Innehållsförteckning för #347 18-06 från Just Bikes

The 2017 Royal Enfield Custom Bike Build Off saw a diverse group of interesting and unusual customs created, with seven Royal Enfield dealerships from Australia and New Zealand vying for the Custom Bike Build Off crown. Most chose the Bullet or Classic as their base for a custom build, but Experience Motorcycles in Auckland went for the Himalayan, giving the LAMS adventure bike a cool scrambler-style makeover, while NT Powersports in Darwin chose the Continental GT. Each dealership brought their own taste and style to their builds, but in a competition decided by public vote on the Royal Enfield website, the runaway winner was ‘Slick’ from Royal Enfield Sydney, which claimed almost 40 per cent of the vote. CHOPPER KING Royal Enfield Sydney said ‘Slick’, their winning creation, was inspired…

Australia’s first permanent indoor motocross facility, the Sydney Indoor MotoX Park at Eastern Creek, is ready to be built after receiving approval from Blacktown City Council this past December. After what was described as a “lengthy process” in presenting its plans to Council, park owners Mattew and Barbara Bartolo are thrilled that Blacktown City Council has approved the facility that they’re describing as Western Sydney’s newest tourist attraction. “It is an unbelievable feeling to get the Development Application passed unopposed and a testament to my consultants’ determination to get it correct first time around,” explained Mattew Bartolo. With council approval confirmed, Bartolo was confident construction would get underway soon. The air-filled dome for the facility will be built in the United States. Once it is shipped to Australia, Bartolo says…

It’s hard not to applaud Triumph at the moment. Every new model the marque has launched in the last two years has been a quantum improvement over the previous one. This cannot be an easy thing to pull off given Triumph is playing in a variety of niches. But it does pull it off and the new Street Triple 765 range proves that. There was quite a lot of social media hype preceding its arrival. The term “gamechanger” was used so often it started to lose its power. Calling something a “gamechanger” is a big call. Especially in the hugely competitive mid-sized naked street-banger market – which almost sounds like a sidestreet in Thailand, doesn’t it? Anyway, this is where MV’s Dragster lives. This is where Yamaha’s MT-07 and MT-09…

The 2018 version of SWM’s Superdual adventure tourer has arrived in Australia, and brings new features, new colours and a new variant. After launching as a single model last year (see JUST BIKES #339), the range has expanded to two for 2018: Superdual T and Superdual X. The Superdual X is the new arrival, featuring a 21/18-inch wheel package, shod with more dirt-friendly Metzeler Sahara 3 tyres. Identified by a red tank and plastics, the X also gets switchable ABS as standard. “Hard-core adventure riders interested in the Superdual have been waiting for a 21/18- inch wheel combination and now that it’s arriving we’ve experienced a huge amount of pre-orders,” said SWM Australia’s Stephen Tuff. “This comes off the back of our very successful 2017 Superdual model that raised plenty…

Australia’s Rodney Faggotter is ready for a renewed assault at the 2018 Dakar Rally, as part of a four-rider Yamaha factory team entered for the marathon event. Faggotter is part of a squad that includes Adrien van Beveren (best finish 4th in 2017), Franco Caimi (8th on debut in 2017) and Xavier de Soultrait (best finish 13th in 2015). All four will be on WR450F Rally bikes prepared by the Yamalube Yamaha Official Rally Team. The bikes will carry ‘Tenere 700 World Raid’ livery, acknowledging the adventure bike prototype that was unveiled at the 2017 EICMA show and previewing a special around-the-world tour (including Australia) that will be done on the preproduction Tenere 700 this year. A last year’s Dakar, Faggotter retired on stage 4, but was inside the top…

Indian Motorcycle has announced a new performance kit to suit the Thunder Stroke 111 v-twin, which ups both power and torque. Created primarily to suit the bagger market in the US, the ‘Stage 3 Big Bore Kit’ increases capacity to 116 cubic inches, resulting in a power increase of 20 per cent and torque increase of 15 per cent compared to the stock Thunder Stroke 111. The Stage 3 Big Bore Kit follows the already-available Stage 1 Performance Air Cleaner and Thunder Stroke High Flow Air Cleaner option, Stage 1 Slip-On Exhaust Kit and the Stage 2 Performance Cams. “Indian’s roots are in performance, innovation and pushing boundaries,” said Derek Meyer, Sr. Category Manager - Indian Motorcycle Accessories. “This 116-kit is but one of a variety of new products riders…

There aren’t too many places where you can find a Vincent alongside a BSA, Harley and a variety of Japanese bikes. There are even fewer places where you’ll see such a diverse bunch in action on the quarter mile. There aren’t too many places where you can find a Vincent alongside a BSA, Harley and a variety of Japanese bikes. There are even fewer places where you’ll see such a diverse bunch in action on the quarter mile. The Geelong Revival is just such a place and the 2017 running of the annual event this past 25-26 November saw everything from a Honda CB125 tiddler to a mighty Vincent 1000 on show - and in action - on Geelong’s waterfront. With historic classes from Period 2 to Period 6, there…

The last time I rode an MT-10 was last year. It made me a little bit crazy, and my eyes would roll around in my head as I tried to process the input it fed me. It was a superb motorcycle. It inspired and delighted me with its sheer motorcycleness. I gelled with it on a base level, and I even came to appreciate its brutal, robo-zombie appearance. I found myself longing for the robo-zombie apocalypse…and then I gave it back to Yamaha and things returned to what passes for normal for me these days. At its base, this MT-10 is an ergonomically sensible motorcycle propelled by the uniquely fiendish insanity of Yamaha’s retuned and crossplane-cranked R1 engine. So it doesn’t even sound like any other in-line four as it…

The themes for this year’s Shannons Insurance Broadford Bike Bonanza (SIBBB) have been announced, and the BSA Bantam will be one of the models to be celebrated at the Easter event. Alongside 90th birthdays for Vincent H.R.D. and Motorcycling Australia, a celebration of speedway legend Neil Street, Ron Angel’s classic bike collection and Rosco Holden’s ‘Holden On Tight’ mini-bike reunion, the tenth SIBBB will celebrate the diminutive BSA’s local racing story. Australia was a hotbed of Bantam racing development, and the Bantam HCS (Harold Carter Special) pictured was one of the best of the locally-developed offerings. An Aussie TT winner at Longford, the HCS was developed by John and Harold Carter well into the 1980s. This celebrated racer will be the headliner, with organisers calling for more racing Bantams to…

After a crash this past October put Toby Price’s participation in the 2018 Dakar in doubt, the Aussie confirmed a month later that his recovery was on track, following corrective surgery on his left knee and a new pin in the left femur he fractured in four places at the 2017 Dakar. On 4 December, Price posted on his Instagram account that testing the new 450 Rally bike – in Morocco – had been really productive, everything was looking positive and that he was feeling comfortable ahead of this year’s Dakar. Winner of the marathon rally in 2016, the 30-year-old from NSW will start his fourth Dakar wearing the #8 plate, alongside Mattias Walkner, Antoine Meo and 2017 winner Sam Sunderland in the Red Bull KTM Factory Team. At this…

Three-time World Superbike Champion has thrown a grenade into domestic superbike competition with the announcement that he’ll contest the 2018 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship – as a rider! Bayliss, who has never won an ASBK championship, will ride a 1299 Panigale for the Desmosport Ducati Team that he founded in 2015 and co-owns. The 48-year-old said that thoughts about entering the series initially came up when team rider Callum Spriggs was injured in 2016. “Initially, I did want to see another young guy on the bike, but after I rode [the 1299 Panigale], I felt that I needed to contest the championship and try and win myself the elusive ASBK title,” Bayliss said. The 2018 ASBK series will be Bayliss’s first full season of racing in nine years…

The first ever National Meet of the AMCA (Antique Motorcycle Club of America) Australia Inc. was held at the Bulli showgrounds, just north of Wollongong, NSW, this past 25 to 27 August. The goal of the event was to attract owners and enthusiasts of all types of Antique, Vintage and Classic motorcycles (35 years and older) to attend and get involved. If the feedback from the first event is any indication, that goal was comprehensively achieved. THREE BIG DAYS After months of planning by AMCA Australia members, the first meet, under the banner of the Australian Antique Motorcycle Weekend’, got underway on Friday, 25 August, when the gates opened for onsite campers and swap meet vendors to set up. A few refreshments, via the onsite bar facilities at the showgrounds,…

Even if your idea of classical music is AC/ DC’s Thunderstruck, you’re probably aware of Mozart’s stunning piece which he called Serenade No.13 for strings in G major, and which most of the world literally mis-translates as “A Little Night-Music”. The correct translation is “A Little Serenade” – and that is precisely what BMW’s brand new G310R is, a quite engaging little piece of work as satisfyingly pleasant to ride as Mozart’s serenade is to listen to. Amadeus would have been proud. No-one was more surprised by this than me It is, after all, a LAMs bike. My interest in LAMs bikes is purely academic. They exist because our government likes to pretend it cares about aspiring motorcyclists by legislating them onto motorcycles that sometimes feel like they’re powered by…