Australian Motorcycle News Vol 74 Issue 12

HERE’S ONE for the trainspotters. Exactly what motorcycle is my father riding in this shot below? Mum puts it at around 1969. Perhaps it’s a Honda, because it’s red. Twin exhausts, so maybe a CB175? No, because it has a two-stroke engine. Dad gave up road riding soon after us kids came along – like a lot of people do – and he passed away in 2016, so unless someone out there knows this one intimately, it remains a mystery. The real reason I find this image so confounding is that Dad always confessed to being a lifelong Kawasaki fan. Sure, once my two sisters and I came along he immediately swore to Mum that the dangers of road riding were behind him. But when he moved us from the…

Here are some highlights of the past 12 months. THE GO-SHOW GOBERT GONE In one of our most emotional issues, we farewelled the troubled genius that was Anthony Gobert, who left us aged just 48 years. The overwhelming reader reaction resulted in demands for a poster, which we supplied in the following issue.  AMCN Vol 73 No 15 BENCH MARC! In a somewhat prophetic headline, we looked back on Marc Marquez’s career as he started a new chapter with Ducati, where he set a new standard both for himself and Ducati. AMCN Vol 73 No 13 CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! In an exclusive interview, 2023 ASBK champ Troy Herfoss revealed his first impression of his MotoAmerica Indian Bagger felt like “the next quickest thing to a MotoGP bike”. AMCN Vol 73 No…

Bimota’s return to the Superbike World Championship is already creating concern among its rivals in early testing, thanks to the single-minded design of its KB998 racer. Now the homologation-required road version, which has to be sold under a WorldSBK-imposed price cap of 44,000 euro ($A71,400), has been revealed. During recent tests, the KB998 was instantly on the pace, with riders Axel Bassani and Alex Lowes topping the timesheets at Jerez in October during the race version’s first run. The production model, unusually revealed after the racer, hints at how it achieved that immediate success. Details include structural carbon fibre for the seat unit, a MotoGP-style swingarm with underslung bracing and a huge array of chassis adjustability. Showa suspension and Brembo brakes, allied to a dry weight of 195kg, are on…

HONDA UPS SAFETY TECH HONDA HAS BEEN pursuing the idea of fitting airbags to motorcycles since the 1990s but apart from the Gold Wing it’s still impossible to buy an airbag-equipped bike from the company – or any other brand. That might be on the verge of change as Honda’s latest patent applications show a set-up that vastly simplifies adding the tech to existing bikes. While the Gold Wing proves that airbags can be fitted to bikes, it’s a very specific-use case. Honda’s latest version of the idea creates an airbag with a standalone electronics system – something that’s already been well proven in airbag-equipped leathers – and a simple, bolt-on design that could be easily adapted to almost any bike. The whole airbag unit is designed to attach to…

ONE OF THE major concerns about the prolife ration of semiautonomous cars and the prospect soon of fully self-driving vehicles is whether they will be equipped to ‘see’ motorcycles. Now Honda is joining a growing number of motorcycle manufacturers to proactively boost your chances of being spotted by these cars’ electronic eyes. BMW, Suzuki and Piaggio have already applied for patents on forms of reflectors to increase the radar signature of bikes. The idea, like those old maritime radar reflectors that prevent collisions at sea, is to create a geometrical shape from highly reflective material that ensures incoming radar waves are bounced back at the source they’re coming from. Honda’s version sits behind the windscreen and features either two or three cup-shaped reflectors, each with three reflective faces, giving an increased…

Earlier this year the giant Chinese car maker Great Wall Motors launched onto two wheels with the Souo brand and a pair of vast, two-litre, eight-cylinder tourers. Now a third model will be launched. The initial Souo models were the S2000ST and S2000GL, both laser-targeted at Honda’s Gold Wing – the ST at the base Gold Wing, the GL at the fully-kitted Gold Wing Tour. The new model is a cruiser, dubbed LH2000, based on the same powertrain that takes inspiration from Honda’s F6C and Rune models. Souo’s thinking is clear: it wants to be taken seriously, so it’s targeting arguably the most famously high-end motorcycle on the planet. Part of the plan is simple one-upmanship. The Gold Wing has six cylinders, so its bikes have eight. The Honda has…