Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 72 Issue 03 i Australian Motorcycle News

THE ELECTRIC-POWERED adventure-touring landscape is opening up with a new player joining this developing market segment. American electric pioneer Lightning Motorcycles is challenging the Energica electric adventure model we revealed recently (AMCN Vol 71 No 24) with a secret Energica project codenamed Dakar. Revealed through patent applications filed in China, the ‘Dakar’ looks like being a real contender. Italian company Energica brought four years of experience supplying the MotoGP-supporting MotoE championship to bear on its upcoming Experia model. This features a 21.5kWh battery pack, an electric motor producing 75kW and a 222km combined range (cruising and full power). Lightning Motorcycles is basing its ‘Dakar’ project on its Strike sportsbike, launched in 2019 but with production hobbled by the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve since revealed it’s also developed a high-performance, fully-enclosed Streetliner,…

After six years on the Aussie market, the Honda Grom is making an inglorious exit, killed off not by a lack of demand, but because its single-channel ABS system no longer meets Australian Design Rules that require motorcycles to now have two-channel ABS. The death of the Grom is a real shame, not because its asthmatic 125cc air-cooled single only makes a puny 7.2kW at 7250rpm and 10.5Nm at 5500rpm (both numbers are claimed), but because it’s a hoot to ride despite the lack of power… around town, at least. The Grom is tiny but sit on it and you don’t feel at all cramped, thanks to a relatively generous riding triangle. The seat is comfy enough for around town duties and because it’s so light and nimble, you can…

I’M NOT SURE if it was because I was the D&D virgin, but as the oldest rider in the group, I somehow ended up with the only LAMS-approved bike. Just getting out of Pete’s driveway was a test for a guy who spends most of his time behind semi-wide handlebars – the clutch lever and throttle felt like they were positioned somewhere between my boots and knees. First gear could climb a mountain and is redundant for anything other than crawling through traffic. But work your way through the gearbox to sixth and you realise the 373cc single is a rocket. The technically advanced single smooths out after about 3000rpm, losing the typical nature of a thumper and taking on a more refined well-balanced revvy thrum. It is happiest between…

IF RETRO IS WHAT you’re after, retro is what you get with Royal Enfield’s Interceptor 650, especially methinks in this Canyon Red colour scheme. Unusually, it was a sunny day when I picked up the Interceptor, followed by a sunny weekend, and for the few days before our D&D adventure I went for rides down to the shops whenever some milk or bread needed fetching, I cruised along the beachfront whenever the swell needed checking out, and went for several blasts into the hills just to get away from my laptop. It isn’t the performance that had me coming back for ride after ride; after all, its parallel twin only musters modest a 35kW and 52.3Nm. Likewise, the handling is nothing to write home about and the braking performance is…

AUSTRALIA HAS WON the FIM Speedway of Nations World Championship, which culminated at Vojens, Denmark on Saturday 30 July. It had been 20 years since Australia had last won a world team title but the long wait came to an end in dramatic circumstances, as a number of nations performed at a level not expected of them. In the two semi-final meetings, the top two automatically qualified for Saturday’s decider, with the third and fourth-placed scorers racing off for the last qualifying berth in the final, with all races scored on a 4, 3, 2, 0 basis. Both meetings produced congested scorecharts, one nation rising above expectations while one of the favoured nations struggled before progressing to the final. On Wednesday Australia (35) topped surprise packets Finland (34), while Poland…

HRC HONDA RACING Australia’s Dean Ferris has taken wins in both MX1 motos to secure the ProMX overall Round six victory in Coffs Harbour, NSW, on 24 July. Ferris took the holeshot in the opening moto, banging ’bars with red-plate holder Aaron Tanti (CDR Yamaha Monster Energy) until the five-minute mark, when Tanti finally managed to pass the Honda rider for the lead. With just two laps remaining Ferris executed an aggressive pass on Tanti, reclaiming the lead and going on to win. With one lap to go Tanti came unstuck and crashed, allowing Brett Metcalfe (GO 24 KTM) through to take second. Tanti remounted in third, only to be reeled in by a late charge from KTM Australia’s Kirk Gibbs, who rode a remarkable race from seventh and who…

“INDIAN TOOK IT pretty badly that Harley had beaten them to the King of the Baggers championship title last year, so they decided to do something about it. They asked me to attend a private test early in February at a small track at Jennings, on the Georgia/Florida state line. Basically this version of the Challenger was brand new, because their team run by S&S Cycle had been working on it over the winter trying to increase horsepower so as to be able to fight with the Harleys. Indian badly wanted to come back with something pretty competitive for 2022. “So the first time I rode it, it was very fresh, very raw, but the bike’s performance had increased by 60 percent over what it had last year, and it’s…

IMAGINE THIS. YOU are barrelling along a freeway at the legal speed limit on the latest Honda Fireblade when the traffic suddenly converges to avoid a pileup. In a split second, your handlebar is tweaked by a mysterious force and you avoid a serious crash. This isn’t fiction, but the latest development in Honda’s long-term goal to make its motorcycles completely safe, even ending fatalities by 2050. In pursuit of that, its best brains are working hard on car-style rider assistance systems. Fortunately, Honda is also aware that we don’t ride bikes simply to get from A to B efficiently and safely, and nor will owners be happy to hand over control to a computer. So this means the development focus is implementing safety nets in such a way that…

“AT SACHSENRING I GOT FLICKED OFF WHEN I WAS USING ABOUT 10 PERCENT THROTTLE AND IT SUDDENLY WENT TO 80 PERCENT. APRILIA THOUGHT THAT CAME FROM OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE, SO THEY WRAPPED THE ECU IN TINFOIL.” Tough-as-teak MotoGP racer-turned KTM test rider Jeremy McWilliams talks about his days as a crash test dummy for the ride-by-wire throttle technology on Aprilia’s ill-fated RS Cube. It’s part of our feature that tracks Aprilia’s MotoGP success starting on page 86. 1997 Hard to believe it’s been going this long but the first Dumb & Dumber featured black ice, dark visors, a dead wombat and 1150km in a single day. The bikes? Totally inappropriate for the mountains in winter. A Suzuki GSX-R750 and Kawasaki ZX-7. Read about this year’s D&D shenanigans on a raft of…

Facebook Post of the issue If Suzuki cans its classic GSX-R1000, it will leave a 1000cc hole in the hearts of many passionate Gixxer-loving readers Instagram Don’t Forget #amcn_mag Comment of the Issue Andrew H Fowler left little doubt about which Marquez brother is his favourite “A true champion wearing his scars with humble pride and ready to do what it takes to get back to his passion that is racing!” Reaching out Want to see your pride and joy featured in AMCN? The only thing we love more than writing about bikes is looking at your bikes. Tag your social pics with @ aumotorcyclenews on Facebook or @ amcn_mag on Instagram, or fire them off in an email to amcn@amcn.com.au And don’t forget to tell us why you love…

Street scrambler is a fitting tag for Royal Enfield’s new Scram 411, a bike allegedly designed for those who tackle the urban jungle throughout the week but who want to use the same machine to escape it on the weekends. Based on the brand’s midsize Himalayan adventure tourer, the obvious visual differences with the Scram include the deletion of the touring screen, high-mount front guard and front carrier racks, as well as the fitment of a 19-inch front wheel instead of the Himalayan’s more off-road biased 21-incher. Other visual giveaways include the Scram’s unique headlight surround, its nifty little side covers and the fitment of a one-piece seat. Mechanically, both bikes are very similar, running the same half-duplex split cradle frame, the same Euro 5-compliant 411cc air-cooled single-cylinder engine, and…

European manufacturers have gapped the Japanese with radar-assisted rider aids, but after Kawasaki announced its intention to fit Bosch radar systems to future bikes in 2018, it’s finally arrived on the latest Ninja H2 SX. It means the new model is the most technologically advanced bike in Kawasaki’s fleet and the most electronically advanced Japanese motorcycle on the market. Kawasaki’s PR blurb surrounding the new H2 SX is big on the addition of the new Bosch Advanced Rider Assistance Systems (ARAS) and the three new features it brings to the SX: adaptive cruise control, Kawasaki’s emergency stop system and blind-spot detection, thanks to a second rear-mounted radar unit. In addition, the new SX gets a six-axis IMU replacing the five-axis unit from the previous model, a new 6.5-inch TFT display,…

In the winter of 2021 AMCN reinstated the once-annual Dumb & Dumber ride with Deano, Pete and Phil Harlum riding three totally inappropriate learner-legal bikes down to New South Wales’ Alpine region for a run through the snow. Despite the freezing cold conditions, we had so much fun that we decided to repeat the process this year, albeit stepping up the madness with a greater participation rate, not a single fairing or screen in sight, and a beefed-up route that would take us to the tiny town of Walwa on the Victorian side of the mighty Murray River. Feedback after last year’s event suggested that Dumb & Dumber is still extremely popular with AMCN readers, and this is also the case with motorcycle manufacturers who, except for one that didn’t…

UPON SIGHTING the Kawasaki W800 Street, I felt a sudden urge to line up 14 garbage cans in the Arnold’s carpark and jump them wearing a white jumpsuit, just like Arthur ‘The Fonz’ Fonzarelli did in that epic episode of Happy Days. The W800 certainly conjures up those thoughts with its spoked 18-inch front wheel, round LED headlight, handsome engine design and classically shaped tank. I was also glad to see that Kawasaki, knowing where this bike was bound, had fitted some genuine accessories in the form of heated grips and a very handy rear rack. In my opinion the rack made the back-end not only more functional but also made it look far better. An early morning departure also enabled me to utilise the welcome warmth of the heated…

FIRST, A CONFESSION. I’ve never really been into Triumphs. I’ve always respected the name and its history, but the styling and mechanics of the old classics leave me cold – I’m more into old Italian, German and Japanese exotica. However, when I laid eyes on the first Thruxton 1200 back in 2016, it was love at first sight. What a gorgeous bike, as are so many other modern Triumphs. I ended up buying a Thruxton for myself and, more recently, a Trident for my partner – the latter proving to be a real traffic-beating, twisty-loving bike. I’ll find any excuse to ride it to the shops. I eventually parted ways with the Thruxton due to aching back and wrists, but I still miss that brilliant engine and gearbox combo. I…

1994-2000 RSW500 500cc V-twin two-stroke THE IDEA OF the RSW500 was born at the 1993 British GP, where the 500 race was just 0.37km/h faster than the 250s, thus Aprilia believed it could get good results in the premier class with a big 250. Its first 500 – an RSV250 bored and stroked to 410cc – arrived at Jerez the next year, where it qualified on the second row. By 1999, the RSW was close to a full 500cc and scored its first podiums, beating a bunch of faster but more unwieldy 500 V4s. The following year Jeremy McWilliams came within 0.9sec of winning the British GP at Donington Park, after a long battle with V4 riders Valentino Rossi and Kenny Roberts Junior. “The 500 twin was an awesome little…

WORLD SUPERSPORT’S SERIES leader Dominque Aegerter has admitted faking a concussion in a bid to force a red flag during the opening race at Most on 30 July, which resulted in the 31-year-old being banned from Race 2 due to “unsporting behaviour”. In a sign that motorcycle racing could be moving towards similar stunts used in European football, the incident occurred in the first corner of the first race. Aegerter was involved in a multiple rider pile up, after which he quickly got to his feet, before immediately laying down again in the gravel. If his plan had worked, he would have been allowed to join the restarted race, however his plan was thwarted when he was declared unfit with “possible concussion symptoms”. According to a statement on the official…

A WORLDWIDE TREND to convert blown-up engines of classic and vintage vehicles to electric is starting to appear. Now a Dutch company is offering a kit to electrify old BMW boxers. LM Creations has preempted BMW’s own attempts at mimicking the classic boxer engine layout. BMW’s 2020 DC Vision concept bike (AMCN Vol 70 No 06) was a futuristic design that referenced its classic engine layout by flanking a longitudinally mounted electric motor with two sets of coolers, sticking out on each side to hark back to a boxer’s cylinders. LM Creations also uses a longitudinal electric motor, but mounts it inside a specially cast alloy case that replicates a boxer engine. It’s so old school there are even holes in the sides where the conrods would normally fit. It…

AN ANNUAL FESTIVAL that has the potential to become Australia’s largest motorcycle gathering will be launched on the border of NSW and Queensland on 16 August. Bike Fest Oz! 2023 will be held across the northern NSW and south-east Queensland coasts over August 16-20, 2023. The dates coincide with 25°C winter weather and being placed in the low season for tourism should mean affordable travel and accommodation. Already the Bike Fest Oz! 2023 organisers have received expressions of interest from around Australia, New Zealand, the US, Europe and even Russia. “It’s exceeded all expectations in barely a month,” said festival chief and former AMCN editor Chris Beattie. This includes more than 100,000 Facebook likes and shares, with potential participants requesting updates as the festival’s attractions are announced. “Honestly, you couldn’t…

IN THE MID-1960S, Sonny Barger’s name started appearing in biker film credits as ‘technical adviser’ and by the end of the decade he had a starring role in one of the most successful films of the genre, Hells Angels ’69. His international bestselling biography Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger, reveals a sign-on payment of $US5000 for his role as technical adviser. This was the equivalent of a year’s salary. Not bad for a 30-year-old former stevedore-turned-machinist from the tough Oaklands docks of San Francisco. The first major B-Grade movie Barger advised on was Hells Angels on Wheels, released in 1967. However his first involvement with Hollywood came a year earlier when he sued director Roger Corman for using his club’s insignia without permission in the 1966…

TRIUMPH SPEED TRIPLE 1200 RS FULL TEST VOL 71 NO 12 TRIUMPH TE-1 FULL TEST NOT TESTED Background Triumph took the original brawny nakedbike and totally redesigned it to create the Speed Triple 1200 RS. It has a 26 percent improved power-to-weight ratio over the previous 1050 version, but still meets Euro 5. The 2021 Speed Triple is light, streamlined and a greyhound rather than the original bulked-up bulldog of 1994. On track the RS pulls incredibly hard, meaning it takes a huge physical effort to hold on when on it. Two years in the making, and using some of the best brains in the UK world of electric transport, the TE-1 is a one-off “prototype demonstrator” that looks production ready. However, Triumph says it’s just an “indication” of the…

These days, any manufacturer with pretensions to being a global player has to have an adventure model in its range and MV Agusta is no exception. Italy’s most historic trophy brand – with 270 grand prix victories and 75 world titles, including 17 successive 500GP crowns – actually has a notable off-road heritage, too. MV won successive Italian MX/Enduro titles in the 1950s and 60s, as well as equipping the Italian team in ISDT events abroad. But after the Castiglioni family acquired MV 30 years ago, its focus was exclusively on the hard stuff–a focus which current owner Timur Sardarov is in the process of changing. At last November’s EICMA show, Sardarov personally unveiled two new dual-purpose models which represent a twin-pronged attack on the adventure-bike sector on the part…

More than for most other bike companies, the timing of the Covid-19 pandemic was particularly cruel for Indian. America’s oldest existing motorcycle manufacturer not only had to jettison plans to celebrate the 2020 Centenary of its historic Scout via a series of global parties, leaving it to consequently pass almost unnoticed, but the debut that same year of its new-generation PowerPlus 108 motor in the all-new Challenger bagger, was also inevitably less widely touted. The resulting bike didn’t exactly slink in under the wire, but certainly didn’t get anything like the global marketplace exposure it deserved to. Now the Polaris-owned brand is making up for lost time with the debut of the Pursuit, a full-dress tourer that’s essentially the Challenger with a capacious topbox and various other items, including additional…

HERITAGE STYLED! That’s how CFMoto describes the 700CL-X Heritage. I’m not sure what part is ‘heritage’ but all the parts that matter are modern and at $9490 ride away, it’s arguably the best value for money bike in the bunch. The Heritage is powered by a sprightly 693cc liquid-cooled parallel twin, with eight valves and double overhead cams that’s a rev-happy unit. There’s 55kW on tap at 8500rpm and 68Nm of torque at 6500rpm and, as good as the rest of the package is, the engine is the star of the show for me. The CFMoto isn’t left behind in a straight-line drag with the exception of the Yamaha and, when you add in the composed handling, in the right hands it’s a real sleeper. Suspension is handled by fully…

FOR THOSE UNFAMILIAR with Moto Guzzis, the experience of riding, or even starting up, the V7 is unlike any other bike on the planet. The transverse 90-degree V-twin engine thrusts the bike sideways on start-up or when you blip the throttle and then settles down into a quiet burble from the twin chrome exhaust. It’s a beautiful motorcycle and full of character which is on display from the moment you click – or should I say clunk – into first. That agricultural sound and feel continues right through the six-speed ’box and throughout your journey on the V7. There’s not a reliability issue, it’s just the way it’s meant to be. There was some talk around the campfire of there being false neutrals to be had around third gear, but…

WHEN YAMAHA RELEASED the 2021 MT-09 it wiped the floor with the previous generation MT. And seeing as the XSR is mechanically identical in every regard, expectations were high. And the XSR didn’t disappoint. I put it to you and my companions on D&D 2022 that the XSR900 is the most fun, most refined and best overall motorcycle of the lot – prove me wrong, Ralph! Let’s be honest here though, nobody is falling for Yamaha’s interpretation of a vintage motorcycle. The XSR is a thoroughly modern motorcycle, with modern electronics and materials and a ball-tearing triple-cylinder engine. The 889cc CP3 triple is one of the loveliest amalgamations of metal on the planet and there’s 87kW of power and 93Nm of torque on tap, enough to keep the heaviest of…

Glencrutchery Road, Douglas, Isle of Man. The commotion of the most famous start line in racing filters through us as we line up, single file. The ambient noise of cheering spectators and frantic mechanics slowly fades, replaced by the scream of four-cylinder engines ready for takeoff. Like parachutists leaping into an airborne battlefield via a tap on the left shoulder, each rider releases the clutch and roars down Bray Hill, which at its precipice is like riding off the edge of the world at 260km/h. I’ve hardly had time to process what I’m about to do, thanks to the rapid fire of the start procedure. At 10-second intervals, you’re constantly shuffled along to the starting area that’s signalled by a board reading: Rider and Machine Only. It’s now just you…

THERE MAY HAVE been no WorldSBK racing at Autodrom Most at all had the threatened thunderstorms showed up on Friday, but boy, did we get racing. Wet spots on visors and a very lightly sprinkled track surface in Race 1 caused some scares, of course. It also probably changed the race result, said some. The racing was again just epic, with the outside world watching along, as is the new normal. A decent crowd of 37,081, mostly on a sunny Sunday, made sure nobody was lonely on site. Superpole qualifying belonged to the seemingly endlessly ambitious Jonathan Rea (KRT) who pushed himself along at a new track best pace of 1m30.947s. The next closest rider, Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx) was a third of a second behind. Some showed…

A TRIPLE ONE-TWO for the McAMS Yamaha team has propelled Jason O’Halloran to the top of the British Superbike Championship standings after five rounds, the Aussie taking a 1-2-2 result at Brands Hatch over the weekend of 22-24 July. “There’s a long way to go in the championship and I’m just enjoying myself and I just want to win as many races as I can and have as much fun as I can,” O’Halloran said. Teammate and reigning champ Tarran Mackenzie kick-started his season with a double victory after missing the first two rounds due to injury, but he couldn’t get around O’Halloran in Race 1 on Saturday. It was a tight scrap in the top four, with Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Racing Products Ducati) taking third from Brad Ray (Rich…