Australian Motorcycle News Vol 70 Issue 19

ALL HEADLINES WENT to Maverick Viñales in Qatar, and for very good reason – we saw a version of Maverick we haven’t seen since his Yamaha debut at the start of 2017. But for me, Enea Bastianini was the stand-out performance of the season opener in Qatar. It was in 2015 when ‘the Beast’ first came onto my radar. He was fighting for the Moto3 world title with Danny Kent and I remember urging him on during the Australian Grand Prix in a bid to keep the title fight alive for at least another round. It was an edge-of-your-seat affair, as it so often is at Phillip Island. Kent had qualified on pole and ‘The Beast’ has finished every season with at least three podiums Bastianini was starting from 29th,…

HUGE MOMENTUM IS building in the world of electric motorcycles. Last issue we reported on a plan for major manufacturers to collaborate on a common, swappable battery system. Now Triumph has announced an industry-leading powerplant that weighs just 10kg but pushes out 130kW. This is a fraction of the mass of conventional combustion engines. Triumph has also released design sketches of it fitted to a motorcycle somewhat resembling a Speed Triple. Triumph’s Project TE-1 prototype development involves innovative UK companies Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), which is developing the battery technology, Integral Powertrain, making the electric motor, and the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick. With a completed battery and motor now in a recognisable motorcycle chassis, the partners have been able to bench-test the systems, completing the…

LIKE VIRTUALLY EVERY other major motorcycle company, Triumph is positioning to be competitive once we all move to battery power but the whole process is a slow burn, just as it is with cars and even household solar-battery storage. The TE-1 could end up an expensive, high-performance machine like the prototype or scaled into smaller, cheaper, lower-performance models, depending on market demand. Apart from Harley-Davidson, with its LiveWire, mainstream motorcycle brands are spreading their bets across a range of options, starting with electrically-assisted pushbikes. We’ve recently seen Yamaha, Honda, KTM and Piaggio tie up on a project to develop swappable battery packs, which is the start of a process to make e-motorcycles cheaper and easier to recharge. Meanwhile, we’re seeing much smaller companies looking to steal a march, with Kymco’s…

TRIUMPH HAS BECOME the first victim of the UK’s Brexit border problems with MV Agusta securing rights to take over as Moto2’s engine supplier from the 2022 season onwards, AMCN can reveal. The issue had been quietly brewing in MotoGP circles since it became clear that post-Brexit the UK factory would need a complicated set of import-export exemptions to continue in Moto2. The decision to switch to an Italian-based manufacturer of similar three-cylinder engines goes a long way to explaining why MV Agusta entered Moto2 in 2019 after a 42-year absence from GP racing, but using a Triumph engine. It now appears the MV Agusta option was always Dorna’s Plan B after the UK elections in 2019 confirmed its withdrawal from the European Union without any meaningful trade deals being…

FURTHER CONFIRMATION THAT the middleweight market is the future of motorcycling comes with news that Yamaha is planning a born-again R7 based on its MT-07 twin. Yamaha has filed emissions certification documents for the new 2022 YZF-R7 in California. These state it will be powered by its Euro5-spec 689cc parallel-twin engine and be offered in Raven Black or Team Yamaha Blue colours. It’s a brave move, some may even consider it sacrilege, for Yamaha to re-enter the Supersport market using the R7 name. The four-cylinder YZFR7 might never have won the WorldSBK title it was specifically hand-built to fight for in 1999 but with just 500 made, it’s a bona fide collector’s item with a price that dwarfs the Honda change to the engine’s tune or the exhaust. So 54kW…

› MODEL 2020 KTM 1290 Super Duke R › IMPORTER KTM Australia Pty Ltd › NUMBER OF AFFECTED BIKES 157 › ISSUE The rear section of the wiring harness may have been routed incorrectly during assembly, damaging the wiring harness. › HAZARD Electrical failures that could affect vehicle operation, increasing the risk of an accident. › ACTION REQUIRED Contact an authorised KTM dealer for inspection and to have replacement parts installed, free of charge, if required. › MODEL 2021 (and models built late 2020) KTM 125SX, 250SX, 250SX-F, 350SX-F 450SX-F › IMPORTER KTM Australia Pty Ltd › NUMBER OF AFFECTED BIKES 239 › ISSUE Due to a manufacturing fault, the motorcycle’s drive chain may be defective, causing it to break or come loose. › HAZARD Loss of vehicle control and…