Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2026 i BIKE

New MotoGP rules in 2027 will limit bikes to 850cc, so a manufacturer would be crazy to build a new bike and engine just for 2026. Yet Yamaha have done just that with the 1000cc V4 you see here. And the fact it isn't very fast makes the decision even more mysterious. Time for some digging… Just how slow is it? On the face of it, fairly. In the last MotoGP test, the V4 was 15th fastest with Fabio Quartararo on board and 7mph slower than its fastest rival through the speed trap (Marco Bezzecchi's Aprilia). There are some buts though. Test results are notoriously fickle because you never know how hard riders are trying or what teams are testing. And it's assumed Yamaha weren't running the new engine at…

Triumph's 400 range is a sales phenomenon, powering the company's record growth since the Speed 400's launch at the start of 2024. No surprise that Triumph are making the most of it by launching another variation: the Tracker 400. Compared to the Speed 400, power is up by five per cent (from 39.5bhp to 41.5bhp – just like the Thruxton 400, below), there's a more aggressive riding position, and you get a dinky fly screen. Otherwise it's much the same. The extra power comes through a new intake camshaft profile (longer duration, higher lift) and engine mapping tweaks that let the single-cylinder motor rev on until 9000rpm – up from 8000rpm. Torque remains the same at 27.7lb·ft. ‘The new bars throw you into a more aggressive, elbows-out stance’ More dramatic…

January is here already and, while it might not look especially inviting outside right now, there's never been a better time to begin planning your biking year. So target some bucket-list activities, block out your crisp new diary and ensure your precious weekends don't get swallowed up by the lawnmower or tip runs. So, what's coming up in 2026? Which are the must-see bikesport events? What are the best two-wheeled festivals? And which shows, rides and spectacles – of whatever type, wherever they may be – do you not want to miss out on? Here's our pick of the best excuses to get out on your bike this year. ABR Festival 26-28 June Adventure Bike Rider was initially an online forum which was spun into an independent magazine. In April…

Today's motorcycle model ranges can get bewildering – especially if we remember the old days when, basically, four Japanese manufacturers had about six models each, most of which were sportsbikes. The toughest decision we faced was which shade of shell-suit graphics to choose. Nowadays, as model line-ups become evermore parsed into platform-based subtleties, we can select a new bike almost bespoke to our needs straight from the showroom. Take Suzuki's GSX-8TT, Husqvarna's Vitpilen 801 and Honda's CB650R, which fell into the platform-based parsing machine and came out the other side with individual personalities. The Honda was the first, launched in 2019 as a sports neo café-styled revamp on the slightly mundane CB650F. With its slashed inline four exhaust headers echoing the late 1970s Honda CB400/4, the 650R was last updated…

‘Even as an average rider, you get to feel like Sam Sunderland for a bit’ ‘Fuck, fuck, FUUUUUUCK!’ I yell as loud as the pain allows. The ambulance nurse doesn't speak a word of English, but from the pitying look on her face, I can tell she doesn't need to. I'm in a Greek ambulance, on my way to the bloody hospital. And the Greece Rally hasn't even properly started yet. Which is a shame – because I was really ready for it. Back in the game After a few years of decline, the Greece Rally has made a serious comeback. For the 2025 edition around 120 motorbikes, a few quads and about ten SSVs (four wheels, two seats and a roll cage) line up to race. The rally takes…

It's hard to pick a single moment to sum up my summer on the Ninja. Not for any shortage of high points – it's been a fantastic partner in crime, elevating good rides into great ones – but because it's about so much more than just those moments. That's the nature of the beast with all good sports-tourers. The two halves of the character are balanced. The ‘sports’ bit has made the most memorable moments, craning my neck into corners, winding on the gas when the exits appear, and kidding myself that I couldn't have hit the apexes any better on a ZX-10R. But those moments probably wouldn't have come along (or certainly less often) if the SX wasn't so good at the ‘tourer’ bit. Reducing my time with the…

bridgestone.co.uk » Seriously sporty road tyres are marvellous; built to tackle 200bhp monsters, whether that be exiting Clearways on a sunny day or riding to the shops in winter. And that's what makes the RS12s so impressive - the outgoing RS11s aren't a bad tyre, but with a new compound, tread pattern and construction, Bridgestone have well and truly joined the sporty tyre party in 2026. Let's get down to basics: they warm up quickly with a reasonable ambient temperature, last for a full day on track and they wear nicely across the carcass. But the best part? How they perform, with bundles of feedback and loads of grip – traits that are vital to having fun on track. If you want a tyre to take you to a trackday,…

Glance at the photograph below and you'll see some unsightly dings in the piston and cylinder head of my Suzuki DR250. Look more closely and you might notice they are indents clearly made by a hex nut. Yes, a hex nut. ‘A what?’ I squawk down the phone at local ace mechanic Rupert Farnsworth, who has found the damage. Until that moment I had been smugly boring all and sundry about how unmolested my 1986 French import DR250 was. The Suzuki turns out to have been very seriously molested indeed. ‘But how, why?’ I jibber, desperately trying to understand how my lovely DR has transformed from perfect, though oddly smoky, trailie, into mechanical catastrophe in one photograph. Rupe calmly explains that it's not as bad as it looks. Judging by…

‘I do enjoy the power,’ says Michael Sharpe, 41, fresh from the latest round of the Mablethorpe Sand Racing series aboard this 996cc V-twin. ‘Though it has caused a few problems…’ Indeed it has. Such is the almighty torque developed by the Suzuki TL1000S motor that it has, on separate occasions, collapsed the rear wheel, torn out spokes and even bent the rear axle bolts. ‘On the start line you hold it at full chat and dump the clutch so there's a lot of power going through that back wheel,’ says Michael. ‘When it grips it doesn't half go.’ This lunacy is of course commendable, but is there any logic to fitting a TL motor aside from not having much to hit? After all, sand racing is essentially long-form speedway…

Thetford Forest is vast. At 47,000 acres it's Britain's largest lowland pine forest, covering a track of land from Methwold and Mundford in Norfolk down to Lakenheath and Elveden in Suffolk at its southernmost reach. According to the map on my phone it's not too far ahead. Yet, despite the forest's size, it's refusing to loom into view. An eerie blanket of thick mist has enveloped Norfolk since dawn, making the county's normally tree-rich vistas – made famous by celebrated early 19th century artist John Crome – appear more like blank canvases. But patience is a virtue. Within an hour the watery winter sun, creeping ever higher from the horizon, wins its battle against the low-lying cloud. As the mist melts away a wall of oak, birch and Corsican pines…

When Luca Marini finished the 2025 season-ending Valencia Grand Prix in seventh place, the HRC garage erupted into celebrations. For seventh place? What's so good about finishing seventh? Marini's result may not seem much, but it was a big deal for Honda; a sign there's light at the end of the tunnel after the Japanese giant's grimmest years in MotoGP. Honda may be MotoGP's most successful manufacturer of all time, but they've been humiliated recently, finishing last in the constructors’ championship in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Those nine points Marini scored at Valencia were just enough to promote Honda out of the bottom group in MotoGP's performance concessions rankings, soothing the company's bruised corporate ego. Marini may not be Honda's fastest rider – he finished the 2025 season behind factory…

Fellow road tester Alan Seeley, a man with a deep knowledge of classic bike paint schemes, takes one look at the handsome GSX-8TT and stands back, scepticism alarm bells ringing. ‘What are these colours supposed to be?’ he booms in a Scottish burr. He's right – GS750s and GSX750s in the 1970s and 1980s had orangey gold and coachline stripes, but the TT's colours are evocative rather than literal. And so is its bikini fairing bubble, recalling memories of vintage nose cones and, at a push, American superbike champ Wes Cooley's GS1000 race bike. But it's very much a nostalgic feel, not a direct replica of anything specific. ‘And don't even get me started on bar end mirrors,’ growls Alan. I actually quite like them. Al, ex-Bike editor Phil West…

How quickly they grown up. Seems like just other day I was testing the first electric motorcycle for Bike – a Zero S ZF9 in late 2012. It was fascinatingly novel but largely pointless: slow, crude, with an excruciating nine-hour recharge time. Now, 13 years later, I'm staring at an electric bike that's more powerful than this month's group test winner. It makes over three times the torque of Suzuki's GSX-8TT, has more sophisticated tech and, most surprisingly, it's actually lighter too. But what's really surprising me right now is that LiveWire's S2 Alpinista doesn't just outperform Suzuki's modern retro middleweight on paper and spec sheets: it's nicer to ride in real life. Here, on a bumpy, badly surfaced bend in the middle of long-forgotten rural Cambridgeshire, the electric bike's…

You massive cosmic git. I got up at 4.30am for you – the least you could do was flippin’ well show up. I left my family sleeping in their nice warm beds, rode 100 miles through the night in the middle of December to witness your luminescent majesty – and now you get all coy and bashful? Ness Point is the easternmost point of the British Isles. A pimple on Suffolk's flat bottom, it's the first spot in the country to see the sunrise each morning. Because of this, every solstice it becomes a mecca for hippies, druids and weirdos, plus bike journalists embarking on tenuous race-against-the-clock challenges. The rest of the time, it's largely ignored. That means 363 other chances every year where you can be the first person…

Anyone who's ever bought a brand-new bike will be familiar with the excruciating process of running in the engine. You've spent the money, waited weeks, finally have the key in your hand… and now you've got to take it easy for up to a thousand miles. Not so when you're a race team. Rapid Honda has just collected the three Fireblades the team will campaign in the 2026 British Superstock series and at the Isle of Man TT. They get treated slightly differently… ‘We run the bikes in on a dyno following HRC's official procedure,’ explains top technician Rob Farmer. ‘Once the bike's up to temperature (70°C) you start by holding it at 4000rpm for 15 minutes. Then 6000rpm for 15 minutes, then 8000rpm for 15 minutes, and finally 10,000rpm…

1 Jamie Turner Bike's tame professor of engines has seen it all when it comes to weird and wonderful engines. But even Jamie had to reach for his thinking cap following MV Agusta's plans for a ‘square five’. Will MV's ‘square five’ work? – p20 2 Jim Moore Professional tester since the 1990s, Jim has little patience for bikes that fail to deliver. Bikes like KTM's original 390 Adventure, which didn't offer enough off-road ability. Does the latest R model put things right? Trail and error – p32 3 Mat Oxley Luca Marini entered our consciousness as ‘Rossi's half brother’. Paddock insider Mat has the real scoop, though; Luca is quietly turning Honda's flailing MotoGP project around. How? Mat reveals all… Luca Marini interview – p48 4 Simon Hargreaves At…

Bike: The voice of motorcycling since 1971 For a decade now we've been fed the mechanical mantra of slighter and lighter. But those aren't words I'm getting at the launch of Suzuki's new GSX1300R Hayabusa. If beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, I'm drinking myself sober on the Busa. More brutal than beautiful, more straight-line than lap time. Therefore the location seems to be at odds with this beast of a bike. A full day at Catalunya's Circuit de Barcelona? Surely the Japanese drapes ain't gonna match this Spanish carpet. But it turns out they kinda do, though the fabric's heavier. As the wheels turn and speed increases, there's an endorphin-led charge from the left to the right side of your brain. Sensibility gets seduced by speed while…

There's a fresh energy around MV Agusta. The first machines to emerge from the Varese factory since it gained independence from KTM last July are the ‘Ottantesimo’ collection (Italian for ‘eightieth’), built to mark the founding of Meccanica Verghera in 1945. This Brutale 800 RR version features MV's classic red and silver paint scheme, complete with a redrawn anniversary MV logo, plus a plate at the base of the petrol tank bearing the words ‘1 di 500’ to let you know that only 500 are being built. In addition to its new Euro5+ compliance, the 798cc reverse-crank triple gets a nine-plate slipper clutch, which, says MV, results in a 50% lighter lever action. A collectable slice of MV history, right? These anniversary specials can be viewed either as a crafty…

The cloud above KTM's Mattighofen manufacturing facility has begun to lift at last, with Bajaj's bailout cash bringing sunshine. And that resurgent orange glow has signalled the release into the wild of the new bikes they teased us with more than 12 months ago, such as the technical tour de force that is the 1390 Super Adventure S Evo. A bigger 1350cc V-twin, with more power and ‘Camshift’ variable valve timing to give it greater flexibility, a stiffer frame, reworked semi-active suspension, a new automated manual transmission, radar-controlled cruise control, an 8in touchscreen TFT… the list goes on. And if you throw in the optional Tech Pack (£905.20) on top of the £18,699 base, you'll be able to micromanage all those toys at your disposal too. Is it a better…

Over in the Swedo-Sino-Austro-Indo corner sits the Husqvarna Vitpilen 801 – Swedish brand, engine made in China, assembled in Austria for an Indian company. In today's enlightened global economy it matters not where a bike is actually made, but the Vitpilen has an interesting pedigree. Or as Al puts it, ‘As long as it's made on Earth. I'm not buying any of that foreign Martian rubbish.’ Ah, genuine road test satire. If the Suzuki GSX-8TT can stand accused of being a GSX-8S in a dress, the Vitpilen is equally culpable; it's KTM's 103bhp, 285°-crank, 799cc parallel twin from the 790 Duke (albeit the full-power version, not the A2-restrictable 94bhp motor we get in the UK) wrapped in the same steel tube trellis frame with externally similar WP suspension and J.Juan…

SITTING COMFORTABLY-ISH Riding position is café racer but not torturous; you feel connected to the bike, not stretched across it. Comfort is fine for sunny blasts, but numb bum set in halfway into a three-hour ride to Kent. Pillion seat is more comfy, and grab rail is easy to wrap a winter-gloved hand round. OLD-SCHOOL PRACTICAL Hidden snugly behind the side panel is the seat release puller, and a toolkit neatly folded in a pouch. It includes a C-spanner for adjusting the rear shocks – it's useful, but using it requires threading my arm through the rear wheel. Maybe I need to grow another elbow. PLEASING RACKET I had many expectations. Being wowed by the sound wasn't one of them. It's brilliant: deep, enough volume to get attention without being…

I'd had two Ducati Multistradas and wanted a change. The first (a 1200 with DVT) had been fine until the gremlins struck; the second (a V2 S) lacked gumption. I tried a Moto Guzzi V85 TT, but didn't like it – shortest test ride ever. But a V100 Mandello was sitting in the dealership largely unnoticed. I took it out and came back with a huge grin on my face, which wasn't ideal for negotiations… I bought it in May 2024, complete with heated grips and full luggage, with a 10-day tour of France and Spain booked in June. Fortunately, despite some last-minute panic getting the luggage fitted, along with a Puig screen and some handguards, it all went brilliantly. The seat is a tad hard but we've swapped enough…

Lead-acid batteries last longer and work better if kept fully charged when not in use, which means no dormant lead sulphate remains. To create electricity in a lead-acid battery, sulphate from the electrolyte (diluted sulphuric acid) combines with lead at the plates and forms lead sulphate atoms. When recharged the lead sulphate atoms are split; sulphate is reabsorbed into the electrolyte and lead remains at the plates. Problem is, if a battery is left to slowly discharge, lead sulphate crystallises and hardens on the plates within days, making it difficult to split up – and as a result the battery loses capacity. OptiMate battery chargers can be left plugged in 24/7. While the bike is parked, the battery is checked hourly and topped up – no lead sulphate, no problem.…

I can think of a few things I'm paying about £20 a month for. Most of which you'd probably expect, like Netflix - how is it so expensive now? But one is perhaps less obvious: the PCP on my nearly new Norton Commando 961. Like a lot of people I'd seen the £69 down, £69-a-month Norton Commando 961 0% deals at the tail end of 2024. It worked out at all of £1700 to keep the bike for the two-year finance deal, then hand it back at the end. I went to Judd Racing in Nottingham on a day when conditions only afforded a brief, gentle test ride, but I was immediately smitten. I marched back in to say ‘yes please’, only to be directed towards a silver 961 SP…

Who'd be an innovator? Risky task. Ends in tears. The two Phils (founder Vincent and chief designer Irving) of Vincent Motorcycles in Stevenage, Herts, were strident inventors. Their way was the best. Their V-twin did not have a steel tube frame. They eschewed telescopic forks. Gifted yet stubborn, they pursued best engineering practice over cost. What the firm needed was a money man, a bean-counter, someone prepared to wield the sword of ruthless cost-cutting. No such appointment was ever likely to be made. When the fully faired Black Knight (Rapide-based) and Black Prince (Black Shadow-powered) were unveiled at the 1954 Earls Court Show, reception was muted. Mixed at best. Full enclosure of expensive models struggling to sell was a huge gamble. It did not pay off, yet presaged the success…