RiDE的March 2018目录

YOUR NEXT GREAT RIDE LINCOLN 53.304377, -0.074077 WE HAVE TO tread carefully here. Most of the RiDE testers live in Lincolnshire and our neighbours might not appreciate us revealing just how good the riding here is — especially as a large part of the attraction is how quiet the roads can be. Yes, the coast roads can get busy in summer as people head to the sandy beaches — and when British Superbikes visit Cadwell Park (usually on the August bank holiday) there are lots of bikes about... But mostly, it’s riding heaven. All the ingredients for a great ride are present and correct: take one area of rolling hills (the Lincolnshire Wolds); add some quality tarmac; then garnish with interesting places to stop. For visitors looking for a weekend…

SOMETIMES IT’S HARD to get away. You know you’d like to head to the Alps or Scotland’s North Coast 500 – or even the riotous runs across the Brecon Beacons. But there simply isn’t time. A snatched sunny Saturday is the best you’ll be able to manage. Easy to make the best of that if you’re lucky enough to live in Scotland, Wales or the North of England… can be trickier if you’re trapped in the orbit of London, surrounded by suburbia. The thing is, there’s loads of great riding within easy reach of the capital. One of our favourite jumping-off points is Aylesbury – easily reached even if you have to sacrifice a bit of time on the M25. From there you can romp off in any direction. This…

Sounds a bit foreign... Well spotted... Ljubljana is, as you no doubt know, the capital of Slovenia. The Romans had a city there but most of what you see today is either medieval (having survived earthquakes in 1511 and 1895) or early 20th century (replacing what didn’t survive the second one). Before the first war Ljubljana was ruled from Austria, but since then it’s mostly been part of the various incarnations of the former Yugoslavia. I expect it got knocked about a bit in the 1990s then? It didn’t, actually. Slovenia had already voted to distance itself from the rest of Yugoslavia before the civil war kicked off. Though the Yugoslav army invaded, there were few casualties and little damage, and they were gone ten days later. By the time…

EXHAUST Slash-cut exhaust system makes the most of the 270° engine’s fantastic note STYLING Black by name... black by nature. Everything is finished in gloss or matt black, giving it a mean and moody presence ELECTRONICS More rider features, including LED headlight, two engine modes and cruise control ENGINE The 1200cc parallel twin has more punch at low revs than the T120 Bonneville FRONT END Dominated by the 16in front wheel and 130-section tyre, Showa forks, twin discs and Brembo calipers “The Bobber Black ticks every box” HERE’S SOMETHING THAT might surprise you: the Bonneville Bobber is Triumph’s fastest-selling motorcycle. Not just in 2017, but in 115 years of making motorcycles. In fact, it sold so well worldwide last year that Triumph had to more than double its production run…

PERHAPS A FONDNESS for British bikes was planted in Chris Thirkell’s childhood. “My dad was a salesman for Pride & Clarke – a bike dealership in south London that was huge in the 1960s and 70s. Anyone who bought a bike back then bought it there,” he says. “He used to bring home various bikes, little mopeds and 50s, so I was always on two wheels as a kid. “After that I left motorcycling alone for quite a few years, until I had a bit of a midlife crisis and bought myself a Lambretta. I rode it on L-plates for a few years until I thought I should get my full licence. I had no inclination to get a big bike, I just wanted to bin my L-plates.” After passing…

Lots and lots of metal… And lots of it is very shiny, at least when new, so you have to be prepared to put the time and effort in to keep it that way. 2009-on bikes with the black engine finish are a little easier to keep clean, but only a little — wheels in particular are difficult to get at, and take a lot of elbow grease. As standard, you don’t get any great level of sophistication. No ride-by-wire throttle, no engine modes to tame the power delivery, no traction control. It’s just a basic (albeit enormous) motorcycle. That’s a large part of the appeal for most owners. Most Rocket IIIs seem to stay relatively standard, despite the temptations of Triumph’s own accessory catalogue, but there are some useful…

“We’ve decided to rescue it and press it into duty” WE DON’T KNOW what it had done to deserve being cast out into the cold but this 1996 BMW F650 has been abandoned for nearly three years. The capable dual-sport middleweight has languished in back gardens and nestled next to lawnmowers in sheds, before finally coming to rest in the RiDE lock-up where we’ve decided to rescue it and press it into duty as a sturdy winter hack. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to establish whether or not it’s a runner. For all we know its Rotax-built single could have seized solid, or a mouse might have built a nest in the wiring loom. A bike like this that has been abandoned in much the same…

“The pace quickened considerably as we headed into France” WHAT IT IS EDELWEISS BIKE TRAVEL BEST OF EUROPE TOUR Where Germany, France, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria How long 965 miles / 9 days (7 riding) Who’s it for Intermediate to advanced More info www.edelweissbike.com TROP D’ACCIDENTS. RALENTIR. (Too many accidents. Slow down.) The warning sign for motorcyclists screamed ‘fun ahead’ as we sped past vineyards, glistening with dew in the late-September sunlight. This was day four of an Edelweiss Bike Travel nine-day ‘Best of Europe’ five-country tour – looping through the Black Forest, Alsace, northern Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Austrian Tyrol, and Bavaria – and the pace had quickened considerably as we headed into France’s Vosges Mountains. Sweeping bends tightened into whiplash-sharp coils as the road steepened exponentially. Tour guide Björn…

COMPREHENSIVE PRODUCT TESTING has been RiDE’s backbone for more than two decades. Without proper independent analysis and objective comparison, spending cash on riding kit and accessories can feel like a lottery, so we take our tests seriously. This month we’ve turned our attention to tyre-pressure gauges (page 78). It’s not the most expensive or glamorous purchase a rider will ever make, but without doubt one of the most important. We gathered together a dozen very different examples ranging from less than a fiver to almost £50, then had their accuracy tested by a professional calibration company and rated them for readability, ease of use and more. The results were revealing and, in a few places, quite surprising. Perhaps they shouldn’t have been. Three days before sending this issue to the…

YOU DON’T NEED a ten-course menu, Alpine passes, Mediterranean beaches or the Eifel Tower to get a uniquely French riding experience. All you need is somewhere quiet, unspoilt and packed with brilliant roads. To be honest, that could be much of the country… but we suggest you try the Morvan. It’s easily reached from Calais and makes a superb destination –especially for a first European trip. What’s so great about it? Simply that it’s packed with brilliant roads… but in a country with more than its fair share of mind-blowing riding, that means it often get overlooked as those with more time, budget or confidence head to the Alps or the Pyrenees. Good for them – and great for those of us looking for a short break where the number…

HONDA CRF1000L AFRICA TWIN DCT £14,289 (as tested) • 998cc parallel twin 94bhp • 242kg • 900/920mm seat The Africa Twin DCT brings Honda’s auto gearbox to the popular parallel twin SUZUKI V-STROM 1000X GT £11,139 • 1037cc 90° V-twin 99bhp • 233kg • 850mm seat Styling updates and cornering ABS added for 2017. GT includes three-piece luggage DUCATI MULTISTRADA 950 £12,190 (as tested) • 937cc 90° V-twin 111bhp • 229kg • 840mm seat Frame and bodywork from the Multistrada 1200 with the 937cc motor from the SuperSport HIGH SPIRITS, BIG miles and long-legged motorbikes; is there anything better, in the universe, anywhere, ever? As Jimmy, Merv and I merge into the A1’s arterial dual carriageway pumping traffic north, anticipation ripples between our bikes like an excited Bluetooth intercom signal.…

Is touching my sat nav illegal? QI HAVE A fancy Garmin-made BMW sat nav on my R1200GS, which works with a thumb-wheel control on the left-hand bar. However, a police friend of mine told me that, notwithstanding the thumb ring, if I operated the sat nav while riding I would be committing an offence. I know that a sat nav is not treated the same as a mobile phone by the law but if I fiddle with my sat nav, am I really committing an offence? A YOUR FIXED SAT nav is a different beast in law to a mobile phone but there is still plenty of scope for it to get you in trouble. Using your thumb to operate the wheel-control on your Teutonic beast to interact with the…

IF YOU FOLLOW the accepted advanced-riding discipline, you’ll check your tyre pressures before each and every ride. In truth, few of us are really that dedicated but a weekly check (at least) should certainly be part of the care routine for any bike. Running the correct pressures ensures tyres will support the bike and riders’ weight, maintain the correct shape, reach operating temperature well, shift water from their treads properly and wear evenly. Obviously, there may be times when you want to run less than the recommended pressures. It’s essential to drop pressures for trackdays and some riders will, in summer, drop 2-4psi in search of better performance on hot, dry roads. The trade-off with lower pressures is that wear is accelerated — and that’s one of the problems with…

THIS CHUNKY BLACK unit attached to the crash helmet is the Nuviz. It’s a head-up display unit that offers a range of features, including showing your speed and giving you directions with its built-in sat nav. It will also manage your phone so you can make and receive calls or listen to music. It will connect to other Bluetooth headsets to talk to your pillion or for bike-to-bike comms. It even includes an action camera, to take stills or video as you ride. It sits on the outside of the helmet, projecting information onto its small screen and you ‘drive’ it with a bar-mounted control. That’s a lot of functionality for one device, but it comes at a price: £615. That may seem steep but it’d be easy to spend…

Soaking up problems I really enjoyed your test of waterproof boots (January), especially as it came just at the time where I was looking for some. I’d like to share a tip for drying wet boots I’ve been using for years: stuff the wet boots with cheap babies’ nappies (bought from Poundland or your local supermarket) which have been turned inside out. Leave them overnight and the inside of the boot will be bone dry in the morning. David Berry Electric bikes leave me flat Sorry, but I disagree that electric bikes make any kind of sense longer term. As well as the obvious problems of lack of range, charging time and high cost, other issues will arise if electric vehicles become anything more than toys for a minority. The…

BITCHE, LUDWIGSWINKEL AND Frankenstein might sound like a particularly litigious firm of Franco-German barristers, but they’re also towns linking into one of the least-known but most-entertaining rides across the border of France and Germany. The broad region is called the Pfälzerwald – literally, the Palatinate Wood – and with more than 600 square miles consisting of 90% forest, it’s Germany’s largest continuous woodland area. The Pfälzerwald is an elongated shape, stretching more than 70 miles from the German town of Kaiserslautern in the north, passing over the French border and becoming the Vosges du Nord, reaching to a southern tip near Saverne. The region is only half as wide from east to west, encompassing multiple mountain areas and sub-forests. The southern portion has a tangled history – it frequently changed…

THE GRAND DUCHY of Luxembourg, land-locked in the heart of Europe, is one of bike touring’s best-kept secrets. Only 60 miles tall and 40 miles wide, it’s the same size as Dorset – but, a mere 250 miles and four hours from Calais, it’s probably quicker to get to Luxembourg, which isn’t choked with holiday traffic and has better wine and beer. Luxembourg is compact, green, clean, efficient, culturally and culinarily diverse, its picturesque landscapes shifting from gentle, rolling farmland in the west to steeply forested river valleys in the east. The roads are relatively quiet, well-maintained and you’ll discover a network of mid-paced runs gliding beneath shimmering, cathedral-canopies of birch and oak, overseen by castles perched on rocky outcrops. Every town or village is an excuse for a stop,…

THE COOLING SHADE of a forest is never so welcome as it is in Spain. I don’t mean the lush, well-watered slopes of the Picos or the Pyrenees. I mean the baking heat of the Spanish plains, where the sun burns down from immaculately cloudless skies and temperatures soar like the huge birds of prey that ride the thermals. The middle of the Iberian peninsula can get seriously hot. I know this because the Triumph Tiger’s dash tells me it’s nudging 26°C. Not so bad, I suppose, but the dash also tells me it’s not even 9am. By midday it’ll be seriously sweltering. At least I have some shade as I set off along the narrow, cobbled streets of Segovia, passing the aqueduct and crossing the river before heading out…

NOTHING SLOWS YOU down like an ancient forest. As the last of our five bikes stops the atmosphere creeps out of the trees like an invisible fog, and takes hold of our senses. Silence. We’re in a steep-sided valley in late afternoon, and the gloom is already beginning. Around us, trees cling in tangled variety to near-vertical slopes, their mist-catching aerial roots straggling down from 50ft up. Below us a 30ft ravine channels the tea-coloured Bloukransrivier, rich in tannins thanks to the forest soil’s abundance of decaying leaves. It’s frosty and wet in the UK, but here it’s late summer and the sky is dark with veldt fires. Ash falls softly my Triumph Tiger 800. Our parking spot on the bridge happens to be slap on the border between South…

MARKET SHARE’S FAIR What’s hot & what’s not THE POPULARITY OF adventure bikes has continued to rise throughout 2017, while superbike sales remain in sharp decline. The latest new-registration figures (to the end of November) confirm the continued contrasting fortunes of the two styles, with dual-sport machines bikes outselling sportsbikes by two to one over the year. While overall new-bike registrations are down around 15%, adventure bikes have bucked the trend by increasing their sales slightly. It means they now make up almost one in five of all new motorcycles sold — compared with one in ten a decade ago and less than one in 30 back in 2000. The charge is being led, predictably, by the BMW R1200GS and GS Adventure. New registrations of the two models during the…

TRAVEL STAR PICTURE Caen, France This is me riding my new Yamaha MT-10, my brother on his Triumph Daytona and my mate on his Suzuki GSX650F. We took off for a few days to see the D-Day landing sites - this is Pegasus Bridge. James Gouldsworthy Pyrenees, France I took my Honda VFR750 to the Pyrenees last year to celebrate 100,000 miles on it. I took it back this year to celebrate 20 years of owning it. Paul Elverstone Cardington, England My Triumph Rocket III at the airship hangers in Cardington, before a trip to North Devon. Paul Kaiser John o’Groats, Scotland I’ve just done the North Coast 500 with my dad and had to share this picture. Anthony Reynolds Picos de Europa, Spain This is my Suzuki M1800 Intruder…

PRICE RANGE £4000 The original versions of all three litre-adventurers in this month’s Group Ride can be had for less than £4000. The first Suzuki V-Strom 1000 was a great-value all-rounder from the second it landed in 2002 — and it’s even more of a bargain 16 years later. It’s nicely balanced, exuding a forgiving, friendly but spritely character. The 996cc 90° V-twin is punchy yet deliciously smooth; the riding position is spacious without the bike’s physical size feeling bulky or flabby. The first models are in dealers priced at less than £2500 — though later bikes benefit from subtle improvements including a stronger alternator, a smarter ECU and a quieter clutch. For £4000 you should be looking at an 07 or 08 GT model, which came with three-piece hard…

RETURNING FROM THE Western Sahara last March, crouched against a headwind on my WR250R, flat-out at 55mph, I had a brainwave. Ideal though the WR was for genuine off-road exploration, maybe I’d be better off on a modified Yamaha XSR700, scrambled in the tradition of Triumph’s 1960s Mojave desert racers. I’d taken an MT-07 out for a spin a couple of years back and had fallen for the throb of the 270° parallel twin. The same-engined XSR’s upright, wider-barred stance ought to make a good all-roader, my latest solution to the ever-unsolvable ‘getting to Morocco/being in Morocco’ GS500. Then in 2015, Rally Raid fitted a prototype of its Stage 3 kit on my Honda CB500X. That kit’s been a huge hit for Rally Raid but once you’ve sampled the rugged…

1 MONTH AHEAD THE BIG EVENT MCN LONDON MOTORCYCLE SHOW February 16-18, ExCeL London, Docklands If you didn’t make it to Motorcycle Live at the NEC (or even if you did) this should give you the opportunity to check out the year’s new models before they hit the showrooms — Ducati’s Panigale V4 is bound to take centre stage for sportsbike fans, but Kawasaki’s supercharged Ninja H2 SX SE sports tourer, CCM’s Spitfire flat tracker and Triumph’s new Tigers will be attracting at least as much attention. There’s a more relaxed vibe than the NEC but it’s still packed with stuff to see including stunt shows by Steve Colley, a classic auction by Coy’s and live-action racing in the Michelin Thunderdome, featuring Ruben Xaus, Chris Walker and Neil Hodgson bashing…

Yamaha FJR1300 £2000-£12,000 2001-on > 1298cc inline four > 144bhp > 289kg INTRODUCED IN 2001, the FJR1300 is the longest-running tourer on the market, which means there really is something for every budget. The one thing all models have in common is the huge, turbine-like inline four engine, doling out irresistible silky drive at the merest sniff of a twist of the throttle. It’s a great bike for two, though you may not see many with three-piece luggage. Panniers came as standard from 2006 but since launch, Yamaha has insisted it shouldn’t run topbox and panniers at the same time – some owners ignore and fit a box but most make do with the side cases (and maybe some kind of soft rollbag on the small standard rack). At the…

Honda F6B 2014-2016 £11,000 - £14,000 • 1832cc flat six • 116bhp • 124mph • 55mpg • 382kg Still big, still brash but without the Rocket III’s kick up the pants. This monster has the full six-cylinder 1832cc from the current Wing. Designed for the US market, it was a short-lived model in Europe but it’s built for riding, not posing. It has acres of torque and it goes round corners too. Harley Davidson V-Rod/ Street Rod 2002-2017 £6500 - £15,000 • 1131cc V-twin • 120bhp • 130mph • 40mpg • 275kg Long and low with a lot more go than you’d expect. The 2006-on Street Rod is the one we’d go for; it’s a little more focused than the original V-Rod and will drag away from the lights with the best of them but will also scuttle…

“It looks good now and is still a hoot to ride” #31 Ducati M900 Monster Where did it come from? Straight out of Ducati’s parts bin. That’s a bit harsh; It was actually conceived from the ground up by designer Miguel Angel Galluzzi but R&D constraints meant the production version had to use as many existing parts as possible, to keep development time and costs down. So at launch in 1993 it used the engine, wheels and brakes from the 900 Supersport, the basic non-adjustable forks from the 750 Supersport, a half-900SS, half-851 frame and a swingarm based on the 851. The only new bits were the sculpted tank and minimalist seat and subframe. What changed? For a long while, not much — being Ducati there were various small changes…

“Punctures make up a higher proportion of breakdowns” AS ONE UK tyre firm manager told us (off the record): “The differences between different brands of tyre in a class are minuscule compared with the differences between the different classes of tyre.” That is to say, even the worst example of the right type of tyre will work better and be safer than the best of the wrong type of tyre. It’s fairly obvious, really: using a road-legal race tyre to commute in the snow, or taking a touring tyre on track doesn’t make any sense. But people still do it, don’t they? It’s human nature in some ways – the racers on the telly on World or British Superbike weekends use Pirelli Supercorsa tyres, so they must be the ‘best’…

WHILE MOST OF our 2017 test fleet returned to the warm, dry workshops of the manufacturers, I managed to persuade Kawasaki to leave me with the Z1000SX Tourer for a little longer. However, I was acutely aware of the way the weather was turning: the bike came back from its second service the day the snow came… and along with the snow came the council gritter. Looking after bikes in winter is a challenge. The wet, salty roads are a nightmare of potential corrosion and it takes rigorous and regular cleaning to keep it at bay… Or a little bit of professional help. Faced with riding the Kawasaki in salty, wintry conditions, we contacted All-Year Biker (www.allyearbiker.co.uk). Operators in the UK-wide, 25-strong network come to you and clean your bike,…

“This is Memory Lane, caning a bike though Thetford Forest” I’M AIMING FOR the light. Where the road curves, the trees on either side thin just enough for a shaft of sunlight to break through the canopy and pool on the tarmac, golden and inviting. I set the turn up – out wide, down two gears, turn my head and tip in. I’m through the pool of light quick as a blink – my eyes don’t even have time to adjust to the flash of brightness before I’m back in the cool shade as the trees close in to dapple the straight in front of me. This is memory lane for me, caning a bike through Thetford Forest. The difference is that, rather than being a callow teenager holding a…

THERE IS A place where you can ride for 2000 miles in one direction without touching a motorway, seeing a traffic jam or fearing for your safety should you get lost or break down. Somewhere the vistas are so enormous, so dramatic, and so alien that you feel you’ve slipped into a film backdrop. Somewhere where the daylight is as vibrant at midnight as it is at midday. For the true trip of a lifetime, the best riding on Earth is in Norway. While you could stick a pin pretty much anywhere in a map of Norway and uncover a great road, we embarked on an epic ride from Oslo to the most northern tip of mainland Europe, Nordkapp (the North Cape), clinging to the West coast all the way.…