Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 73 Issue 23 i Australian Motorcycle News

“NO ONE IS FORCING ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLES ON TO US… AT LEAST NOT YET” IT SEEMS there’s nothing quite like the topic of electric vehicles to get some keyboard warriors fired up. Regardless of your thoughts on whether electric motorcycles make sense or not, I find it strange that some people so vehementley detest them. After all, no one is forcing them on us. I have only ridden a couple of electric motorcycles and, while I wouldn’t rush out and buy one, I was certainly impressed by both of them. They offered outstanding performance and, strangely, I quite liked the lack of engine noise, which allowed me to hear what the rest of the bike was doing, as well as what was happening around me. The concerns for me were range…

For decades Honda’s Goldwing has been synonymous with motorcycling excess, but the launch of Great Wall Motors’ Souo S2000 shoulders it aside by out-doing the Honda for excess on every front. Launched in Beijing in ‘GL’ and ‘ST’ forms, the former rivals the Goldwing Tour, with a topbox and pillion armchair, while the latter is a slightly toned-down version with side cases only. Since Souo wants to be a global player, competing with the very best in the market, it’s decided to start out with a model that targets Honda’s flagship Goldwing. The Goldwing has six cylinders, so the Souo has eight. Honda’s range-topper measures 1833cc, so the Souo takes it to 2000cc. A Wing has a seven-speed DCT transmission, so the Souo has an eight-speed dual-clutch semi-auto of its…

“I didn’t expect to top the timesheets, I’ve never ridden this track before” Victorian rider Tayla Relph made history by topping the first-ever session of the inaugural WorldWCR Championship at the series’ official two-day test at Cremona in Italy last week. Relph ended the combined times sixth fastest of 23 riders from around the world. 3,039,436 Is the amazing number of motorcycles TVS sold in India alone during 2023, with a further 812,490 sold in export markets in the same period. AMCN understands TVS could be in Australian dealerships as early as this year. SENNA MONSTER Ducati has used the Italian Formula 1 round to unveil a limited-edition Monster paying tribute to Ayrton Senna. Bearing the same green and gold national colours the Brazilian F1 legend used on his helmet,…

ANSWERS WILL BE REVEALED IN THE NEXT ISSUE WIN! AN AMCN NECK SOCK EMAIL YOUR ANSWERS AND ADDRESS TO AMCN@AMCN.COM.AU FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!…

YOU COULD argue that Yamaha’s Sport Heritage line-up started back in 2015, with the retro XJR1300 and SR400, but it wasn’t until 2016, for me anyway, that the company came up with truly convincing heritage offerings in the XSR700 and XSR900, both with obvious design features of the past. In 2019, Yamaha launched the XTributes which I really liked, the XSR125 – which didn’t come to Oz – followed in 2021, before the updated XSR900 in 2022, which we rode on the world launch in Italy. Two years on we have the XSR900 GP, but I don’t think it will end there and I can’t wait to see where Yamaha goes with this. Can we have a TZR125 replica based on the XSR125 next? That, too, would look great in…

CVO IS Harley-Davidson’s Custom Vehicle Operation and after 25 years it’s usually where you see the stuff that’ll come out on ‘standard’ models farther down the track. The higher-spec CVO Road Glide looks like it’s designed to impress bagger racers with a 121 cubic-inch high-output Milwaukee Eight engine, a lower final-drive ratio (output sprocket is 30 teeth, stock is 32 teeth) to punch harder out of corners and reduced weight/more performance thanks to a titanium exhaust and some carbon fibre bits. It also adds more modes – Track and Track Plus – which sound exciting!…

TVS Motor Company is India’s third-largest motorcycle manufacturer behind Hero and Bajaj, with its headquarters in Chennai, home also of its smaller Royal Enfield rival. A recent visit to the largest of its three Indian factories in Bangalore revealed a rather unusual company which in many ways has a completely individual approach to manufacturing motorcycles compared to any other large-volume rival in today’s global marketplace. Because despite being essentially a private company under the auspices of the controlling Venu family, TVS combines environmental susceptibilities with advanced product development, and a social conscience with large-scale manufacture of a wide range of often innovative models. It’s going to be interesting to observe how successful it will be in carving itself a slice of the European and Australasian markets which it’s entering this…

1 PLUGGIN’ IT Rocky Creek Designs $74.95 na rockycreekdesigns.com.au The MotoPressor Puncture Repair Tool boasts everything you need for tubeless tyre repair and stores away into a pocket-sized sheath that includes five pre-vulcanised repair cords. The tool has pliers, a rasp, an insertion tool and a sharp knife, which is everything you need to plug most tubeless-tyre punctures. 2 DOIN’ M-SKDS Cassons Australia $699.95 (02) 8882 1900 cassonsmedia.com The Ixon M-SKD adventure/touring pant features an XDRY3L water-resistant outer material, soft-mesh inner lining, insulated and removable ripstop liner, adjustments on the thighs, calves and ankles, 270° connection zipper, Fanom knee and hip protectors, and stretch inserts on the sides of the removable liner. Available in Sand or Black, sizes S to 4XL. 3 AS HOT AZRA Link International $399.95 (07) 3382…

“EVERY TIME I’D CONSIDER IT THERE WOULD BE A BIG CRASH, LIKE A SIGN FROM GOD TO STAY AWAY” MOTORCYCLE RACING for me has been a whirlwind. I was a professional cricketer in my early 20s, a bit of an all-rounder, reaching the heights of playing County cricket in the UK. I wasn’t too bad at football either, so I’d play footy in the winter and cricket in the summer. I did that up until I was 29 or 30. Then in 2012 I got my motorcycle licence on the last of the Ninja 250s. One of my buddies persuaded me to come down to Phillip Island and watch him race and, from that point, I was addicted. Next thing I was doing a trackday and towards the end of…

MARC MARQUEZ expressed his delight at the technical rules designed for 2027 which will reduce engine capacity from 1000cc to 850cc, limit aerodynamics and ban ride-height and start devices. “It looks like they are going more to the show,” he said. “More restrictions on the technical side is good for the riders. In the end if you have less technical things on the bike, the rider can be more the difference, and the value of the rider will be better. They followed like this in Formula 1 last year, so let’s see.” However, other riders expressed scepticism regarding some aspects of the new rules, such as the GPS data that Dorna uses for its television coverage being available to all teams after every session over the weekend. “The only thing…

JASON O’HALLORAN has scored his first British Superbike Championship race victory with the Completely Motorbikes Kawasaki team, striking in the final event at Donington Park. It was a thrilling four-way battle with reigning champ Tommy Bridewell (Honda Racing UK), Danny Kent (McAMS Racing Yamaha) and Glenn Irwin (Hager PBM Ducati). O’Halloran surged to the lead at the beginning of the penultimate lap, leaving the trio to squabble amongst themselves for the podium. O’HALLORAN SURGED TO THE LEAD ON THE PENULTIMATE LAP, LEAVING THE TRIO TO SQUABBLE FOR THE PODIUM Earlier, Irwin had taken the second race ahead of Leon Haslam (ROKiT Haslam Racing BMW) and Bridewell, while victory in the sprint race for Kyle Ryde (OMG GRILLA Racing Team Yamaha) made it three different winners for the weekend. The week…

KTM opted out of the spiralling battle for superbike performance when it discontinued the RC8R nearly a decade ago but its new midsized sportsbike that has been on the cards for years has finally been confirmed as a 2025 model and is aimed at a future entry into WorldSSP. The release of images and details of a near-production prototype KTM has dubbed the 990 RC R even has the words Ready to Race on it. KTM boss Stefan Pierer has long been clear that he believes the ever-higher performance of the latest four-cylinder litre bikes is unsuited to amateur riders and road use. KTM has been edging in this direction for a few years now. The track-only, limited edition RC 8C – actually built out-of-house by Kramer, with an 890…

FOR DECADES motorcycle manufacturers have struggled to come up with an appealing alternative to the traditional hand clutch and foot gearchange but recent trends show there’s growing acceptance for semi-auto shifters and now BMW is getting in on the action. Set to be launched later this year as an option on an as-yet-unconfirmed range of models the Automated Shift Assistant (ASA) allows fully-automatic or semi-automatic gear changes and eliminates the ’bar-mounted clutch lever. Mechanically, the system isn’t as complicated as Honda’s dual-clutch transmission, which allows seamless electronically-controlled shifts thanks to a pair of clutches that allow two gears to be selected simultaneously. However, it’s a more heavily integrated design than Honda’s new E-Clutch option on the CB650R and CBR650R, which only automates clutch operation and leaves the mechanical gearshift unaltered.…

In the past 25 years Harley-Davidson has sold around 2.5 million touring bikes, fair dinkum mile eaters like the Road Glide, the Ultra and the Street Glide. These are the bikes Harley calls its Grand American Touring line and, while sales are somewhat less than half Harley’s total, the price point means they’re a major part of its profitability. Where the money goes, the good shit engineering-wise flows. So at the release of the 2024 Road and Street Glides held on the Gold Coast last month I wasn’t expecting too many surprises. After all, gradual evolution based on customer feedback is what we’ve come to expect from Harley. What blew me away was I had no idea the company had progressed the touring ideology so far. That has to be…

Throughout the nineties and noughties middleweight sportsbikes were big business. Supersport bikes were racewinning weapons and manufacturers, desperate to cash in on the ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ sales creed, developed increasingly sharp, track-focused machinery. There was only one problem – they weren’t necessarily very good roadbikes. The evolutionary arms race dictated a trend towards ever more aggressive riding positions that placed a lot of weight on the rider’s wrists, with leg room only small people could live with. Engines were tuned to produce as much top-end power as possible, at the expense of usable torque lower in the rev range, and supersport machines ended up in no-man’s land; too track-focused for newer riders and outgunned by litre-class superbikes for those looking for the ultimate road racer. But the…

MotoGP will undergo its biggest technical shakeup in almost 20 years in 2027 with a host of new regulations agreed on after 12 months of negotiation. Both series organiser Dorna and the current manufacturers agreed there was a very real need to reduce the speeds of the world’s fastest racing prototypes, as well as shifting the emphasis back on riding skills rather than rider aids. As Aleix Espargaro noted at Le Mans, “We are racing on the same circuits, more or less, that Doohan and Criville were with the 500s and Moto3 is doing the same lap times. It means that the circuits are not prepared any more.” Put simply, grand prix racing has outgrown a number of tracks. “We can’t invent tracks,” said Sebastian Risse, KTM’s MotoGP Project Leader.…

TVS IS LAUNCHING a seven-model range of Euro 5-compliant bikes and scooters this year, all built in its Indian factory. Spearheading that line-up is a pair of Apache models sharing a tubular-steel trellis-frame; the RR 310 fully-faired sportsbike and the RTR 310 nakedbike. These are equipped with the same 313cc single-cylinder DOHC motor powering the BMW G 310 R and G 310 GS models, which TVS developed in collaboration with BMW. As part of that deal TVS was allowed to use the same engine for its own India-only models and, in December 2017, launched the Apache RR 310 as India’s first fully-faired sportsbike. Despite a steep price by Indian market standards, it sold well enough for the company to develop a naked version. To complicate things further, BMW itself has…

“CAUTIOUS, BECAUSE OF THE LAST TIME ENGINE SIZE WAS CUT, FOR THE SAME REASON” THE TROUBLE with MotoGP? It’s too fast. That’s not what world championship racing should be about. Sounds ridiculous? Bear with me. Only relative speed matters. As in: Why hurry a good race? Because MotoGP riders aren’t going for the land-speed record. They only need to go faster than the other blokes. As confirmed by the new regulations, announced to no gasps of surprise at the French GP. Mainly, it’s smaller engines, tamer aero and no fancy squatting suspension. All aimed at slowing it down. The exact opposite of what factory engineers strive for. There is worthy talk of sustainability, with reduced use of non-fossil fuel and such like. But there is one really trenchant reason. Safety.…

MOTOGP SERIES ORGANISER Dorna is pushing to freeze engine development for 2026 in a bid to reduce costs. Its reasoning is the five MotoGP factories will be developing new prototype machines for 2027, so reducing spending on engine development the year before would keep costs manageable. However this has yet to be agreed by all manufacturers. “We also had to compromise some things,” said MotoGP Director of Technology Corrado Cecchinelli. “We would like to save costs by freezing the engines for 2026. But this is still under discussion and is not done because not everybody agrees on that. "There are quite a few things that we would have done differently but we’re overall very happy.”…

THE 2024 Australian Senior Track Championship was held at the Mick Doohan Raceway over 4-5 May. Big fields for the MX Open and Pro 450 classes meant four rounds of heats before the repechage and final. Jarred Brook was the unbeaten top qualifier in both but, of course, that only gave him first choice of gate position for the decider. Brook won the MX Open final, after Rory McQualter pressured him all the way with Reid Battye third comfortably ahead of a bunched pack. McQualter did it comfortably in claiming the Pro 250 class, winning all five rounds. Behind him it was very close among the next four riders with Ben McLaughlin and Talon Cardinale eventually joining him on the rostrum. The Pro 450 final wrapped up the program and…

Can you start by giving us a quick background on yourself and MotoGo? I started racing in 2012 or 2013 in what was then called the FX championship, riding a Kawasaki 600. I swapped to Yamaha and was competing in ASBK and ended up in the Asian Road Racing Championship in 2017. I didn’t finish the 2019 season due to injury and then in 2020 we had Covid. That’s when I started the MotoGo team and in 2021 our rider was my former ARRC teammate Anthony West – until the end of 2022 – and then for 2023 and this year our rider has been Bryan Staring. What’s the key element about racing that you have picked up on – now you’ve been a rider and also a team owner?…

BARELY A week goes by without the appearance of another new Chinese company and the latest to enter the fray is Letbe. This is a subsidiary of Haojin that was launched last year as a youth-oriented brand with models ranging from scooters to a 700cc twin-cylinder roadster. A Chinese design filing suggests the company is entering the bobber market with a parallel-twin model aimed squarely at the likes of Honda’s Rebel 500 and Kawasaki’s Eliminator, not to mention Chinesemade rivals like CFMoto’s 450CL-C and Benda’s Napoleon 450. The bike has yet to be officially unveiled but the pictures show a machine based around a parallel-twin engine that’s clearly a reverse-engineered version of Honda’s 471cc CB500 lump. The bike’s styling is, like several other recent Chinese machines, surprisingly well considered. The…

The Pierer Mobility group has mastered the art of manufacturing as many bikes as possible from a limited pool of components and the company’s next demonstration is a pair of GasGas-branded twins based on the KTM LC8c engine and the platform shared by machines from the 890 Duke and Adventure to the Husqvarna Svartpilen 801. The bikes are likely to be called either ES800 and SM800 or ES900 and SM900, depending on whether they’re fitted with the 799cc version of the LC8c engine or the 889cc variant. Similarly, the chassis used for both models is essentially the same steel tube frame that’s shared by a wealth of models, along with the signature externally-braced cast-alloy swingarm and WP-sourced suspension. Despite this, the upcoming GasGas models promise to have niches of their…

There are (at least) two ways to look at Yamaha’s striking new retro XSR9 00 GP. It either ships you back to the 1980s and 1990s when Yamaha’s Marlboro-liveried YZR 500 V4 won world titles in the last great two-stroke era of grand prix racing, or it doesn’t. I suppose it depends on your age… For those who lived and breathed sportsbikes through the 1980s, when mullets were fashionable the first time around, it’s impossible to separate the emotively styled machine we see before us from the deeds of Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey who, on their fiery redand-white factory YZRs, delivered multiple world championship. For those of slightly more tender years, any stirring of the soul is likely to be less pronounced, but still strong. For me, aged 48,…

TODAY’S TOURING range gets a choice of four selectable riding modes. There’s Rainmode, which softens the whole deal substantially and feels like you need two hands on the throttle to wind her up. There’s Road, which is the setting you got before modes were invented, there’s high levels of traction control and ABS cutting in. There’s my favourite, Sport, because if someone says ‘push this and you’ll go faster’ you push it, right? It makes fast easy. And then there’s Custom, which lets you program your own riding mode. This one’s for serious geeks who spend a lot of time in the shed. As for the other electrickery, there’s C-ELB (Cornering Electronically Linked Brakes), A-ABS (Cornering ABS), C-TCS (Cornering Traction Control), C-DSCS (Cornering Drag Torque Slip Control), VHC (Vehicle Hold Control),…

Do riders dream of electric bikes? Looking at the latest sales figures from around the world the answer appears to be a resounding ‘no’ as battery-powered motorcycle registrations drop in both the West and the East. That’s going to be a shock, with no apologies for the pun, to motorcycle manufacturers that have pinned their plans on a transition to battery-powered machines over the next decade or so, as the sales drop comes on the heels of consistent and substantial growth of the EV market over the previous few years. The numbers are stark. Although not every country offers detailed breakdowns of its motorcycle sales and registration figures, enough do to draw some broad conclusions – and they don’t paint a happy picture for the electric motorcycle market. In Europe,…

By 1971 Giacomo Agostini was the undisputed king of grand prix racing, claiming six consecutive world 500cc championships and four 350 crowns to edge Mike Hailwood’s record nine world titles. Ago dominated eight of the 10 500cc grands prix he contested in ’71, including a five-minute win in the Isle of Man Senior TT. At Hockenheim he lapped the field twice. His narrowest winning margin was 28 seconds. But at the 1.9km Oran Park in the weeks before Christmas, Agostini was stunned by industrial chemist turned racer Bryan Hindle. Hailwood never made the trip Down Under in his pomp pre-1969. Kel Carruthers, the ’69 250cc World Champion, never competed in Australia after leaving in 1966. The Tasman Series run in Australia and New Zealand attracted Formula 1’s top drivers Stirling…

RACING WHAT, WHERE & WHEN ROAD RACING AUSTRALIAN SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP Rd4 12-14 Jul, Morgan Park Raceway, Qld Rd5 7-8 Sep, Phillip Island GP Circuit, Vic Rd6 4-6 Oct, One Raceway, NSW Rd7 8-10 Nov, Shell V-Power Motorsport Park, SA BLU CRU OCEANIA JUNIOR CUP Rd3 12-14 Jul, Morgan Park Raceway, Qld Rd4 4-6 Oct, One Raceway, NSW Rd5 TBA Rd6 8-10 Nov, Shell V-Power Motorsport Park, SA AUSTRALIAN SIDECAR CHAMPIONSHIP Rd3 6-7 Jul, Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW Rd4 15-16 Sep, Phillip Island, Vic INAUGURAL SOUTHERN CROSS CHALLENGE CUP 6-7 July, Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW SOUTHERN CLASSIC 9-10 Nov, Broadford, Vic AUSTRALIAN HISTORIC ROAD RACE CHAMPS 15-17 Nov, One Raceway, NSW NATIONAL BEARS CHALLENGE Rd3 6-7 Jul, SMSP, NSW Rd4 14-15 Sep, Phillip Island, Vic Rd5 12-13 Oct, SMSP, NSW (provisional)…

“IF HE’D RACKED HIS BRAIN HE PROBABLY COULD HAVE DOBBED ME IN FOR WORSE” ROOTHY NEEDS to go for another ride to sharpen his blunt brain, I reckon. It’s true when he says I have a plush fourby, but if he’d racked his brain he probably could have dobbed me in for worse. And it’s true that I use a camera for work but he forgets that most of my professional shooting is done with guns. As an old-school Harley rider he should know more than anyone the law allows me to strap a camera case to a bike’s rack but if I ride around with a rifle tied to the handlebars the highway patrol will put bullet holes in my body instead of financial holes in my wallet. So…

SPECULATION REGARDING Pecco Bagnaia’s teammate for 2025 has amped up, with Enea Bastianini, Marc Marquez and Jorge Martin all in the frame. On Thursday at Le Mans, Ducati Corse General Manager Gigi Dall’Igna enigmatically stated the factory would consider a rider’s form over the past “six years, not just one” when making a decision. For his part Bagnaia stated, “I don’t care. I just want to beat them all, try to be always the best and keep going like this.” Dall’Igna also stated post-race, “I have something to really think about this week.” And Martin appeared to be philosophical in the wake of rumours that Ducati is poised to choose Marquez for the seat over him. “I would understand it,” he said. “It’s Marc Marquez, eight-time world champion. Marketing-wise he’s…

THE 2024 Speedway Grand Prix series has so far produced three different winners from as many rounds as Australians Jack Holder and Jason Doyle are well and truly on the pace. Holder’s first SGP win was followed by Doyle winning in Poland on 11 May for his first round win since he wrapped up the 2017 World Championship before Dane Mikkel Michelsen scored his first ever victory in Germany on 18 May. So far no wins for Bartosz Zmarzlik, but the four-time champion sits atop the 2024 standings as he has been the only rider to qualify for all three finals. In front of a capacity crowd in Warsaw, Doyle was beaten only once in five heats then making a smart choice in gate position on his way to cleaning…