BIKE

Issue 600 March 2023 Contact us: bike@bikemagazine.co.uk or 01733 468025 facebook.com/bikemagazineUK twitter.com/BikeMagazine This delicate creation is the CCM Heritage ‘71. It's a simple 600cc single and costs a fiver shy of thirty thousand quid. If you think this is a massive amount of money it's because it is. As someone who gets sweaty palms shelling out £3000 on a secondhand bike, the idea of £30k is wild. But I understand why people are placing orders. A two-pound watch off the market does the same job as an Omega costing thousands, but given the choice we'd all take the opulent option. With exclusivity, staggering quality and exotic materials - it's the first titanium-frame production bike - the CCM is the luxury watch of the bike industry. Actually, next to a £100,000 timepiece it looks like a…

1 Michael Neeves His day job is testing for MCN, but luckily Neevesy is a friend of Bike and so writes us exclusive tests on the side. We put him on the world's first titanium production bike. CCM Heritage first test, page 34 2 Mat Oxley The world's most famous bike journalist? Probably. This month our paddock insider speaks to Britain's rising star and latest Grand Prix rider ahead of the 2023 season. Rory Skinner interview, page 40 3 Adam Shorrock Owning a camera doesn't mean that you're a photographer. There aren't many people who can take genuinely amazing bike shots, but Adam is one of them. Just look at it. Cornering group test, page 46 4 Mike Armitage Norton aren't in the habit of lending bikes. But when the idea is so much more than ‘just’ a road test…

AERODYNAMICS Designed in conjunction with Max Verstappen's Red Bull F1 team. The main wings have few changes, but there's a large new wing on each side of the fairing. There's no evidence of Ducati-style ground-effect aero devices though. CHASSIS The only bike on the grid with a trellis frame, and a steel one at that. KTM claim the frame's easily altered flex outweighs any disadvantages. ‘Pre-season MotoGP tests reveal the new bikes in all their carbon glory’ ENGINE As with all the manufacturers, changes to the 300bhp V4 are secret squirrel. KTM's motorsport director Pit Beirer said the 2023 bike would be a ‘smart rocket’, but going by the Valencia test times it's nothing special (relatively speaking). Pre-season MotoGP tests don't give many clues about the coming season - too much sandbagging for that - but they…

Motorcycling characters don't come more gloriously crackers than Thorsten Schlesinger. The German product designer built this TriBSA (Triumph engine, BSA frame) as a tribute to an imaginary American, then made his own leathers and set off on a 2000-mile round trip to Biarritz, breaking down dozens of times… ‘It started by accident in 2008,’ Thorsten tells Bike. ‘I was at a friend's place and he had a frame from a 1949 BSA A10 lying around and he was talking about putting a Honda engine in it. I didn't like that - I thought it should have an English motor, so I asked him to sell it to me.' A few years later Thorsten is visiting relatives in America when he sees a 1972 oil-in-frame Triumph 650 engine for sale and picks it…

As you read this, the 2023 Dakar rally has just finished and you'll probably have enjoyed multiple clips of bikes skimming across dunes and thrashing river beds. But, and best not to mention this to any Dakar riders you bump into, the bikes are a bit wheezy. Modern Dakar rules limit competitors to 450cc singles, which in full-factory spec put out about 70bhp and get them to about 110mph impressive for a little single, but clearly no way near enough. What they need is the 160bhp and 150mph provided by this Dakar-inspired road-legal KTM 1290 Super Adventure R. It was built by American customiser Roland Sands Designs (RSD). ‘The motivation was to build the ultimate Paris Dakar big bike in memory of the times before 450s dominated the desert,’ says Cameron Brewer,…

RIDERS Randy Mamola famously didn't like that the XR69, calling it ‘the diesel’, but Mick Grant and Graeme Crosby have said it's one of their all-time favourite race bikes. In fact Granty still has the XR69 he raced. ENGINE Original XR69s had GS1000 engines - 997cc, air-cooled, eight valves - that were vigorously tuned to take them from 88bhp to 130bhp. This replica uses the slightly later 16-valve GS1100 motor. FRAME Original GS1000 frames wobbled when road riding so were befuddled by racing. Pops Yoshimura used chassis parts from Suzuki's grand prix program to beef it up. The replica has a T45 stainless steel tube frame. For fans of massive engines crammed into small, sweet-handling frames, the Suzuki GS1000R (aka XR69) racer has to be near the top of the shopping list. The problem is cost:…