Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Fast Bikes

I don’t smoke, but if I did this would be the point that I’d light up one of those big, fancy Havana cigars. Putting together any big test is never easy, but 2020 tried its hardest to smother USB 2020 on more occasions than Carl can count. We owed it to you guys to make it happen, and after a load of late nights, cold sweats and the use of every swear word known to exist (infinite times over), we pulled it off. Covid’s done the world no favours, but it feels great to have tackled it and its challenges head-on, coming out the other side with our biggest, toughest and most comprehensive sportsbike shootout. If you’re unfamiliar with USB, the principle’s quite simple; we do anything and everything we…

The avid World Superbike fans amongst you will likely rank the Kawasaki ZX-10RR as one of the best litre sportsbikes money can buy, and understandably so, thanks to Jonathan Rea taking five WSBK titles on the bounce on said green machine. As a race bike they are phenomenal (look what Dean Harrison can do on his at the Isle of Man TT) but on the road, in standard trim, the ZX-10 isn’t the chart topper that it once was. First of all, if you are going to own one of these things, you’re going to have to like green. Because it’s not just green, it’s very green. When I first clapped eyes on the Kwacker, in its full Kawasaki Green livery, a little bit of sick came up – it…

I know what you’re thinking: it’s about time the Gixxer thou’ got a proper update. I know it had its brakes faffed with last year and a sexy new colour scheme for this year, but really, it’s the same as it’s always been since the L7 hit the showrooms back in 2017. I actually think it looks smart – or it would do if they sorted out that ridiculous end-can. It looks like they’ve fashioned it out of something they’ve found in an Airbus reclamation yard; it really would look more at home slung under the wing of an A380. Luckily, when you are sat on the Gixxer, you don’t have to look at the exhaust pipe. You do have to look at the Nintendo Gameboy lookie-likie dashboard, though, which…

Since my last column I have started to get really busy and I’ve finally got my 2020 BMW S 1000 RR ready to ride with a little help from Peter Hickman and Dazzla over at PHR (Peter Hickman Racing). I ran the bike in at Cadwell Park and first impressions of the thing were pretty good. There were a few little teething issues but nothing major, so we took it back to Hicky’s place and dropped the oil, stuck new filters and stuff on, made some geometry adjustments and then took it to the dyno to get all the mapping sorted. The fly-by-wire system was quite interesting when I first rode it, so we were able to get that a bit smoother and sort it out. We’ve done some bits…

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You don’t get any bigger, or better, than Ultimate Sportsbike. It’s Fast Bikes mag’s flagship sportsbike test and this year, it’s better than ever. We’ve taken nine of the very best sportsbikes and clocked a serious amount of miles, spun a serious amount of laps and wolfed down way more Big Macs than is advisable to establish the best sportsbike of 2020. On the road, each bike has been ranked in terms of its comfort and usability, as well as its brakes, the effectiveness of its tech and its overall character, after taking each of the bikes on every kind of road possible, from smooth fast B-roads, to bumpy farm tracks, to motorways, to high streets. On track, Dangerous Bruce has analysed all of the bikes’ drive, agility, stability, feel,…

Surely one of the most eagerly anticipated bikes of 2020 has to be Triumph’s Moto2 765. Ever since the Hinckley lot got the Moto2 contract we’ve been crying out for a street legal, 765 powered Moto2 machine, and we’ve finally got one. With a chassis from the old 675R Daytona, and a claimed 128bhp from the 765 Street Triple derived motor, this little puppy was always going to be a weapon. I say “Street Triple derived” but there are plenty of differences inside the lump, like titanium valves, higher compression pistons, longer duration cams etcetera, etcetera, that mean you can have a higher revving, harder pulling engine that, with its taller gearbox ratios, is just downright faster. Before you even think about climbing aboard the Trumpet, it’s crystal clear that…

At £24,795, the V4S is unsurprisingly the dearest bike in USB 2020, and it was one of the bikes that I was secretly the most excited to ride. Last year the V4S impressed us all on the road and on the track with its phenomenal engine – but it was a bit of a handful unless you were a WSBK spec rider. For 2020, Ducati told us that they’ve acknowledged that, and worked hard to make the package easier to live with. They’ve engineered 30% less torsional rigidity into the chassis, they’ve altered the geometry, given us a wider fairing and taller screen and improved the traction control and wheelie strategy. Oh, and bolted on a pair of wings to the side of it for good measure. The only hang-up…

Year after year, Aprilia keep wheeling virtually the same RSV4 out and astonishing us all with just how good it is. One year it will have a new colour scheme, another it’ll have a pair of wings, and another it will have a few more cubic centimetres of capacity, and so on and so forth. This year, the RSV4’s headline upgrade is electronic suspension. They’ve opted to kit the Factory out with Öhlins EC.2, the trickest electronic pogos from the Swedish firm, to match the R1M, the V4S and the Fireblade SP. You also get a bit more colour on the new model, but only a little bit more colour; it’s still very black. The seating position on the RSV4 feels almost identical to how it’s always felt; brilliantly roomy…

Well, I did it, I decided to resubscribe to FB. I did it a bit differently this time, I went digital….. It’s not quite the same as waiting for the mag to rock up with the postman but at least I can take it with me wherever I go. Anyway, I’d like to tell you about the amazing item I just bought – it is bike related, honest – firstly, I’d like to say how I came across it. While being stuck at home and venturing outside numerous times over many days with a battery-powered hedge trimmer to tackle what I can only describe as a forest of conifer trees, I decided enough was enough so set out looking for a petrol hedge trimmer. As you can imagine, this got…

GET FOCUSED ON SOME WINTER SUN WITH A SPANISH RIDING TRIP If you’re looking to get some sunny road miles in over the winter without the hassle of taking ferries and riding thousands of miles to find some heat, then this new package from trackday company Focused Events could be right up your street. Essentially, the package means that they ship your bike and kit over to Mojacar in the south of Spain, so all you have to do is fly in with your hand luggage and a few pairs of undies. They’ll then take care of your hotel, transfer and your breakfast, meaning you can spend the next four days riding as you please, or even sitting by the pool with a beer and a burger. They’ll also give…

From a safe social distance, the baby Panigale doesn’t look like a baby at all, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a full-on fire-breathing, 200bhp superbike. It gets some serious points in the aesthetics department with its bold Ducati red, its stubby underslung exhaust and its single-sided swingarm; it’s unmistakably Italian and it’s likely to give Ducatisti the world over a raging stiffy. And if the looks alone are only trick enough to muster a lazy one, then the sound of the 955cc L-Twin Superquadro engine is sure to have the blood rushing south to finish the job. The twin-cylinder boom is exactly the kind of thing I want to hear when I fire a Duke up, and it takes me back to the good old days before…

R1s have always done it for me, so I was really excited to have a blast on this, the updated-for-2020 R1M. Now Euro5 compliant, the big Yam has had a smattering of subtle changes that alone wouldn’t get anyone’s juices flowing, but together ought to help make what is already a top superbike even better. A new cylinder head with top firing, 10-hole Bosch injectors, newly designed cams and finger followers all help the R1M maintain a sensible claimed power figure of 197bhp despite the four catalytic converters that have been shoehorned into the exhaust pipe. The new bike is also 5% more aerodynamically efficient and they’ve updated the electronics to give you even more control over the engine braking, traction control and ABS systems. Dripping with carbon fibre, the…

When BMW released this S 1000 RR last year it took the sportsbike world by storm, annihilating the opposition in Fast Bikes’ USB 2019 test. And with the addition of a few new and a few updated models for 2020, we couldn’t wait to get everything back to back and see if the Beemer had what it takes to defend the USB crown. Could it really be as good as we remembered? Well, in a word: yes. As soon as I threw a leg over the S Thou’ it all came flooding back to me – sat on one of these bikes is a really good place to be. It’s comfortable and spacious and everything is in the right place. The seat is a little firm, but not enough to…

How do you maximise performance of big bikes vs enduro bikes? The first thing to highlight is what they’re built for; the big bikes are primarily designed to cover distance both on and off-road and ride to your set destination. While the big bikes are still very capable you do have to be aware that they are still circa 200 kilos, so things are okay to a certain pace, but it’s about covering the ground as opposed to racing the ground, because when things go wrong there’s a fair bit more weight to try and save. You’re looking to get squarer and straighter for the obstacles you aim to tackle, but really you have to go in with the mindset of getting through and travelling from A to B rather…

ALL THE WAY TO THE USA Since the S1000R is supposed to stay in the garage here in the States, Fast Bikes is helping prevent Covid infection. Michael, from the USA! FB: Nice to see you’re enjoying the mag (and what comes with it) over in the States. Here’s to being able to ride again! BEEMER ABROAD Hey guys. Great mag as always, especially as Covid-19 lockdown is easing and you’re back to the bike tests. I live in Dubai and we came out of lockdown a few weeks earlier than the UK, meaning we managed a track day at the Dubai Autodrome at the end of May, even though it was 40 degrees C outside! Nothing like a nice pair of sweaty leathers! Took two days to dry them…

The 2020 harvest has officially started and strangely enough it’s come at about the same time as the start of the BSB season, which is something I never thought I’d hear myself saying! We’re busy harvesting wheat at the moment but that’s not the only thing keeping me busy, as I have just spent a day at Donington for the Official BSB test on my Hawk Racing Suzuki. The test went really well and I was about eighth fastest overall. I was only half a second off the fastest lap, so it was really tight. The top 15 were all within about a second! I feel like I’ve got a bit left in the bag, it’s only testing so I didn’t want to put my neck on the line, especially…

Well, that’s me just back from the pre-season Donington test day. The final day of getting to sort ourselves out before competition gets going properly and strangely enough, it was also the first time we have been on track with each other and it’s the middle of summer! Between us, pre-season testing always ends up being a bit of a ‘willy waving’ competition, and if that analogy holds true then my willy stayed well and truly shrivelled up and hiding away. It’s safe to say that testing hasn’t been exactly as I had hoped for in the run-up to this season. Apart from that virus getting in the way of things, I just haven’t quite managed to fully gel with my bike yet. I’ve had flashes of feeling but never…

Well, things are starting to look up a bit, aren’t they? Well hopefully that is, and I don’t want to jinx anything, but now things are opening, racing is returning and a little bit of normality has resumed, it can really only be good news… although after a little jaunt to my holiday home in Mallorca, I’m glad I got back just before the quarantine came into place! It means I’ve been living like a proper retired old man; I went up to Scotland for a bit, did some fishing, played a bit of golf, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s bored me senseless. I don’t know how so many people do it! Mind you, I’m still not sure when we’ll be properly up and running again – I…