Motorcycle Sport & Leisure

At the risk of sounding like so many editorial lead-ins in other magazines, I’d like to open this issue by wishing you all a happy New Year, and bringing a welcome to 2026 – a year in which we should all be making a concerted effort to spend more time on two wheels, both as a pleasant pastime to while away our spare time, as well as using them as general transport. For while we all know the inherent dangers that we face each time we head out on our bikes, we also know that many of those come from fellow road users, many of whom aren’t even aware of our presence on the highway. That presence can only be made more visible by actually being out there, using our…

The tsunami of new bikes continues, with our pick of the saucy machinery on show at Milan. Here’s the ones to watch in 2026. Honda CB1000 GT If you’re one of the other Japanese firms, you must hate Honda at the moment. Because the big H keeps bringing out smashing bikes at great prices, knocking the stuffing out the competition at both ends. The Hornet and Transalp 750 did this a couple of years back, and now it’s doing the same with the Hornet 1000 naked, based on an older generation of Fireblade engines. Last month we saw the CB1000F, a slick retro-roadster based on the Hornet 1000, and now there’s another model in the range: the CB1000 GT. The GT uses the Hornet motor, with a 148bhp tune, bolted…

KTM needs its first new model since the Mattighofen factory resumed production to come out punching from the bell and, on first impressions, it appears to have done exactly that. Its LC8c parallel twin makes 128hp at 9500rpm and 76 ft-lb of torque at 6750rpm to make it the most powerful bike in this middleweight sports bike class (if we ignore non-Euro5+ compliant bikes). Multiple riding modes, four ABS settings, anti-wheelie, all accessible by new switchgear and a hugely wide ‘landscape’ full colour TFT dash are just for starters. Suspension, as you would expect from KTM, is fully-adjustable WP APEX, with stopping power coming from the very latest Brembo HyPure calipers – usually only seen on high-end superbikes like the Ducati Panigale V4 S. Don’t be fooled, the RC R…

Bell Race Star DLX Flex £699.99 www.uk.bellhelmets.com As the understated graphics on this race-inspired helmet show, the shell is constructed from carbon fibre, with five different sizes (and six different liner sizes) to give what is as close as you can get to a true custom fit as possible. Additionally, the three layer lining is designed to manage energy from low, mid and high speed collisions, while ‘Magnefusion’ cheek pads (named thus as they are held in place with magnets, thus making them very easy to remove for washing) ensure supreme comfort with optimal fit within the lining, which is a antimicrobial, quick-drying material. The modern racer styling is made all the more practical as the DLX now comes with Bell’s ‘ProTint’ visor, which is photochromatic so it darkens when…

Living, as I do, in the western middle of the US, very few of my UK readers have met me. Less than a dozen, I’d say. And only a very few, the folks who joined Tamar and me on the Isle of Man and the gentleman and his wife who loaned us the Guzzi to use while we were there, have seen me with one leg on either side of a motorcycle. What if, let’s imagine, Tamar and I didn’t in fact visit the Isle of Man last year? What if I found Tony Gurevitch’s name in the Moto Guzzi Club GB magazine and I used his name and merely invented the rest, just as fiction writers have done since Chaucer? What if I’ve been reading magazines and books and…

So, let’s address the elephant in the room. The first thing that will be raising eyebrows about the new-to-the UK brand is the name, and the various connotations that it has within the British lexicon. Note – this only applies here in the UK with our varied and constantly changing slang, and as a global brand the name has to work in all markets (and the Benda name is strong in the home market), and that goes some way to also explain why other manufacturers have also had some peculiar model names for their bikes. We need to bear in mind that the moniker is different to that of the parent company, which in itself is not unusual (in any market, let alone with motorcycles, given the companies that own…