Innehållsförteckning för September 2017 från Fast Bikes

People don ’ t always see the commitment that goes into this job , but for the past three weeks I ’ ve been playing computer games until my fingers have bled . Yep , it ’ sbeen tough but someone ’ shad to do it – ifonly the missus understood ! On reflection , Iblame Ducati . If they hadn ’ t called and asked if Iwanted to head out to Germany to test their new 1299 Panigale RFinal Edition , then Imight not have found myself buying acopy of SBK 2011 and playing it incessantly to learn the Nürburgring GP circuit where the launch was taking place . Thankfully , that grafting paid off because the game bore apretty decent resemblance to the real circuit , which was…

So, Bruce spanked the 1299 Panigale R FE? That’s cute. There’s no doubt Ducati’s final Panigale hurrah is extremely sexy, an exceptional engineering masterpiece and (could be) a shrewd financial investment in the long run. But what about spending the same money on at least five bikes to cover every riding eventuality, assuming your garage is big enough? Even cuter. And far more astute. We like to think of this as a dream garage of sorts; rather than shooting your load in one Panigale-shaped basket, we’re hypothetically buying a used bike from every corner of the (five-sided) motorcycle spectrum to satisfy all environments – seven days a week, 365 days a year. Something for the weekend, a track bike, the ultimate roadster, a mile-munching armchair and, of course, a superbike.…

THERE WASN'T BUDGET TO STRETCH TO TOYS LIKE SUPERMOTOS. Initially, during the planning stages, this test sounded crazier than Donald Trump after one of his class A parties. Having been engrossed in the subject matter for nearly a week, it’s anything but crazy. 99% of us won’t have the readies to participate in such frivolous frolics, and 99% of us probably won’t have the mental capacity to even think about such lunacy. But think about it now – a 1299 R, just one bike, or all five of these? I know which option I’d take. This isn’t your normal Fast Bikes test per se: more of a congregation, an example of making the inconceivable entirely conceivable, which makes a conclusion almost inane. Of course, this isn’t a set template and…

I’m sure by now you would’ve heard of Dirtquake; maybe because the weekend fest attracted high-level racers such as Gary Johnson and Guy Martin, possibly because of people dressed in mental outfits like Marge Simpson, or probably due to Carl Fogarty jumping off a Harley and vowing to never race again… Aside from that, we promise it was mostly fun and games. Since its inception in 2012 DirtQuake has been a day event which for this year has turned into a weekend carnival similar to a festival; people getting smashed while camping, live music, food everywhere, and of course guys and gals racing the famous oval. It’s not just for grease monkeys and seasoned veterans though, as there is literally every class of racing ranging from ‘Learner Legal 125’ to…

Back in 2002 the term ‘super naked’ was yet to be coined as the first of this generation of bikes, the Aprilia Tuono, was still a good year from hitting dealers’ floors. But that’s not to say there weren’t a few spirited nakeds for sale; Yamaha had released the R1-powered (ish) FZS1000 and there were always the Ducati Monster models or the Aprilia Falco. But these bikes, although sporty, weren’t full-on nakeds in the street fighter ethos; they were far more relaxed naked commuters. Would Honda finally hit the street fighter brief with the 900F Hornet? Sadly, signs weren’t good from the get-go… Off on the wrong foot Despite the FireBlade now running the superb 954cc engine, in 2002 Honda decided to arm the large capacity Hornet with an aging…

FB: What is a chain and how does it work? NC: Fundamentally, a chain’s there to provide that vital link between the engine and the rear wheel in the most effective way. It transmits energy through a succession of roller bearings from the front sprocket to the rear sprocket, propelling the bike in a forward motion. FB: What different types of chains are there? NC: There are four main types of chains; standard non O-ring, O-ring, X-ring and W-ring. The main difference between all four groups of chains is the addition of rubber, for lubrication purposes. Conventional chains require regular lubrication while O-ring, X-ring and W-ring chains contain factory packed grease, to lubricate the roller bearings. It’s virtually impossible to access the area contained by the rubber, which can be…

TIME ON TEST: 1 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES CLAIMED BHP:43 NEXT AIM: GET PIMPIN’ THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Restricted to 6,000rpm.” Firstly, I’d just like everyone to say a big hello to the new termer, the lil’ KTM 390 Duke. Being well and truly f**ked over on insurance means I’ve got to be in A2, and I figured this was the funkiest little number I could find. I mean look at her! For a 390 the KTM has a real presence, and isn’t just a toy – it means business. Oh, and as it only has a claimed 43bhp, I reckon it’s up to us to see how much of a weapon we can make out of an A2 bike! When I first got her, there was a little…

TIME ON TEST: 5 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES CLAIMED BHP:174 NEXT AIM: TO CAUSE CHAOS IN AUSTRIA THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Pimpin’ my ride...” Forget your morning pick-me-up of a double espresso. Instead, why not plonk your arse on a Super Duke and give it the beans, because that’ll waken your senses like nothing else. Only by riding this big beastie will you fully appreciate just how good the thing truly is – even in standard trim – but when the Austrian factory have such an irresistible selection of Power Parts goodies to whet your appetite, it’s basically impossible to resist a little pimpin’. To be fair, the only element of the bike that held it back from being a full-on hooligan tool was that gash (Euro 4 compliant)…

THANKS TO… Ahuge thanks to MSVTbike trackdays forlettingmeout on track at Brands. If you’reafter quality track time without hassle, findanevent today at www.msvtrackdays.com/bike or call them on 0843453 3000. TIME ON TEST: 3 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES CLAIMED BHP:201 NEXT AIM: CLOCK SOME BIG MILES THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Destroying hoops...” It’s finally happened! I’ve finally taken my RSV4 out on track, and what an awesome time I had. It’s like anything you buy; it’s always a bit of a gamble. And when you’re talking of bikes and how capable they’re likely to be on track, the only way to find out is to swing a leg and muller some rubber. I’m talking trackdays, of course, which is what I did with Bruce and Neil at Brands Hatch a few…

CARL STEVENS RACING DUCATI TRI-OPTIONS CUP As it turns out, this is the last weekend I’ll be aboard the old Ducati Panigale 899 in the Ducati Tri-Options Cup. Mad. After three and a half seasons – I’m finally moving on! Bit like a mid-life crisis really, feel like I’m getting old now I’ve hit 22. But anyways, emotional goodbyes aside, after sneaking a podium at Time Attack the weekend before it was down to one last round on the girl at Brands Hatch GP before handing the Italian stallion back over… Every single time we’ve raced this bike we’ve struggled massively with brake issues, meaning for this round we invested in a new set of discs and master cylinder and had it loved thanks to the guys at Moto Rapido…

UK SET TO BE ZERO EMISSIONS BY 2040... Unless you’ve been living under a rock, there’s absolutely no way you could have missed this announcement in the last few weeks… even if you wanted to. Yep, the Government are looking to put a ban on petrol and diesel vans and cans by 2040, as the UK is one of 17 EU countries breaching annual targets for nitrogen dioxide; a problem which has been made worse by the failure of the European testing regime for vehicle emissions... But what does that mean for us bikers? At the moment, there has been no specific mention on the stance for two wheels, but either way there’s absolutely no hiding the fact that electric bikes are here to stay. Just look at brands like…

For 29 years, and a few handfuls of days, the Italian powerhouse has ruled supreme in the twin pot department, producing a plethora of pornographic (looking and sounding) motorcycles that will forever leave an impression on sportsbike fans the world over. And while it’s hard to conceive, this really is the end of an era for the Bologna-built bullets, Ducati has rightfully and honourably chosen to send off its V-twin heritage in the most fitting and worthy way by going balls out to produce an extra lightweight, ridiculously powerful and stunningly beautiful street bike. KING OF BLING Aptly, they’ve called it the 1299 Panigale R Final Edition (FE), and it’s officially the joint most powerful production V-twin to grace this wonderful world (sharing that prestigious accolade with its spanking 1299…

Bear with us on this one. 12bhp may sound about as exciting as a night out with Theresa May in Shepton Mallet but, in truth, thrashing smaller capacity bikes is far more rewarding (and far safer) than any willy-waving superbike. Pit biking – on Tarmac – has seen something of a boom in recent years, as those wanting easily accessible kicks on a budget go in search for thrills and UK motorcycling has adapted. Say hello to the CW 140 R. Brand-new, it’ll set you back £1,300. Will Holland, off of JHS Racing, paid £750 in almost-new trim – although it’s far from almost-new now after making friends with a tyre wall or two. As the name suggests, it, erm, boasts a 140cc single-pot that makes 12bhp at the rear…

TECH DATA From 12bhp to a pungent 75bhp, let’s up the track-based ante with a Suzuki SV650. Trackdays can become tiresome; noise issues, overtaking rules, an influx of red flags, wannabe racers ruining the fun. What you need is a race bike to go racing, and there isn’t a better introduction to the sport than minitwins. All too often we see Billy Bigballs fancying a crack at racing and opting for a 1000cc superbike that rides him – not the other way round. It doesn’t end well. Not only is minitwin competition hilarious fun, it’s also bloody cheap. In a similar narrative as the pit bike, wringing the throttle of a 75bhp twin is often far more compensating, and the après ride is often just as fun as the on-track…

Even if you’re not an endurance racing fan, chances are the Suzuka 8 Hour is on your radar. It is the most prestigious long-distance race on the motorcycle racing calendar as the world’s premium manufacturers pull out the big guns in their quest for victory; a battle of physical and mental strength in equal measures that sees riders from across the world’s elite championships, including the likes of MotoGP’s Jack Miller, Dominique Aegerter and Takaaki Nakagami, scrap it out in the most gruelling of conditions for the coveted Suzuka glory. From a manufacturer’s point of view, it’s a big-fry win and it bestows huge bragging rights for Japanese manufacturers in particular, as it’s fought in their backyard. And while there’s an enormous turnout of Japanese talent on the rammed grids,…

Now we ve had our week of good weather this year, we thought it was only fitting to chase the sunshine – and scope out some of the best activities we can find on two wheels for you. So breaking the usual tradition of heading over to Spain for the standard trackday holiday, this time we headed out to Greece, to try out a brand new experience from an Italian company called Life Motorcycle. A little bit of background: These guys (and gals) absolutely live and breathe bikes. From riding supermotos to working with the Ducati Riding Experience, the passion felt is so typically Italian – and an incredible breath of fresh air from the typical guys you meet running track events. The basis of the company is an arrive-and-drive…

It’s now been six months since getting the go-ahead from Beej to take his prized (albeit unbuilt) TZR 250 from under the dust covers, plus a number of boxes stored around our workshop, and get it ready to race. Since that time I should really have started paying ground rent for Wayne Philips’ spare bench at Phoenix Yamaha in Trowbridge – the home of the build – as bit by bit parts have come in to get the old gal running once again. It’s been a long road with a lot of things to be organised, purchased and (let’s face it…) blagged, but we are now just about there with the credit card abuse and just waiting for a couple of parts to come through to complete the build. Therefore…

TIME ON TEST: 4 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES CLAIMED BHP:189 NEXT AIM: GET 0 2 5 0 1 MORE GRUNT THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Hitting the spanners.” You can do quite a lot in two hours. Or you could opt to fit a tail tidy. Okay, I’ll admit to having been under the influence of an unholy hangover at the point I started to disassemble my beloved Fireblade’s rear seat cowl, but my hands were working just fine. Truth is, there’s a lot of stuff you have to remove on the SP before you get near its essential fixing bolts. I’ve had the front fairings off a few times thus far in our relationship, and they’re child’s play compared to the rear of the bike’s plastics. But let me…

TIME ON TEST: 3 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES BHP: 174 GAIN: 3 NEXT AIM: PADS, STILL... THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Going b’raap!” So then, another month and more time spent with the Gixer. And thus far any time with her is time well spent. We’re still in the dating phase, the ‘getting to know each other’ stage, although she’s happy to put out early doors too when the hammer goes down – perfect! One thing which I’m keeping an eye on is fuel-consumption. Yeah, set phasers to ‘yawn’ I know, but to some this kind of thing is important. So far the most I’ve seen is 32mpg, and for a long while I couldn’t break 30mpg, only by dribbling along in slow sub-40mph traffic did it increase. That being…

Despite a shaky (sorry…) start to the season, ex-FB staffer Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne appears to be tightening his grip on the 2017 BSB series. Penning this just prior to Thruxton’s round (usually a happy hunting ground for Byrne), he’s won four races on the bounce and taken control of the series points table. In fact, he’s made the racing a little dull at times – dull up the front, that is! At least at Brands Hatch in race one he had to work his way through the pack to nail the victory. But at the same time, given the way he was inexorably nicking place after place, viewers either track side or on TV must have been able to gather that before long themselves. Yes, he had some crashes early…

Ducati’s liquid-cooled, eight-valve V-twins have been so successful for so long that the end hardly seems possible, but the name printed on the red, white and green fairing confirms it: the 1299 Panigale R Final Edition will be the Bologna factory’s last desmo V-twin flagship. In November at EICMA in Milan, Ducati will unveil a new-generation super-sports V4. And unlike the limited-production Desmosedici RR of a decade ago, this V4 will take over as the firm’s top mass-produced sports bike, ending an era of liquid-cooled, eight-valve desmo V-twin dominance that began way back in 1988 with the original 851. That format has served Ducati brilliantly for almost three decades. In an everincreasing line of model numbers from 851 to 1299, eight-valve V-twins have built the firm’s reputation, winning 14 World…

As demonstrated a few months ago in these very pages, we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to pure sportsbikes in second-hand form. At around half the price of a 2017 base model, this 2014 Fireblade has just 3,000 miles on the clock and Bransons are asking for a mere £8,695. So, just to reiterate, that’s a bike that’s just been run-in for half the price of the much-maligned 2017 bike. And because we’re kind and considerate chaps, we’ve also budgeted a few hundred quid for a quickshifter – something the ‘Blade has been crying out for since its rivals started wearing the technology years ago. Forget 2017. I’m sure Honda and a few others will want to. What this bike has achieved since the last major update in 2008…

So what the bloody hell is Moto Time Attack? Well, it’s a brand new concept for bikes that’s been going for donkey’s years on the car racing circus, and thanks to Mark and the team it’s finally been brought to two wheels.It’sbasically anopeninvitationtobuildthecraziest, stupidestandfastestmachinespossiblewith someincrediblylenientregs,beforebattling itoutfortheultimatefastestlaptimes.So basically:buildananimal,ridethelivingshit outofitandwinsomecoolprizes–all around one of the best tracks in the world. Do Sundays get any better? Absolutely not. Which is why we couldn’t resist assembling a dream team and heading on down, in the name of research and hopefully tasting some champers. With Bruce ducking out at the last minute (I can only imagine he’s putting off by the prospect of getting spanked by his junior on track) it was up to the rest of us at Team Fast Bikes. I entered on the…

You’ve got to bloody love technology! And Lee Kempson, of L74 Track & Race Products (www.l74.co.uk) too. He came to my rescue with the Suzuki yokes quandary by tackling the job of producing the bespoke items needed to narrow the width of the fork legs. To get that ball rolling it was a simple case of taking measurements of the width, the thickness and the recesses needed for the Moto3 bike’s new yokes. Armed with that info, Lee, who’s not just a handy bike racer but also an exceptional engineer, created a CAD design of the yokes and then set about 3D printing them. Maybe the canny eyed among you saw a few pictures of the printing process on our Facebook site, to which there were a few questions as…

TIME ON TEST: 2 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES TESTED BHP:106  NEXT AIM: SORT THE SUSPENSION THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Getting miles clocked...” Last week’s blast to the remoter parts of Scotland swung my ever changing opinion of the GSX-S back into the ‘like-zone’. The bike’s inherent mix of strengths and weaknesses manages to influence me one way or the other on almost every ride. Firstly, the GSX-R derived engine has lost little of its original sportsbike charm. Sure, it’s down on top-end power compared to the old GSX-R750, but there’s decent torque – helped by sensible gearing – and it sounds great. The 750 mill is surely the bike’s greatest strength. Improbably, the upright, forward biased riding manages to trade control for comfort. The wide bars and lack of…

TIME ON TEST: 5 MONTHS ODOMETER MILES TESTED BHP:117 NEXT AIM FIND MO M : GOTTA ORE MILES ... THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Window shopping!” Iam now into my fifth month with the Triumph and so far have added nothing to the package since it arrived. I will argue this away, by stating that until this point I have been testing the launch observations of my erstwhile colleagues and making my own mind up about the RS, and then deciding where to go with it. Overall this package represents the higher end of the specification of the triple-pot range for 2017, it’s the one to ride if you are intrigued by what will be powering Moto2 in 2019. But credit to Triumph, they have developed a bike that’s…

Immortalised in these very pages when the magazine was almost as lawless as he was, the toothy Londoner belonged to a generation where hell-raising was standard fare in the race paddocks of the world.He was one of the most naturally gifted riders of his era as demonstrated by his stratospheric rise from club racing to Grand Prix stardom in just four years, followed by a journeyman route back through BSB, and then a fall from grace almost of Hollywood proportions; if they ever get around to doing a film on Emmett, it’ll break all records. But it wasn’t all beer, fags and partying for the man nicknamed ‘Jack Daniels’, although there weren’t many race meetings that Emmett would attest to being clean at from start to finish. “I’m sure there…

DUCATI WSBWORLD SUPERBIKE When I left you folks last time, I’d just got the go ahead to race at Laguna Seca. When I got home from Misano, I’d had two sessions of physio a day, a couple of hours each per session on average, one in the morning and one in the evening. And this was every day until I flew to the USA. I went to Laguna in a bit of pain but by the end was feeling a lot better! The gauge was every time I finished a session I’d go to put on my shoes while stood up. That was the worst when I tried to double over, as I’d feel the most amount of pain. The first few days I couldn’t bend over to do that…