Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2021 från Fast Bikes

This is the best job in the world (fact). And nothing hammers that reality home quite like assembling the latest and greatest of sportsbikes in readiness for a test quite like no other. For the past two weeks solid we’ve clocked some serious miles, reached some ludicrous speeds and had endless laughs (mostly at Tim) as we’ve bode to define which sportsbike is most worthy of your wonga; on road, on track, on the dragstrip, and down the pub. We’ve even had these weapons on the dyno (in order to have more ammo for return pub trips), in a bid to get to know these bikes better than a politician knows how to avoid answering a question. It’s been hard work, it’s been relentless... but it’s also been the best…

While some people planned to celebrate the end of lockdown with a fresh haircut, a pint of bitter and a quick trip down the vaccination centre, here at Fast Bikes we had different intentions. Call us narrow-minded (we’ve been called much worse), but for the past few months we’ve been scurrying around, calling here, emailing there and generally pestering the entire motorcycle industry in a bid to pull off the biggest, fastest and most audacious sportsbike test of 2021. Of course, we’re talking about Ultimate Sports Bike; a test so thorough and broad that the only question you’ll be pondering once you’ve digested what advice, tech and data we have on offer is how you’re going to secret your new purchase past your better half. That, I’m afraid, is a…

THANKS TO STRAIGHTLINERS! To spice things up and give our contestants an additional workout, we descended on Melbourne Raceway where British straight line legend and multiple British land speed record holder Trevor Duckworth gave us the chance to get stuck in and blast these bikes off down the strip at his Straightliners event. It was a cracking opportunity and added a lot more insight to the test, not to mention prime opportunities to take the piss out of each other when someone fluffed a start. We had a blast, and we’re sure you would to. Straightliners host events up and down the country, throughout the year. You’ll find more details at www.straightliners.events IN ASSOCIATION WITH Black & White Bikes The Old Filling Station Sausthorpe Road Hagworthingham Lincolnshire PE23 4LE +44…

S 1000 R – £12,055 ■ BMW Motorrad ABS ■ Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) ■ Riding modes (rain, road, dynamic) ■ LED headlight ■ LED tail lights and indicators ■ 6.5-inch TFT dash S 1000 R Sport – £14,000 ■ Includes all base model spec, plus… ■ Daytime riding light ■ Headlight pro ■ Adaptive headlight ■ Gearshift assist pro ■ Riding modes pro: dynamic pro ■ Cruise control ■ Keyless ride light ■ USB charging socket ■ Dynamic damping control ■ Heated grips ■ Engine spoiler S 1000 R M-Package – £16,800 ■ As per the Sport package, plus… ■ M-forged wheels ■ Titanium sports silencer ■ M-lightweight battery ■ M-seat ■ M-endurance chain ■ M-colours…

You have to hand it to Ducati. For a company that prides itself on its heritage and and uses it so much in its corporate image, its engineers aren’t afraid to leave the past in the past and embrace the future. I mean, whoever thought that Ducati would one day drop its signature trellis frame in 2011 which brought so much success on track? Then the unthinkable happened in in 2018, when it dropped the other thing that’s been a constant in Ducati sportsbikes since, well, the beginning – the 90-degree L-Twin engine. The V4 era arrived, and V-Twin Ducati sportsbikes became a thing the company used to make once upon a time. But then, some things don’t change. The 2021 Ducati Monster uses the engine from Ducati’s 900 Supersport…

It’s easy to assume Danny Kent’s route to Grand Prix was laid out before him from the moment he was born. As with so many young racers who end up leaving school and go on to race in the Spanish CEV championship, there’s the assumption they were born into a racing family, with a mother and father who had them on two wheels before they could walk, carefully mapping out a career for their offspring with the hopes of seeing them atop a podium at the highest level, regardless of cost and sacrifice. You’d be forgiven for thinking the same was true of Kent; he climbed the ladder with Red Bull holding its foot on the bottom rung, racing in Spain before making his way into 125 GPs. However, sacrifices…

Q I was riding with my now very ex-girlfriend on the back of my motorcycle. I don’t want to go into too much detail as there are solicitors involved, but here is what happened. I went for an ordinary overtake but realised that at the head of the queue of traffic I was overtaking was a four-wheel drive with a big horse trailer turning right. I am a very experienced and skilled rider, and I have done five track days and a BikeSafe course, and the police officer who took me on the course said I was one of the best riders he had ever encountered. I braked, under control – but the brakes must have seized up because I went into a skid and crashed. I maintain my own…

Since we last spoke, I’m back on my feet and back to what I’d call some sort of normality. My knee still isn’t 100% but I wouldn’t say its holding me back in my day-to-day activities anymore and, most importantly, I’ve been able to ride my Fireblade again. Now that we’ve started the testing programme, riding days have been coming thick and fast, and BSB has done a brilliant job of getting us to most of the tracks before the season starts. I had to miss the first of the five BSB testing days, which was at Silverstone, but it’s a track I know and like, and with it being such a short track, I’ll get plenty of laps when we rock up on the race weekend. So, my first…

PLANET FAST BIKES – NEW METAL, NEWS & REVIEWS Almost everything about the new 2021 Yamaha R7 makes perfect sense. A faired sporty variant of the excellent MT-07 roadster is a no-brainer for the firm on a number of fronts. It already has a lively engine and chassis package to transfer over. The R-series family is well established, with options in the 125, 300, 600 and 1000cc sectors. The Supertwin/Minitwin race class is arguably much livelier than the 600 Supersport sector. The current entries – Kawasaki’s Ninja 650 and the elderly Suzuki SV650 – look vulnerable to competition (though the pricier Aprilia RS660 offers a higher performance option). And Yamaha dealers get to offer sportsbike fans a well-priced, decent-performing option between the R3 and the R1 without having to go…

The Suzuki GSX-R1000R is the embodiment of the saying that if you make something easy to use, then it’s easier to get more out of it. Granted, that’s a saying I just made up, so to put it another way – less is more. The GSX-R’s genius is that it’s so uncomplicated and user-friendly that it is virtually impossible to not like riding it. For simple and uncomplicated, don’t read cheap and nasty – the GSX-R may well wear an out-of-date shell suit, but beneath the homage to dubious ‘90s colour schemes is a lot of tech and a chassis that perfectly balances and supports for blasting about on roads. The only other bike in the test with variable valve timing costs nearly double the GSX-R, and there are other…

At the start of this test we sat down and tried to predict the outcome, but none of us nailed it. I guess there were too many unknowns and too many variables on a test this big, and so many different aspects. That was the plan – give these bikes a gruelling test so broad and extensive that there was no room for surprises. On reflection, sitting on my backside writing this up, now testing is complete and the dust has settled, I truly feel we’ve done these machines justice. We know them with conviction – their strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is they were all pretty exceptional and I would consider myself lucky to own any one of them. But some bikes stood out for good reasons, while…

There was a time when getting your hands on a race licence was about as easy as catching a cold, but the game has moved on over the last few decades and now getting your Auto Cycle Union (ACU) road racing licence requires physical proof of your ability, plus a little more understanding of what’s actually going on around you. It’s all in the name of safety though, which I’m sure you’ll agree is vital - especially in a sport riddled with danger, Armco and too many egos. The good news is you won’t need to have brains like a rocket scientist to pass the standardised course, but a good dollop of common sense and an idea of how a clutch works will definitely give you a fighting chance. If…

PART TWO There are some things well worth getting up early for, and a date on track with a rapid R1 is one of them. That first day on our project, where we’d taken a stock road machine and made it credibly faster through a succession of basic changes, had been on our minds constantly for the best part of a month and our planned return to the scene of the crime could not have come soon enough. As keen as I was, MCAMS Yamaha’s crew chief Chris Anderson was obviously on another level, because by the time I’d rocked up at Cadwell at 7.03am, Chris has already put the awning up, got the bike out and downed a few butties. He even cracked half a smile when he saw…

There’s always been a fiercely tight battle between the Yamaha R6 and Kawasaki ZX-6R when you look at the history of the stock 600 class, but with the recent release of the updated 636, I know where I’m hedging my bets. We caught up with Joe of JR Performance to find out how he makes his green machine tick. As with most teams racing in any of the BSB championships, the year usually starts with a new bike build. Joe receives his Kawasaki’s brand new and in the crate, and so the first job is removing all of the road gear. Once stripped down, Joe tells me it is really just a case of bolting the new parts on, but it’s no means an open rulebook in the stock 600…

What a busy month, both for me and my little mini Ohvale heroes! I started May by heading over to Snetterton circuit with the Thundersport GB club, racing with my sponsored rider Max Stainton. Max was riding the PHR Performance BMW in the GP1 Elite class for the first round of the season, so I also took my own bike for a little play. He got on very well actually; I was really happy with his effort and progress. We had three days down there with our own little team, a first for me as a new venture so it was something a bit different watching someone else going around on my bike! He finished eighth in his first race on a 1000cc bike and got a podium in the…

Just how fit do you need to be in order to be a professional motorbike rider? That is actually a really hard question to answer, and one that came up recently as I conducted a pre-season fitness screening for the PBM team. Despite having ridden for many a professional team in my time, this is the first time I have been asked to perform any kind of fitness assessment. But it was something I was really looking forward to, as I take a keen interest in personal fitness - I have a degree in sport science, but mostly I was looking forward to finding any weaknesses I have so I can get those sorted before the season gets underway. I’m not too sure why I’ve never been asked to perform…

HEL RADIAL MASTER CYLINDER For some reason, braking systems seem to be one of the weakest areas of new bikes, even in high-end in machines – crazy when you think how much research and development has gone into them. But then again, they can be improved fairly easily, with one of the best changes being to upgrade your master cylinder to one like this Hel design. Being CNC machined from solid billets of 6082-T6 aluminium, Hel Radial Master Cylinders are actually finished and assembled by hand, which allow you to get your ideal ratio and fit for your machine. They come with either a standard or folding lever, and are available in a variety of different finishes and options. RRP £239 www.bikehps.com AGV PISTA GP-RR FUTURO If you want the…

Much like the Kawasaki, the Yamaha R1M is just beginning to show its age, only in the case of the Yamaha it’s doing so with an ace card up its sleeve – an engine with a crossplane crankshaft and a sublime suite of rider aids. We ranked the rider aids as the second best on this test, which by default means they are the second best set of rider aids on any bike. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise; Yamaha claim they are lifted from Jorge Lorenzo’s 2012 M1 MotoGP bike. Thanks to setting the crankpins at 90 degrees apart from each other, not only does the Yamaha have a genuinely unique and brilliant power delivery, but crucially – and call me shallow here – it sounds amazing, which…

This is not just any old bike test; it’s the world’s biggest and fastest … the Ultimate Sports Bikes test. And so it goes without saying we needed an ultimate tyre that could cut it on the road and the track, and minimised the variables between the machines competing… like in top-tier racing. This year we have teamed up with Michelin once again to use the all-new Power GP tyre. It’s brand new to the market, and this has been our first chance to really put it though it paces. Why this tyre? Well, it’s quite simple really. Our test consists of boundless road miles and heaps of track laps – the all-new Michelin Power GP tyre sits perfectly in the middle on the road-to-track spectrum, making it the perfect…

“TAKE NOTE, ALL OTHER BIKE MANUFACTURERS – THIS IS HOW YOU DESIGN WITH THE RIDER IN MIND.” The Ducati Panigale V4 SP is another one of this year’s contenders making its Fast Bikes debut straight into Ultimate Sportsbike. We haven’t ridden one until now. In fact, at the time of the test nobody in the UK had, so a brief introduction of the latest Panigale that now takes the range up to five models, if you include the V2, is in order. The V4 SP in many ways has the potential to be the ultimate Panigale by virtue of the fact that it has all the best bits from the various others in the range. The engine is from the V4/V4 S, carbon wheels and Brembo Stylema-R brakes are from…

It was always a matter of when rather than if BMW was going to treat the S 1000 R to a much-needed rework. Back in 2014 when the roadster first exploded onto the market, packed with zest, tech and a hefty 160bhp to its name, it blew the world away for all the right reasons. But like an aging film star who turns to dog food adverts to try and stay relevant, the past seven years has taken its toll on the skimpily-clad bahnstormer, made more and more challenging by an upsurge in ludicrously powerful, sophisticated and arguably more desirable supernakeds. It’s not that BMW hadn’t tried to keep the R a worthy proposition in the lucrative sports naked sector, but the numerous updates it received just didn’t cut the…

PRICE GUIDE: £8200 – £11,995 Cheapest private: £8200 13,368 miles, 2018 model in good condition with MOT. Our choice private: £9000 6,135 miles, just serviced and very clean 2019 model. Cheapest dealer: £8799 15,037 miles, 2018 bike in black and in excellent condition. Our choice dealer: £8995 7,136 miles, lovely low mileage bike with a fly screen. Ex-demo: £10,999 1,476 miles, ex-demo with a few extras fitted. A great bike. Can you believe it was way back in 1994 that Triumph released its first ‘factory streetfighter’ in the shape of the original Speed Triple? Little more than a Daytona minus its fairing (the original model even had clip-ons; flat bars only arrived with the second T595-based version), the Speed Triple has evolved and reinvented itself over the years as the…

So now you’ve got the gist of how the course works, here’s Debbie’s take on actually doing it. If you really want to go racing and the passion is there, then age is just a number. For Deb, that meant taking the ACU course just a few weeks ago at 52 years young, after 20 years of riding on the road and about 10 trackdays under her belt. You might be wondering what’s prompted this sudden and significant decision for her to go racing, so let us explain. For the last 20 years, Deb has been quite content supporting her fella Clive with his racing endeavours. But, in 2018 Clive was diagnosed with cancer, which meant he could no longer race or ride a bike in anger. On hanging up…

IN BRIEF… Rider: Farmer Brod Track: Cadwell Park Series: No Limits Class: Pirelli Super Series 600 Bike: 2018 Yamaha R6 Fastest Lap: 1:35.324 Position(s): 12th, 10th, 11th Championship Position: 11th Excuse: I’m still working on it. I have to be honest with you, I was expecting a little more from myself over the weekend. My home race at Cadwell Park is always a special one, and it’s a circuit I always look forward to racing at. But for one reason or another, it just didn’t come together for me this time. From the get-go on Saturday morning it was a challenge, and the mixed weather conditions really didn’t help. I know it’s the same for everyone but I was unable to make the most of it. I thought I’d try…

Well, me old Chinas, like we said last time, straight after Oulton we were no longer unpacking, as we were repacking to go to Cadwell, out on the BMW doing endurance with Delkevik, but at this meeting there were me, Liam, Dave and James. It was a terrible weekend for the weather but as a team all the lads were fantastic, along with a little bit of development with the latest exhaust we are using; the team achieved our first podium so everyone was really happy in camp. I did get the Triumph out for a couple of runs round but what with the poor weather, decided to keep her clean and dry. Away from the racing and I’m busier with the shop, selling a few bikes, but I’ve also…

It was great to be back in the game last month, starting with the first of three events at Oliver’s Mount this year. The weather was great too, and it was so good to see the fans out enjoying some brilliant racing again. I’m presenting the show for ITV4 and it’ll be aired on June 16/17 at 8pm, so don’t miss that. The next meeting is the Barry Sheene Classic on June 26/27, and I’m arranging to get as many Sheene replica bikes there as possible. I’m expecting there to be hundreds, which will be something to behold. Special parking will be provided for all involved, and the top three (which I’ll judge) will get to do the parade laps. I’ll also be riding myself on the world championship-winning 1977…