Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2025 i BIKE

One minute my boss tells me: ‘You’re riding to Morocco.’ The next I’m being offered kif (cannabis) by a goat herder in a flame shirt, somewhere between Tetouan and Chefchaouen. Declining with classic British awkwardness, I am delighted when he asks if I instead want to stroke his goat. My first two-wheeled adventure didn’t involve dirt trails, knobbly tyres or a peaky lid. I didn’t have an adventure bike. I just needed to step outside my comfort zone – way outside my comfort zone – to understand it was perfectly possible to have an extraordinary experience on an ordinary bike. In this case a Honda CBF600S, built to cross cities rather than continents. Adventure isn’t a category, a style or a marketing segment. It’s an attitude. It’s embracing the unknown,…

‘Power is up to 160bhp at the rear wheel’ It’s often said that BMW’s R1300GS is far and away the sportiest model in the big boxer’s epic 45-year history. But for some, that still isn’t sporty enough. Enter Greg Mansell – son of the moustachioed missile himself – who over the August bank holiday weekend broke a 15-year hillclimb record on this tweaked and tuned R1300GS. The location was Bouley Bay, a tortuous tree-lined 1011-yard dash on the north-west coast of Jersey. Having previously entered the event on an R1250GS Adventure, Greg was so inspired by his first ride on a 1300 that he started modifying one to unleash its potential. It’s been a project two years in the making, culminating with breaking the Unlimited Class record on his final…

First we were alerted to the upcoming CB1000F ‘Concept’, a new retro-styled version of Honda’s bestselling Hornet 1000 inspired by the 1979 CB900F Bol d’Or most famous for Freddie Spencer’s 1980 AMA Superbike heroics (Bike, June). Now ‘Big H’ have revealed a second, handlebar-faired version, the CB1000F SE, as seen here. Although the CB1000F has been teased repeatedly by Honda – most recently at the Osaka Motorcycle Show in the spring, albeit still without confirming if it’s set for production (it is) – the SE got its first showing via some official demo laps at August’s Suzuka 8 Hours. (Honda’s no stranger to this kind of ‘soft’ unveil, with the current CBR600RR, original RCV racer and even the 1992 NR750 all previously unveiled at the event.) ‘A level of quality…

The Trans Euro Trail (transeurotrail.org) is a 62,500-mile network of legal motorcycle trails that runs over almost all of Europe right up to the Arctic Circle. It’s an astonishing free resource. All you do is download the GPX map file for the country you want to ride (including the UK), then take the bits you need. I edited it with GPX Studio (gpx.studio) then added link roads taking us to and from our accommodation. Once you’ve got your route, you can either use a GPX reader app such as BikeGPX, or load it into your Beeline, Garmin, etc. Because of the lower speeds on trails, it’s remarkably easy to follow on a rudimentary app. As for bikes, the TET is aimed at pukka off-road machines, though that does vary from…

Rule #1 Ride whatever bike makes you happy Any bike will do – so long as you love riding it. That’s the only rule that matters with motorcycles. If you want to paddle your way through the Gobi on a Gold Wing, go for it. If that sparkling red Vespa makes you grin, perfect. If you dream of ripping up the Andes on a KTM 690, then saddle up. No one-size-fits-all exists in adventure riding. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you need a £20,000, fully loaded monster dripping in accessories. You don’t. You don’t need a featherweight Dakar desert weapon, either. We were told we couldn’t go two-up on a single-cylinder bike; that our Yamaha XT660R was too small. Turns out they were wrong – we…

‘Before we start a weekend I already know at which corners Marc will struggle and at which corners he will be super-fast’ Mat is a TT winner, endurance racer, author and MotoGP paddock insider 'I’m petrol, Alex is diesel,’ says Marc Márquez. The results achieved by motorcycle racing’s fastest siblings agree with Marc’s analogy – big brother gets up to speed faster; Alex gets there but takes a little longer. Marc won the Moto2 world championship at his second attempt, after injury cursed his rookie season; Alex won the Moto2 title at his fifth time of trying. Marc won his first MotoGP victory from his second start; Alex won his first from his 94th, at April’s Spanish Grand Prix. Now the brothers are arguably the world’s two fastest motorcycle racers.…

We sit back outside the café in a caffeinated coffee and cake coma, comparing Ducati’s Streetfighter V2 S to the other red bike, Triumph’s Street Triple RS. It looks lovely in its maroon suit – ‘a bit like a raspberry triple’, says Jon, whose comic timing ‘desserts’ him (it’s actually a £300 extra, called Carnival Red). And while the RS isn’t quite in the same league of head-turning componentry as the Ducati – if the Streetfighter is the can-can on two wheels, the Street Triple is more rock opera – its design and finish is, like most current Triumphs, exceptional. It’s neat, tidy, and well thought out and bolted together. And if it’s not as Moulin Rouge as the Streetfighter, price of entry is much lower: at £12,295 it’s nearly…

It probably comes from the same thing that makes us cheer for the 150/1 outsider in the Grand National. The mindset that wants the crooning old boy to win whatever tedious talent show is on telly this week, or the little fella to win the brawl. Supporting the underdog. Not that you’d necessarily view BMW’s F900R as such, of course. But the road-focused twin-cylinder naked would certainly be on the back foot if thrust up against the freshly sharpened tools on the preceding pages. Unless it’s in Cup specification. In which case the jazzed-up BMW has the potential to make them feel a tad stodgy. Running as part of the British Superbike circus, the F900R Cup is a one-make race series with strict rules. Modifications are limited to K-Tech fork…

The GT is pure Jekyll and Hyde. Keep the electronics on, use Street mode and it’s a pussycat. Turn them off and it points the front wheel skywards at every crest (in which case Supermoto ABS mode stops the electronics going haywire). Few bikes blend utter lunacy and composure so convincingly. After a Yamaha MT-01 I wanted something torquey and characterful, but with the safety net of ABS and decent electronics. I figured the GT would deliver, plus I liked its quirky looks. Mine is a 2017 pre-reg bought in 2019. Warped front discs (endemic among Super Dukes) and a cracked screen aside, it hasn’t missed a beat in 25,000 miles. ‘Blends lunacy and composure so convincingly’ The original Pirelli Angel GT tyres didn’t live up to their heavenly name.…

With an all-new inline-four engine, single-sided swingarm and MotoGP-inspired wings, this is the first fresh 750cc sportsbike since, we reckon, the 2011 Suzuki GSX-R750 L1. Revealed by CFMoto, it’s also the first home-grown inline-four sportsbike out of China, and while its claimed performance figures won’t cause established rivals any sleepless nights, its spec and likely price almost certainly will. It’s called the 750SR-S (although this may yet change for Europe and the US) and has just been unveiled in China. But sadly, according to new UK importers Quadzilla, it’s not coming to the UK… yet. Although CFMoto’s first four, the 750’s engine shares something with the firm’s three-cylinder 675SR-R – namely its 72mm bore diameter. Stroke has been shortened to 46mm, which, along with its additional piston, results in the…

Officially, this bike doesn’t yet exist. Yet here it is, real and refreshingly AI-free. This is the 2026 Ducati Panigale V4 R, a bike that hasn’t been announced, hasn’t been seen in its final road-legal trim, but is already being tested by World Superbike factory riders Nicolò Bulega and Álvaro Bautista at MotorLand Aragón in Spain. So, what can we see? The biggest visual difference - jazzy 'camouflage' paint scheme aside - is the new twin-sided swingarm, complete with whacking great holes cast into both sides. Ducati have already switched the 2025 Panigale V4 and V4 S road bikes to a twin-sided swingarm, claiming it's nearly 3kg lighter and has almost 40 per cent less lateral stiffness. This, say Ducati, improves power delivery, increases feel and grip at elbow-scraping angles,…

I’ve spent four hours in this national park so far, just riding around aimlessly. I’m properly off-road, it’s properly hot and I’m properly out of water. Between the exertion of wrestling a 200kg road bike around some seriously gnarly trails, the 32°C heat, dehydration and the headache of listening to my broken exhaust, I’m knackered. I’ve not seen another human in at least two hours. I can’t even pitch a tent for shade and rest, as signs say I’ll be fined €2000. So I keep on plodding, hoping to find a way out. This is a proper adventure now. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. It’s probably just the delirium. How hard can it be? That was the phrase that ran through my head while I spent hours on…

Bikes have long been an effective antidote to, well, everything grim. Bored? Go for a ride. Bit glum? Go for a ride. Mow the lawn? You get the gist… And so throughout motorcycling history there’s always a class of bikes whose sole motivation is single-minded pursuit of Sunday silliness – not for them the dour heft of long-distance duty, faux off-road capability or compromised ‘sports/touring’ mash-up. Light, potent, sharp-steering and fleet of wheel, these road-going harbingers of hedonism were, for a while, 600cc sportsbikes – but today their equivalent are sporty naked street bikes. Machines like Ducati’s new Streetfighter V2 S, hewn from precious metals and bling, powered by a new 890cc V2 motor; Triumph’s well-established back-lane savant, the Street Triple 765 RS; Yamaha’s three-cylinder whippet-in-gold-slippers, the MT-09 SP; and…

ALL ABOARD It’s rare to see a new bike with solid, well-placed bungee points. They are very handy and securely fasten luggage (and unwilling pillions). The helmet lock is nice too – I don’t use it, but it’s the sort of thing I’d find on my dad’s old bikes, so helps with its authenticity. The bike’s dotted with small things that bring it together with convincing style. FILL HER UP Old-fashioned door to the petrol is as far removed from the latest keyless as it gets. And I love it. I understand why some don’t like fully removable caps – and I’ll be the first to lose it on the forecourt – but the contrast of the shine with the pale blue tank, the smooth lock action and the simple…

Bike: The voice of motorcycling since 1971 This is going to be fun. Ahead, racing royalty Ron Haslam is scything through the pack, his effortless style and serene speed a joy to behold. Beneath him is Honda’s controversial VFR1200. Controversial because two years earlier Honda whipped the covers off a pink sculpture with no wheels, then declared it ‘signifies the beginning of a new era’ that would ‘take motorcycling somewhere it has not been before’. When that V4 Concept Model became the VFR1200, Honda promised us nothing less than the ‘ultimate road sport motorcycle’. But the VFR1200 didn’t hit the ground running. Heavier and longer than the iconic VFR800, it seemed to have forgotten the sports half of its sports-touring remit. The VFR lacked the top speed of Honda’s Blackbird,…

Much like mountaineering in Hampshire or being stuck in a lift with Rachel Reeves, trail riding in northern France doesn’t provoke much anticipatory joy. Especially as we’re starting from Calais, home to ferry fumes and motorways, and not exactly famous for scenic majesty. But I’m here to tell you that northern France provided the most enjoyable, life-affirming week’s motorcycling I’ve had for decades. Really. It’s a trail paradise. And it starts almost immediately – no three-hour purgatory on the A26 as you see off France’s northern flatlands. Instead, after weaving through Calais for 15 minutes (mostly on purpose), we ride down a nondescript D-road heading towards the sea, which is busily shimmering in the distance. We’re following a route on my phone that appears to indicate a left turn up…

You don’t need to go far to enjoy a great ride. Over the past 40 years I’ve ridden everywhere all around the world several times, but this time I wanted to get stuck into my home continent. Following the edge where the land meets the sea, my 20,000-mile route may be one of the longest around Europe. The first half of my ride (see last month’s issue – Ed) headed anticlockwise from Calais around France, Spain and Portugal and back up to the French Riviera. Around 7500 miles into the ride, blatting my Royal Enfield Bear 650 across the rolling vineyards north of Montpellier, I meet up with Ted Simon. Author of Jupiter’s Travels, perhaps the most famous motorcycling book of all time after Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art…

Well, that’s awks. Jon Urry, joining us for today’s jaunt around Rutlandshire, reminds me the new 890cc, 118bhp Streetfighter V2 S stood before us – looking more edible than a strawberry in the sunshine – is less powerful than its 150bhp 955cc predecessor and the original 132bhp Streetfighter 848 from 2011. Being arch pragmatists, Ducati management clearly value getting their current model ducks in a row more than maintaining the upward trajectory of performance figures. They say the new V2 is ‘only’ 890cc and a mere 118bhp to put distance between it and the 1103cc, 214bhp Streetfighter V4. They clearly don’t anticipate existing Streetfighter V2 owners wanting to, er, trade ‘down’… But taken on its own terms, the new V2 S – the ‘S’ primarily denotes Swedish suspension over the…

The day is drawing to a close, and it’s my turn to sample Honda’s CB1000 Hornet SP. It’s been a while since I last rode a once-ubiquitous big inline four and it’s always good to come back to the old-school, revvy zing of 16 valves pattering away like crazed organ stops, cam chain lashing about noisily. Slipping onto the Hornet’s thin seat after a day of hoonery, feet finding pegs and knees gripping the sides of the wide engine, it feels fitting, literally, as the bike to get me home. The TFT dash looks a long way away, but bars are just the right height and just the right distance – it’s ever so Honda to design a mass-produced motorbike with what feels like bespoke ergonomics. The riding position is…

Motion Pro PBR Chain Tool £114.99 I bought this a year ago and it’s brilliant. Similar tools bend when you use them under force, but this one’s very robust. It’s a multipurpose chain tool that can Press, Break and Rivet – hence its name. To swap between jobs you just reposition a little anvil block. I’ll normally use it in the workshop to set chain length ahead of a race weekend. But if we’re at the track and we need a gearing change that puts the wheelbase beyond where we want it, I can use this to quickly add or remove a link. Rob Farmer, Rapid Honda motionpro.com…

The Vitpilen 801 is a sweet spot motorcycle. That means enough power to skim the front wheel out of corners (or at least feel like it might), but not so much that you wake up in a cold sweat about that unhinged overtake. You want delicious front-end feel that lets you swoop into corners on a wave of unshakable confidence, but not so much that your dentist asks why all your teeth are chipped. You want character, but not so much that it won’t start on Tuesdays. You want comfort, but not so much that your motorcycle weighs more than a patio. In short, you want it just so. And the Vitpilen 801 gets remarkably close. The parallel-twin motor doesn’t look much on paper – 103bhp and 64lb·ft are fairly…

It was never meant to be a long-term relationship. It was only ever supposed to be an interim fling. A step onwards and upwards from the Aprilia RS125 I’d cherished, crashed, seized, fixed, resprayed and then crashed again. I was 21 years old and had my shortlist down to either an Aprilia RS250, an undetermined 400cc race rep, or Suzuki’s Mini-Me TL1000S. I obsessed over the facts and figures in Bike’s listings. All three made roughly the same power, had roughly the same top speed, and cost roughly the same to buy used. Little split them on paper – except for insurance. The RS250, most 400s, and even rival Hornets and Fazers were all NU group 12, whereas Suzuki’s SV was a mere NU10. The biggest engine for the smallest…

Searching for someone to blame for the litany of custom atrocities foisted on us by Japanese factories in the late 1970s and beyond? Look no further than Milwaukee, US. Harley-Davidson – specifically Willie G. Davidson – must be held accountable for the raft of Vulcans, Viragos, Marauders and Intruders that blighted roads and motorcycle parking bays. The year is 1969, and American Machine and Foundry (AMF) has bought the struggling Harley-Davidson Motor Company. Harley’s model range is thin; Sportster, Electra Glide, and a few Aermacchis. The roster needs a pep-up, and vice-president of styling Willie G. is the man for the job. Very little money is available, very much is at stake, and Willie G. rises to the occasion splendidly. He grafts a Sportster front end to the Big Twin,…