Depending which day you speak to me, you'll get a completely different verdict on my many months with our F900GS. If I've spent hours on the M6, I'll chunter about the lack of cruise control (a £360 option) and narrow seat. Catch me after thrashing down my local B-roads and I'll explain why every motorcycle should have suspension this brilliant. After a day on A-roads I'll moan about the boring engine. And if I've just ridden some fast trails, you'll get no sense from me at all – it'll just be grins, squeaks and dribbling. Whether you'll like the F900GS really does depend on what you plan to do with it. Of course, this applies to many bikes, but the GS is remarkably focused. Maybe BMW were worried if they…

Moto Guzzi have been making motorcycles for 104 years. Continuously. Sure, they may have notched things down a tad from time to time, embraced the odd new backer here and there – but by any means necessary, they have endured. And put some standout bikes on road and track, too. Sadly, there isn't space to pore over the factory's world championship-winning Grand Prix singles. Five 350cc titles on the trot from 1953-1957, all masterminded by Giulio Carcano, architect of the still mind-warping 1956 500cc V8, and the 90° transverse V-twin that's underpinned Guzzi's range since 1967. Carcano was a true Renaissance man of design and engineering. He penned racing yachts as well as motorcycle chassis and engines, and held fast to the principles of simplicity, low mass and minimal frontal…

1 Martin Fitz-Gibbons Inquisitive, determined, MFG has tracked down riders with wild abilities and got them to spill the beans of how to be a two-wheeled superstar. Your summer riding will never be the same again… Extreme skills, page 32 2 John Westlake Nothing screams ‘summer’ like the sights, sounds, smells and silliness of endurance racing. John infiltrates Team Bike and gets the behind-the-scenes stories from a decade of sun-drenched chaos. Run to the sun, page 44 3 Simon Hargreaves Always fond of a challenge, we gave Si the Tiger Sport 800 and told him to retrace an iconic huge-mile test from 1905. But do it in half the time. It's the only test of the new Triumph that you need to read. 120 years in the making, page 52…

SWINGARM This is at a jaunty angle because the engine drive shaft is so high – a necessity because the engine is upside-down (in helicopters the turbine exhausts exit upwards, which would cook the rider on a bike). ENGINE The Rolls-Royce C20B is a free turbine. This means it has a compressor spinning at 51,000rpm, and the exhaust gases spin a power turbine to around 44,000 – the two are not physically connected. A gearbox then reduces rpm further and drives the rear wheel. To celebrate 25 years since they first powered a motorcycle with a helicopter jet turbine, American company MTT have launched this anniversary edition of the 420RR. The basic numbers are the same as the standard bike: 420bhp at 51,000rpm, 500 lb.ft of torque (the latest R1300GS…

One of the star bikes on offer at Bonhams’ Stafford Show auction on April 26 is this Honda RC30 that Carl Fogarty rode to victory in the 1989 750cc Production TT – his first ever TT win. Given that it's such a fabulous piece of racing history, we called Bonhams’ bike consultant Dave Hancock to see if he knew any more of its provenance. ‘Yeah, I ran it in,’ he says, sniggering at the sound of Bike‘s jaw hitting the floor. ‘I was a Honda area sales manager in 1989 and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the one I ran in. Honda had registered two RC30s for Carl to race and I spent three weeks riding this one round to all my dealers in the…

»Turn tighter than ever before Former British MotoGymkhana champion Rob Fox reveals the secrets of low-speed sorcery ‘When I started in MotoGymkhana I was getting my knee down, taking wide lines, riding like a maniac. Loads of fun, but my times were appalling. I started scrutinising videos from Japan, and learned it's not about riding fast, it's about riding the shortest distance. I changed my technique. ‘In Gymkhana we need to lean the bike over so it can turn tightly. I keep my bum in the middle of the seat and grip the tank with my legs. Don't slide about, don't hang off, don't move my hips. I lock the bottom half of my body. ‘It's all in the arms, elbows and wrists. You must be relaxed, but keep control.…

Your eye-witnesses Mat Oxley Team Bike's longest serving rider (1982-1990). Now a celebrated MotoGP journalist, author and Bike contributor Jeff Turner Team Bike chief mechanic from 1982-1989. Now the marketing manager for Yamaha UK Ian Martin Team Bike gofer from 1982-1991. Revived Team Bike in 2015 and is its current boss Tom Stewart Team Bike mechanic between 1982-1991. Went on to be a successful journalist for Top Gear Nothing screams summer like endurance racing. The sunsets, noise, speed and fly-smothered screens. The BBQs and parties. Summers in the 1980s were particularly heady for Bike readers. Inspired by the antics of Team Bike and cheap ferry crossings, thousands of us dug out passports, taped maps to tanks, forgot our airbeds and set off for the south of France to, in theory,…

Nick Jonckheere is a Belgian veteran motorcycle rider and restorer, who owns the world's sole remaining functional 1905 Triumph (the only other 1905 bike is a non-runner in the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull). He came by the bike via a series of happy coincidences – in 2010 he was looking for a spare wheel for another bike, and found a seller in the UK. ‘So I went to the chap's house and bought it,’ says Nick. ‘While I was there, I casually asked him what else he had; he said he'd got an old Triumph frame. When I saw it, I instantly recognised the double front frame tube as 1905. ‘When I got it home, I started looking for an engine, but couldn't find one; they're just too rare.…

CB750 ‘Race Type’ For the 1970 Daytona 200, Honda built four special ‘Race Type’ versions of the game-changing CB750 inline four they'd introduced in 1968. Dick Mann, a three-time runner-up at the famous race, was put on one of them. Only 16 of the 98 starters finished, with Mann holding off a charging Gene Romero on the factory Triumph Trident to give Honda their first AMA National win. The Daytona-winning machine was shipped to Europe to help support Honda's world championship team and eventually went missing – victim of being robbed for parts to keep other race bikes running. To commemorate the significant victory, Honda commissioned this replica, only for the actual bike – authenticated as the real deal – to turn up in the hands of a collector in…

My sneaky post-lunch snooze is disturbed by the warble of a mobile phone. It's my son, Lyle. ‘My bike's stopped,’ says the grumpy voice in the earpiece. ‘It started slowing down as I came away from college, wouldn't pull, then it stopped… and now it won't start.’ Bought for £600, his Lexmoto Hunter 50 has required light fettling during daily use – reluctant winkers, dead battery, seized kick-start lever, and so on – but has otherwise been running well. The only issue was a couple of weeks back when it kept bogging under load, traced to a dicky spark plug (the horizontal cylinder means it gets plastered in filth). Armed with a plug spanner and knowing look, I head out to play at being roadside rescue. Lyle's got the bike…

SUSPENSION Appears to be from the old CB1000R – so Showa Big Piston Forks and a monoshock rear end. Front brakes are radial Nissins like the Hornet. STYLING The tank shape, tail unit, paint job, circular headlight and even the wide, boxy tail light is pure CB900. Nice. ENGINE It's from the CB1000 Hornet – ie, a liquid-cooled 1000cc inline four that started life in the 2017 Fireblade. We suspect it will be detuned from the Hornet's 150bhp, but maybe not… ‘Honda won't be able to make them fast enough’ ELECTRONICS Four-level traction control, wheelie control, phone connectivity, rider modes, etc appear to be transferred straight from the Hornet, which means you get a modern dash rather than two ‘80s-style dials. Boo. As if the new CB1000 Hornet's mix of…

All aboard the retro gravy train! Months after revealing their R12S – an R12 nineT in smokin’ hot flares – comes this, the R12G/S. And yes, it's essentially the same thing but wearing 1980s motocross boots. As with the R12S, BMW's stylists have done a top job, making the base R12 nineT resemble the 1980 R80G/S without changing anything fundamental. So you get the R12's 1170cc, 107bhp, air/oil cooled twin with radial valves and a central balancer shaft, plus its tubular steel frame and all the usual electronics. The key G/S bits (see box for a history of the slash) include a 21in front wheel, long-travel suspension, high-rise exhaust, cross-spoke wheels, new bolt-on rear subframe, dinky cockpit fairing and a circular central dash. In its base form, the G/S costs…

1 A good brand of padded bicycle shorts makes a world of difference if you're spending a long time in the saddle. Andy Peers 2 Guy Martin (a really good mechanic) once said you can tell a good mechanic by the way they open a door. Approach working on your bike with the same attitude of awareness. Rupert Paul 3 Get the bike that's right for you, not the bike you assume is ‘best’. On track everyone thinks they need a 1000cc superbike, but they don't. They'd be much happier on something more familiar, more upright, and they'd be more confident. It's the same on the road – you just want something comfortable, easy and reliable. I do most of my miles on a Yamaha Ténéré 700. It only has…

Scottish Six Days Trial, Fort William, Lochaber 5-10 May Who better than serial winner of the punishing Scottish Six Days Trial (only 14 times) to give you the low-down on this long-running classic. ‘It's unique in the true sense of the word. There's nothing like it,’ says Dougie Lampkin, who's amassed 12 trials world titles. ‘The West of Scotland location makes it something special even if there wasn't a trial. If the weather's terrible it makes it extra tough, and if the weather's good it's a magical place to be, so either way it's something you don't forget. ‘You ride about 30 sections a day with 100 miles, give or take, linking them all. You're standing up all the way. They didn't make modern trials bikes for riding 100 miles…

Now there's a question. We could go down a massive rabbit hole of alternative valve concepts, but let's restrict our ruminations to poppet-valve arrangements. Obviously, if you're a two-stroke fan you could argue that ‘none’ is the answer, but I can think of two-stroke engines with up to four, with some of the most remarkable having just one, for the exhaust in ship engines. They're super, super efficient, but not particularly practical to put in a bike frame. So, let's just think about four-strokes, where any number of valves from one to eight have been tried. (Yes, one. The French ‘Monosoupape’ or ‘single-valve’ had a single exhaust valve and piston intake ports – weird in today's context but interesting in its own way. I can feel another rabbit hole opening…

WATCH YOUR FINGERNAILS The V-Strom 800RE is £8899; this luggage-shod Tour is £10,399 (after an £800 ‘test ride’ saving). Panniers and top box are big, light, and fixed with solid clasps. Only rated to 3kg each, though. Worst bit is the annoyingly stubborn lock cover – proper swine to remove. BLACK AND ROUND Chunky-looking Dunlop D614 tyres are aimed at tarmac. They don't overflow with feel, but the Suzuki steers nicely on them, and there's ample grip for my half-hearted thrumming. After 4500 miles the rear is squared off enough that it's messing with the handling. SOME FINISH IS GOOD… The 800RE has largely shrugged off the combination of road salt and my inadequate care. A light mist of protective aerosol potion is all it's taken to keep the exhaust,…

I bought this back in 2017 and absolutely love it. I love the engine – the way the crossplane motor delivers power is addictive. It's one of those bikes you can jump on after having the worst day in the world and within 10 minutes have got a great big smile on your face. My background is mostly sportsbikes – I've had numerous R1s and Blades, and CBR600s before that. But I got to the point of wanting something more comfortable and I liked the Transformer-style looks. They make it stand out. I use it for everything. I've toured on it – I did 2000 miles in eight days with guys on touring bikes and I was fine. Fuel economy isn't the best – there's a reason people call it…

Motorcycle rust protection sprays are soft film corrosion protection compounds, which means they're liquids you can spray or brush onto components. They work by depositing a barrier film of corrosion inhibitors onto the surface as the solvent they're carried in evaporates. The longevity and efficacy of that film is dictated by how effective the bond is between the liquid and the substrate. XCP Rust Blocker is good at ensuring that bond – and therefore the film – lasts longer than other products. We know this because it's relatively easy to test and compare with rivals. In our lab we can accelerate corrosion by using an industry standard climate chamber – 40°C, atomised five per cent salt solution. It's a warm salty fog. We then add sheets of mild steel or…

You're going to struggle on those,’ said the rider in well-worn textiles, glancing down at my KTM's distinctly smooth tyres from the seat of his knobbly-equipped enduro bike after I'd pulled up at the TRF ride's meeting point. How true his words would very soon prove. This was my first group ride with the Trail Riders Fellowship on the ex-press 690 Enduro R on which I'd enjoyed some gentle greenlaning the previous autumn. At year's end I'd taken the plunge and bought the orange single that blends on- and off-road ability like no other (Husqvarna and GasGas siblings apart). But now it was February. Once dusty trails were muddy rivers, starting with one apparently known as ‘Snot Lane’. The Herts TRF regulars and their bikes were ready, but my still-standard…

Originally, we planned on doing British Supersport this year with a two-rider team, with Owen Jenner and Harley McCabe using Honda CBR600RRs. Running a one-man British Superbike team cost more than £300,000 last year; Supersport is less at roughly £200,000 to do it properly, but that's still a heck of an investment. Adding a second rider is cheaper, but you still need £350,000-£400,000. Winter was certainly hard. Owen did a flat track day and broke his ring finger when he caught it on a barrier, and three days later Harley broke his leg on a pit bike in Spain – on his first lap. Luckily both breaks were clean and both are fit and raring to start testing. We're genuinely excited about Owen's prospects – he's a serial winner (2024…