Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2019 i Australian Motorcyclist

For the love of bikes IS THERE A motorcycle you’ve regretted getting rid of? You know, that one special bike that pulls at your heart strings when you see or hear one nowadays? I think the one that really burns for me is when I sold my 1984 Suzuki Katana 1100. I’d lusted after an 1100 Katana for many years, finally got one, restored it and pretty much sold it straight away. I guess the offer of loads of cash in my pocket took over from sitting back and really thinking about it. I remember a bloke in the Katana Australia club telling me I’d regret selling it, and to resist the urge to cash in until a few months had passed. He was right. All that remains is my…

PRICE: $6490 plus on roads WARRANTY:Two years or 20,000 kilometres SERVICING INTERVALS: Every 5000km or 12 months ENGINE:Air cooled single cylinder, single cam, 2 valves per cylinder BORE x STROKE: 78 x 86mm DISPLACEMENT: 411cc COMPRESSION: 9.5:1 POWER: 18.5 Kw@ 6500rpm TORQUE: 32Nm @ 4250rpm TRANSMISSION: 5-speed, wet multi-plate clutch, chain drive SUSPENSION: Front, 41mm telescopic fork, non-adjustable, travel 200mm. Rear, monoshock, adjustable preload, travel 180mm. DIMENSIONS: Seat height 800mm, weight 191kg (dry), fuel capacity 15 litres, wheelbase 1465mm TYRES: Front: 90/90/21 Rear: 120/90/17 FRAME: Half duplex double cradle BRAKES: Front, 300 mm disc, 2-piston floating caliper Rear, 240 mm disc, single piston floating caliper FUEL CONSUMPTION: 3.5 litres per 100km (estimated), unleaded THEORETICAL RANGE: 428km COLOURS: Snow, Sleet and Granite VERDICT: NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH OR RIVER TOO DEEP…

HAPPY AS LARRY! That pretty much sums it up when you lob at a pub, get a welcome from the staff and a nod from the locals. Oh, and if the place hasn’t been totally taken over by race screens, odds boards and pokie machines. A place where you can relax, talk if you want, or mull the day if you don’t. Because there’re few things more comforting than a smiling face after a day’s ride and there’s no surer way to kill a country pub faster than selling its soul to gambling. But down along our rivers, such as they are at the moment, the Pub and the Punt have had a much longer, much healthier and very different symbiotic relationship. And it’s this connection of pubs and punting…

THE 2020 FXLRS brings together four things that deserve each other – the 114 cubic inch Milwaukee-Eight engine and the latest Softail frame, along with upgraded suspension and clear, clean styling. The flexible Milwaukee-Eight 114 (1868cc) is also the most powerful H-D engine I’ve used, punching out 161Nm at 3000rpm. You can feel all of those Newtons when you pull away from a stop. A dual counterbalance keeps vibrations from the rigid-mounted engine at a pleasant level. I’m a great fan of the new Softail frame; I would actually have preferred a new name as well, because the previous effort that carried the name was better at looking right than performing right. The new one is far better, lighter but stiffer, and looks even better too. The 43mm upside-down fork…

PESARO, WHERE Benelli has its home, is an hour down the autostrada from Bologna where another motorcycle manufacturer lives, but you’d think it was closer when you look at the 502c. The bike looks like a Ducati Diavel that’s been washed on the hot cycle. That is not a criticism; we’ll let the Bolognese worry about suing for any possible design infractions. As far as I’m concerned, this is one pretty package. In a field where its competitors are a Honda and a Harley-Davidson that carry off different California customizing looks reasonably well, Benelli has opted for the Italian power cruiser image instead and has pulled it off nicely. The bike also fulfills its promise on the road; the re-tune of Benelli’s liquid cooled jack of all trades twin cylinder…

LOVE YOUR PUG PEUGEOT DJANGO 150 YOU COULD SAY the Vespa brand is the King of the scooter scene, but you might be very surprised to find the Peugeot range is on a par (in my eyes). I spent some time racing around on our Django 150 and these are my initial thoughts… The engine allows the Django to pull away and gap most of the tin tops from a standstill, it does slow down slightly when it gets to uphills on roads over 80km/h but you expect that from a small capacity engine. The seating position is a little ‘small’ for a tall lank like me but perfect for all of you ‘way down there’. LOL! Handling is exceptional as the Django is light and easy to handle, but…

TAKE OVER After a 55-years-long partnership with NF Importers, Ducati is now ready to take the next step in the markets in Australia and New Zealand by opening a fully owned subsidiary which will become effective starting from 1 April 2020. Previously managed by private distributor, NF Importers, Australia & New Zealand have become one of the world’s main Ducati markets outside of Europe. NF Importers, the current Ducati importer, started the Ducati distribution in Sydney in 1964, expanding the network throughout the years up to 24 dealerships that today cover the entire continent as well as New Zealand, providing Ducati customers with hubs and points of reference for their passion and needs in terms of service, community and products. After 55 years of partnership, NF Importers and Ducati together…

“I JUST WANT TO take a look,” I said to the obligatory blonde who was redirecting traffic away from Lake Louise. Have you ever noticed how often lollipop people are young blondes? Apparently they’re less likely to be abused by drivers. Makes sense, I guess, even in Canada where it’s hard to imagine any driver abusing anyone. “I promise I won’t park.” She shook her blonde mop, rather attractively I must admit, but she wasn’t about to budge. “Go five kilometres back along the freeway and park, and you can catch a free shuttle into town,” she said, obviously having repeated those instructions all day. I tried lying and told here that I had named my younger daughter Louise after the town, but it didn’t work. She did another attractive…

SUMMER AND THOSE long hot summer days are fast approaching. It’s now that you should be thinking about what riding gear you have, or don’t have, or need to replace/update. As we normally do we put the call out to the various distributors to show you what they have on offer. Here is what they reckon will keep you cool this summer… HELD BIKER FASHION www.heldaustralia.com.au Air Stream II gloves - $195 This cuffed glove is made with a highly abrasion-resistant kangaroo leather palm, mesh fabric (100% polyester) and leather detailed back featuring a colourfast and sweat-proof lining, Kevlar and DuPont Coolmax lined back, special step seam which avoids pressure points on inner hand and enhances feel, Velcro adjustment at cuffs, perforated leather back, perforated finger panels and sidewalls of…

PRICE: $9790 (ride away) WARRANTY:Two years, unlimited distance and roadside assistance SERVICING INTERVALS: 6000km or 12 months ENGINE: Liquid-cooled in-line twin, 4-stroke, DOHC, 4 valves per cylinder BORE x STROKE: 68 x 66.8mm DISPLACEMENT: 499.6cc COMPRESSION: 11.5:1 POWER: 35kW @ 8500rpm TORQUE: 45Nm @ 5000rpm TRANSMISSION: 6-speed, wet multi-plate clutch, chain final drive SUSPENSION: Front, 41mm inverted fork, travel 125mm. Rear, monoshock, adjustable preload, travel 50mm. DIMENSIONS: Seat height 750mm, weight 217kg (wet), fuel capacity 21 litres, wheelbase 1600mm TYRES: Front, 120/70/ZR17. Rear, 160/60/ZR17 FRAME:Tube trellis with steel side plates BRAKES: Front, twin semi-floating 280mm discs with radial mount four-piston ABS calipers. Rear, 240mm disc, single piston floating ABS caliper. FUEL CONSUMPTION: 4.2 litres per 100km (claimed), premium unleaded THEORETICAL RANGE: 500km COLOURS: Matt Black, Gloss Black, Matt Red VERDICT:THE…

I’ve written about motorcycle books at various times in the past, but I’ve never tried to be quite as comprehensive as this. These are the motorcycle travel and – dare I write it – motorcycle ‘lifestyle’ books currently on my shelves, plus the guidebooks next to them. I say ‘currently on my shelves’ because I own quite a few more but they are currently on other people’s shelves. If you’ve got any of my books, give them back, damn you! I have only identified books by their name, author and ISBN because that’s enough to find a copy on the web if you want one. Couldn’t be bothered adding the publisher etc, because that doesn’t help you any more and just takes up space. It’s worth noting, however, that Whitehorse…

FROM THE PREVIOUS issue I made time to head to D Moto Motorcycle Engineering and fit up the replacement third gear I received from a friend in the Netherlands. The gearbox now spins perfectly and it was time to put the engine all together. This took half a day and after a refreshing lunch, Shaun and I fitted the bottom end into the frame, covering the beautiful black tubes with some blankets and sorting out which new bolt, nut and washer went where. This was a rather easy process, and although I thought it was going to result in scratched tubing, we got the engine in perfectly and then it was time to slip the head on, torque it down onto the bottom end and now came the fun of…

SOMETIMES YOU ARE riding along, and you just aren’t there. Not the ‘there’ in the domestic sense. You find yourself in another place, another country, another time. I do that a lot on boring freeway rides, getting away from the world I live in. Motorcycling, especially on adventure-style bikes, allows you to find that nirvana. I was plonking along nicely at the rear of our large press group up around the Tweed Caldera (look it up, it’s a geological wonder) in northern NSW. I was on the Royal Enfield Himalayan launch for the upgraded 411cc single, now fitted with a fuel injection system and ABS (which cannot be switched off) and I should have been living in the moment. But I found myself drifting off to Pokhara and 1987, when…

ZEEHAN Hidden in a valley of rugged hills and rainforest, Zeehan was established in the late 1800s after tin, silver and lead discoveries sparked the largest mining boom in the west of the island. Nicknamed ‘Silver City’, it quickly grew into Tasmania’s third largest town and social hub for the entire West Coast region. Not surprising then that the West Coast Heritage Centre and Pioneers Museum, with its excellent displays on the area’s indigenous, pioneering and mining past, has one of the finest collections of minerals in the world. Zeehan, like other West Coast mining towns, has seen many booms and busts, making it a living museum full of character and fascinating stories. Today, Zeehan’s Main Street is lined with grand old buildings like the Gaiety Theatre, supposedly visited by…

YOU KNOW WHAT happens when you let some mad scientists loose in BMW’s Cloverleaf Building in Munich? You get the BMW Motorrad R 1250 with ShiftCam in its touring RT guise. There is more technology thrown into what is essentially a very simple design than in the entire North Korean missile program. BMW has been producing quality flat boxer twins for nearly 100 years, but market and emission control demands in this, the third decade of the 21st century, are calling for more serious developments than ever before. So I can understand why they have thrown the kitchen sink at the RT. I have followed the technological progression from my first new BMW in ’78, a simple and beautiful R100/7, by way of a GS 1200 in 2008 and a…

THIS JUNE SAW fifteen teams from twelve different countries take on the challenge of the Rickshaw Run Himalaya, a thrilling week-long adventure through the Indian Himalayas. Following a route which included the ‘highest motorable road’ in the world, the Run saw the teams having to battle with snow drifts and melting glaciers, potholes that were more like craters and the effects of high altitude. While the usual mode of transport for tourists in the Himalayas is by foot (or possibly Royal Enfield), The Adventurists, the organisers of the Run, chose a less conventional means for teams to get over 5000-metre mountain passes: India’s famous three-wheeler rickshaws. The teams started in Leh, a high-desert city in northern India, and followed the famous Leh-Manali Highway and Spiti Valley, one of the last…

MOST READERS OF this magazine, and a few others launched and edited by The Bear over the past quarter of a century, would know of the motorcycle tour company World On Wheels. Indeed, many Australian riders regard the founder, Mike Ferris, as a godfather of the commercial motorcycle tour industry. Back in 1996 when The Bear started his brand new enterprise called Road Rider, Ferris was the subject of his very first editorial. He had recently established an operation named Ferris Wheels, the forerunner to WOW. On the 25-year anniversary of this occasion, The Bear sat down with Mike Ferris to shoot the breeze. PT So, Ferris Wheels came about after you had ridden across the Indian Himalaya in 1993 and '94 on a Royal Enfield, and since then you've…

HAVE YOU EVER thought about buying a motorcycle in the US? It might be because you can get the most remarkable bargains (as I did) or because you want something to ride while you’re over there for an extended period and renting just gets too expensive? Possibly both – imagine finding exactly the Harley you’ve always wanted, and heading off along Route 66 on it. A bloke called Matt Copenhaver from a company called visitor.us tells me that he can help you do that, with an absolute minimum of hassles. See https://www.google.com/search?q=visitor.us or read on. I’ve abbreviated his description of the process for you here. “Buying a car in America is easy. Registering and insuring it is harder. Especially if you're just visiting. Only residents can register and insure vehicles…

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU, the letters are among the most keenly read parts of the magazine. Please try and keep letters down to no more than 300 words.Then you can read many, not just a couple.We do reserve the right to cut them and, unless you identify yourself and at least your town or suburb and state, we will print your email address instead. Please address letters to contactus@ausmotorcyclist.com.au or Australian Motorcyclist Magazine, Suite 4b, Level 1, 11-13 Orion Rd, Lane Cove West NSW 2066. All opinions published here are those of the writers and we do not vouch for their accuracy or even their sanity. LETTER OF THE MONTH This month’s winner gives it to you as an owner of an old and new Katana. I quite like…

For this ride we started out of Zeehan and headed anticlockwise…it is a rather easy route to follow so if you don’t want to take a map with you – this is the one! Head east on Zeehan Highway turning left onto Murchison Highway about four kilometres out of Zeehan. Follow all the way to Tullah. About three kilometres out of Tullah turn left onto Pieman Road and follow this all the way back around to Zeehan. About three-quarters of the way round the road does turn into Heemskirk Road. DISTANCE – 146km FUEL – Zeehan, Rosebery TEAR-OUT MAP COLLECT THEM ALL…