Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i BIKE

In a shock move, Suzuki have announced that this significantly updated version of the GSX-R1000R will appear in showrooms in 2026. Many industry experts thought the GSX-R would either never return, or would follow Yamaha’s R1 and become a track-only tool. But no – it’s coming, and it’ll be fully road legal. The engine has been heavily reworked, partly to get it through the latest emission and noise regulations, but mostly to provide a stronger base for race tuning – World Endurance in particular, where Suzuki have won 15 titles with the GSX-R1000 since the K1 arrived in 2001. In fact, World Endurance has become a lone beacon of racing success for Suzuki, as there aren’t any Suzukis at all in World or British Superbikes, never mind competitive ones. Consequently,…

Triumph’s marketing for the new Scrambler 400XC gives the impression it’ll be snapped up by trendy young bucks. But that’s not what dealers are predicting for the most off-road-biased version of Triumph’s 400 range. ‘The XC should be a really good seller for us,’ says Dan Robins, sales manager at Staffordshire Triumph in Stoke-on-Trent. ‘But if the 400X is anything to go by, it’ll be bought by more mature riders.’ The XC is essentially the 40bhp single-cylinder 400X with spoked wheels instead of cast, a high-level front mudguard and a fly screen. ‘You’d think we’d sell them to newer riders, but they tend to buy a Trident 660, which is a bit more future-proof,’ says Dan. ‘If you jump on a 400 after passing your test, it won’t be long…

Because motorcycle engineering is beautiful The dead hand of electrification is creeping across the land but we’re unlikely to see the rapid charging capabilities of cars being applicable to bikes, where the batteries aren’t big enough to take the charge rates. And anyway, bike emissions are significantly lower than cars and trucks, which is probably why the politicians don’t have us in their somewhat unfocused sights. So, let’s take out a crystal ball and consider what may await the engine-enthusiast biker of ten years hence. First off, as Nobel physicist Niels Bohr said, ‘prediction is very difficult, especially if it is about the future’. Still, I think we can be certain of some things: in these highly turbulent days, with politicos overreaching themselves to dictate which technology will win (even…

The RR incarnation of the legendary CBR – brought back in 2024 after a seven-year absence to compete in the World Supersport Championship – is a surgeon’s scalpel. It’s sharp, tiny, and suitable for only one job: winning races. It will take to the public road, of course, but don’t expect CBR comfort of old or competence to flow seamlessly between roles. Instead the 600RR demands corners – and lots of them – if it’s to reveal its charms. As luck would have it, our favoured route between Corby Glen and Market Harborough, via Grantham and Melton Mowbray, offers a never-ending supply. On these roads I can ignore the cramped accommodation – the CBR is the smallest of the three by far, with a tight 1370mm wheelbase (an NSR250R MC28…

Motorcycle racing is war without the shooting, to misquote George Orwell. From the TV it all looks quite civilised, but inside the riders are raging, there’s fire in their bellies and they’re prepared to do just about anything to get past whoever’s in front of them. Here are a few riders who’ve used anger as an energy… Jorge Martin 2024 MotoGP world champion We may not have seen much of reigning MotoGP king Jorge Martin so far this year, which means we’ve not seen much of his madly aggressive riding style, leaning right out of the bike, leaning into the fight. ‘I feel like racing is a war – it’s like going into battle,’ he says. ‘I guess I have a really killer mentality…’ Martin is silent but deadly. He’s…

Michelin Top-up Mini Inflator £59 I’ve spent years looking for a handy, lightweight, portable and powerful battery-powered inflator. This Michelin one is brilliant. It’s compact, weighs about 400g and fits nicely in your hand. Swing up the hose, clip the nozzle to your valve, preset the pressure, press the blue button, and it shuts itself off once it hits the target. With a max of 120psi in bicycle mode and a min of 4psi in football mode, plus various adaptors, it’s ideal for all manner of pumpy-up jobs. A single charge seems to last forever. halfords.com…

‘Casey had two fantastic rides at Donington,’ says Team Bike manager Ian Martin of his 17-year-old rider whose day job is getting on podiums in the feeder class for Moto3. ‘He got a second and a third [in CRMC’s classic superbike class] and he would have won, but Hutchy [Ian Hutchinson] was there on his Classic TT ZXR750. He had about 50bhp more than the RC30 and shouldn’t have been allowed in because it’s a 780 engine… ‘But Casey was flying, and in the second race he was second behind Hutchy. Casey reckoned he might even beat him in the longer race on Sunday, when the RC30’s poor starting ability would be less of an issue [first gear is very tall – Ed].’ But, alas, it was not to be.…

When you have racing heritage in spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds, it would be poker madness not to go all in on it. The Yoshimura Suzuki racers of the late 1970s and early 1980s were among the most brutish and functional-fast motorcycles ever, so why not extract some sales from something loosely resembling those hulking monsters? Suzuki’s execution was spot on. The GS1200SS was earmarked for the Japanese market only, not a worldwide release that would surely have achieved significant market traction. The 2001-2002 SS employed the frame of the 1200 Inazuma, a home-market-only roadster of little character with a 100bhp, 1157cc Bandit engine. Yet clothed in silhouette Yoshi plastics it immediately became a very different beast. Gone was the diffident posture of a sit-up-and-beg workaday mount, instantly appeared a…

Look down the list of bikes in this year’s Red Bull Romaniacs Adventure Ultimate class and one machine stands out: this Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro is the only triple amid a sea of far lighter parallel twins. The fact it came second is remarkable enough. The fact it would have won but for a blown shock during day one – of four – is mind-boggling. And it’s not as if it was heavily modified. Basically, it’s standard apart from suspension, tyres and wheels. ‘We fitted [Öhlins] forks built by Andreani [an Italian specialist],’ says rider and hard enduro genius Jonny Walker. ‘They’re 35mm longer than standard and when you push them down, you can feel they’re a lot harder in the first part of the stroke. We want it…

Ex-racer Pepo Rosell is famous for turning everything that rolls through his custom workshop into a sportsbike. But an Enfield Guerrilla 450 roadster? We didn’t see that coming. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the base bike – the 452cc single-cylinder engine from the Himalayan is excellent. But the overall package is bland compared to the class of the Triumph Speed 400, or the perkiness of Honda’s new GB350S. ‘I looked at the Guerrilla and saw the opportunity to make a race bike for track and road,’ Pepo tells Bike from his Spanish workshop. In fact, he’s just ridden the finished product. ‘I finished it on Sunday afternoon and raced it on Wednesday morning in the Punk’s Peak race at Wheels and Waves [the custom festival in Biarritz, France]. ‘It was…

Bend your inside elbow » Expert road tester Michael Neeves reveals the one body position tweak that makes all the difference ‘The thing that limits most people’s confidence through corners is body position. Narrowing it down further, it’s what you’re doing with your arms. You really see it when people say they’re more confident round lefts than rights, or the other way round – their body position tends to be different. In their weaker corner they’ll be quite straight-armed; in their good corner they’ll have their inside arm bent more. When you have your arms locked straight it doesn’t give you confidence, and then it’s a downward spiral. ‘When I’m instructing on track, I say that if you forget everything else today, remember to bend your inside arm into the…

The (fairly) original one ‘Externally this is pretty stock but the engine has had a bit of work – partly for reliability but also to make it a touch faster. We are coming up to our 30th anniversary together and we’ve done more than 26,000 miles, which have been thoroughly enjoyable but not without a few repair bills… ‘The RG was about ten years old when I bought it, and while it had suffered the usual 1980s fashion issues such as cut-down mudguards, which I sorted, it was standard aside from the belly pan – and that’s how I’ve left it. The original bodywork is tatty but if I got it repainted I worry I’d get too precious and not ride it, which would be a shame. ‘I’ve always loved…

Ihad an idea: ride a Royal Enfield Bear 650 20,000 miles across 22 countries loosely aligned to the edge of Europe. It wasn’t a coastal route; more an alternative way of enjoying a continent I thought I knew. In a parallel period of my life I rode ultra-endurance journeys, such as the greatest distance around the world in the shortest possible time. Forty years on, I now imagine myself as a rider on tour, slowing down, seeing more, transitioning from the tedium of this kind of heroic hyperbole; replacing terms celebrating ‘longest’ and ‘hardest’ with an adventure offering something more random. When you’ve spent a life adventure riding to a race schedule, sometimes you need a ride without knowing your next move. Where the land masses meet the sea, and…

SCREEN FROM HEAVEN The screen is an aerodynamic masterpiece. On its lowest setting your lid is in the breeze but everything else is in a cocoon of peace. Edge it up (it’s electrically adjustable, obvs) and your lid gradually enters the cocoon. There’s a bit of booming, but not much. Amazing. LOOK! I’VE FOUND A FAULT! The rest of the RT is so accomplished, so well thought out and so slick that it seems deeply odd that you can’t see the switchgear at night. There are lights in the panniers, but not behind the switches – of which there are enough to lose your bearings at night… UNSEEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN This is the front shock, which – along with the equally well-hidden rear one – contrive to give the…

I’m a courier and have a pair of R1200RTs. My 2012 RT has 115,000 on it, my 2011 has 125,000 – they’re the last iteration of the air/oil cooled engine before it went to liquid cooling. The greatest thing about them is the handling. They’re unbelievable compared to an air-cooled or K100-style BMW. The Telelever system is so good. The first time I rode one I couldn’t believe how sharp it was – you can chuck it into a corner at 70mph and it stays exactly where you put it. The old air-cooled RTs were all over the place. It’s incredibly sure-footed as well, which is what I like as a courier – I need to be able to press on in the middle of the night on roads that…

Oh how we wish Paul Smart was still alive today. The famously good-humoured racer would have loved this bad boy: a Monkey bike replica of the 2006 1000LE that Ducati built to commemorate the great man’s 1972 win at Imola (a victory that set Ducati on the path to superbike domination). The new Monkey bike is the work of Thai custom house Note Kevlar, and was developed for no other reason than their love of the 1000LE. After stripping the 125cc Monkey to its bare essentials, they then designed and built the new fairing (plus all the bespoke bracketry needed to hold it in place), added a tank cover to recreate the 1000LE’s lines, commissioned a new seat, then hand-made the mudguards and exhaust. The handlebars and lights are new,…

Bike: The voice of motorcycling since 1971 Historic rebirths are meant to be glamorous. Today, the first bike from a reborn motorcycling icon would have a mega-buck fanfare in Cannes. But on a grey morning in March 1991, I found myself on an industrial estate in Hinckley. The bike? John Bloor’s first new Triumph, and I – then Bike’s road test editor – had the world-first ride. Thirty-four years on, claims to fame don’t get much greater… In truth, expectations weren’t high. Motorcycling then was dominated by Japan’s ‘Big Four’; British bikes belonged in the past and names like Triumph generally evoked notions of obsolete engineering, disastrous business practice and pools of oil. We’d known it was coming, of course. Although Bloor’s 1983 brand purchase and subsequent clean-sheet recreation had…

‘It’s just not wowing me,’ sulks a clearly disappointed Carl Stevens – on a busman’s holiday from his deputy editor duties on MCN – of the V2 S. Only an hour ago he was bouncing about like a child high on sugar at the prospect of trying out this new toy. ‘I expected it to excite me, engage me, make me feel special. But so far it’s missed the mark.’ Witnessing Carl deflated by a new sportsbike is unexpected, so his words cut deep. Maybe it’s the ‘Panigale’ badge causing his confusion. This isn’t the fierce, track-focused weapon its moniker suggests. Although considerably lighter than its opposition (176kg wet, minus fuel, compared to 195kg wet for the R9) and bedecked with tech wizardry in S spec, its all-new 890cc V-twin…

My photographic equipment I carry an Insta360 and a GoPro, but prefer the Insta360. SLR cameras are not necessary except for professional photography and you’ll need a good lens. I use an old Fujifilm X-T3 plus 50mm and 100-300mm lenses. DJI 4 drone, plus DJI Pocket 3 handheld gimbal camera for cheeky interviews. Compact tripod by 3 Legged Thing. Necessary stuff I can’t live without Preferably a GPS wired into the bike. I have used a TomTom but the screens can leak and mist out. A tablet-style screen linked to your phone is an excellent option. I never travel without a massive security lock – Squire’s Juggernaut XL (not light, but your bike will never be nicked). A Touratech Compañero suit and helmet. A MacBook Air with minimum M1 chip…

It’s almost embarrassing. I’ll roll up at a friend’s gaff or chat to someone at a bike night, and you can guarantee they’ll ask what the Ess-Fahsand-Arr is like. Stuffed full of horsepowers, carried on self-adjusting suspenders and bristling with gizmos, the answer should be ‘chuffin’ astounding’. But I usually look at my shuffling feet and mutter, ‘it’s alright, I suppose’. You’re likely pulling the face I’ve seen many times in response, so let me explain. It’s good. Very good. Its 168bhp four-cylinder engine is swollen with shunt, and with the new quicker-action throttle you only need about 1mm of twistgrip movement to suddenly be the other side of the horizon. It’s as happy trying to wheelie off the gas in every gear as it is being left in top…

‘The way it rides is perfectly in tune with its great looks’ It’s been one of those nowt-nor-summat kind of days. Warm, muggy, overcast and dreary, with the odd splash of rain. But the forecast on optimistic-weather.com promises a dry evening with the possible appearance of actual sunshine, so my younger brother Lyle and I decide to get out the house and venture to one of the many bike nights that are dotted across Leicestershire. As it’s a Tuesday we’re heading to The Carrington Arms in Ashby Folville, as there’s usually a right mixed bag of bikes, they stick a tent out the front doing decent food, and – most importantly – it’s a decent ride there. The biggest incentive is waiting outside, though: our new Honda GB350S test bike.…