Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 67 Issue 07 i Australian Motorcycle News

HONDA WILL REVEAL its all-new Gold Wing and F6B models on 24 October – but somebody got their mits on a brochure and beat the mighty H to the punch. The Gold Wing’s gestation has been a long one. The existing bike is 16 years old now, with only minor updates in that time, and Honda will be aiming to recapture the position of building the world’s most gadget-laden motorcycle. Honda has been patenting ideas for its new ’Wing for years, and the leaked pictures reveal which ones made the cut. Most notable is the front suspension, which dispenses with telescopic forks in favour of a variation on the Hossack-style girder fork used on BMW’s K1600GT. As on the BMW, it uses a cast aluminium fork. Just above the front…

$6900 BMW has announced the price of its all-new G 310 GS adventure bike when it hits Aussie dealerships in a couple of weeks. Powered by a 313cc single-cylinder engine capable of 25kW and 28Nm, it offers off-road adventure capability (we assume, we’re yet to ride it) with a seat height of 835mm in a package which tips the scales at 170kg ready to ride. It’ll be available in three colour options, black, red or white, and its $6900 price tag excludes on-road costs. BALTIMORE BOOTS Do you remember the feature we ran on Baltimore’s 12 O’Clock boys a couple of years ago, highlighting the group of young riders who spend their time doing wheelies (usually on unregistered dirtbikes) in and around the streets of Baltimore? Well now well-known sports…

HONDA PREVIEWED A LEANING three-wheeled NeoWing concept a couple of years ago, and it looks like it’s going to use the technology on a small-capacity scooter set to rival similar machines from Piaggio and Yamaha. The idea of leaning three-wheeled scooters has become increasingly accepted over the past decade since the release of the Piaggio MP3 and Yamaha’s Tricity. Although Honda has long seen the potential of three-wheeled scooters – it’s made the Gyro, with two rear wheels and one at the front, since 1981 – a new patent application shows it’s about to leap into the leaning reverse-trike market with its own Tricity-style scoot. The patent shows a leading-link fork for each front wheel attached to a parallelogram linkage to allow the whole caboodle to lean through corners. Yamaha’s…

‘JEEZ, IT’S BIG’ one of the gathered dirt-bikers remarked dubiously, as I waited to sign the Ducati Multistrada Enduro in at the local motocross track. ‘Yeah, but it doesn’t feel that big when you’re riding’ I say, for what feels like the 100th time. The Enduro’s imposing size has been by far the most commented-upon feature since I picked it up, but it’s no bigger or smaller than its rivals in the top-end adventure bike segment. It’s just the size it needs to be with the ground clearance, luggage and fuel range requirements of true cross country bikes. You wouldn’t build a midget adventure bike any more than you’d build a giant sports bike. And when you’re in the supportive seat it’s easier to put your feet down when you…

“I never lose sight of the fact that, for me, a motorcycle is built to be ridden” Laurent Dutruel is wearing a smile a mile wide when he swoops off the Montlhéry banking and rolls to a stop. “Man, you’ve just got to try a V-twin turbo. There’s nothing like it!” Nothing like a V-twin turbo? There’s nothing quite like the Zen Motorcycles’ 900SS. And there’s nobody quite like Laurent. After working for 25 years in the family agricultural machinery business, the Frenchman needed a change. “I repaired a lot of lawn mowers – enough to last a lifetime,” he laughs. “So I became a mechanic at the Harley dealership in Nice.” He wasn’t a big Harley fan, but they grew on him and it wasn’t long before he was…

Motorcycle racing is a sport of man and machine: riders get faster by honing their skills, pushing their limits and helping their engineers improve the equipment. That process is repeated ad infinitum. In the old days, factories increased performance with six-cylinder engines, eight-valves per cylinder, NASA-spec electronics, trick fuel, the lot. This kind of freestyle engineering is no longer allowed. Regulations are regularly rewritten to keep up with technology, initially to prevent the richer factories from zooming ahead, more recently to make the racing closer and more TV-viewer friendly. Years ago, the MotoGP regulations were little more than a booklet, now that’s more like a bible in which just about everything seems to be restricted: engine bore size is limited, engine supply is limited, software is limited, tyres are limited,…

Wrestling this beast through a bit of rough stuff produces its own pleasures 1 Introduced in 2008, the 1731cc ‘Freedom 106’ engine is a sophisticated ‘big twin’, boasting four-valve heads with overhead camshafts. 2 The 2009 Hammer’s blue/white livery paid tribute to Carroll Shelby’s all-American Cobra muscle car. 3 The removable seat cowl gives access to the Hammer’s less-than-sumptuous pillion perch. 4 Victory rejected the traditional ‘big twin’ primary-drive chain approach in favour of a geared set-up. IT’S THE HAMMER’S looks that drew me to it. While I was checking out the full range of Victory motorcycles at a bike show a few years ago, I kept coming back to the Hammer. Its styling cleverly combines competing elements – the lovely flowing old-school ‘streamlined’ look with brutish hardware like the…

The maths is simple, the answer to the season’s most important sum is almost completely obvious already, but what’s at work in the margins of the FIM World Superbike Championship immediately behind champion-elect Jonathan Rea (KRT) seems to become more and more complicated with every week. It is a game of give and take right now; Rea is taking all he needs and his rivals seem intent on giving him loads of points. Rea is not getting points from the others in a positive sense, but the delta is being widened all the time as they lose their tally and he grows his. In front of a 41,992-strong crowd over the three days, he scored a peerless double, after a remarkable Superpole Saturday win in Portugal. He even had electronics…

Rubber Wagon Pirelli brought a bit of Formula 1 tech to Portimão, in the shape of a rolling tyre analysis laboratory, which can check the performance of their used tyres and the effects of racing on their own tyre material, without the need to take the tyres away for testing in Milan or Germany. They can check many aspects of their tyres, by both visual and destructive testing methods. Cutting the tyres open can allow the experts to see how they have reacted inside to the strains of racing, and microscopes can inspect any element of the tyres to check for damage and anything else out of the ordinary. They can even stretch the rubber from used tyres on a specialist jig to check how much stress and strain they…

DUCATI TEAM MANAGER Davide Tardozzi has targeted the Japanese and Malaysian Grands Prix as prime opportunities for Jorge Lorenzo’s first win on the Desmosedici GP17. Heavy braking and hard acceleration are features of both circuits, with Sepang’s two super-fast straights adding to Ducati’s chances. “At least one win this season for Jorge is not a dream, he is now very close to the top guys and he can show that before the end of the year he is capable of winning,” Tardozzi said. Ducati has identified the crucial step that will transition Jorge Lorenzo into a race winner on the Desmosedici, their faith underlined when Lorenzo finished third, only two seconds behind Honda winner Marc Marquez in the Aragon GP. It was a classy ride that allowed Lorenzo, after leading…

AFTER HIS GRUESOME crash on Saturday in FP1 in Portugal, Tom Sykes was initially diagnosed with serious left little finger dislocations and breaks but he intended riding at Portimao. He would later be diagnosed as having a fractured left radius, cracks in the hand as it joins the little finger and a crack in his ring finger too - but after his crash he was unable to even try to ride because of the drugs administered to him – not by the Clinica Mobile personnel, but the local medical staff. Sykes doesn’t know why he was medicated before his finger was relocated, “If they’d told me that first I would have said no way, just put it in!” said Sykes a couple of hours later. “I could have just had…

THE CROWNING OF Australia’s next Superbike champion has come down to the two final races of the year at Phillip Island. The three title contenders Troy Herfoss (Crankt Protein Honda), Josh Waters (Ecstar Suzuki) and Wayne Maxwell (Yamaha) are all separated by just 15 points. Reigning champion - and current points leader - Herfoss (226pts) will have extra motivation to claim the title with the news that 2017 will be the last for Honda’s longstanding team boss Paul Free. Ealier in the year few would have predicted Josh Waters (220pts) as a title challenger, but since an upgraded GSX-R1000R debuted at Hidden Valley with a double victory, his points tally has soared. Sitting right behind him and waiting to pounce is Yamaha rider Wayne Maxwell (211pts). Bad luck and errors…

THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED Australian Supercross Series kicked off in style at a redesigned track in Jimboomba, Queensland on 23 September. In the first of six rounds, it was defending SX1 champion, American Justin Brayton (Penrite Honda) who stole the show, returning Down Under with continued domination to take the win in the final. Brayton was unmatched for most of the day, taking over the lead early in the main event and gaining enough breathing space to hold on for the win. Top Australian contenders Dan Reardon (Mega Fuels Kawasaki) and Dean Ferris (CDR Yamaha) battled it out for the minor spots, but it was Ferris who would come through into second and remain Brayton’s only threat on the night. Ferris, who will now jump back to motocross to compete in…

A SMALL GLITCH in Australian off-road star Jess Gardiner’s glittering season means the Yamaha rider heads into the final round of the French Enduro Championship with just a single-point lead over her nearest rival Samantha Tichet (Yamaha). Just seven days after surgery on a finger on her right hand, Gardiner rode to a clean sweep on the opening day of the series’ fourth round to extend her points tally to 140. However a heavy crash on day two meant she scored no points, allowing Tichet to run away with the victory and end the round on 139 points. “The championship has now tightened up quite a lot, which sets the stage for a great battle between Samantha and me,” she said. “I’ll just have to focus on riding my own…

“Power and torque will be monumental!” YOU MIGHT HAVE thought the future generation of turbocharged bikes will be small, efficient and sporty, but patent applications reveal Suzuki is working on a big turbo V-twin cruiser that takes its inspiration from two-wheeled drag racers. While already at the forefront of turbocharged motorcycle development, with its soon-to-be-revealed production machine based around its XE7 prototype parallel-twin turbo engine, the new cruiser is a different proposition entirely. The XE7 engine, shown two years ago, was a development of the 588cc parallel twin created for the Recursion concept bike back in 2013. It’s relatively small, using the turbo to recoup performance to levels of a larger-capacity machine while reaping the emissions and efficiency benefits of its small capacity. However, the new cruiser is clearly aimed…

HARLEY-DAVIDSON IS already having a rough time in its main American market, and it’s not likely to find much comfort in the fact that Triumph is on the verge of launching what must be its most convincing cruiser yet – the Bonneville Speedmaster. There’s been a Speedmaster in the range for years, based on a 270-degree crank version of the old 865cc Bonneville engine. But nothing is carried over to the new version, set to be unveiled on 3 October (next day our time), which is based on the water-cooled parallel twin that’s formed the basis of the new Street Twin and Bonneville ranges. Although Triumph hasn’t released details, we expect the Speedmaster will employ the same engine as the Bonneville Bobber. That’s the larger 1200cc capacity, but retuned for…

IT REMINDS ME a bit of when Honda led the way by killing its off-road two-stroke range on the notion they were too dirty and 13 years later KTM hits the market with a crop of modern, clean fuel-injected two-strokes. Lately, there’s been more than a few developed countries to announce a date when the sale of new petrol- and diesel-powered passenger vehicles will be prohibited, but while everyone is over there working on how we can get batteries to a point that makes electric vehicles as practical as they are efficient, over here Bosch goes and develops a process to produce fuel that’s carbon neutral. Bosch is the first to admit that electromobility is the most effective way to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement goal of reducing global traffic…

Even by Italian motorcycle industry standards, Moto Morini – founded in 1937 – has had more lives than lasagna-loving Garfield the Cat or any of his other feline friends. In modern times it has involved the Bologna-based company going through the hands of the Castiglioni brothers when they owned Ducati, but before reviving MV Agusta. They shut Morini down to make a real estate killing by bulldozing its factory and redeveloping the land, only for the brand to be revived in 2003 in a joint venture between the Morini family and the local cash-rich Berti brothers. This led to the company’s former chief engineer, Franco Lambertini, creator of the classic 3½ model’s Heron-headed V-twin motor, designing the all-new 1187cc 87º V-twin CorsaCorta engine. That powered the Corsaro (‘pirate’ in Italian),…

The new Continental Road Attack 3 tyre is visually quite a step forward from the Road Attack 2 EVO it replaces. A new angular tread pattern, while understated, has borrowed heavily from the Sport Attack 3 tyre which Conti released last year, but with additional grooves for channeling more water. Its appearance is aesthetically more attractive than the curvy RA2 EVO, but how does it perform? While different manufacturers may produce sport touring tyres with unique characteristics, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a top brand sport touring tyre that doesn’t offer impressive sport-style performance. What customers want these days is longevity and wet grip, two areas where Conti has made the biggest improvements with its new Road Attack 3 tyre. For the recent world launch of the RA3 at…

Points leader Franco Morbidelli crashed last time out, at Misano, letting Tom Luthi (CarXpert Kalex) close to within 12 points. His Marc VDS team boss Michael Bartholemy sternly instructed him to start thinking of the championship rather than race wins. Seldom has such advice been so blatantly ignored. Miguel Oliveira had put the Red Bull KTM on a second pole of the year, with Morbidelli heading row two, behind Mattia Pasini (Italtrans Kalex) and his own team-mate Alex Marquez. Morbidelli grabbed the lead off the line, and rapidly pulled away, getting more than a second ahead just four laps in. Pasini and Marquez had both got ahead of Oliveira, still struggling for pace with a full tank on the KTM in its rookie season; while Luthi was fifth. Marquez was…

NINE-TIME WORLD champion Valentino Rossi has declared that Marquez’s dynamic victory in the Aragon GP – his fourth in the last eight races – makes it very difficult for his opponents with four races remaining. Marquez’s willingness to bet everything on a winner-take-all mindset, plus the increasing competitiveness of an updated Honda RC213V, are proving decisive factors, and he’s now 24 points clear of Ducati rival Andrea Dovizioso in the championship chase. “This victory was a very big step in the championship,” Rossi told AMCN. “After the test following the Brno race it looks like they have improved the performance. Marc only lost the Austria GP on the last lap and in Silverstone he was very strong until his engine broke. He won in the wet in Misano and now…

BEFORE THE ADOPTION of control ECUs in 2019, Dorna and the FIM are pushing for a rev-limit in 2018, which can also be used as a form of balancing rule between manufacturers. The idea is simple enough: If you’re winning too often, you can have your maximum allowable revs (under acceleration) cut back. So far the consultation process is still ongoing. “We thought in Germany that we would have some conclusions by Portimão but it is a long process,” Dorna’s WorldSBK Championship Director Dani Carrera explained to AMCN. The idea at Portimão was to allow 3.5 per cent more revs for each machine than the stock bike’s red line, as a starting point. That redline will be decided by the FIM, not the manufacturers. Then, if the balancing rules are…

WITH FOUR ROUNDS of the 2017 season left, Pieter Breddels, the long-term Technical Manager in the Red Bull Honda team, has left his position – seemingly a victim of the tough season with the new Honda Fireblade. Having been part of the Dutch Ten Kate squad for so many years, his leaving had an immediate impact on a paddock he was an integral part of, as RBH team manager Ronald Ten Kate explained. “Pieter has been with us since 2004,” said RTK, “and it has been an extremely difficult season for us. Maybe even especially for Pieter as the technical manager of the team. He has had a big re-think about his future, professionally and privately and he decided to leave the team. The starting point came from him, in…

AUSTRALIAN OFF-ROAD star Rod Faggoter finished 10th in the four-day Baja 1000 Rally, with the Aussie citing the result as crucial preparation for his 2018 Dakar Rally effort. Riding the Yamaha Rally Team WR450F, the 41-year old managed 10th despite stopping to help his Argentinean teammate Franco Caimi. The Queenslander then suffered an injury to his hand, but pushed on with some self administered anti-inflammatories and an ice bucket. “With my hand completely numb from the swelling I had no choice but to ride conservatively for the last two days” he said. “And I was very glad the final stage was only 90 minutes. “It was a huge step forward for our Dakar preparation. Come January we’ll be very familiar with what we’ll face during the first week of Dakar.…

ROUND THREE OF the 2017 Pirelli Southern Downs Road Race Series was held at the busy Morgan Park circuit on 16-17 September. Once again entries remained high, so high in fact that when it came time for Production class leader Locky Taylor to lodge his entries, the category was full! Later he paid special thanks to Pam Dougall for giving up her spot on the grid after an SOS via Facebook. It was good fortune for Locky and his championship aspirations, as he went on to win the hotly contested round after battling with pole sitter Seth Crump and Tayla Relph. Ryan Yanco dominated the Formula 1 class yet again with a strong display aboard his Ducati, winning all four races after qualifying on pole. Michael Edwards and Mitchell Paynter…

BY THE TIME you read this, Chinese firm Zongshen will have unveiled its most convincing motorcycle to date – the RX4 450 at the CIMA Motor show in Chongqing, China. Built around a 450cc, water-cooled, DOHC single-cylinder engine, the RX4 is a baby adventure bike with rather more potential than most of its Chinese rivals. Zongshen has long been one of the more outward-facing Chinese firms, and one of the best engine builders. It’s recently done a deal with Norton to mass-produce its upcoming 650cc parallel twin, and the RX4’s 450cc single looks every bit as good as a Japanese or European motor in terms of its design. Zongshen first revealed the engine a year ago in its NC450 competition bike, which was built to compete in the Dakar Rally.…

IN MARCH LAST year, Suzuki showed a concept bike called the SV650 Rally at the Osaka Motor Show in Japan and this newly revealed production version is impressively close to the original. While the SV650 Rally was always simply a body-kitted SV650, with a nose cowl, auxiliary lights, a pillion seat cover and a Yoshimura exhaust, it was still an effective job. It instantly converted the worthy-but-dull SV into a neo-retro bike with café racer overtones. Suzuki is still shying away from calling the SV650X a full production model, instead intimating that an announcement about production and availability will emerge when the bike makes its public debut at the Tokyo Motor Show at the end of October. However, it’s clear that there’s a production future for it. Compared to the…

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AFTER scratching it from its range, Ducati is set to reintroduce the Monster 659 to its Australian and New Zealand markets next month. The addition will take the firm’s LAMS-approved offerings to two, with the 660cc nakedbike joining the 400cc retro-styled Scrambler Sixty2. Produced exclusively for the Australian and New Zealand markets, the Monster 659 is based around Ducati’s Monster 797 platform and is due to hit Aussie shores as early as next month. It will boast a seat height of 785mm, which is 5mm lower than the learner-legal Scrambler model, with electronic riding aids limited to ABS only. “Ducati has once again produced the new Monster 659 specifically for our market,” Ducati Australia’s Warren Lee said. “So as many learner riders as possible will have the opportunity…

There was plenty of flour and egg fights, but on the track he was aggressive Robert Holden was born in the UK in 1958, and emigrated to New Zealand with his family when he was 13. In the mid-70s he survived a near-fatal road crash to take up racing on a Suzuki RM125 converted to a road racer, winning the national ultra-lightweight championship. He also won the 125cc New Zealand Grand Prix, 125 TT and the 250cc hill climb championship. Fast and competitive, he was destined for big things. Roll on a decade, and Holden was at the centre of one of the most controversial episodes of the Castrol Six-Hour. Holden’s Action Suzuki GSX-R750 was engaged in a furious dice with the pole-sitting Team Honda VFR750F of Malcolm Campbell in…

The TRK502 is the first of a range of new middleweights to come from Benelli The global debut four years ago of the four-cylinder Benelli BN600 range, manufactured in China by the historic Italian marque’s owner Qianjiang (pronounced ‘Chin-jung’, but called simply QJ by its staff), kicked off the long-awaited revival of Italy’s oldest existing motorcycle brand. After purchasing Benelli in December 2005, QJ’s ambitious plans to relaunch the Italian marque stalled in the face of the global economic downturn, which put the brakes on new products. But the BN600 changed all that. The first all-new bikes jointly developed by QJ and Benelli technicians are manufactured in China to reduce costs and offer a crucial edge on price. This marked the first fruit of QJ president Lin Hua Zhong’s acquisition…

Amaroo Park and the Castrol Six Hour race epitomised the freewheeling Australia of the Seventies. In a setting almost like a Roman amphitheatre, the nation’s best racers flogged the latest production motorcycles for six hours every October. Watching this gladiatorial spectacle were thousands of sun-baked fans, drinking cans of lager, puffing on a durrie and eating Dagwood dogs. As the booze and the strong spring sun took hold, the men went topless and the women stripped down to skimpy outfits. Meanwhile the bikes roared around and around just metres below them. What a place. What an event. Carved out of the floor of a rocky valley in suburban Sydney, Amaroo Park snaked 1.9km around a series of cliffs with blind corners and long lengths of Armco barriers. It would not…

1 Bag It up and Roll Link International $159.95 (07) 3382 5000 linkint.com.au Nelson-Rigg SE3000/3010 39L Adventure Deluxe Dry Bags are covered by a lifetime warranty and the waterproof PVC material has electronically heat-welded seams. Features include an airtight roll closure, removable internal stiffener, firm base panel, carry handles, D-rings and easy bike attachment. 2 Racing Star Monza Imports $999.95 (03) 8327 8888 monzaimports.com.au The Bell Race Star features a carbon-fibre shell and has a FLEX Impact liner designed to provide the highest level of protection. It’s eyewear compatible and has removable magnetic cheek pads, a Panovision shield, raceview orientation and a mesh liner. It’s available in five shell sizes. 3 Safe in the Vortex Ficeda Accessories $1199.95 (02) 9827 7561 ficeda.com.au The Ixon Vortex Racesuit is made from full-grain…

NAME MAX FRICKE AGE 21 EVENT SGB RIDERS CHAMPIONSHIP Young Aussie speedway star Max Fricke has scored an outstanding second place in the Speedway Great Britain Riders Championship. Fricke had just returned to action after being sidelined for six weeks with a serious neck injury. Held at the end of the Speedway Great Britain regular season, each club nominates two riders to line up for the individual Riders Championship event. Fricke, who competes for Belle Vue Aces, lined up against 15 other stars including GP regulars Jason Doyle and Fredrik Lindgren. The grand final was a showdown between Lindgren, Fricke, Jacob Thorssell and Craig Cook, with Lindgren prevailing.…

Morning mist meant race distance was cut to 13 laps; penalties fiddled with the grid but left the front row intact: Jorge Martin (Del Conca Honda) on a seventh pole, from EG Honda teammates Enea Bastianini and Aron Canet with title leader Joan Mir (Leopard Honda) on row two. With such a short race, there was no time for tactics or niceties; with so many passing spots there was no telling who would lead out of each corner. It was Martin in front for the first four laps, and then again at the end of the 11th. But he was in a swarm, and it was easy to lose six or more places in a lap without making any mistakes. Towards the end, Martin’s team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio was moving…

LEON HASLAM (JG Speedfit Kawasaki) got the dream start to the British Superbike Championship showdown taking the race one win at Oulton Park, before Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot shot to his second-ever Superbike win in race two of round ten. The youngest ever rider to feature in the showdown, Jake Dixon (RAF Regular and Reserve) was absent from pole in the opener, after a crash in warm-up left him without a bike until only moments before the race start. Linfoot got the holeshot, overtaking the field around the outside of turn one and instantly pulling a gap. All eyes however were on Dixon who started from pit lane and carved through the field with swift, courageous moves. Things looked set for Linfoot as he pulled out a 10-second gap, to…

JASON DOYLE STRETCHED his lead in the 2017 Speedway Grand Prix series to 22 points with just two rounds remaining, after a third-place finish at the Stockholm Speedway Grand Prix on 23 September. The gain came as a result of a top-shelf performance by Doyle and thanks to both his nearest challengers, Patryk Dudek and Maciej Janowski, failing to qualify for the semi-finals. From the five heats Doyle dropped just one point (to countryman Max Fricke) as he dominated a strange-looking scorechart. Emil Sayfutdinov (12) and Chris Holder (9) were also clear qualifiers ahead of a quartet on eight points; Bartosz Zmarzlik, Peter Kildemand, Fredrik Lindgren and Antonio Lindback, while Matej Zagar (7) scraped in on countback. Fricke’s race win took him to six points from three rides, but he…

If you make a mistake trying something new, it teaches you At AMCN we know you from your business preparing bikes and mentoring racers for ASBK, but your aim is to race ASBK next year. What’s the plan? The plan at the moment is to focus on the final round of ASBK at Phillip Island, running a Yamaha YZF-R1M. The idea is to do an impressive enough job to open some doors for next year, because I personally don’t have the budget to run my own team at the level that I need to win. That’s just the economics of the sport – money is key and the idea is to impress at this round. I’ve never had a full season in ASBK and that’s what I want to do,…