Australian Motorcycle News Vol 68 Issue 21

I RECENTLY SPENT two days riding a big bike off-road with TV personality and all-round legend, Kate Peck. Not, as some assumed early on, on the same bike – Kate was on her own big BMW R 1250 GS – and so she should have been. Her fluid riding style should be the envy of many blokes, something she hammered home as we rounded up bloke after bloke during the ride. But by the ride’s end, I was still shaking my head at the sheer bullshit she had to endure throughout. It started with questions like: “So, which bike are you guys on?” Followed by sheer disbelief and a full head-to-toe body check (read perve) when we both produced keys to check which bikes we were, individually, riding. The fact she really wasn’t…

BMW HAS CHEEKILY chosen a custom show held in Austin Texas on the same weekend as the city hosted the US round of MotoGP to unveil its supersized new cruiser engine. Company officials describe the engine as the ‘Big Boxer’ and it’s set to have an enormous impact on the cruiser segment. BMW is keeping schtum about technical details, only admitting the Boxer engine is “big” and confirming that it uses air/oil cooling and pushrod-operated overhead valves. We believe it’s at least 1800cc, making it the biggest Boxer ever built, blowing away any preconceptions that BMW isn’t serious about smashing its way into the cruiser market. A prototype for BMW’s 2020 cruiser has been spotted on test in Germany, revealing a full-dress tourer clearly aimed at Harley-Davidson’s Ultra Limited. It sports a…

Timo Resch, Vice President Sales and Marketing BMW Motorrad, said last week: “We will be showing a BMW Motorraddeveloped concept bike featuring this engine in the first half-year of 2019. BMW Motorrad will present a series production motorcycle with the Big Boxer for the Cruiser segment in the course of 2020.” We reckon BMW’s own concept bike, likely to be a thinly-veiled preview of the 2020 production model, will be the centrepiece of its display at Italy’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in late May.…

BMW'S BIG BOXER may have a rival in an equally large new water-cooled twin from Indian. A heavily-disguised prototype has been seen on test, looking a lot like a current Chieftain but with an upside-down fork and Brembo brakes. The real clues have been revealed in a patent that focuses on its cylinder head and valve train. The new engine, which appears to be about the same size as the existing air-cooled Thunder Stroke 111 (1811cc with pushrod-operated valve gear) features a single overhead cam in each cylinder head, with a huge radiator. The patent shows each cylinder’s single overhead cam operates four valves, with the camshaft sitting deep in the head between the intake and exhaust valves and acting on roller-rockers. This makes the top end nearly as compact as a pushrod…

A SWATHE OF new patents from Yamaha make it abundantly clear the tuning-fork brand is working on ideas for electric models across its entire range. Its latest patent application focuses on a small but important detail of any electric bike; where to put the charging socket. While it might seem sensible to position it on top of the ‘tank’, there are reasons to put it elsewhere. One of Yamaha’s new designs, based on the 2015 PES2 concept, sticks to the conventional positioning, but where the PES2 concept featured a distinctive, hollow ‘tank’ you could see through, the patent shows that area packed with batteries. Two possible charging configurations are shown – one placed on the top of the tank, the other at the front of the right-hand side. The patent also shows a…

A NEW-LOOK interactive Sydney motorcycle show will run alongside Round 3 of the 2019 Australian Supercross Championship in Wollongong over 8-10 November, and organisers of the newly named Australian Motorcycle Festival believe it’s how motorcycling should be presented to the wider public. The venues of Wollongong’s Lang Park and WIN Stadium will create a unique visitor experience in New South Wales with over 20,000 square metres of outdoor space hosting displays and demonstrations of the latest motorcycles, scooters, ATVs UTVs, trikes and jet-skis, as well as related products and services. Over 40,000 visitors are expected to head to Wollongong, making it one of the largest motorcycle events in Australia. Motorcycling Australia CEO Peter Doyle says running the Australian Supercross Championship alongside the Australian Motorcycle Festival opens new doors for consumers and retailers. “To have…