Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue#133 - February 2017 i Australian Road Rider

You do know that China produces more than 24 million motorcycles every year, and exports 34 per cent of them, yes? There are more than 200 motorcycle manufacturers in China and their output accounts for a touch over 50 per cent of all the bikes made in the world. And they are coming here. It is inevitable, even though our domestic motorcycle market is about the size of a cake stall at a school fete by comparison to other countries. It’s still a market and some of them are already here. Brands like CF Moto, Crossfire, Suntek and Loncin are being sold to people after a dirt-cheap, almost disposable little dirt or road bike. Yes, they appear to be made of recycled noodle cans, good wishes and bamboo, but people…

“Bed is a motel room attached to a casino, where busted-arse locals do their dough in slots” This time, when I unfolded the map of the USA and began searching its entangled coloured lines, I was looking for a road I’d never heard of and whose name I didn’t yet know. I wanted to ride from LA to New York. I had two weeks, a Harley Road Glide Ultra, and a resolve to avoid big cities and interstate freeways. The Confederacy was also out because it was mid-year — hurricane and tornado season in the south, wet, stinking hot and miserable. What I really needed, I decided, was an obscure two-lane highway that ran unbroken straight through the heart of America. Most of the famous old two-lanes, such as the…

Forget what you know or think you know about Harley-Davidson big twins. The new Milwaukee Eight V-twin is going to change a lot of your perceptions and nullify some of your objections to buying one. If the Rushmore Project updates on the Touring line-up were like man landing on the moon, the introduction of the Milwaukee Eight is like man landing on Mars — a giant leap for Harley-kind. Of course, it all starts with the engine. The dual-spark, single-cam engine is 15 per cent more powerful with 10 per cent more torque to give your backside a bigger kick, yet it is also more refined and sophisticated, with less vibration and heat radiating up into the rider’s backside. But it’s so much more than just a big donk. Together…

Jeff tried desperately to fight the inevitable, but the bike was lying on its side in the middle of the road and no amount of tugging at the handlebar was going to undo anything. He’d crashed. Worse, he’d crashed with my daughter on the back. In front of me! “You’ve just crashed and dumped my daughter on the road,” I said sternly over the Interphone Bluetooth we were all using. “No, no, no,” he replied, almost pleading. “It has only touched the ground.” “Touched the ground?! That’s a new one. I’ve never heard a crash called that before.” Ariel stood between us, not sure whose side to take at first, but she soon joined me in giving her boyfriend grief. Truth is, she’d simply stepped off the back of Jeff’s…

New bike prices can go up and down like the stock market, so in every issue we’ll bring you the sticker prices. To be completely up to date with things like factory discounts and incentives, check the Road Rider website (www.roadrider.com.au) where we will bring you all the special deals, bonus offers and cashback promotions we can find. We have included the importers’ websites, which is the place to go if you’re looking for more information. You’ll see that we haven’t listed every bike on the market (yet) but we aim to get there with all of them. Sometimes even we struggle to find the details of the smaller, newer importers. Meanwhile, enjoy this most meaningful of Australian bike listings, covering the bikes you’re interested in. The prices are…

Ridden We put the new Milwaukee Eight engine to a real Aussie test, with 2200km covered in a week aboard the all-new Road King Touring. Is it the real deal? We take a more leisurely stroll aboard a Royal Enfield Classic 350. It’s cheap and a whole bunch of fun. Up-and-comer CFMoto releases its new 650 and what a surprise packet it is. We’ll tell you if the saving is worth it or not! To top off all that, Leechy jumps aboard a BMW F 800 GSA to see if the heyday of the middleweight adventure bike is upon us. On the road Our star traveller Ian Neubauer crosses one of the world’s trickiest rides, taking in Ruta 40 in Argentina. Corruption, impossible winds and superb beauty aboard a GS.…

You probably know that Steve McQueen was an enthusiastic motorcyclist. But you probably don’t know just how enthusiastic he actually was. His love of riding went far deeper than most fans realise … After being honourably discharged in 1950 from the US Marines, he drifted around the country on a 1946 Indian Chief doing menial jobs for people. “I was so proud of that Indian that I rode it over to see a girl I was dating,” he recalled in a later interview. “She said, ‘You don’t expect me to ride around with you on that, do you?’ I surely did. The girl went and the bike stayed.” In 1955, he debuted on Broadway and 10 years later was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood, so he could now…

Ride a Royal Enfield through the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, with ARR and World On Wheels in March 2017. We’re fulfilling a dream by booking a trip to Bhutan and we’d love you to join us and be part of the story. We’re teaming up with World On Wheels again, after riding with them many times when they were still called Ferris Wheels. We’ve ridden an Enfield in the Himalayas with them before, into Ladakh and Kashmir, and have wanted to return to this awe-inspiring part of the world ever since. The tour starts in Kathmandu with a scenic one-hour joyflight to view Mount Everest, and then the first few days are spent exploring Nepal. We cross the border into northern India to discover…

“There isn’t another bike in this category that could show a clean pair of heels to a Thruxton” I’m sitting at my keyboard having just arrived home from an epic two-day press launch, hurriedly typing this with a headful of fragmented thoughts and a body full of adrenalin. In this mag we don’t often test bikes with an “R” tagged onto their names, but for the Thruxton we absolutely had to make an exception, although to be honest, why Triumph Australia even bothered with a press launch I’m not sure, given the company can’t get the bikes into the country quickly enough to satisfy demand. Whatever the reason, I’m glad they did, because I’ve been lusting after this bike since the earliest pictures emerged and I practically soiled myself with…

Come Mr Rallyman “Motorcycle rallies, for me, represent freedom,” reckons Peter “Kog” Godfrey. “Great mateship, plenty of beer, tall stories around the campfire, and the love of motorcycling kept you coming back for the next one.” Kog’s still coming back for more — he is the force behind the Rallyman rally. In fact, he is Rallyman, and his new book is a hilarious look back into the heydays of rallying. Kog has pulled together all his rally columns from Two Wheels, from 1988 to 1992, plus a few extras. Rallies were big then and things were a lot looser than they are now, which makes for fun reading. Kog is fun to read, too — he’s a true deviant and doesn’t hold back. The things he wrote about — the…

TRANGIA ULTRA LITE The Trangia burner is an ingenious original product, often copied but never bettered. The silent burner has a simple, durable and safe design, easy to light whatever the weather. The spirit burner takes up little space and weighs less than a gas burner. The simmer ring is used to regulate the heat, which saves fuel and is used to extinguish the flame. The Ultra Lite Aluminium kit comes with a burner, a simmer ring, an upper and lower wind shield, a pot grabber, a frypan with lid, two bowls and a strap. The Trangia stove is reliable, without unnecessary parts that can go wrong or be adversely affected by cold. The stove is quick to set up and packs into a compact unit that takes up minimal…

The other day we stumbled across what might be one of the first bike reviews ever written. It concerned the legendary Brough Superior and was directed at the manufacturer … Dear Mr Brough, Yesterday I completed 100,000 miles, since 1922, on five successive Brough Superiors, and I’m going abroad very soon, so that I think I must make an end, and thank you for the road-pleasure I have got out of them. Your present machines are as fast and reliable as express trains, and the greatest fun in the world to drive — and I say this after twenty years experience of cycles and cars. They are very expensive to buy, but light in upkeep (50–65 mpg of petrol, 4000 mpg oil, 5000–6000 miles per outer cover, in my case)…

Ten years ago, common wisdom had it that the Ducati 1098 was the best sportsbike on the planet. It weighed 173kg, made 134kW of power and 134Nm of torque. It smashed the quarter-mile in 10 seconds flat, and looked so damn fine that serious Ducatisti would propose to it and offer to have its babies. A decade later, Bologna’s 1299 Superleggera is set to take this crown again, and against some serious competition. What a difference 10 years makes, huh? Apart from the donk, the Superleggera is made from carbon-fibre. It weighs 154kg and makes 160kW of power and 146Nm of torque. And the floor at EICMA had cracks in it from all the jaws that hit it when the factory unveiled it late last year. But apart from its…

“At 242kg, this is the lightest bike Victory has ever made and clearly the most powerful, boasting numbers of 103hp at a-pretty-tall-for-a-Big-Vee 8000rpm and a tidy 103Nm at six grand” The development of the Victory Octane delivered more hype than a Donny Trump bus conversation. There was the Project 156 Pikes Peak racer built especially to go up that fearsome hill at full noise using a derivation of the 60-degree, liquid-cooled V-Twin housed in the new offering. Numerous rumours abounded, fuelled by sneak peek videos popping up all Boris-and-Natasha fashion on the idiot screen. Yep, Victory wanted attention for the brand’s lightest and most powerful beastie ever. And it got it. Okay. That’s the sizzle. Time for the sausage, because all that froth and high-end bubble placed a whole bunch…

Jupiters Casino, in the heart of the Gold Coast, may seem an unlikely place to kick off a five-day adventure ride, but that’s exactly where the 2016 BMW GS Safari started from. Along with the usual off-road hijinx and fun, this year’s safari served as the perfect platform to launch the all-new F 800 GSA to the Australian bike press. After all, what better way to test a bike than in its natural habitat? BMW’s iconic safari has been running for 22 years and is one of Australia’s premier customer events. The safari always begins with a welcome dinner where all the participants are given a rundown about the coming week. BMW Australia’s marketing manager Miles Davis and event coordinator Grant Evens provide plenty of information about the ride itself…

Nowadays, just about any motorcycle is capable of covering big distances without too much trouble. I’ve seen everything from Sjaak Lucassem on his Yamaha R1 as well as scooters, and Ed March’s postie bike ridden across the world. Granted, Ed is a dab hand at rebuilding postie bike engines. During his presentation on his adventures, he often takes out an engine, strips it and re-builds it on stage while talking to the audience. Ed ends his talk by starting up his postie and riding it off stage. Then, of course, there’s Harley-Davidson. Don’t snigger; Peter and Kay Forwood rode their Harley to all 193 recognised countries between 1996 and 2006. It just goes to show that the bike you have sitting in the garage is capable of going around the…

Don’t forget to write! We mean it. We love to hear from you and everyone else does too; these pages are among the most popular in the magazine. Preferably, keep letters under 300 words so we can fit more in, though we will allow the odd exception without taking to it with the editorial knife. Yes, we will chop ’em when we have to. Do include your real name and some contact details, just in case we need to clarify something. Please write to gleech@universalmagazines.com.au or send mail to Road Rider, Unit 5, 6–8 Byfield Street, North Ryde NSW 2113 — SNAG ROYAL TREATMENT I just wanted to let other riders know about the great service I got at the Royal Hotel in Mendooran. I’ve ridden past it heaps of…

It was 50 years ago that James motorcycles closed its doors. It started in business way back in 1897 and continued production until 1966 when, like so many other British motorcycle manufacturers, the parent company AMC succumbed to the onslaught of Japanese imports following years of chronic under-investment and lack of development — and went bankrupt! Although James motorcycles (and sister company within AMC, Francis-Barnett) may have lacked the glamour of some more exotic machines, they provided good everyday transport to thousands, and assisted the war effort during both world wars. The number of James motorcycles still in existence is dwindling, but there are still good examples out there and a hardy bunch of enthusiasts who are keen to maintain, restore and ride them. Though hardly the fastest motorcycles in…