Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i Fast Bikes

It’s funny how a simple smell can provoke such strong memories. Just the other day I was behind the bars of a very special bike, a Honda VFR750 RC30. It was my first ever ride on one, and though I was too young to appreciate this bike in its heyday, its significance was not lost as I thumbed the starter and heard the V4 whir into life. The funny thing is, in an instant, the bike felt overly familiar, akin to a spot of déjà vu. The reason being that when I was 16, I bought and raced a VFR400, which is essentially a smaller, less powerful, but no less genius an example of Honda’s late 1980s V4 movement. From the single-sided swingarm to the same style of gear-driven cams,…

This is the only bike in this year’s test which is 100% brand-new from the ground up and which didn’t exist last year in any form whatsoever. I rode the bike at its launch and was blown away by just how good a model it is, with a great balance of playfulness and performance. Not only that, but I, like many others, was left unable to explain how so much bike in terms of spec could be delivered for a price tag of less than £10,000. It was for this reason that I rated it as a genuine game changer in the class when it comes to bang for buck. Sure, there are bikes with higher spec and greater levels of performance, but not so much greater that the price…

Since it first came out, the 1200 Speed Triple has been a firm favourite here at Fast Bikes. It’s hard to think of a bike that makes 180bhp feel so easy to use and fully enjoy. The hallmark of every Speed Triple since the first one back in 1994 has been the three-cylinder engine that delivers its power and torque in a way that on the road and track can feel like cheating sometimes with how early and how hard you can get on the throttle. In recent times, as rider aids have featured more and more about how you, the rider, interact with the bike, it’s perhaps fair to say that Triumph has stood still for a bit too long and has fallen behind in that area… but not…

For all the spec and available performance of the M1000R, I want to start with its most innocuous and humble component – a button on the left switchgear. If you hold that thing down long enough, it will switch off all the electronic rider aids except ABS and leave you absolutely free of any electronic back-up. It’s simple, brilliant, and of all the electronic functions on all the bikes on this test, is by a country mile the best for how easily it lifts the bike from being great on the road to extraordinary. I’m not just talking about wheelies but, yes, being in control of whether the bike hovers, lifts, or does nothing is a big part in enjoying a good road ride on a 200bhp-plus motorbike. It’s more…

Suzuki has pulled out of most of its circuit racing efforts in recent years, which is a genuine tragedy and means we don’t see the brand often in this section, so it’s a pleasure to welcome it back with this, the Team CN Challenge GSX-R1000R. It’s an endurance race bike which will run at the Suzuka 8 Hours race this month alongside the firm’s regular SERT team bike (the World Endurance Championship is the last global series which Suzuki competes in). The CN moniker stands for carbon neutral because the bike is a rolling test bed for a series of planet-saving technologies, from bio-ethanol fuel to recycled carbon fibre body panels. And before you get all apoplectic and blast these tree-huggers, bear in mind that bio-fuel use is a genuine…

STAR LETTER REMEMBER ME? Dear Fast Bikes, I was enjoying your magazine this afternoon when I read page 36, and it talks about the 2004 ZX-10R being the ‘first litre Ninja.’ I could literally hear my 1986 GPZ1000rx screaming from the garage in dispute of this statement! I appreciate the US market had it called the Ninja 1000R, and we had it with GPZ title; I still believe it was marketed with the Ninja name, so surely this was the first litre Ninja? Keep up the good work, and a special thank-you for the track guide videos on YouTube – these have been very helpful. Kind regards, Dan FB: Hi Dan, thanks a lot for dropping us a line and reminding us about the ‘original’ Ninja. You’re right – the…

TRIED OUT: ALPINESTARS RACING ABSOLUTE V2 1PC SUIT TESTED BY: Bruce TIME: 18 months PRICE: From £3379.99 WEB: www.alpinestars.com When I was a child, little did I imagine that I’d spend an unholy amount of my existence wearing a dead kangaroo, but life’s full of surprises, right? Over the past 18 months, I’ve been jammy enough to get properly acquainted with Alpinestars’ Racing Absolute Racing V2 one-piece suit, and I blooming love it. Of course, what wouldn’t there be to like about a suit that’s come straight off the back of a MotoGP lorry, incorporating the same design, tech and innovation as that used by some of the best racers in the world? Look around the GP grid and you’ll see Astars is the brand of choice for most of the big players,…

RETRO RELISH SUZUKIS Suzuki releases sweet neo-retro roadsters based on GSX-8 platform Of course, back in the early 1970s, they didn’t call naked bikes ‘naked bikes’ – because virtually every bike was naked, in that they had nothing at all in the way of a fairing. Pedantry aside though, Suzuki has just released a couple of new naked machines with 1970s style, built on its current GSX-8S roadster platform. The GSX-8T is a ‘full’ naked retro which has been modelled on the T500 from the early 1970s, while the GSX-8TT has a small headlamp fairing and a neat bellypan, aping mid-1970s superbikes like the firm’s GS1000. The foundations really are straight off the GSX-8S/R models, which isn’t a bad thing at all. So, the engine is the exact same 776cc,…

On one hand, you have to feel a bit sorry for the Hornet after we threw it into a fight it really can’t win, mainly because Honda is playing a different game with it. On the other hand, you must admire it for even being considered to take part in the test, albeit as a wildcard. On that front, the Hornet absolutely hits its brief by providing a real division of opinion… which is exactly what a wildcard should do – act as a spoiler to upset the status quo. Let’s get one thing straight right at the beginning. The Hornet is hopelessly outclassed and outgunned on the road by all the other bikes in this test, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad bike. Not at all. When you…

You have to hand it to Yamaha… it gave us the MT-10 nearly 10 years ago back in 2016, and since then has done virtually nothing apart from the obligatory tweaks to keep it kitten-friendly. It’s like it presented it back then and said, “There you are, that’s our interpretation of a supernaked bike, take it or leave it” – and has stood its ground ever since. To be fair, it’s hard to imagine exactly what it would do to ‘improve’ it if a new MT-10 were released, not least because the kitchen sink was thrown at it from day one. In 2022 as part of its upgrade, aside from some cosmetic changes and a few other bits and bobs, the main headline was that Yamaha had dropped the R1’s…

It’s been a rough year for KTM, one which some of its competitors may have taken pleasure in witnessing, and shame on them for doing so. However, with apparent light at the end of the tunnel for the company, it’s good to be talking about one of its bikes and not financial woes, for a change. And what a bike… The Super Duke 1390 R has been the winner of this test for the past few years by winning our hearts for being such an utterly and totally daft motorcycle which embodies everything that’s good about riding bikes. But it’s not just a daft-looking bike that’s daft to ride - it’s far more than that. It’s refined and thoroughly sorted in a way that something with a pair of 108mm-diameter…

Who doesn’t love a limited-edition bike? Although, I would question just how limited a production run of 1200 bikes actually is, and whether a different set of handlebars, rearsets, steering damper and an end can that doesn’t actually add any extra performance to the engine qualifies as special enough to earn a ‘limited’ tag. Nonetheless, if you set aside the very tenuous status of being somehow special and limited and just take the RX at face value, the experience of riding it on the road is simply sublime. The riding position which once upon a time would have earned the RX a ‘café racer’ label is genius for many reasons, not least the dynamic experience of riding it, but also because Triumph has done just enough for the RX to…

Well, this has been one hell of a test. One packed full of talent, attitude, and grin-inducing performance… and that’s just Big Mac. But seriously, Naked Sportsbike of the Year never fails to deliver, and this year’s antics did exactly that. It was an absolute blast, and a process that was as informative as it was fun. Of course, there’s always a winner and always a loser, but we argue that if you ended up with any of this lot in your garage, you’d have plenty to smile about. No matter where they ranked, every bike here impressed us in some way, not least of all the underdog Honda Hornet SP. It came into this test as the wildcard, punching above its weight – and price point – against machinery…

You’ve got to hand it to BMW. It’s the master of big adventure bikes and, arguably, the originator of the sector, having brought this world to life back in 1980 when an ‘out of the box’ engineer decided to go rogue and give an R 80 the daddy-long-legs treatment. The result? Well, a gangly R 80, dubbed the R 80 G/S. It was a bike that would go on to spawn imagination, adventure, and several Dakar wins. Perhaps even more importantly, it would form the foundation of the German brand’s bestselling family of two-wheelers, the GSs, which has topped most large-capacity sales charts for the last 20 years. In a nod to that intrepid forefather, BMW has released this air-cooled, 1170cc, modern-day interpretation that I was lucky enough to hit…

I had a handful of rides in mind and tasks to complete over the last month before this write-up, but as happens from time to time, the combination of a higher workload and spending what time is available with family must take priority. Having said that, I squeezed in a few rides aboard the SX here and there which has done wonders to keep me half sane amid a full-on few weeks. A fair amount of my time has been spent riding other bikes to review, with each one offering different riding positions, power levels, suspension set-ups and son on. By no means am I looking for sympathy for the extra work – I can and always will appreciate the chances to try different machinery – but one big thing…

Let’s face it, most of us grapple with earthshattering decisions every day, such as whether to risk taking the bins out in your underpants, or if today’s the day to tell your neighbours that you don’t want any more of their ‘delicious’ homecooked rhubarb crumble. But perhaps the most pressing conundrum of all is whether you should treat yourself to a new, arm-pulling, face-warping supernaked? Well, we’ll save you the brain ache on that one because the answer’s an unapologetic YES. The real head-scratcher is which one do you go for? At a glance, it’s simple… just go for the one with the wildest power figures, the sharpest looks, the maddest electronics suite and it’s job done, right? If we’ve learned nothing else over the years, it is this: the…

In the absence of anything from Bologna to represent the much-loved V4 engine layout, not to mention an entire country, it has fallen squarely on the shoulders of Aprilia from Noale to fly those particular flags on its own. That said, for Aprilia, the timing couldn’t be better to have centre stage all to itself because the Tuono V4 has been heavily updated for 2025, which might have otherwise appeared less significant than if the Ducati was alongside it. The Tuono V4 has been around for the longest of any of the bikes in this test. First introduced back in 2011 essentially as an RSV4 superbike without a fairing, its evolution has pretty much followed that of the RSV4 exactly. The key word there is evolution, because the Tuono, just…

All of Yamaha’s MT range of bikes have always been designed primarily with the road in mind. For this reason, you’ll be hard pushed to find a bad word written about either the MT-07, MT-09 or, as in this case, the MT-10 when it comes to riding one on the road. By not placing any real ambition on being all-conquering on the track, the MT-10, just like its siblings, is a wicked bike on the road. The root of all that’s good about the MT-10 is how Yamaha has managed to marry a supple, easy-going chassis that makes hustling a doddle, with an engine that has a very, very naughty side to it. The CP4 engine from the R1 is deceptive with how it sounds docile and even a bit…

The KTM is one of those bikes that you really do need to try at least once in your lifetime, but with the caveat that you absolutely must give it a chance and some time to make sense. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that anyone who’s ever taken a Super Duke R for a test ride has probably thought to themselves, “What have I done? This is terrible!” And here we have one of life’s most common mistakes – to believe that because something is different, it must therefore be bad. The Super Duke R is one of a kind, because KTM, as it often does, didn’t hold back when it came to not sticking to the conventional formula for its contribution to the supernaked class. For…

With the Ducati absent, the BMW claimed the bragging rights of being the most powerful bike on the test at 207bhp – Ducati claims 214bhp for the Streetfighter. However, as we well know, pub ammo/big headline numbers don’t always translate to something that’s actually any fun or even any good. So, while the BMW may well sit at the top of the tree when it comes to big numbers, it’s in good company when it comes to getting the basics right. The last time we had an M1000R in the magazine, we took it to the Nürburgring, where it blew us away not just on the track, but also on the road element of the trip. I wrote: “Great comfort, best tank range, easiest cruise control, heated grips, easy access…

Ducati’s Monster model range has formed the financial bedrock on which the firm built to create its more eye-catching sportsbikes ever since Miguel Galluzzi first came up with the concept in the early 1990s. However, the Monster’s life hasn’t always been plain sailing. After a horribly confused and cluttered model range throughout the 2000s, Ducati trimmed back the stable of Monsters to allow riders to have a more defined choice. In 2021, it went a stage further, releasing a Monster model that would become the only machine in the model range to carry this iconic name. Harking back to the ethos of the original 1993 Monster M900, the new Monster (it is now just called Monster) was designed to be minimal in both design and engineering and as such arrived…

Of course, not everyone is as deranged as me, and it goes to reason some would much sooner ride this bike on the roads than the dirt. So, to give us a proper taster of the R 12 G/S’s all-round brilliance, we were also given the chance to try the top-spec Option 719 version on the streets, fully loaded with other goodies including the optional digital display that brings a whole other look and vibe to the G/S. Another blatant difference was the switch back to the standard 17in rear tyre that’s the preferred choice for the road and seemed fantastically capable from the get-go when the time came to the workout. As was the experience off-road, the fantastically low mass of the bike translated to easy handling, egged on…

Hi guys, Thanks for the great mag, as always. I don’t know how you do it. Ten years on the horizon! I was catching up with the January edition of FB. In a piece about the Ducati 698 Mono, Johnny said “…it has the same huge bore as the Panigale, but it has a longer stroke, presumably to give the torque numbers a bit of help.” The received wisdom has always been that longer stroke means more torque but apparently it’s a myth. Btw, I just came back from a mini Cannonball Run (https://cannonballism.com) What a fantastic bunch. There was a European journo on a freebie doing amazing things on a big Harley. I’m also off to the main one in September. You might get on it – would make…