Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 66 Issue 10 i Australian Motorcycle News

Ducati Multistrada 950 As expected, Ducati revealed the Multistrada 950, a smaller, lighter and more accessible adventure touring machine. It’s powered by the 937cc engine capable of 83kW and 96Nm, has a seat height of 840mm and tips the scales at 5kg less than its 1200cc sibling at 227kg (wet). It rolls on a 19-inch front wheel, uses a double-sided swingarm and boasts reasonable suspension travel of 170mm. In terms of tech, it’s not laden but neither is it lacking. There’s switchable ABS, eight-level traction control as well as power modes and four switchable riding modes: Enduro, Urban, Touring and Sport. Triumph Street Scrambler Triumph has added a Euro4-compliant and ABS-equipped Scrambler to its ever-increasing line of 900cc Bonneville-based models, replacing the firm’s original and somewhat pioneering air-cooled Scrambler stalwart.…

1979 Honda XL500S Street sweet and dirt worthy, Honda’s XL500S arrived to challenge the Yamaha in 1979, with five smaller capacity variants that ranged from 75cc-250cc. A massive 23-inch front wheel and 260mm of ground clearance allowed it to overcome many nasty obstacles on the trail. The four-valve per cylinder configuration and dual vibration counterbalancers helped to smooth power delivery from the single-cylinder powerplant. An automatic compression release made this big one-lunger easier to kick over. What it’s got The Honda XL500S is powered by an air-cooled, 497cc, SOHC, single-cylinder, carburetted four-stroke engine with four valves. Power runs through a five-speed constant-mesh gearbox. The front suspension is a leading axle fork with 224mm of travel. The rear swingarm has dual shock absorbers with 198mm of travel and is adjustable for…

Marshal arts Hi Chris, Love your comments in this issue’s AMCN (Ed’s column Vol 66 No 09). Yes, the snappers work hard and get some great images. Your comment re trying to keep dry and warm was spot on, so imagine how hard it was at Phillip Island for the track marshals, with minimum protection from the rain and wind. There were a couple of times during the weekend when there were up to 30 marshals in the muster shed getting warm. So here’s a challenge, Chris. With the World Supers coming up, how about signing on to work as a tracky or flaggy [or one of your team members] then write about your experiences with these awesome people. My role this year was one of the National Paddock Liaison…

THERE ARE PRECIOUS few bikes that manage to make it all the way to the top. And I’m not talking about the top of sales, races or popular culture. I’m talking about bikes that obtain something altogether more legendary. Bikes that are spoken about in hushed tones. Bikes that they build museums to house. The bikes that changed motorcycling. Burt Munro’s Indian was one. The Brough Superior is another. And without a shadow of a doubt, Giulio Cesare Carcano’s 1955 Moto Guzzi, aka ‘The Otto’ 500cc grand prix V8 can take its seat at the table, too. Ahead of its time, and never given the chance to reach its full potential, the ‘dustbin’ faired Guzzi’s moment in the limelight was as short. But with this injustice squarely in their sights,…

The term ‘superbike’ was a term loosely applied to any big-bore roadster of the late 1960s or early 70s, like the Honda CB750, Kawasaki H2 750, Triumph Trident, BSA Rocket 3, Norton Interstate or Commando, and the Kawasaki Z1. The name was ripe for the picking by a smart race promoter. Early-70s race grids in sun-drenched Australia were bursting with a mix of production-based endurance bikes, Ultra-Lightweight, Lightweight, Junior and Senior grand prix classes, Formula 750 racing and, in early 1973, a new category: Superbike. But strong as they were, all these categories would become extinct – except for one. Superbike, which originated in Australia then spread throughout the world, outlasted the others and remains the premier class in every major national championship. Born almost by accident out of the…

LET’S BE TRUTHFUL, as good as the Sol Invictus Nemesis is as a runabout, learner bike and general fun ride, it’s hard to come up with seriously extreme long-termer-style challenges for the retro-styled 372cc air-cooled single-cylinder powered machine. I did have the idea of filming Mrs Ed and son #1 trying to kickstart the bike for a bit of comic relief, but it turns out to be child’s play to kick, so that idea went out the window. During a recent spin down to my local cafe, I noted how much throatier the engine note had become once the engine had been run in. The twin peashooter exhausts not only sound meaty, they provide a great base for a café racer makeover. A quick surf around the Sol Invictus web…

Better Boots Cassons $549.95 (02) 8882 1900 cassons.com.au Dainese Latemar Gore-Tex Boots are multi-seasonal leather touring boots that provide high levels of comfort and protection. A water ducting and drainage system is claimed to optimise thermal comfort even in very bad weather, and the inner booties are waterproof and breathable. Sizes 39-47 in black. The Clean Air Act CTA Australia $154.95 (02) 9604 3377 ctaaustralia.com.au The K&N high-flow replacement air filter for Suzuki GSX-S1000 models is now available. The filter has a washable pleated cotton element with a large filtration area for improved air flow. It fits directly into the OEM airbox without the need for modification and comes pre-oiled and ready to go. Racer’s Crouch Kenma Australia $199 1800 251 145 kenma.com.au Get the ‘racer crouch’ on your Yamaha…

Jonathan Rea (KRT) became the first rider since a certain Carl Fogarty to win the FIM Superbike World Championship in consecutive seasons after finishing the opening race at Losail in a strong second place. Strong, but still almost four seconds from the winner. Having entered the Losail weekend some 48 points ahead of his nearest rival – his teammate Tom Sykes – Rea’s foregone conclusion of a championship win, his second for Kawasaki, was finally sealed by his first podium position of the weekend. He said on Sunday: “Right now I’m living in the moment with an incredible team riding at the front and it’s easy to take it for granted. I’m sure when I finish racing only then will we be able to fully appreciate the level we are…

For a second successive round, the Moto3 race was emasculated by multiple crashes – a fate the junior class usually evades, in spite of the close racing. Out of 31 starters, there were only 17 finishers. And with one of those crashes cutting the lead group from four to one, the survivor – Mahindra’s Pecco Bagnaia – had a lonely ride to his second win of the year, by a yawning gulf of seven seconds. The pile-ups started at the second corner, when Andrea Migno (SKY VR46 KTM), Juanfran Guevara (RBA KTM) and Bastianini substitute Ayumu Sasaki (Gresini Honda) all tangled up. Only a little further round, Jorge Martín (Aspar Mahindra) highsided in the middle of the pack, taking four other riders with him and getting run over in the…

AFTER SUFFERING REPEATED rear tyre woes at Wildwood in 2015, it’s not surprising that Jess Gardiner wasn’t keen to come back this year. “Last year I told Matt [Porteous], my sponsor from Quick Check Aus, ‘make sure next year when I ring you to come and help me at this race to remind me not to come and do it again’,” said Gardiner with a laugh after claiming victory in the Women’s division. And it was no walk in the park for the 23-year-old after she knocked her chain guard on a rock during the opening lap and had to pit to take the guide off to refit the chain. It didn’t end there, either – after restarting, Gardiner was struck down again on the next lap with the same…

ROBBIE BUGDEN CARRIED his winning form south from the Queensland ASC round to Tasmania’s Baskerville Raceway to claim victory in the Motorworks 2-Hour race on 6 November. Bugden and teammate Chris McGrath riding the Pro Fab/ BC Performance-sponsored Kawasaki ZX-10R inherited the lead on the very last lap of the mini-enduro when the Ducati of race leader Mike Jones – riding the event solo – ran out of fuel while leading by a lap and within site of the chequered flag. Bugden and McGrath completed 126 laps of the tight Tasmania circuit which can be circulated in just 55 seconds on a superbike. Finishing one lap adrift was another Kawasaki ZX-10R (Hobart Cabins/Total Forklifts) piloted by Brett Simmonds and Kurt Sushames. Rounding out the podium was a 600cc Kawasaki ZX-6…

“You have to keep the corner speed up and be very aggressive.” EVER SINCE FATHER Christmas came good with a Honda QR50 when Lachie was a toddler, he’s been belting around the Northern Rivers hinterland. Later, surfing the breaks at Byron Bay didn’t quite match the thrill of a second-hand CRF250 around Reedy Creek in the MX Junior Lites. A little later still, a brand-new KTM 250SXF rocketed him to A-grade where the wins just kept on coming. Introduced to enduro, the attraction of cross-country racing hit the spot and, at 21 years old, Lachie found himself in Germany representing Australia at the Olympics of motorcycling – the International Six Day Enduro. Two years later he captained the team in Argentina when they scored Australia’s second ever podium. “San Juan…

IN THEIR DAY, the Castrol Six Hour at Amaroo Park and the Arai 500 on Mount Panorama were Australia’s twin peaks of endurance racing. The Six Hour was where champions such as Mal Campbell, Michael Dowson and Wayne Gardner honed their craft. And Easter on Mount Panorama was where only the very quick and extremely brave took to the bitumen. At the other end of the spectrum was the International Six Day Trial – the Olympics of Motorcycling where our top dirtshifters showcased their skills. Allan ‘AJ’ Cunynghame was one of the elite, scoring a top 10 with Barry Thompson in the Six Hour with ninth in the wet 1985 race aboard a Suzuki GSX-R750, and a podium in the 1984 Arai 500 with John Fretten in the Improved Touring…

REVIVED BRITISH motorcycle brand Ariel will whip the covers off an even higher spec Honda VFR1200F-powered Ace nakedbike later this month, using its native NEC Show in Birmingham as the stage for the world premiere. Specifics are hard to come by at this stage, however, this sketch released by the firm appears to show the obligatory R-model componentry will be present. Expect top-shelf suspension and braking packages, and plenty of carbon fibre, if the black paint scheme is anything to go by. What the company has confirmed, though, is the strictly limited production run. There will be just 10 R-model units, and that means an exclusive high-end machine in anyone’s language. “We’ll release the full specification at the NEC show,” Ariel’s Tom Siebert told UK bike mag MCN. “But I…

SUZUKI HAS TAKEN its uninspiring Inazuma 250 and transformed it into a pair of much more rousing offerings in the form of the GSX-250R and DL250 V-Strom. Due to be officially revealed at the EICMA show in Milan, the two bikes were previewed at the recent CIMA event in China. We’ve already seen the GSX250R’s styling when we got our hands on official designs from Suzuki, and the finished machine looks exactly the same. Underneath lies an updated version of the Inazuma engine, sharing the same bore, stroke and compression ratio. That means power is lower than rivals like Honda’s CBR250RR, with 18.4kW at 8000rpm, although its torque – 23.4Nm at a low 6500rpm – is on a par with other 250cc machines. The chassis also appears to be Inazuma-based,…

TO CELEBRATE ITS 100th birthday, Germany's most famous marque has conceptualised the motorcycle of the future: the Vision Next 100. The firm says that it is based on the assumption that mobility is set to become increasingly multifaceted and connected, and while it’s got all those things you’d expect from a futuristic BMW-branded motorcycle – such as a zero-emissions powerplant and oh-so recognisable running gear – the once conservative bike builder has reimagined a few of the mainstays of motorcycling, and rather significantly. A joint-free flexible frame, for example. And a fully active tread pattern on tyres that take care of damping duties. And a move towards autonomous riding technology – a bike so clever it eliminates the need for any sort of protective clothing. Whether BMW is reimagining motorcycling,…

“I sat in the slipstream and waited. I figured I wouldn’t brake until he did” If your image of a motorcycle racer is based on the likes of Hailwood, Rossi, Sheene or Schwantz, you’d probably rate Bob West an unlikely contender. But at age 32 in 1960-61, this lanky, carefully spoken railways fitter from rural Victoria finished on the podium at iconic venues in Europe and then Australia. We’re talking Opatija, Sachsenring, Schleiz, Phillip Island and Bathurst, with state title victories at Ballarat Airport and Longford. The opposition? In East Germany, the likes of future six-times world champion Jim Redman and top New Zealander John Hempleman. At home, it included experienced internationals Jack Ahearn, Eric Hinton and Tom Phillis, top locals Ken Rumble and Ray Blackett, and rising star Kel…

If Batman were an Italian Superhero, this is what he would ride Fort Rox Unlike the smaller capacity models in the Guzzi catalogue, the MGX-21 doesn’t use the engine as a rigidly mounted fully stressed chassis component. Instead it is effectively rubber mounted in the frame via three ‘elastic-kinematic supports’. This layout, characterised as a ‘Floating Engine’ by Moto Guzzi, allows the V-twin to move on its mounts, but with three ball-ended rods that prevent the final drive shaft misaligning with the output shaft, and also to ensure no vibration is transmitted to rider and passenger. Holding the fort The very, very red four-piston Brembo calipers gripping the twin 320mm floating front discs are radially mounted, still unique for the cruiser category, while the 282mm rear fixed disc has a…

The Multistrada 1200S is the kind of motorcycle that makes you feel grateful. Grateful that we live in an era where these masterpieces of multi-talented engineering are available to the road-going public, and grateful that Ducati has persevered for more than a decade to bring us this revised version of its ultra-intelligent flagship sports-tourer. The big Multi was unveiled back in 2003 as the 1000DS, and since that time each generation in the series has benefitted from cutting-edge technology to further bolster its versatile design brief. The long-travel fork and eye-catching single-sided aluminium swingarm may have remained constant, but the bike’s DNA has continued to evolve. With the most recent model, Ducati upped the ante again, adding improvements such as Desmodromic Variable Timing (DVT), Bosch’s Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and,…

Why do we mourn Marco Simoncelli so? Because he was everything that most fans love in a motorcycle racer: there were several drops of Valentino Rossi in there and a few of Kevin Schwantz. No surprise that both were great friends of his – kindred spirits all together. Simoncelli was funny and charming on his own two feet and a wild warrior on two wheels. He was a never-say-die racer, but sadly it didn’t turn out quite like that. We also mourn him because he was the first superstar victim of MotoGP’s mass-media era. His death therefore touched millions of people. And there’s something of the Princess Diana-effect here: in today’s massmedia age our senses are saturated in the sayings and doings of celebrities, so many people feel like they’ve…

“I wasn’t the first person to ride around the world, but I’m certainly the first to go around it fast” Falling asleep on the petrol tank while barrelling down some unfamiliar road at 160km/h isn’t the ideal way of reaching a ripe old age. Nor is forcing yourself to ride 2000 clicks a day in a torrential downpour in a far-flung corner of the globe. But for 58-year-old Nick Sanders, who holds the the record for fastest circumnavigation of the globe (32,070km), it’s all in a day’s work. Having ridden around the planet nine times so far at breakneck speed – including twice on a bicycle – he’s the man who put extreme into adventure riding. “I wasn’t the first person to ride around the world, but I’m certainly the…

WHEN I FIRST collected the electric Zero SR long-termer from Procycles, the usual story ideas began milling around in my mind. How weird it would be to not visit a fuel station for months... the eerie sensation of riding without engine noise ... the absence of a clutch and gear lever. But there is one thing about riding an electric bike that didn’t hit me straight away. In fact, it’s taken me a couple of months to put my finger on what I now believe is one of the most significant differences between electric and petrol-powered motorcycles – rotating mass. Rotating mass, or rotational inertia, is the very thing which allows us to remain upright on a motorcycle. If you have ever held a spinning pushbike wheel by the axle…

A well-ridden Nuda is close to unbeatable in the twisties if the tarmac is reasonably smooth 1 Lifting the tank and side covers allow oil and air-filter changes 2 The 870mm seat tapers typically towards the tank 3 Canted Sachs shock mounts to a cast-aluminium swingarm 4 48mm Sachs fork and radial-mount Brembos complete running gear Husqvarna has had a chequered corporate history since its bikes starred in the classic 1971 movie On Any Sunday with the help of producer Steve McQueen and off-road ace Malcolm Smith in their famous sand dune finale. Husky’s most recent ownership change, when KTM’s boss Stefan Pierer took the reins from BMW in early-2013, saw the untimely demise of the Husqvarna Nuda 900 after an indecently short model run. The Nuda looks like a…

After winning the FIM Supersport World Champion last time out, and for the fifth time in all, Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) turned up in Doha with a celebratory red bike, but eventually raced a green one. He intended to win for the hell of it – and he nearly did. But he reckoned without the last round push of Kyle Smith (CIA Landlord Insurance Honda), who also won last year’s WSS race in Qatar. The English rider had been fifth in qualifying, then stormed into the lead after six laps. Sofuoglu was unable to push hard in the early stages, as his grip was not what he expected. But he worked hard to catch Smith and they entered the final lap together. A small mistake from Sofuoglu in the…

CZECH GP WINNER John McPhee, run-over victim of the multiple Moto3 pile-up that brought out the red flags in the Australian GP, has a longer road to recovery than initially anticipated. Further medical checks found more serious injuries than at first suspected. McPhee had been scheduled to return home to Scotland to recuperate when his worst injury seemed to be just a broken thumb; he hoped to be fit for the final round at Valencia on November 13. However, according to Britain’s MCN, further investigation in hospital in Melbourne revealed that both lungs were punctured, and the 40-percent reduction in capacity made it impossible for him to fly for up to five weeks. His parents were reported to have joined him for his enforced Australian sojourn. McPhee, whose victory at…

PATA YAMAHA’S PODIUM drought was ended in no uncertain terms by a confident third place for Sylvain Guintoli in Race 1 at Losail. But the 2014 world champion had to face down some demons on the way, and he opened up about them shortly afterwards. “The podium is a great feeling, especially after the injury I had at Imola,” said Guintoli, who had a huge highside crash in qualifying in late April. “Also with the situation for next year,” said Guintoli, tellingly – as he has no finalised riding job yet. His top three at Losail was well-timed as well as well deserved. “I knew since I got back that I had been building back the pace but I did not know if I could do a podium.” Guintoli promised…

THE WILDWOOD EXTREME Enduro has gone from strength to strength since it was established seven years ago. The full quota of 100 riders was reached just six days after registrations opened for this year’s event on 20 July, and for many of those entrants the goal was simple: complete one lap. Not so for 24-year-old Mitch Harper who nailed six around the technical 12km loop in a total time of 3h6m31.897s to take his second outright victory at the event. Harper finished 11m39.6s ahead of fellow pro-rider Tim Coleman, with Dylan Rees 81 seconds adrift in third. “It feels awesome to win Wildwood again,” Harper told AMCN. “This year is the toughest one by far. I reckon if Graham [Jarvis] and Alfredo [Gómez] were here I might have given them…

AFTER FOUR NAIL-biting rounds, Justin Brayton (HRC Honda) leads the title chase in the Australian Supercross Championship. The American arrived in Australia for his first full season and has given the fans something to cheer about by making the Pro Open class his own. Brayton was unstoppable in the opening three rounds, going undefeated with three runaway wins. But he hasn’t had it all his own way. Dean Ferris (CDR Yamaha) proved he isn’t a one-trick pony by taking top honours at Round 4 in Avalon Victoria last weekend (5 November), after returning from a lengthy stint in Europe. The win came after it was revealed that Ferris had signed a motocross only deal for 2017 with CDR Yamaha. The defending champion returned from knee surgery mid-year and currently sits…

WAAAAY BACK IN February (Vol 65 No 16), AMCN was the first mag in the world to publish pictures of CFMoto’s new 650MT adventure tourer. Now the bike has been unveiled in China. The 650MT is a modern-looking machine thanks to styling by Kiska Design, the firm also responsible for KTM’s distinctive look. Underneath lies the familiar parallel-twin engine that’s powered all CFMoto’s 650cc models for years, albeit in updated form. On the MT, which is a direct rival for the likes of Kawasaki’s Versys 650, the engine makes 52kW at 8750rpm and 62Nm at 7000rpm. It’s mounted in a tubular steel frame and hidden by panels that give the appearance of an aluminium chassis. The swingarm really is aluminium and the upside-down fork is a step above the kit…

AUSTRALIA’S PRIME MINISTER was Paul Keating, while the US elected Bill Clinton as their new head of state and South Africans were voting for political reforms to end apartheid and create a power-sharing multiracial government. Many Brits were in mourning after hearing the news that Charles and Diana had separated. China celebrated the opening of their first McDonald’s in Beijing and Paris opened their version of the happiest place on earth: EuroDisney. Lindy Chamberlain received compensation for wrongful conviction on murder charges and the men who murdered heart surgeon Victor Chang were each sentenced to 20 years’ jail. How much? If you wanted to go and catch a flick with your favourite squeeze in 1992 you had to fork out $14 for a twin pass. The same tickets today would…

Start ’em young G’day Chris (Long One) I’ve just read the Editor’s column (Vol 66 No 08) and couldn’t agree more with your thoughts on kidlets and scooters. I am the proud owner of two fairly new model sprogs and their love for the two-wheeled contraption is quite deep at a very young age. Neither have started school at this stage, if you count school as school. The home portion of their education has so far consisted of an old quad, both starting at the age of two, to gain a grasp of basic steering, throttle control and braking. When they were ready they then graduated to a Honda 50. The boy has now moved onto a KTM Pro Senior 50. They are now three and four years old, fit,…

 IT’S A LITTLE staggering to think there are people now getting their motorcycle licences who were born about the time pictures of the Suzuki Hayabusa first started appearing in late 1998 ahead of its 1999 launch. ‘Hayabusa’ is a Peregrine falcon famed for diving on its prey at 300km/h-plus You had to be there to fully appreciate the visual and cultural shock these things represented. The organic curves – designed with the aid of a wind tunnel – were a head-spinner, reminding me of that famous description of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime: looking like a condom full of walnuts. Then there was the small matter of power and speed. A 132kW motorcycle (Honda’s Blackbird claimed 122) was enough to get your attention, as was the verifiable top speed of…

Ever wondered what it’s like to ride Cadwell Park’s infamous undulating racing circuit in England? Google ‘Josh Brookes jumping the mountain’ and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. Well, believe it or not, back in the 1950s a small group of motorcyclists in South Australia aspired to create a replica of that iconic circuit in their very own backyard. And amazingly, they did it. Mount Gambier Motorcycle Club (MGMCC) built McNamara Park from the ground up, and has now earned the rare honour of being the only local club in Australia to possess its own road-racing circuit. So what’s it like? In a word, awesome. The track has an exciting blend of fast sweeping turns and slower technical sections that slither their way through the arid South…

WHEN IT COMES TO bling and performance mods, I can be a little demanding. Critically, they have to function better than the OEM units – there’s nothing worse than faffing around with parts that don’t line up. That’s why I was so chuffed when I discovered the Blu Cru’s ‘one stop shop’ for accessories online. The Y-Shop is a Yamaha outlet so there’s no compromise on quality, and with most items being bolt-on accessories they’re easy to fit. To kit the WR250R out for serious adventure work, we replaced the 7.6L standard tank with a 13.8L Safari unit. This boosts range to well above 250km – enough to reach even the most distant fuel dump. Bark Busters and an alloy sump guard have also been installed to reduce the chance…

IN A SEASON when there were really only two major manufacturers with a machine capable of winning each and every weekend – Kawasaki and Ducati – there were still seven brands operating at various levels of podium or podium potential. After a raft of technical rules were brought in during the years since Dorna has had control of the series, the monotonous green versus red battles have hardly been everyone’s idea of a vibrant colour palette. Next year the tech landscape will be transformed with the arrival of many new models. Importantly, the only bikes that will be left with the previously necessary split throttle bodies will be those V-twins or V4s with two banks of cylinders – and therefore two banks of throttle bodies. None of the new inline…

Andrea Dovizioso, that most rational of riders, was getting exasperated at being asked if he thought he could become the ninth winner of 2016. Race after race. At Sepang, he finally put the question to bed. Starting from pole, he made it look like another well-controlled performance. He bided his time in third as the Flash Harrys duked it out ahead of and around him; kept his Ducati rubber-side down as several of them fell off. Then, as the laps counted down and the drying track became more punishing for the tyres, he was firmly past Rossi and moved clear to claim his first win not only of the season, but since 2009, by better than three seconds. It was the former 125 champion’s second premier-class victory. Long-time leader Rossi…

Zarco needed to win in Malaysia if his closest rivals Lüthi and Rins were to follow him home. He didn’t want that, however, and laid down a marker in drying qualifying, claiming pole on well-worn wet tyres by a massive two seconds. The race brought the same conditions, and the same result. While Lüthi was stuck in a fight and finished sixth, and Rins was bafflingly mired at the far end of the points, the French Ajo Kalex rider returned to his finest form with a perfectly judged race. He followed early leader Franco Morbidelli (EG-VS Kalex) until there were six laps left, then passed him cleanly and deployed his near-legendary ability on end-of-life tyres to pull steadily clear. He won the race by better than three seconds, and became…

THIS IS THE opinion of Valentino Rossi, famous for saying in 2003 that the equation was 80 percent rider and 20 percent motorcycle … and departing from dominant Honda to join underdogs Yamaha in order to prove that it was the rider and not the engineers that made the difference. “Now I think it is more 50:50,” he replied, in response to a question from an Indonesian journalist. “In the last years, it has changed. Now the motorcycle is very important, and also the team, to adapt the bike to suit the rider. The equation is about half and half, bike and rider.” Asked the same question, Moto3 champion Brad Binder thought the opposite was true in the smallest class. “There’s not much you can do with our bikes,” he…

ROBBIE BUGDEN (SA Kawasaki/BCPerformance/Kawasaki AUS) made his home-town advantage pay at Round 5 of the Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Championship at Queensland Raceway on 30 October. Three wins from three starts allowed the Kawasaki rider to extend his title lead to 79 points over Yamaha pilot Michael Blair (YRT/IPone/Blairbuild/ Campbell’s Hardware) with just one round of the series remaining at Sydney Motorsport Park on 17 December. Though with double points on offer, the title race is not over yet. Blair shadowed Bugden in the opening race to claim second, but an accident in Race 2 saw him finish 11th. He bounced back to third in Race 3, but it wasn’t enough to hold out Ducati rider Beau Beaton (Racer’s Edge Performance/Craig McMartin Racing North Coast V-Twin) who scored a 3-2-2…

DANIEL ‘CHUCKY’ SANDERS’ dreams of back-to-back wins at the Husqvarna Wildwood Rock Extreme Enduro were dashed when he looped his KTM 300EXC machine on a hill climb and broke the throttle housing. However, what he did next will forever be remembered in the history books of this gruelling three-hour event. On the sixth and final lap of the race Sanders managed to limp over the line by manually pulling on the throttle. “It was a tough day at the office,” commented Sanders after finishing 13th outright, and eighth in the Pro class with a total time of 3h52m57.051s. “I had to get back to the pits someway and I wasn’t going to walk or push the bike, that’s for sure. So I cut the throttle cable and got the wire…

LAST WEEKEND SAW the running of the 35th Southern Classic at the State Motorcycle Sports Complex, Broadford. The ‘Southern’ is a celebration of historic racing which this year attracted 225 entrants from across the country, including 35 sidecars. It made for a great weekend of socialising and historic racing. One of the highlights of the meeting was Chas Hern’s classic display of fast, clinical riding, with the Victorian winning every race he contested. Returnees to the sport Mark Knight and David Rumble also laid down a gauntlet by breaking their own three-wheeled Forgotten Era track record that they set 10 years ago on their 1980 1130cc Kellet. The Southern Classic Fastest 30 Classic Solos generated brilliant racing with Garth Francis taking out the trophy on his 1961 750cc by a…

HOME-GROWN HEROES was the theme of the 2016 Shorai Batteries Post Classic meeting at Hampton Downs. The fifth annual meeting was dedicated to the memory of Rodger Freeth, who won multiple NZ championships in the 1970s and 1980s. He also won the Arai 500 endurance race at Bathurst twice, both times on Kiwi-built McIntosh Suzukis. And Ken McIntosh was on hand with a display of his bikes, plus a brand-new example to be ridden by former NZSBK champion Dennis Charlett. Freeth, who gained a PhD in astrophysics, was always thinking up new ideas for his racing and one was also on display – a Yamaha TZ750 fitted with large wings front and rear. Later, Freeth was co-driver for rally ace Possum Bourne. They won Australian championships, but Freeth was killed…