Australian Motorcycle News Vol 68 Issue 20

I LIKE TO play with traffic. When someone runs a red light in front of me, it’s funny to flash your high beam as much like a camera flash as you can. They are worried about red light cameras, but not enough to actually respect an amber. Or when I spot the car driver next to me on their phone, I shatter their ambience by yanking in the clutch and hitting the rev limiter as hard as I can. Or when a car driver purposefully moves over to prevent me filtering – ’cos, you know, “if I am stuck in traffic, everyone will be” – I like to just follow them for a bit, then, really, really slowly filter past them, my mirror 1mm from theirs. Playing with traffic is fun –…

FOR PEOPLE WHO have seen BMW’s stunning Concept 9Cento on our pages last year, this is pure gold. We’ve got our hands on copies of BMW’s production designs for an upcoming F 850 XR based on the show bike first revealed as an exhibit at last year’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy (AMCN Vol 67 No 24). Held on the shores of Lake Como, this is Europe’s annual celebration of design excellence. Its main focus is on cars, both old and new, but BMW has recently used this venue to upstage four wheels with its range of retro motorcycles. After it showed off the futuristic Concept 9Cento last May BMW went very quiet about production plans but we’ve got copies of its patent filings in Brazil that show every detail of…

AMCN IS URGING all big-hearted readers to think about updating their winter jacket for what’s looking like an extremely cold season, using the opportunity to help warm Australia’s homeless by donating the used jacket to AMCN’s annual Winter Jacket Drive. Now in its eighth year, the annual drive supports Australia’s most vulnerable by collecting unwanted motorcycle jackets and, with the help of Mission Australia, distributing them to the alarming and growing amount of people sleeping rough in this country. With both thermal and protective properties, an unwanted motorcycle jacket collecting dust in your wardrobe could make a tremendous difference to a less fortunate person forced to call the outdoors home. A full list of drop-off points will be published soon, but as the days get shorter and the nights get colder, it’s time…

TO SIMPLIFY PRODUCTION it appears that the engine and frame are taken wholesale from the F 850 GS, along with that bike’s swingarm and even its instruments. That means a pressed-steel main chassis section with a tubular subframe and aluminium plates at the swingarm pivot, providing mounting brackets for the footpegs. Those plates have been changed for the XR’s more rear-set pegs and to accommodate brackets for pillion pegs, extending back from the frame rather than hanging down from the subframe.…

YES AND NO. Compared to the original Concept 9Cento, the biggest change is at the seating area for practicality. But the front styling is instantly recognisable as the 9Cento, with twin headlights – symmetrical, thankfully – and just a hint of an adventure bike ‘beak’. Distinct, ‘floating’ side panels are another clear link to the 9Cento concept. Sure, the production bike is missing the 9Cento’s bellypan, but something similar is sure to appear in the options list. It also lacks the weird shark fin on the concept bike’s rear hugger but looks all the better for this omission.…

OFFICIAL SALES FIGURES for the first quarter of 2019 weren’t officially released before AMCN went to press but we understand the grim downturn of 2018 is continuing, with the small-capacity segment propping up what growth there is. Large-capacity sports models continue their slump while sub-500cc motorcycles are experiencing sales increases as much as 150 percent. There are some big questions to be answered. Why is the market for new motorcycles declining in such a strange way? Are the amount of older riders hanging up their helmets outweighing the amount of new riders pulling on gloves? The number of people signing up for new license rider training is experiencing decade-high levels, but are they opting for secondhand motorcycles? How is your local motorcycle shop surviving and adapting to this changing world? AMCN will bring you…