Motorcycle Sport & Leisure

best laid plans…

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – what a year it has been so far! Late start to the riding season has meant that we’re all playing catch up. So many places to visit, roads to ride, friends to meet. The whole summer needs to be crammed into a few short weeks while the Covid restrictions are still in place (in some places more so than elsewhere). It looks like some motorcycle events are now starting to happen again, although one local one near me, the ’Normous Newark Autojumble, was called off just days before it was supposed to open due to a local spike in Covid cases. Better to be safe than sorry, but it’s still frustrating – I had marked it in my calendar so I could…

motorcycle sport & leisure’s contributors...

Chris Moss Mossy has made a living from bikes since 1985 – first as a motorcycle courier in London, and then as a journo from 1995. He’s raced, ridden and tinkered with hundreds of different bikes, but he’s the first to admit there’s still loads to experience and learn. Roland Brown A bike journalist for more than 30 years, Roland has contributed to countless publications worldwide and authored a dozen books on bikes. He has tested machines ranging from Rossi’s YZR-M1 to a 1923 Douglas, but still can’t decide which type of bike he most enjoys riding. Ross Mowbray Ross works across several motorcycling magazines. That means he gets to ride all manner of two-wheelers, from Monkey bikes to trikes. Don’t let his youthful appearance fool you, he’s a seasoned petrol-head, respected test rider and…

ewan and charley are taking the ‘long way up’

We’ve been anticipating its arrival for a while, but now it’s official: Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s 13,000-mile odyssey through South and Central America has been packaged as a new motorcycle travel series Long Way Up. There have been rumours about it for a long time, but now it has finally been confirmed that the show will start on Apple TV+ on September 18. Long Way Up follows Ewan and Charley as they cover 13,000 miles (100 days, 16 border crossings and 13 countries) from Ushuaia in Argentina through Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Central America and Mexico on a pair of Harley-Davidson’s recently introduced electric LiveWires. Also joining them are their longtime collaborators, directors David Alexanian and Russ Malkin, following them in their electric Rivians. Long Way Up is a new…

electric super cub is coming…

Patents for Honda’s EV-Cub have just gone public – all but confirming we’re going to see an electric version of the Japanese factory’s iconic Super Cub in the not-too-distant future. First shown as a prototype at the Tokyo Motor Show back in 2015, patents for the EV-Cub were originally filed in 2016 – but now they’ve been made public. The scooter detailed in the designs looks nearly identical to the recently revitalised Super Cub which was released a couple of years ago, aside from one obvious difference: its electric motor. The patents detail a clever mechanism which allows the battery to be easily removed. That means Honda’s imagining a future where riders can head to a battery exchange and simply swap out the depleted unit for one that’s fully charged.…

bmw to bring back the c1. but this time it’ll be electric

Designs filed with the European Patent Office show an electric BMW scooter with a removable roof, seat belts and airbags. A scooter with a roof? Haven’t we seen one of them before? Wasn’t that a BMW too? Correct on all counts. The short-lived BMW C1 was pitched as the scooter of the future at its launch – but limited success resulted in just three years of production from 2000 to 2003, before the concept was canned. Until now. The patents show a machine remarkably similar to the previous generation C1. The roof could be constructed from carbon fibre (rigid, lightweight, but expensive) and sit on an aluminium platform. The entire roof structure will be easy to remove. Chances are BMW would use a bike from its current line-up as a base – and…

new baby sportbike from bmw?

TVS has just updated its Apache RR 310 small-capacity sportsbike – and rumours are swirling that a version of it is going to make it Europe; with a BMW badge. The Apache RR 310 was co-developed by BMW and TVS, and there’s been speculation that it’d make an appearance over here ever since it was released in India. A couple of the bikes built as a part of the joint venture between BMW and TVS have made it into Europe, namely the G310GS and the G310R, but at this stage there’s been no official confirmation from BMW.…