RiDEAugust 2016的目錄

Spain Lee, Simon, Kev and me with our Honda CBR600RR, two Suzuki GSX-R600s and my Honda FireBlade at Boltaña, just off the N-260 in Spain. Who needs a GS to go the distance? Loved the tour – we did 1800 miles in six days – Jord Cowley Austria This was taken at the top of the Timmelsjoch pass, on a trip I did with my missus on our BMW K1600GTL. The weather was excellent – Ian Cooper Morocco Kamran on his Suzuki DR-Z400S and me on my Honda Africa Twin on a three-week tour of Morocco. This photo was taken on the gravel road between the Dadès and Todra gorges. It’s a beautiful country with fantastic people – Paul Webb Spain After an 11-day trip to Spain we left Soria…

Pocket guides #5 Layering made simple The base layer needs to keep the skin dry. The importance of a non-cotton base layer cannot be stressed enough: cotton can absorb up to 10 times its own weight in perspiration and takes forever to dry, making it dangerous to use as a base layer as it can accelerate the body’s heat loss. Go for merino wool - expensive, but it’s a superb temperature regulator, naturally breathable and resists bacteria. The mid layer traps warm air next to the body, the logic being if your core is warm your extremities will be too. It can be wool, polyester fleece, down, or synthetic insulation, like that found in sleeping bags. We usually go for Primaloft insulated jackets, as they are lightweight, easy to care…

Peter Galbraith works with the Wilson Craig team. We asked him for the best spots to watch the action from at the Dundrod circuit. “Well, if I was coming for the first time, I’d ride my bike into the middle of the circuit, and park up. There’s a great network of roads in the middle and they can take you to six key points from which to watch the races. “You can watch anything from Deer’s Leap to Quarterlands, which is beautiful. There’s another road that takes you to Joey’s Windmill and Jordan’s Cross. Then get back on the bike and ride over to Wheelers Corner. “My favourite place out of everything is to watch them on the outside of Quarries. You’re looking down on the bikes coming through there.…

Andrew Dalton’s legal Q&A Andrew Dalton, ex-dispatch rider, now a solicitor-advocate and barrister with 20 years’ experience with bikers, gives the inside track on what the biker needs to know to stay on the right side of the law. Q I WAS knocked off my motorcycle in France by a driver who stopped, got out of his vehicle, saw I wasn’t dead, then promptly got back into his car and drove off. The gendarmes arrived after about 20 minutes and I was given various bits of paper and my bike was carted off. Luckily I was only bruised. My insurers got my bike back with absolutely no problems, with all the repairs carried out in France at a franchised Honda dealer, but two problems have arisen. The first is my…

“The MT-10 turns into a sabre-toothed tiger” SOMETHING HAPPENED AT Yamaha a few years ago. They’d just decided to become a premium brand, raising prices and quality, when the world crashed. People stopped buying motorbikes and the only manufacturers hitting the spot with customers were the European marques. So Yamaha locked themselves away for some time and returned with a fresh plan. Oliver Grill, Yamaha Europe’s product planning manager, explains their new thinking: “It’s not enough to be the same any more – you can’t produce bikes like the FZ8 which sit in the middle. You have to be left or right – some will not like it, but others will really like it.” Yamaha’s MT range of nakeds was the result, and has been a huge hit. They have…

Like an older VFR - growly, smooth, a little bit ponderous, a little bit old-fashioned. Sounds like me, apart from the smooth bit… If you like your bikes to feel like bikes, and not mobile arcade games, then the GT’s simplicity and lack of electronic interference is a breath of fresh air. The engine is the best bit – bags of low-down grunt, but with plenty of snarling top end if you need it for overtakes or hedonism. The riding position feels natural if you’re used to sportier bikes, but some find it a bit too canted forward. It does give you good feel from the front end though, despite the basic suspension’s lack of refinement. If you want to attack some twisties it’ll cope admirably, again in a lazy,…

“It’s reliable, practical and seriously versatile” THERE’S A LOT to like about the Sprint GT. True, it doesn’t have a lot of gadgets, rider aids and the like, but for many owners that’s a benefit, not a burden. It’s reliable, practical and seriously versatile – take your passport and it’s comfy enough for distance; take the panniers off and it’s slim and frugal enough for a lane-splitting commute; take your brain out and it’s quick enough to be fun on a sunny Sunday blast. In theory, like an older Honda VFR, it should be all the bike you need. For most owners though, the GT seems to be a step on the ladder to something else, rather than a long-term commitment. Quite a few owners had acquired the GT to…

BMWR1200RT 2005-2013 £3000-£10,000 1170cc boxer twin 110bhp 25-litre tank The RT is RiDE readers’ favourite tourer, and your first test ride tells you why. The huge fairing, capacious luggage, comfy seats, big tank and excellent fuel economy put it firmly in the pure touring class, but actually the handling, brakes and performance are much more sporty than the looks suggest – so you have the best of both worlds. An update for 2010 saw twin-cam heads for the first time and some upgrades to styling and controls, but it wasn’t a big step forward and you’re better off buying a good earlier bike than an average later one. Avoid very early (2006/2007) models with servo-assisted brakes, though – they’re grabby and can be a pain to keep in proper fettle.…

THERE ARE SO many situations where a flip-front helmet comes in handy. Stopping to ask directions, showing your passport at the ferry port, having a sip of water or quick roadside confab with your riding mates before moving on again, or even when filling up in one of those annoying petrol stations that wants riders to remove their helmets: lift the flip and everyone’s happy. Of course, there are trade-offs. Not least the cost: flip-fronts can seem expensive beside full-face helmets. There are other disadvantages: they’re usually heavier and can often be noisier too. But in their favour, flip-front lids often have a lot more features than full-face helmets. All the helmets tested here can take a Pinlock anti-fog visor insert and most of them come with one included in…

CLEANING Wash your bike – it’s a great way to look out for any small problems you may not have noticed – a leak, crack or missing bolt. Give it a good polish and it will help small scratches from tankbags, etc. LIGHTS Have a quick check round the bike to make sure all your lights work. Once loaded up make sure that your luggage and straps aren’t obscuring any tail or brake lights. Check your headlight aim when the bike’s fully loaded, adjusting it to avoid blinding everyone you’re following. SPOKES Cast wheels are fairly maintenance-free but spoked wheels need checking. Tap them lightly and listen: if one makes a different note it could be too tight, loose or broken. This could be disastrous so get it checked out.…

“They weren’t all adventure bikes, but they were all upright” IT’S NOT THAT long ago that adventure bikes stood out a mile. Now, they’re the new normal. Meeting up at the Cringleford services near Norwich for a ride-in to the MCN Festival of Motorcycling, it was easy to lose sight of your bike because so many of them were from a similar mould. They weren’t all adventure bikes, but they were all upright, and most had some bodywork at the front and some luggage at the back. Matt’s Honda Africa Twin was the whitest, Simon’s KTM 1290 Super Adventure was the widest, and Infinity Norwich store manager Lydia McClintock’s KTM Super Duke had the most attitude, but I was more than happy to be on the F800GS. It had got…

#2 Know where you are PROVIDING YOU HAVE the range, time and right machine, following your nose along remote back roads or trails can be fun, but in the end you’ll have to ask: where am I, where am I going and how am I going to get there? This happened to me the other day, taking a shortcut across a dry lakebed in northern Baja. It was fun until the track veered off in the ‘wrong’ direction. I followed thinner, sandier tracks and ploughed along dry creeks until there was nothing at all and I finally admitted I was in a muddle. When rummaging around like this, be it off road or in a confusing town, with or without mapping (sat nav or paper), I always endeavour to keep…

IN OUR AUGUST 1999 issue we marked the arrival of the new Suzuki Hayabusa by getting six readers to go flat-out on it at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. That’s 170-odd horsepower of 1300cc inline four on an old airfield with a two-mile straight. Happily, none of the many things that could have gone wrong did go wrong. And the well-chosen group of readers helped us get a better understanding of the new Suzuki and its key rival, the Honda Super Blackbird, which had been significantly updated in 1999 with the introduction of fuel injection. As tester Alan Dowds noted, the GSX1300R is actually very well behaved and easy to live with. But the readers – a mix of big-bike and small-bike owners – kept it in perspective for us. “I’m shaking…

“The trick is finding a seat that packs down small” Robens camping furniture The secret to camping comfort lies in avoiding sitting on the ground. While you can perch on a pannier, if you have hard luggage, nothing beats a proper seat. The trick is finding one that packs down small enough. The Robens Pioneer chair packs down to a compact 12x11x29cm. It’s comfortable, with a supportive back and a swivel action. It can support a 100kg human 38cm from the floor, its four feet keeping it stable. Taking up even less space, the Geographic Stool High packs down to 7x7x42cm, sitting you 30cm from the floor, and also supports 100kg. To make camping utterly civilised, try the Adventure Table. This large one packs down to 7x7x72cm, so it’ll fit…

“It’s a lovely circuit – you don’t go anywhere more friendly” THE SMALL PROVINCE of Northern Ireland is absolutely rammed with top-class road racing, while there’s next to none in Great Britain.This is because public roads can be closed to allow racing on bikes and in cars in Northern Ireland, but in the rest of the UK it requires an Act of Parliament to do that. So while road racing in Great Britain has developed mostly on short circuits, road circuits are much more common in Ireland. Local communities set up the burger vans and close their roads for a few days of practice and racing, racers turn up with their travelling circus of vans, motorhomes and full-bore superbikes, with fans in their thousands coming to watch the spectacle. And…

“Have a break before you start. Stelvio’s a lot of riding” AT A LOFTY 2757m, Italy’s Stelvio Pass is one of the four highest roads in the Alps and the second highest pass (only France’s Col de l’Iseran is a higher pass, at 2770m). But when it comes to cramming in corners, Stelvio is in a league of its own: 48 hairpins on one side of the pass, 39 on the other. It’s become one of the great must-ride roads for fans of mountain riding. RiDE’s Simon Weir is a Stelvio addict: “It’s not an easy road to ride well – especially the tight, final climb from Prato allo Stelvio to the summit, which crams 14 hairpins into two miles. But the sense of satisfaction from stringing all the corners…

Good, solid engineering in a no-frills package. There’s certainly nothing in the way of complicated electronics (well, apart from the ABS and fuel injection). No switchable riding modes, traction control or onboard computer, just a rather fussy dash. On the original models you got panniers, a centrestand and an accessory socket, but that was about it. Many dealers offered heated grips and a top box to sweeten the deal and clear slow-moving stock. The SE model gets these as standard, plus a taller screen and a passenger backpad. Mechanically, you’ve got the familiar 1050cc inline triple from the previous Sprint ST, though in GT guise it has a few extra horses to drag it along. The main frame’s the same as on the ST as well, but the GT’s single-sided…

“The 1050cc triple should be as tough as old boots” 1 BRAKES Inclined to gradually seize up with road crud and corrosion, so need regular cleaning. If they’re really bad, they’ll need a rebuild. Genuine seal and piston kits are £56.59 per caliper. Some owners upgrade from standard pads to a more-aggressive HH compound. If you go this route, try and avoid using the brakes too hard from cold – you risk warping the discs, and they’re £170 each… Some owners complained about their brakes ‘seizing’ overnight after a soaking. It’s actually just dust from the sintered pads lightly rusting to the discs, and should clear itself as soon as you start rolling. 2 ELECTRICS Mostly pretty good, though if the loom has been cable-tied too tightly it can chafe…

YamahaFJR1300 2001-current £2500-£11,500 1298cc inline four 143bhp 25-litre tank The FJR seems to have been with us forever - 15 years and counting is a hell of a model run considering it’s mostly only had detail changes in that time. That means you’re better off buying on mileage and condition rather than age. Owners love the turbine-smooth engine, great weather protection and the big fuel tank, giving an easy 200-mile range. The rear suspension is the weak point – a stronger spring on the standard shock helps, but an upgraded replacement is better and will really make the most of the FJR’s smooth steering and good ground clearance. Despite its long wheelbase and comfy riding position the FJR can really hustle in the bends. The rear linkage bearings can seize,…

“Many bikers considered them hateful machines” #13 BMW R100RT Where did it come from? In the late 1970s a strong Deutschmark meant BMW were struggling in the US, falling from sixth to 11th in the sales charts. So they restructured the company and changed the management. Buoyed by the success of their R100RS (the first-ever faired sportsbike), the new team created a touring version, the RT, to take on Harley-Davidson’s touring range. Despite being the most expensive bike on the market at the time, sales started steadily but rose quickly. What changed? Very little changed from 1978 until the R100RT’s demise in 1994. Even the introduction of the K100RT and K75RT did little to put off the fans, despite BMW’s intentions of canning the old air-cooled boxer range. For 1981…

“SO YOU KNOW that 200bhp superbike you wanted…” began an almost-apologetic editor as he approached me a few weeks ago brandishing a key. “Well, here’s your brand-new Suzuki SV650.” Ah. I’ve purposely kept my expectations low for the SV, because it’s no secret that I like power and gizmos. The SV has no traction control to play with, no engine modes, no electronic suspension, and the figures don’t blow me away either – it’s about 100bhp short of making my wish list. It is, however, about £10,000 less expensive than anything on that list. And despite that the SV650 feels more of a quality machine than its price tag would suggest. At first glance, it’s hard to see where the cost-saving comes into effect. Nothing on the SV looks particularly…

“I had decided early in my biking career never to blame the driver – only myself” EVERY WORKING DAY for two years, rain or shine, my wife would look at me despairingly as I struggled into my textile jacket and trousers, then wish me a safe ride to my office 45 miles away near Tower Bridge in London. Her concern was understandable. I had passed my Direct Access just months before, at the tender age of 52. Now here I was, dicing with London’s commuter traffic on a Suzuki V-Strom 650. I must have looked pretty sketchy those mornings at around 7am, as I paddled the bike over our gravel driveway. In winter and early spring there might be a light frost; one year it never stopped raining. However, I…

Q With the weather finally getting warmer, I find myself wanting to stop more often to have a swig of water. I wear a flip-front helmet, so the actual drinking bit is quick and easy, but I’m never sure about where best to carry the water. I once spilled an entire bottle of water in my tankbag, ruining my phone and camera in the process. Is there some motorcycling equivalent of a car cupholder or one of those simple wire frames that cyclists have on their downtubes? A You have various choices, aside from adapting a bottle holder intended for cycles. One is to go for a hydration pack, either worn on the back or tucked into your tankbag, with a tube going up towards your mouth. Kriega’s won a…

“A 500cc boxer from an R5 plus a supercharger” WHILE WE WERE pounding the highways of France on two of BMW’s heavyweight tourers for this month’s cover story, the ever-questing German company were unveiling this minimalist retro custom. The R5 Hommage, which was one of the stars of the annual high-end automotive swank fest at Villa d’Este in Italy, is ostensibly to mark the 80th anniversary of the R5. That bike was a big leap forward in the 1930s, thanks largely to a lightweight frame that helped it perform way better than other 500s. The new show bike isn’t about high performance – rather, it’s bridging the retro-custom divide, in much the same way as a previous Villa d’Este bike, the Concept 90, which became the R nineT production bike.…

BMW K1600GT SE £20,085 1649cc inline six 158bhp 332kg 24L tank 42mpg The big one: six cylinders of hi-tech tourer Triumph Trophy SE £14,599 1215cc inline triple 132bhp 321kg 26L tank 46mpg The British one: three cylinders, one World Cup, etc BMW R1200RT LE £17,445 1170cc boxer twin 123bhp 274kg 25L tank 47mpg The popular one: the biggest selling tourer in the UK Yamaha FJR1300AE £14,936 1298cc inline four 144bhp 292kg 25L tank 45mpg The new one: updated for 2016, now with six gears Kawasaki 1400GTR £13,836 1352cc inline four 158bhp 305kg 22L tank 41mpg The sporty one: higher pegs, bigger attitude, smaller fuel tank Honda ST1300 Pan European £14,699 1261cc V4 125bhp 329kg 29L tank 43mpg The long-running one: launched in 2002 and barely changed since THROWING BACK THE…

SCREEN We fitted an MRA X-Creen from Bike HPS to the ZX-10R. It’s adjustable and is easy to remove, but on a sportsbike you will be glad of some air on your chest to take the weight off your wrists. www.bikehps.com UPSIDE DOWN HANDLEBARS On some bike with clip on handlebars you can improve your touring comfort by turning them upside down and mounting them on opposite sides. This raises them up, but you may need longer throttle and clutch cables and longer brake lines ROK STRAPS Part bungee, part tie-down, Rok Straps last forever, are safe, don’t ping in your eye and come in a range of sizes. www.oxfordproducts.com PLASTIC TANKS On sportsbikes with plastic tanks, magnetic tankbags are useless. We used a Kreiga tank bra to attach a…

“We had an entire palace to ourselves for just £50 a night” WE’D BEEN TO Eastern Europe in 2014 and had a good time, so the natural next step was to go further. How about Ukraine, I asked. We hadn’t visited a country at war before. “Maybe there’s a reason for that,” said Yvonne, my other half. “It looks a long way.” It’s just next door to Hungary and Slovakia, I said. Three days later we set off. Our Honda CBF1000 was already insured for everywhere but Ukraine, which insurance companies weren’t keen on for some reason. There was no way our breakdown cover could be extended, but the bike is Japanese so it never goes wrong. Besides, we have a puncture repair kit and spare bulbs, which is plenty.…

Service schedule The GT is pretty easy to work on – access is good and there’s not much in the way of complicated electronics. To do it properly though, you’ll need access to the ECU, using either Triumph’s dealer equipment or an aftermarket system, such as that offered by www.tuneecu.com, which lets you alter fuelling, set parameters for engine sensors and read and reset fault codes. Basic service intervals are 6000 miles and, unlike a lot of Japanese bikes those are proper services, not just a glorified tyre kick. Throttle bodies need balancing (Triumph’s triples are very sensitive to this), spark plugs checking, oil and filter changing and a raft of visual checks. Valve clearances are at 12,000 miles, along with a new air filter and a coolant flush. You’re…

BMWR1200GS 2004-2012 £4000-£9000 1170cc boxer twin 110bhp 20-litre tank The current water-cooled version may be faster and smoother, but the air-cooled 2004-2012 model is still the definitive adventure bike. Add a full set of luggage (and most owners do) and you’ve got a fast tourer that can genuinely get you just about anywhere. Of course most never go anywhere near off-road, but the commanding riding position, great ground clearance and long-travel suspension work as well on motorways and mountain hairpins as they do on muddy trails. The immense popularity means there’s a huge choice out there – more than 100 for sale on www.mcnbikesforsale.com – so you can pick and choose a good one. Don’t worry too much about mileage, but do worry about condition. Look for a full BMW…

WE’VE BEEN IMPRESSED by the standard of these flip-front helmets. Even the budget helmets are pretty decent and some are great value, especially the AGV Compact, which performs to a very high standard and so gets a Recommended triangle. Paying the extra for a fibre helmet over a polycarbonate one is, in our view, worth it. Not only does the lower weight mean better stability and comfort, but also the refinement tends to be better in these helmets. Linings are plusher, vents work better, flips are easier to use… though not in every case. Generally the high-end helmets all perform to a high standard and the one that fits you best will always be the best one for you. But two stood out – so we’ve awarded Recommended triangles to…

Indian Scout One of the many delights of the MCN Festival of Motorcycling in Peterborough was the variety of bikes dotted around obscure corners of the site. Unless we’re very much mistaken, this is a 101 Scout, the 1928-1931 V-twin – with leaf-spring suspension and hand gearchange – which helped Indian to become such a major player before the second world war diverted them from the Scout and the Chief to military production. Confusingly, the ‘For Sale’ board resting on the footboard is peddling a different Indian, a 1945 Chief. Good to see them being used. Triton If anyone needs to know what a café racer should look like, show them this exemplary bike. It’s all the more remarkable when you realise just how much of it is down to…

MXGP2 Platform PS4, Xbox One, PC Price £39.99 mxgp.pqube.co.uk As you’d expect MXGP2 sees you racing with MXGP and MX2 bikes, riders and tracks from the 2015 season. But thankfully there’s more to it than that. The usual career modes, single races, championships and multiplayer modes are there, but there’s also the addition of stadium races and the Motocross of Nations (three-rider teams representing their country). There’s also a free-roaming test track, which allows you to mess around on whatever bike you like until you get bored. These extras have turned this into a monster that could claim a lot of your evenings and weekends. In addition to racing as any rider from 2015, you have to option of creating a custom rider on a bike of your choice. Both…