While the big 1200cc Tiger is Triumph’s bike of the moment, the brand’s smaller 900cc adventure bike continues to get a great deal of attention. I loved the final iteration of its predecessor, specifically the Tiger 800 XRT, so much that I recommended it to my own father. It’s still a bike I would happily own, and having struck out on its big brother I felt it only fair to give the Tiger 900 GT Pro a fair shake
A quick summary, then. The Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro is the all-singing, all-dancing, and road-focused version of Triumph’s middleweight adventure bike. It seems ridiculous that something with an engine just shy of a full litre of displacement and over 220kg of metal and plastic is now considered a middleweight, but here we are. It’s smaller in every way than its big brother, including the price tag, but does lose a few of the toys (and more than 50 horsepower) along the way.
In the early 90’s, an engine this big would’ve meant you were top of the sportsbike food chain.
There’s a chain final drive rather than a shaft, the electronically-controlled rear shock still requires manual adjustment of preload, and the front forks have no electronic adjustment at all. You still get LED headlights, heated grips and seat, and even a digital TFT dashboard. It has to be said, however, that the user interface is truly, spectacularly awful, with several different view options, each worse than the next. It’s clear that the graphics and animations were designed in a studio by a graphic designer, rather than a motorcyclist or user interface designer; they look very cool, but they’re horrible to use on the road. Triumph know this, which is why the newer Tiger 1200 has a completely different visual and functional design.
TFT dashboards allow designers to create anything they can imagine… which isn’t always a good thing.
Keep your eyes on the road and actually ride the bike and there’s plenty to like, however. Triumph does seem to have figured out the formula for a good-handling, sweet-steering road bike, which mystifyingly still eludes some manufacturers. The weight drop versus its bigger brother shows the 900 in a favourable light, but look further and the cracks begin to show. Despite the front brake calipers being identical in specification to the heavier 1200, the 900 did not inspire the same confidence under braking. It features a more basic master cylinder at the lever which could be a contributing factor, but both bite and power were somewhat lacking. My local dealer suggested that perhaps it was to do with my example having been ridden on wet roads without being cleaned, but I don’t call that an acceptable excuse for a motorcycle on our wet and windy island.
Brakes were surprisingly underwhelming, belying their chunky size and branding.
As speeds picked up, the weaknesses in the cheaper suspension began to reveal themselves as well. Fidgety over bumpy surfaces, both the forks and shock failed to remain their composure and sapped confidence when pressing on. I tried using the electronic adjustment of the rear shock and honestly found that it made very little difference from one extreme to another. Once again, and in common with most sub-£20k motorcycles, I would want to have a suspension specialist modify or swap the hardware to suit my 75kg weight. And as with all integrated electronic suspension, such modification or replacement wouldn’t be cheap.
The up/down quickshifter on this GT Pro model works well at any speed and in any gear.
The longer I rode the bike, the more problems began to appear. Firstly, the engine. Triumph has, just as with their newer, larger 1200 Tiger, deliberately unbalanced the engine’s crankshaft to give it a lumpier twin-cylinder-like feel, with the predictable side-effect of extra vibration through the handlebars. Given that the rotating mass of the engine is so much less, the vibrations are similarly reduced, but they’re still there. I’d call them livable, but definitely not welcome, and still prefer the silky-smooth previous-generation triple. Unlike its bigger brother, the 900 doesn’t even share the same exciting noise and rush in the higher echelons of the rev range, so there’s no real loss in using the slick up/down quickshifter to keep the engine out of the buzzier heights.
Electronically adjustable damping on rear shock only, with manual preload and forks.
But despite all of this, the deal-breaker for me this time was the seat. After 30 minutes I was uncomfortable; after 45 I was in agony. I suspect that the marketing department is again to blame here; off-road bikes need narrow seats to facilitate a better standing position, and the on-road bike shares these components. Even if the road-focused GT models will never see anything dirtier than a muddy lane, it’s important to maintain the image. But the result is a hard-edged plank of a seat that in no way supports the real-life human anatomy of a seated rider. I’d need to replace that, immediately, and probably expensively. The same is true for the windshield, whose clever on-the-go one-handed adjustment is rendered moot by the fact that it has no discernible impact on buffeting or airflow. Another upgrade needed there, I fancy.
The narrow seat helps your feet reach the ground at a stop, but makes any real time in the saddle a painful experience.
Which rather sums up my feelings on the Tiger 900 GT Pro, I’m afraid. A good motorcycle, provided you’re willing to replace or upgrade the suspension, seat, windshield, and brakes, and assuming that you are willing to live with an irritating dashboard and unnecessarily buzzy engine. I might accept those issue on a cut-price budget bike, but not on a premium model costing almost £14,000. Add the obligatory panniers and top box necessary to make the bike usable for its intended purpose and you’re well over £15k for a motorcycle that needs several thousand pounds of changes and upgrades to essential hardware to meet my minimum acceptable standards.
I’ll never understand why road bikes don’t come with proper mudguards; look at the state of those exhaust headers…
Now of course, you could buy a lower-spec version of the Tiger 900 and save around £2,000, but you’d then need to add things like heated grips back onto your modification list. I think that Triumph knows it has a pricing problem here, which is why the heavily de-contented and detuned Tiger 850 Sport exists; the same engine, same chassis, but every possible corner cut to hit a £10k price point. But if price is all you care about, then a lightly-used Tiger 800 XRT will get you a lot more for a lot less. You’ll get better fuel economy and range, a more comfortable seat, and in my opinion, a much nicer engine.
Lots of toys, but I’ve not had great experiences with microswitch-based switchgear on motorcycles.
So, no; I sadly won’t be adding a Triumph adventure motorcycle to my garage any time soon. I like the brand, and the build quality and attention to detail often set an example to the rest of the industry, but I am clearly not their target customer this time. Your mileage may vary, of course; maybe you have buns of steel and won’t have a problem with the seat, and perhaps the buzzy engine and suspect brakes won’t bother you either. But when Triumph’s current range of Tigers seems objectively worse than their previous generation versions, the discounts that can be had from lightly-used low-mileage examples mean that you have to really want a brand-new bike to deliberately choose a Tiger 900.
Time to keep looking…
Great on paper, but with too many rough and unfinished edges, especially for the price.
Ever convince yourself that a bike is perfect, even before you’ve had a chance to ride it? I’ve done it before, but not usually with money in my pocket and a genuine need to replace a freshly-sold motorcycle at short notice. Watching every video, reading every article, poring over every photo. But you should always try before you buy.
Triumph’s new Tiger 1200 really is all-new. Forget the marketing; a close look is all that it takes to confirm that there are very few, if any, parts carried over from the old Tiger. I was actually a fan of the old ‘Explorer’, even if it wasn’t really the right bike for me. Big engine, comfy seat and cosseting fairing, ample luggage and pillion capacity, and you could even get it with creature comforts like an electric screen, heated grips, and cruise control. Shaft drive was just the icing on the cake – and I know from experience with my Yamaha T-Max that not having to oil or adjust a chain is really, really nice.
Redesigned shaft drive is a little snatchy, but means no more chain to lube while touring
The new Tiger has shed weight – a lot of it – and gained power, a neat trick in this era of multi-catalyst exhaust systems and sound-deadening engine casings. Depending on which spec sheet you read it goes toe-to-toe with BMW’s all-conquering R1250GS, and by the time the average owner has slathered either in accessories I doubt there’s really much in it. At around 250kg it’s still a big, heavy bike, and you do feel it at a standstill. But on the move, the big Tiger finally makes the case for factory-fit electronic suspension in a way no other bike has.
With damping adjustable in a dozen steps from the pretty (if slightly slow) dashboard it’s very easy to get the ride dialled in from the saddle. I daresay a specialist with a lot of tools could do better, but for once I can ride a showroom-fresh motorcycle and genuinely find a setup that works for my weight without spending thousands on a rebuild. And that’s just as well because the weight figure isn’t the only thing Triumph is apparently trying to copy from BMW. In top-trim GT Explorer form, it’s a hair over £18,000, and like its boxer-engined competitor, that doesn’t include luggage or any accessories like crash bars.
No fancy branding or flashy logos, but Triumph’s semi-automatic electronic suspension really works, really well
It has to be said though, up close the Tiger 1200 does a better job of justifying the price tag than the current German option. BMW’s have become increasingly plastic-y in recent years, with unpainted or matte surfaces undermining the luxurious reputation. In contrast, there’s almost nothing to fault about the Triumph’s presentation, with beautifully-finished components on display all over the bike. Look closely and you’ll even find details like stainless-steel fasteners and reusable rubber cable ties – it really seems like no expense has been spared.
I’m probably the only person who cares, but modern switchgear just doesn’t feel as nice to use; reportedly less reliable too
I don’t love the microswitch-based buttons, especially the indicators – everything feels a little sticky and is difficult to feel while wearing heavy gloves. And the TFT dashboard, while easy to read, seems to stutter, as though the onboard computer isn’t powerful enough to animate the graphics smoothly. But at least it’s got every option under the sun and can be configured to show you pretty much any information you want, even if it takes a while to figure it all out.
The real story, of course, is the engine. Triumph has done some very interesting things here, not least of which is the deliberate unbalancing of the three-cylinder crankshaft in order to create a lumpier, more twin-cylinder-like feel to the power delivery. They’ve also moved the radiators up and to the side, allowing the entire powerplant to be moved further forward without fouling the front wheel. There’s actually more space still on the road-biased GT model I rode, thanks to the smaller 19″ wheel. Those looking for more fashionable or off-road capable spoked wheels get a 21″ version in the Rally models, though they also suffer a weight penalty and an even taller seat.
And the GT Pro version isn’t exactly small. Everything about the bike seems to be built to 120% normal scale – the distance to and width of the bars, the seat height, and of course the sheer mass of the machine itself. At 170cm and 75kg geared up I once again feel like I’m a good few sizes smaller in every dimension than the intended target market. Even the bend of the handlebars seems to expect my shoulders to be a whole size wider, with bigger hands to reach the levers. Just as well modern clutches are so light and easy to pull, and at least the wide bars make the bike easy to steer.
It looks lithe until you realise that those are 18″/19″ wheels being made to look like 17s
And boy, does it steer nicely. I still think the BMW R1250GS still wins by a hair on front-end feel, but it’s astonishing how quickly and comfortably I can throw around this heavyweight adventure-touring monster. But unlike the BMW, the rumbling, growling engine snarls as you rev it out, the full 150bhp catapulting you forwards and the speedometer upwards at a truly exhilarating rate. The seamless up/down quick shifter works at any speed, any throttle opening, encouraging you to open ‘er up one more time and hear that intoxicating roar from the airbox.
It’s just as well that the massive Brembo brakes on the front wheel are up to the task, as you often find yourself arriving at corners far sooner – and far faster – than you’d expected. But with the latest lean-sensitive rider aids and sticky rubber, the Tiger 1200 genuinely feels unflappable, even on rough, pockmarked Northamptonshire roads. I challenge anyone to ride this bike hard and keep a grin off their face.
Really good brakes, on a really confidence-inspiring set of front forks
Unfortunately for me, this is where it all started to go wrong. I’m no stranger to wrestling oversized bikes around, nor to swapping out handlebars and levers to get a better post-showroom ergonomic fit. The windshield isn’t great, but that can be changed, and the drivetrain snatch is a small price to pay for never having to oil or adjust a chain ever again. But one thing that won’t ever be fixable is engine vibration – not when it’s as severe as this, and especially not when it’s a deliberate design decision driven by the marketing department.
You see, Triumph’s incredibly-smooth 120-degree even-firing triples have been criticised in the biking press for years as being unsuitable power plants for off-road machinery. The big, lumpy pulses and heavy cranks of twin-cylinder machines are easier to manage at low speeds, more difficult to stall, and bite harder into the dirt – or so the story goes. I’m still not convinced that anyone should really be trying to ride 250-270kg motorcycles anywhere you wouldn’t take a Vespa, and the vast majority of adventure bikes never see more muck than whatever the local farmers have left on the roads. But it’s the image – the fantasy – that sells.
For me, the buzzy engine ruins everything; at least it’d be easy to clean with no radiator blocking access…
Three-cylinder engines are Triumph’s unique selling point, the main way their bikes are different from everyone else’s, so the chosen solution was to deliberately unbalance the engine’s crankshaft and artificially create the sort of uneven power pulses that journalists apparently crave. I wish they’d thought to ask their own customers. I wish, just for once, that the marketing department hadn’t interfered in the engineering process. Because I’m afraid to say that, for me, this redesigned engine is a disaster.
Sure, it sounds great, and the extra vibration at lower engine speeds adds a bit of character when trundling around town. But as speeds climb into the second half of the rev range the vibration gets worse and worse, becoming a harsh buzz all through the handlebars. Keep the bike on the boil while carving up a series of fast bends and anyone with an ounce of mechanical sympathy would wince – it almost feels broken. But worst of all, it’s painful. I’ve never experienced this before in all my years of riding, but after 5-10 minutes of hard riding, my hands were genuinely going numb from the vibration. I had to back off, change up a few gears, and slow down to let the pins and needles subside as blood flow returned to my extremities. I can’t imagine what it would be like for someone who suffers from bad circulation.
The 30-litre tank option is wider and comes further back, necessitating this rubber insert on the smaller model
The solution, I suppose, would not be to ride that hard, but then why purchase a motorcycle with 150bhp? Why spend what would ultimately be £20,000 on a high-power adventure tourer if you’re going to be forced to trundle around with two-thirds of the power off-limits? It’s heartbreaking, honestly, as with the smooth firing order from their own closely-related Speed Triple Triumph might honestly have had a shot at convincing me to trade in every one of my bikes to scrape together a deposit. You can even choose to order the Tiger with a 30-litre tank, and the idea of being able to comfortably cover over 300 miles without stopping sounds brilliant.
Even without this fatal flaw, the Tiger 1200 isn’t perfect, of course. The peculiar choice to equip even the road-going GT models with an 18″ rear wheel limits tyre choice, with none of the top sport-touring tyres currently available in that size. If you don’t get the higher-spec models you do end up with buttons that don’t do anything, such as for the heated seat that isn’t there. The 10,000-mile service intervals are great, but very expensive, with lots of plastic to remove before mechanics can get to the oily bits. The side stand is too far forward for my stubby legs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that a bike this big and heavy could easily get away from you.
The seat is comfortable enough, with a wide surface for the rider, if less so for their passenger
It’s honestly a massive disappointment and one that means I’ll have to keep looking for my own next bike. Other riders may not be bothered by the vibration, and I encourage everyone who can stomach the eye-watering cost to give the Tiger 1200 a fair shake. It’s certainly a match for Bavaria’s best, and you might just find you’ve discovered the perfect high-spec do-it-all motorcycle.
A really good bike, ruined by Triumph’s own insecurity about their three-cylinder engine
The BMW R1250GS. On paper, and according to sales figures, the ultimate do-it-all motorcycle. So loyal is its following that most of the people reading these words will simply be looking to validate their existing purchase decision. Others will be hoping that I give another one of my controversially scathing reviews, justifying their own decision to be different. But who knows, maybe – like me – you haven’t yet made up your mind and are looking for an objective opinion. Let’s give it a go, shall we?
Straight away, we encounter a problem. The first two sales staff I speak to at my local BMW Motorrad dealership support the story that a motorcycle this popular usually sells itself. They both seem puzzled by my basic questions about the machine, pointing me to a showroom example and instead simply talking about how many other people have already bought one. The idea that I should need convincing to buy their product is apparently entirely alien, and their sales patter quickly runs out of steam. It’s constantly up to me to restart the conversation by asking questions about engine size, horsepower, and features like heated grips and seats.
Controls are easy to use but the indicator switch is of the modern microswitch style and difficult to feel when you’ve pressed it.
Time and again the discussion keeps coming back to availability and lead times, as though my purchase is already a foregone conclusion. In the end, I give up and am handed off to a third staffer to arrange my own test ride. Careful, BMW; you would not be the first motorcycle brand that fell to hubris. But if despite worldwide supply chain constraints they’re still able to sell every unit they can build then perhaps their confidence is justified.
Let’s look at the facts. Aside from the occasional recent upset from Royal Enfield, BMW’s GS line dominates the sales charts year after year. The regular and big-tank Adventure model together are the biggest-selling motorcycles over 125cc in the UK, despite also being some of the most expensive. Owners are loyal, with surveys regularly showing that very few people would switch to another brand once they’ve joined the BMW club.
Paint options like this are around £1,000 extra; default is currently a cheap-looking white/grey combo
On paper, an R1250GS should be almost all things to almost all people. Big engine, plenty of performance, good tank range, comfortable seat, wind protection, heated grips, seat, luggage, pillion capacity, shaft drive, tyre pressure sensors, adaptive LED headlights, adjustable windshield, sophisticated automatic suspension, big brakes, cruise control, and probably the best dashboard in the business. It’s fast enough for people who want to go fast, practical enough for people who want to commute all year round, and the comfort and luggage capacity would satisfy the most ardent touring enthusiast. It’s supposedly capable enough off-road and I’ve even seen them scraping pegs at track days. The BMW GS is all things to all riders – assuming they can afford it.
The £18,500 I’m quoted is for a Touring Edition (TE) model, which basically means it has most of the bells and whistles that make a modern GS the bike you’ve read all those glowing reviews about. You can, in theory, factory-order a more basic model for around £14,000, but you’ll be getting a much more basic motorcycle. Worse, BMW won’t let you pick and mix options anymore – if you want heated grips you’ve got to get the entire Comfort Pack for £720. Want cruise control? That’ll be £885 for the complete Touring Pack. Without a doubt, you’ll end up paying for a lot of stuff you don’t need. Oh, and none of this includes panniers or a top box – basic stuff in this segment, which could easily push your total bill up to over £20,000.
Touring packs come with the bracket for BMW’s Navigator GPS system, but the unit itself is £700 extra.
But hey, maybe it’s worth it, even at that price. Riding away on a modern GS it’s hard not to be impressed; everything just…works. The handling is superlative, the telelever front suspension design giving you instant confidence to throw the big BMW into corners right away. Realise you’re going in too hot and the same clever suspension geometry ensures that you can drag the front brake through the bend without upsetting the chassis or running wide. Scrubbing off serious speed is equally easy, the braking performance entirely limited by your ability to brace yourself against the handlebars.
Getting to silly speeds is also effortless. 136bhp doesn’t sound like much in a world of 220bhp road-legal superbikes, but as the hot-rodder’s maxim goes, there’s no replacement for displacement. Combined with BMW’s clever ShiftCam system, this 249kg motorcycle can really hustle, the 1,254cc boxer remaining surprisingly smooth even when worked relatively hard. There isn’t the instant low-down shove you might expect, nor does the powerplant reward explorers who go hunting for upper limits of the rev range. But as road-focused power plants go, I’m not sure I’ve experienced better. It even sounds satisfyingly mechanical, and is honestly a lot of fun to use.
Cracking engine, though I think I’d pass on the expensive milled aluminium accessory valve covers.
BMW have done a lot of work to improve both the throttle response and the quickshifter since I last reviewed one in 2018. Neither are perfect, with the off-idle response a little fluffy (a classic symptom of modern fuel injection systems squeezing through the latest emissions regulations) and the quickshifter is still a little notchy, though nowhere near as bad as it once was. Similarly, the latest ESA semi-automatic suspension does a pretty good job of balancing feel and comfort in both of its Dr Jekyll (Comfort) and Mr Hyde (Dynamic) riding modes.
That being said, for me at least neither was perfect, with the bike never seeming to quite settle even on longer, smoother roads. It’s a classic symptom of too-stiff springs holding a lighter-than-intended rider too high in the suspension’s stroke. Comfort is too soft and wallowy, Dynamic too jittery, and there’s zero adjustment possible beyond these two electronic mode switches. In a mechanical system you might be able to dial some of this out, but in my case I suspect softer springs would also be required. This mismatch also means that it’s very easy to spin up the rear wheel even in the dry, with the traction control having to step in and compensate for an easily-overwhelmed rear shock over broken tarmac.
BMW’s wishbone-based front suspension proves its worth again; shame the springs are too stiff for my weight.
The seat suffers from the same problem; at 75kg and around 180cm in my riding gear I’m no featherweight, but I always felt like I was surfing on top of the foam rather than sinking into it as designed. The bars were a bit far away and a bit wide for my shorter arms and narrower shoulders, and the levers were a stretch even at maximum adjustment. These issues won’t affect everyone, of course, and are fixable with aftermarket parts. But it’s difficult to go into a £20,000 purchase knowing that you’ll need to spend thousands more making the bike actually fit your size, weight, and shape.
The tech is mostly great, and the bike is littered with clever touches, like the tyre valves built into the spokes for easy access. The dashboard is easy to read on the go, though even as an I.T. professional I still get lost in the menus. The keyless ignition deserves special mention, enabling you to start and stop the bike, lock the steering, and even open the fuel filler cap without having to fish around in your pocket for the key. Fuel economy isn’t too bad, with over 200 miles easily achievable in sensible riding, and the 30-litre tank of the bigger Adventure version boost that to well over 300.
Rear seat can be removed entirely to create a flat load area for luggage.
The rider’s seat can be adjusted for height without tools, the windshield adjustable with one hand while riding, the cruise control is easy to use and works well, and the preload on the rear shock automatically adjusts to set the bike at the correct height, regardless of how much weight you’ve added through luggage or passenger. The headlight even adjusts its beam as you ride around corners to maintain maximum visibility; it’s all genuinely very impressive.
In fact, the only other irritation I encountered in my time with the BMW R1250GS TE was that the sidestand is mounted unnaturally far forward, hidden from both view and my own boot by the left cylinder head. Hunting around to kick it out when trying to park the bike was surprisingly difficult, though I’m not sure how BMW could actually solve this. And, let’s face it, very few bikes are going to fit everyone, so at this point I’m somewhat resigned to having to budget £2,000-3,000 extra on top of every new bike I purchase to fix suspension and ergonomic issues.
Frivolous perhaps, but very handy; no chance of accidentally leaving your key in the ignition.
But when the bike itself – with the luggage I’d want – is more than £20,000, that’s just…too much. For that price, I do expect BMW to fit the right seat, suspension, handlebars, and levers for someone of my size and weight. I could live with it as-is, I suppose, and I’m sure many do – after all, one size doesn’t actually fit anybody. But for that kind of cash I feel like I shouldn’t have to, and the cost of the add-on packs makes the GS feel bad value for money in my eyes. As I said earlier, BMW apparently has no trouble selling every single one they make even at this price. But as inflation bites and the older, well-heeled bikers propping up record sales figures age out of motorcycling, I wonder how many people – like me – will decide that it’s a little too rich for their blood.
The BMW R1250GS could be the best motorcycle in the world, but not, I’m afraid, at any price.
Most people think that a motorcycle trip requires time, planning, and the right bike. Most people think it requires warm, summery weather, and regular stops for coffee, cake and photographs. For them, riding a motorcycle is simply a more interesting way to get to the next wine-tasting event or interesting, sightseeing opportunity. Few people find enjoyment and relaxation in spending all day, every day, riding their motorcycles simply for the sake of it. Perhaps you can relate?
The North Coast 500 has become a victim of its own success. The sublime roads threading through varied and stunning scenery have existed for a long time, but a bit of publicity and branding have turned this 500-mile loop around Scotland’s northern coastline into a busy tourist attraction. I was lucky enough to sample the area years ago, before the fame really took hold and, gratefully take further opportunities to explore the beautiful Scottish hills, coasts and countryside. But, after over a year of restrictions and with Europe’s land borders still largely restricted, it was clear that every frustrated motorcyclist in England would be headed north this past summer. The North Coast 500 would be like the M25 at rush hour.
And so, early in the summer, I went to the Scottish borders instead and it turns out that they are indeed an undiscovered jewel. But that family trip was certainly a slower affair; 160-mile days with just four hours’ riding per day, split neatly into short low-speed hops and bookended with plenty of coffee and cake. There’s enjoyment to be had in that sort of journey, certainly, but it left me somewhat unsatisfied. And so, as summer wound to a close and school forced families to return home, I saw my chance.
I know how far I can safely and comfortably ride in a day, and even on the mixed roads of the Scottish highlands I was confident that 250 miles per day would present me no problems. This meant that the North Coast 500 (or my slightly modified version thereof with more twisty, nadgery coastal roads) could be wrapped up in a weekend. Of course, getting there from my home in Northampton would mean a long motorway ride, but nothing I hadn’t managed in the past.
Travelling solo would mean that I would stop only when I wanted, and fuel stops could be quick and efficient. Finding space for a single person to stay at short notice might be challenging during a busy tourist season, but I figured that I’d have my pick of desperate and cheap B&Bs or hotels all over Scotland in September. I could pack my own lunches, drink water on the go, and focus on enjoying the empty, desolate mountains, forests, and valleys. I would have Scotland all to myself!
Of course, it turned out that September was, for me, a busy month, and before I knew it most of my weekends in October were filling up too. I picked one before it was too late and booked the Friday and Monday off work, safe in the knowledge that I could cancel the entire venture and simply stay home if the weather report turned sour. My intention was to book accommodation each afternoon when I had a clearer picture of exactly how much further I would be able to ride that day – a strategy that has worked well for high-speed tours across Europe in the past.
Changeable weather, spectacular scenery and eye-watering fuel prices.Let’s be fair; with views and roads like this, there’s no “wrong bike”.First light over Applecross Pass; warm enough, dry enough, not a caravan in sight.Mansfield Castle Hotel, as the sun was setting.
What surprised me was that there were apparently others who thought that this kind of trip sounded like fun. A friend, a brother and my Dad all declared themselves interested, though each had reservations as to whether their bike would be ready for the trip. Scottish roads are extremely hard on motorcycle tyres and there were concerns that their remaining rubber would be insufficient. Some worried that my intended pace might be too much, or that ongoing reliability issues with their machines might halt the party. With so many miles to cover in so few days I could not afford to be waiting at every junction for dawdlers to catch up, allowing any cars I’d overtaken to once again get in front and ruin another set of bends. This would be a fast trip and those that came along would be expected to ‘make progress’ along with me.
I opted to take my still-new Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX on this rapid-fire lap of Scotland. You don’t need a lot of horsepower to maintain a rapid pace, but it certainly makes overtaking easier. The waterproof, lockable luggage would minimise the time spent faffing at the start and end of each day, even if the lack of a centre stand would make chain maintenance a frustration. The upgraded seat had proven comfortable around Galloway, even if the handlebars had not – but the faster pace would solve that problem. All my bikes have heated grips and installing the connector for my heated jacket was a five-minute job. A 200-mile tank range is smaller than I would like but was still further than some of my fellow travellers’ bikes could manage. I checked the tyre pressures, packed far more snacks and water than I really needed, and headed out.
I’d arranged to meet everyone 200 miles north of home on the Thursday evening at a cheap Holiday Inn hotel. I finished work, ate a hurried dinner and was on the road by 6:30pm. With minimal traffic at that time of night I made good time, and made sure to refuel before checking in and going straight to bed. The next morning we were back on the bikes by 7am and had already covered another 100 miles before breakfast. That turned out to be one of the most welcome warm meals ever, as the temperatures had plummeted overnight. With -1C showing on the dashboard north of Newcastle, those not wearing multiple layers of merino wool and heated gear found themselves horribly underdressed. Still, the sunrise was spectacular, and after a good (but quick) meal we were back on the road, the steadily warming sun rendering the hastily-applied extra layers less critical as we continued north.
After a short, congested loop around Edinburgh’s motorways we found ourselves at a familiar cafe in the heart of the Cairngorms by lunchtime. A quick lunch and a browse of Booking.com’s options showed a reasonably-priced pair of twin rooms available at the Mansfield Castle Hotel in Tain, more or less where I’d estimated we’d end up at the end of our first proper day of riding. We looped around Loch Ness to briefly join the ‘official’ NC500 and were checked in to the hotel before the sun set. Getting dinner was a challenge – a continuing theme throughout the trip, as Scotland’s hospitality has been utterly devastated by a combination of Brexit and Covid. No staff means no tables for those who haven’t booked, but with patience we were able to enjoy a good meal before bed.
Day two started with us ignoring a ‘Road Closed’ sign at the start of a 20-mile twisty back road, and sure enough – no-one was doing roadworks on a Saturday. We sampled the first of the Scottish Highland’s new trend towards unmanned, single-pump, and fully-automated petrol stations, a sign of things to come perhaps as increasing electrification of the UK’s vehicle fleet renders more isolated stations unviable in any other guise. We passed plenty that had clearly not survived Covid and experienced one or two tense moments when this resulted in big gaps between fill-ups during the trip. Don’t come to Scotland with a small petrol tank…
One of our party managed to lose their Ventura luggage, the bolts working their way loose over the bumpy roads and dumping the entire rack into a ditch at the side of the road, unnoticed until quite a while later. Fortunately, my brother had recently fitted a Tile tracker to the bag and was able to catch up with the rest of the group just a few hours’ later as we continued along the coast. We had a passing encounter with a hostile local who was clearly unhappy with the tourists using the road through his village, but I decided against stopping to trade opinions with the clearly suicidal individual. Someone who thinks it’s a good idea to try and step out in front of a moving vehicle in order to force an argument is not someone I’m interested in conversing with.
This is what 8am on a Sunday morning in October in Scotland looks like. I can’t wait to go back.
The Lochlinver Larder remains possibly the best pie shop in the British Isles and we all picked up what we intended to be next day’s lunch, having settled for roadside snacks earlier. With a rain front threatening to move in, we opted to aim for the Gairloch Hotel as our stop for the evening, having already more than cleared the days’ estimated mileage. Our early stop proved to be a mistake, as the aforementioned hospitality issues meant that we were unable to secure a dinner reservation until more than two hours later. A walk to a pub in the next village killed the time.
Negotiating another 7:30am breakfast meant we were once again on the road by just after 8am, just as the sun was coming up. The road to Applecross pass was utterly abandoned, with the many stops for truly spectacular sunrise photos still failing to negatively impact the Sat Nav’s estimated time of arrival. Clearly, even our reduced pace was still quicker than the average dawdling car driver. The few vehicles we encountered descending the serpentine steps of the pass’ southern side moved obligingly out of the way; a fantastic attitude I wish the Scots would find a way to export to the rest of the UK.
Monday morning, pre-dawn, before the long motorway ride back home.
We made such good time that we decided to push on and make our evening stop a good hour south of Glasgow, taking almost 100 miles off the following day’s monotonous motorway run home. Unfortunately, the drizzle that had descended late in the morning only got worse as we approached the city, with the final run through Duke’s Pass spoiled for those with rapidly thinning rear tyre tread. For my part, I can confirm that properly-serviced and modified suspension can turn even the most rutted of washboard roads into a smooth, confidence-inspiring experience. Michelin’s Road 5 tyres – the choice of three out of four riders on the trip – proved themselves extremely capable in the cold, wet conditions.
The motorways south of Glasgow were utterly drenched, with standing water and the resultant airborne spray reducing both visibility and safe travel speeds dramatically. Though the windshield on the Ninja kept the worst of the rain off my chest, I was thankful for the waterproof Kriega ‘wind blocker’ I’d decided to put on over my regular Buff earlier in the day. My Altberg boots proved as reliable as ever, though my many-years-old Richa gloves’ waterproofing has clearly, and finally, given up. They have served me well for many years and I may simply replace them with another identical pair.
Our ‘hotel’ for that evening was, in fact, a self-service cottage of sorts and, with no prospect of buying a meal in the tiny village of Wanlockhead, we were suddenly very glad indeed for the pies we had purchased the previous day. With the heating cranked up and drying motorcycle gear hanging from every doorknob we made use of the kitchen to warm up and thoroughly enjoy our well-preserved meal. An early night facilitated another early start with the group mostly going their separate ways to head home. My brother and I arrived at Lloyds Honda Motorcycles in Carlisle just as they were opening for an emergency rear-tyre swap and enjoyed a surprisingly good breakfast at McDonalds while we waited. I’m not sure I’ve ever had such prompt service from a motorcycle dealer anywhere in the world and we were back on the road in under an hour.
The final few hours were punctuated by regular stops for leg stretching and bathroom/drink breaks at motorway services, with rain dogging our heels most of the way south. But we couldn’t complain – we’d managed to get most of the way around one of the most changeable parts of the UK on clear, dry roads, and a motorway run in the rain is little different to one in the sunshine. In the end, my trip meter recorded just over 1,500 miles door-to-door, with those who’d travelled from South Wales logging even higher mileages. My Dad noted that our southbound crossing of the Scottish border happened almost exactly 72 hours after we’d passed it heading north.
It turns out that, not only is looping the most northerly part of the UK in a long weekend entirely achievable, it’s also not some sort of brutal, masochistic feat of endurance. We stopped far more often than I expected, and for longer, and still managed to easily beat our daily target mileage. A coffee and restroom stop does not need to take an hour and, the fact that I was riding the only motorcycle with more than 100 horsepower proved that you don’t need big speed to keep a snappy pace. My experimental North Coast Express was a resounding success and I will be back for another run at it as soon as the snow melts next spring.
Out of season means no traffic; mile after mile of fast, smooth, empty roads.
And what of the Ninja? It acquitted itself well, though oiling the chain twice a day when riding in the wet is extremely inconvenient. Doing so solo would be impossible without a trick stand to raise the rear wheel off the ground, as Kawasaki’s exhaust system design has made fitting a centre stand an impossibility. I found myself constantly missing the belt drive from my T-Max, or envying the drive shafts of the occasional BMW we passed. The easy 200-mile tank range proved a consistent comfort and, at more reasonable speeds, it was an eminently comfortable place to spend four long days. The practically silent engine robs some of the drama and excitement but does make for guilt-free early-morning getaways from sleep hotels and hamlets.
The Ninja worked well around the North Coast 500, making overtaking a breeze compared to my V-Strom 650 and soaking up the rough roads far better than my erstwhile Street Triple. I suppose next time I’ll have to try the T-Max…
Until Covid-19 put paid to the expo season last year I hadn’t missed a single Motorcycle Live since I first passed my test in 2009. A family event, my Mum views it as a nice day out with the family where she can snag a few bargains on next year’s touring gear. My brother and his wife poke sceptically at bikes while meeting up with friends. I use the opportunity to corner bewildered staff and bombard them with technical questions, climb all over every motorcycle I can find and try to take motorcycling’s metaphorical temperature.
Lots of great bikes, but is there anything really exciting?
My motorcycling obsession – and there is no other word – is about everything on two (or more wheels). I never got into it for the culture, or the machismo, or the bragging rights – I liked the machines. As such, stepping into the hall at the NEC is just…fantastic. Doing so on a weekday and discovering that there are half as many people crowding the space was a wonderful surprise, allowing me to get more time with more bikes. I usually come with a list of specific machines to get up close and personal with, but also try to get an overview and see if I can put my finger on the pulse of the British motorcycling industry.
This year was always going to be a bit weird; Covid-19 hasn’t gone away, and there are some manufacturers who, after getting stung last year, clearly gambled on the show not happening at all. But even ignoring the fact that the only Yamaha products on display were T-shirts and that the entire Piaggio Group failed to materialise, there was still something rather flat about the show this year. The stands that were present were a little more restrained; marketing budgets and general uncertainty contributed to this, but so did customs and border issues, slimming Honda’s line-up and stranding most of Ducati’s bikes in France.
Norton are back! And they’re offering the same V4 and retro twin they made before…
Ducati’s new 17″ Multistrada Pikes Peak was stuck in France, along with most of their other bikes.
Half the bikes I’d seen announced in manufacturer press releases in the previous weeks and months were absent. I was curious about the newly-updated Yamaha T-Max 560 and the all-new Moto-Guzzi V100 Mandello would have had my attention. Ducati’s Desert X was notable by its absence, and Triumph were only showing a camo-wrapped ‘pre-production’ version of its (since revealed) Tiger 1200. But even if those bikes had been there, they wouldn’t have been anything truly revolutionary. The only genuine surprise was BSA, unveiling for the first time their re-launched (Indian-owned) brand and very aesthetically-convincing new Gold Star. And that’s just a dressed-up old BMW/Rotax engine in a retro chassis.
It was cool to see (and sit on) Harley-Davidson’s new 1200cc adventure bike, the Pan America, and the suspension that automatically lowers as you come to a stop is a neat addition to the genre. Their new Sportster uses the same water-cooled engine and comes with so much plastic cladding that it makes a Kawasaki Ninja look naked by comparison. I like flat bars and I like feet-forward riding positions, but not on the same bike. I’m sure we’ll see ergonomic variants of that platform in the years to come as noise and emissions regulations strangle the life out of their air-cooled engines, but on this occasion, I was left feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
Dressed-up BMW engine in a 60s chassis and running gear. Cool, but not new.
And honestly, that’s my overriding impression of the entire show, and indeed motorcycling as a whole at the moment. In theory, we’ve never had it so good – choice, build-quality, features, performance…we’re living in a golden age of motorcycling. And yet, there’s no excitement, no passion, and no risk. Late-stage motorcycling has figured out what the best way to solve every problem is, and no-one’s trying anything new. They simply benchmark the leading competitors and remix their own version. And if a manufacturer is already the segment leader, then they just iterate and tweak the formula, so as not to upset their existing customers.
The Moto-Guzzi V100 Mandello should be a seismic event; Guzzi is finally going water-cooled! Piaggio has clearly decided the brand will live on and has stumped up the not-inconsiderable investment in an all-new power plant. But by all accounts, it’s yet another ~110bhp two-box half-faired sports-tourer. Harley-Davidson making an Adventure bike should have stopped the whole motorcycling world in its tracks, but instead, we’re informed that it’s merely another credible entry in the fully-saturated 1200cc Adventure market. One neat new innovation does not a groundbreaking motorcycle make. It seems churlish to complain about a bunch of really good new motorcycles simply because they’re not blowing my mind, but that’s what gets people out into showrooms. Nobody gets so giddy they can’t resist rushing out to buy a bike that’s basically the same as the one they already have.
Like Ducati discovered with the Diaval, making a modern bike look “authentic” takes a lot of plastic.
Honda’s new NT1100 is literally a restyled Africa Twin with a smaller front wheel. Same engine, same frame, same electronics suite. The Japanese manufacturer had more stand-space dedicated to a display of old Fireblades than their “all-new” sports-tourer, which says a lot. Suzuki’s GSX-S 1000 GT is an updated GSX-S 1000 with panniers; they fixed the obvious flaw from the old model and executed an extremely questionable styling pass. On paper, it finally trades blows with the Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX, but ignoring aesthetics it does nothing whatsoever to get my attention. That aside, Suzuki had nothing new to offer, and so tried to distract everyone with old race bikes instead.
Tucked in a corner of the Honda stand, the NT1100 looks fine but lacks “wow” factor.
If anything, that front fairing looks even worse in person.
Triumph added a half-fairing and luggage to their Trident to make the new Tiger Sport 660. I’m sure it’s fine, and I can summon zero enthusiasm for what will, I’m sure, be a very competent and practical entry in the segment. Honda added slightly bigger panniers to the Goldwing and refined a bunch of their scooters slightly. BMW added radar-guided cruise control to their R1250RT. Ducati rebranded the Multistrada 950 into the Multistrada V2, raising the price and reducing the engine performance to get past EU emissions regulations. There are updated variants of most of their bikes, so I guess they’re all better now…?
Kawasaki added some electronics to the Versys 650. Royal Enfield had me temporarily excited when I spotted a Himalayan with the 650cc twin-cylinder engine from the Interceptor, but I later learned that this was a third-party one-off and not a production model. CCM are still selling unlimited new variations on their 600cc single-cylinder naked retro thing, and KTM boosted their 790 Adventure to 890cc to create the new 890 Adventure. I’m sure it’s just like the old one, but slightly quicker.
Adventure re-skin for the Forza 350 scooter will probably see as much dirt as the average Africa Twin.
We’ve got a real problem here, folks. I normally find all motorcycles exciting and interesting, and yet looking at the current showroom options leaves me cold. There’s nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing that might make me sell everything in my garage in order to claim as my own some all-new and revolutionary new two-wheeled machine. The closest we’ve come of late are Kawasaki creating an insane 200bhp supercharged sports-tourer (a few years old, now) and Ducati stuffing a V4 in their already-excellent Multistrada. Light-weight adventure bikes are apparently all the rage, but Yamaha’s existing Tenere 700, MV Augusta’s new Lucky Explorer, and Aprilia’s just-released Tuareg 660 were all no-shows.
In theory, this apparent plateau could be explained by the fact that internal combustion motorcycling’s days are certainly numbered. The dates are already set for cars, and it’s only a matter of time before the two-wheeled world is given its own deadline. Against that backdrop, it makes sense to reduce the models and engine choices, re-use platforms, and recycle existing, winning formulas. Now is the time to maximise profits while they still can, because manufacturers sure as hell aren’t ready for the electric revolution.
Even with Formula 1 tech employed we’re still nowhere near parity with petrol.
Super Soco and various other Chinese manufacturers are working hard on building credible urban-use 125-equivalents for reasonable money, and at the other end of the spectrum you’ve got £20,000 Zeros and Livewires. There’s nothing with reasonable range, reasonable performance, and a reasonable price tag, which puts us about 10-15 years behind where electric cars currently are. My own calculations suggest that fitting enough batteries into an electric Ninja 1000SX to match the petrol version’s performance would result in a 750kg motorcycle. Electric cars are averaging over two tons, or around double that of their petrol forebears at the turn of the century. Like an obese diabetic vacationing at an all-you-can-eat fast-food buffet, Motorcycling can’t survive that kind of weight gain.
In short, I think that the entire motorcycle industry is holding its breath. No-one is spending any money developing any radical new internal-combustion motorcycles because they don’t know if that investment will pay off before the technology is banned. They also don’t want (or aren’t able) to sink the vast sums required into battery R&D, and know that current technology can’t meet their current customers’ expectations on price, performance, or range. They’re hoping that someone in the car world, where deep pockets are engaged in extremely expensive research, makes some kind of breakthrough (solid-state batteries, batteries-as-chassis etc.) that suddenly makes electric motorcycles a realistic proposition, and are saving up to buy said tech when it becomes available. They’re probably also hoping that said technology becomes available before internal combustion two-wheelers are banned from showrooms.
None of the established players are seriously developing marketable electric motorcycles yet.
Those of us who like to travel or don’t want to have to recharge every 70 miles when commuting or riding for fun will just stick to used bikes, maintaining what we have while we wait for electric bikes to become genuinely competitive. But many motorcycle manufacturers simply won’t survive that gap, if it comes. They need sales year-on-year to maintain R&D and staff budgets that will be required to develop, build, and sell future motorcycles. You need a healthy industry to attract new riders and fight over-regulation. If the new-bike industry goes into hibernation, it might never reawaken.
Will motorcycling survive the electric transition?
So; if you’re in the market for a new motorcycle, then go out and treat yourself. Enjoy it while you can. That’s what the whole industry is doing right now…
In 2009 Nathan Millward spent nine months riding a Honda CT110 all the way from Sydney, Australia to London, England. This ridiculous adventure is documented in book form, and Nathan now runs guided tours of North Devon from his new base at Dorothy’s Speed Shop in Ifracombe, named after the diminutive little Honda that carried him all the way home from Australia. Nathan’s “A2 Adventure Test Days” present a unique opportunity to test seven different motorcycles from his collection while exploring the rugged beauty and muddy lanes of Exmoor national park.
After a good night’s sleep we were introduced to Nathan and his menagerie. The day would be largely road-based, as most UK green-laning adventures usually are, but a couple of muddy and rutted lanes would be laid on to allow us to test the bikes in more slippery circumstances. This was ideal, as here in the UK a bike that can’t handle a bit of greasy, wet tarmac in between the muddy bits simply won’t work for most people.
First up was something rather interesting: Honda’s not-officially-available-in-the-UK CT125, the successor to Nathan’s own legendary CT110. Essentially a reworked version of the relatively new Honda Cub 125, it was launched to great acclaim and rapturous reception in both Asia and North America last year. Exceptionally light-weight with an engaging semi-automatic four-speed gearbox, massive luggage rack and even a snorkel for river crossings, the CT seemed absolutely perfect as a low-speed trail crawler. With both feet flat on the ground, the complete opposite of the traditional sky-high seat height of most off-road motorcycles, the little Malaysian grey-import Honda was sure to inspire great confidence in slippery conditions.
Nathan’s ‘Garbage Runs’ were popular before lockdown; here’s hoping they return!
The little Honda they won’t sell you. Behind it the CRF Rally – lighter, more powerful, and not much more expensive than the old 250.
Also joining us from the Japanese manufacturer were a pair of their best-selling enduro motorcycles, so-classed because of their balance between off-road function and on-road capability. The Honda CRF250 Rally and CRF300 Rally both gain a little weight compared to their stripped-down ‘L’ variants, but also feature larger fuel tanks, wider seats and a useful front fairing and windshield to make longer trips in inclement weather more palatable. The newer 300cc version supplanted its less powerful predecessor just a year ago, gaining even more fuel capacity while somehow weighing a useful 4 kilograms less.
The reason the 250 Rally was of interest to most of our party was because Nathan had fitted his example with lowered suspension, theoretically making it a less intimidating machine to approach for those of shorter stature.
KTM joined the A2 adventure party a couple of years ago by wrapping its 390cc Duke/RC engine in a slightly more adventure-y chassis and bodywork. That said, the classically off-road focused Austrians have inexplicably opted for road-based wheels, tyres and suspension to a bike that weighed far more than any serious off-roader would ever tolerate (around 172kg at the kerb). It was clearly a fashion-first machine, rather than a serious all-road contender in the vein of its larger 790/890 Adventure lines.
Worlds away in design terms, but manufactured in the same country as the Indian-made KTM was my old nemesis, the Royal Enfield Himalayan. I reviewed this bike when it first launched to much fanfare and enthusiasm from the world’s motorcycling press. The promise was strong: low-tech mechanicals and minimal gadgets paired with off-road-spec wheels and tyres. The reasonable 15 litre fuel-tank even sported a set of front-mounted pannier rails capable of carrying additional luggage in addition to the rear racks, all of which should have made for a genuine do-anything and go-anywhere bike.
Instead, both bikes featured in my review suffered serious mechanical failures and I was unable to look upon the model favourably. It would be interesting to see if Nathan could change my mind.
Under-specced, overweight, but apparently capable.
An interesting addition was another Honda: the commuter-spec CB500X. The 500cc parallel-twin was the only multi-cylinder engine in the group and was also by far the heaviest. But here Honda’s modest intent had been subverted by an expensive Rally Raid kit, replacing the cast wheels and basic suspension with entirely new hardware designed for serious off-road work. Despite this, weight would be the enemy here, the chunky CB500X tipping the scales at a portly 195kg.
Rounding out our selection was our host’s own CCM GP450, a 450cc single-cylinder adventure bike made by the UK-based Clews Competition Machines. Discontinued a few years ago when the supply of Rotax/BMW engines dried up, my brother still treasures his, its combination of truly light weight and 20-litre fuel capacity making it an astonishingly-capable on- and off-road machine. It’s a bike with no real equal on the market today.
Our full-day ride was less than 80 miles, but it felt like far more. Everyone had ample opportunity to sample every bike as often as they liked, with stops every 20 minutes to allow for us all to swap thoughts and keys. My personal predilection for small-engined motorcycles meant that I immediately gravitated towards the semi-automatic CT125 and spent the majority of my first stint learning how to rev-match my gear changes on the widely-spaced four-speed ‘box. Despite its small size it featured a wide, comfortable seat and well-placed handlebars. The throttle was smooth, take-up from the automatic clutch was faultless, and once I’d got used to the sketchy-feeling knobbly tyres, it was an awful lot of fun.
Still very cheap, and still cheaply made.
At the end of the day, it was the bike that two of us voted as our favourite, with its utterly charming aesthetic and genuinely entertaining ride, but alas Honda UK has confirmed that it has no plans to officially offer the bike in the UK. Both myself and my friend agreed that you could probably have almost as much fun on an MSX125 as, despite the aesthetic, the CT is very much a road bike. It became very wayward in mud especially, and deep ruts and potholes quickly exhausted the limited suspension travel and ground clearance. The four-speed gearbox and low-powered air-cooled engine meant that none of us managed to break 55mph at any point during the day, and the soft suspension and twitchy handling meant that it felt very unstable at those speeds. Getting one imported isn’t difficult, but at time of writing imported versions were a difficult-to-swallow £4,500.
Two bikes none of us rated highly as genuine trail bike propositions were the KTM 390 Adventure and the Honda CB500X. Both are much larger, heavier bikes with 19″ rather than 21″ front wheels, and both engines are clearly designed for road rather than dirt. The Honda sounds great with its 270-degree firing interval and honestly felt a lot like a less powerful V-Strom 650 to ride. The Rally Raid suspension was fantastic on tarmac, doing an excellent job of providing both feel and control, and the riding position works relatively well for both seating and standing positions, helped by the chunky off-road foot pegs.
The KTM sings at revs and carves bends confidently on its road-biased tyres, though the cheap ByBre brakes are wooden and lack feel. The engine shudders and bucks if you let the revs drop, no doubt a side-effect of the aggressive tuning necessary to get a full 47bhp out of just 390cc of displacement. The KTM also suffered an intermittent electric fault throughout the day, occasionally leaving the hazard lights stuck on for no discernible reason.
The CCM GP450 divided opinion. The more experienced off-road riders thought it was great, though hot-starting issues and a flickering rear tail-light meant that even Nathan admitted it wasn’t a bike he’d want to take too far from home. I found it genuinely frightening off-road, its aggressive steering geometry making it handle much more like a road bike both on and off the tarmac. This might be a necessity with a full 50bhp and genuine 80mph capability, but also meant that the front wheel was far more willing to follow ruts and be knocked aside by stones than some of the other bikes. It wasn’t the most welcoming machine for a relative off-road novice.
Receiving both universal derision and acclaim were the Honda CRF250/300 Rally twins. The critical factor was the lowered suspension on the 250, which wallowed and swayed on the road, sitting low like a cruiser. Off-road performance wasn’t affected as much, but it made for an uncomfortable on-road experience. The 300 however, was voted the bike that the group would be most likely to actually buy with their own money.
Expensively modified by Rally Raid, could the CB500X overcome its inbuilt tarmac bias?
It made the off-road sections easy while handling as well as any knobbly-tyre-equipped motorcycle can on wet, leaf-strewn tarmac. The updated dashboard is great, and boasted a believable 100mpg average fuel consumption throughout the day. The ultra-soft suspension meant that the bike compressed down to a comfortable seat height as soon as it was tipped off the sidestand, and the switchable ABS system provided everyone with the confidence to make the most of the surprisingly-powerful front brakes. 8,000-mile service intervals mean that long-distance adventures don’t need to be interrupted by oil changes, never mind top-end rebuilds. It’s all very, very Honda.
But honestly, that wasn’t much of a surprise. The wildcard, and the one that surprised us all the most, was the slightly rough-and-ready Royal Enfield Himalayan. The digital components of the dashboard were unreadable due to condensation behind the glass and the front brake is so bad that many of the group genuinely thought it was broken.
India has a very humid climate, so I really can’t understand how the condensation issue hasn’t been spotted and resolved. And the brakes make absolutely no sense. The rear braking system, lower-spec on paper, somehow has bite and power aplenty. I can only assume that either a different pad material (wood? Hard plastic?) has been used on the front, or that the front master cylinder is completely the wrong ratio.
As before, a close look at the welds and materials confirms that this is a cheap bike in every sense of the word, but not cheap enough when a CRF300L isn’t that much more expensive. The Royal Enfield also much heavier, the steel frame low-tech components adding up quickly, and just half the power of the similarly-sized KTM engine. That being said, it plugs along just fine, the gear change is smooth and the clutch light. It handles more like a road bike than the CRF300 does, and in a startling turn of events was actually superior on the muddy green lanes we tested it on. Some quirk of the geometry meant that it refused to be led by ruts or rocks, staying on-course and following the rider’s inputs doggedly no matter what.
The rear wheel never tried to come around on the mud, and while deeper potholes and bumps are best avoided due to the relatively meagre ground clearance this also means that paddling over rougher terrain will be eminently doable. Nathan has ridden one all the way across the USA with nothing but a steering head bearing failure (apparently another very common fault) and was happy to vouch for its touring performance provided you stay off the faster highways.
Startlingly clever but sold poorly, and common mechanical and electrical issues dent appeal.
Let me be clear: I could never buy a Himalayan brand new; the build quality and obvious design flaws would be unforgivable to me, regardless of the price. But as a used proposition? Now that’s another story. Were I to find a two-year-old example for say, half the price, the warranty having resolved the initial issues, I might be a lot more forgiving. I could fix the brakes, install some good tyres, throw on a duffel bag and hit the trails without a care in the world.
Find a used one, Hammerite the rust and point it at the nearest muddy lane.
And that, honestly, is where the story should end. A fantastic time was had by all, and we all made it back home warm and dry with not so much as a snapped clutch lever. But follow the thread of light-weight adventure motorcycles far enough and you eventually catch yourself eyeing electric mountain bikes. But that’s a story for another time…
After eight years, my 40,000-mile Triumph Street Triple R has gone to a new home. The pandemic didn’t help, but even before the world ground to a halt the annual mileage on my featherweight naked bike was frankly pitiful. In theory, the Triumph fit perfectly into my three-bike garage with its unique selling point of light weight and a unique and raucous engine. If ever my 2012 Suzuki V-Strom 650 or Yamaha T-Max 530 started feeling too sensible, I could take the Triumph out for a spin and sate that particular thirst in short order. So why did I decide to sell it?
The problem is that the roads where I live in Northampton are the opposite of smooth continental tarmac. Even with a fully custom and regularly-serviced suspension, the Triumph made for a very bumpy ride, and I inevitably ended up wishing I’d picked up the keys to the V-Strom instead. And while heading further afield in search of smoother tarmac often rewarded me with memorable riding experiences, there was no getting away from the fact that actually getting to those far-flung roads was never a lot of fun. The last time a friend and I took our Street Triples to the Swiss Alps we both came away agreeing that, while adventure bikes would’ve given up a little bit of pure entertainment value against the raucous sporty triples, they would have repaid that debt a hundred fold in significantly better comfort, convenience, and luggage capacity.
What finally cemented my decision to let go of my well-loved Triumph was that first post-lockdown ride in spring. The engine: incredible. The brakes: fantastic. So wonderfully light and minimalist, with nothing wasted or spare. In a world of electronic rider aids and ride-by-wire throttles, we’ll never see another bike like it. But I’m no collector. Every bike I own has to justify its annual bills, and I can’t afford to keep a bike simply for the sake of a couple of short rides a year. I’m a practical motorcyclist, and my bikes need to be at least a little practical or they gather dust. It also didn’t help that it’s replacement was already parked in the garage.
Regular readers will recall that I tried out Kawasaki’s freshly updated and newly-named Ninja 1000SX last summer. My partner was considering one as a more modern, more practical, and more comfortable replacement for her long-serving 2002 Honda Fireblade 954, and my opinion was sought. As it happened, I loved it – sportsbike looks, but far more upright ergonomics, with a wide, comfortable seat and every modern amenity you could ask for. A big tank, adjustable windshield, and huge lockable panniers meant it could also double up as a touring mount: an area where her Fireblade was inevitably compromised. The Ninja had more than enough power to satisfy on the road, but tuned to deliver endlessly tractable grunt straight off idle with all the smoothness of a well-balanced inline four. I recommended she buy one.
I’ve tested a number of different bikes over the last couple of years, many considered as speculative replacements for my trusty V-Strom, in anticipation of it eventually succumbing to its advancing mileage. And yet, while many had facets that impressed, it was the experience of riding the bright green Ninja that stuck with me. And so, with the V-Strom showing no signs of slowing (and recently conquering some truly gnarly off-road work as part of a 700+ mile weekend in Wales), I began to talk myself into buying a very different kind of motorcycle.
Strapping a tailpack to a pillion seat gets tiresome quickly. Lockable hard luggage is really, really nice to have.Every now and again, someone takes my advice and buys a motorcycle I recommend!
Life is short, if we only ever bought bikes that we needed we’d all be trundling around on perfectly capable Honda CB500Xs. Anything beyond that is excess, frivolity, and can never actually be justified, only desired. I could try, of course. The Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX, with its 140bhp engine, had an almost identical power-to-weight ratio to my 675cc Street Triple, I pointed out. The riding position was almost identical, but with significantly improved weather protection, standard-fit lockable hard luggage, and even cruise control for those long 500-mile days down the French autoroute. It made sense to replace the Triumph with the Kawasaki, to upgrade to something that was better or equal in every way! But in truth, none of that really mattered, mostly, I just really wanted one.
And so I bought one! Or rather, we bought two. A couple of hard-bargaining sessions and one very resigned-looking sales manager later, my partner and I took delivery of a pair of brand-new 2020-model Ninja 1000SX’s in ‘Performance Tourer’ trim – that’s a taller touring screen, colour- and key-coded luggage and liners, some sensible crash bungs, a matching seat cowl, and an Akrapovic silencer. We bargained hard on leftover stock, which turned out to be a smarter move than we’d initially guessed. We later discovered that 2021 stock was being delayed, potentially until very late in the year, thanks to a combination of Brexit, Covid, and the Ever Given and her cargo being held, effectively to ransom, by the Egyptian port authorities. We may very well have the only two ’21-plate Ninjas in the UK right now…
The Windshield
So what’s it like to actually live with a Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX? No matter how experienced at reviewing new motorcycles you are, you still only have a limited time with the machine. Things that seem fine over a few hours or days can come to grate and annoy over hundreds or thousands of miles. And one thing that no-one ever talks about with new bike ownership is the ride-in period, a torturous 600 miles during which you’re forced to ride around at under 4,000 RPM while the super-thin running-in oil finishes honing the cylinder bores. Still, at least now I know that it’s been done properly and should mean many years and tens of thousands of miles of reliable service.
But even before running-in was over and the full rev-range could be unleashed, a couple of surprising issues reared their heads. Checking my own notes from my review last year described a significantly quieter windshield than I was now experiencing, and a notably more comfortable seat. Not only was the touring screen on my new Ninja quite noisy regardless of which position I adjusted it to, but the stock seat proved surprisingly uncomfortable, with numb bum setting in after just 30-45 minutes of riding. What was going on?
Because the ‘Performance Tourer’ spec is merely an accessory pack my dealer provided the original parts, including the standard, slightly shorter windshield. Sure enough, swapping back to the original screen (just four hex bolts) resulted in a much cleaner flow of air, and less noisy turbulence. But something I hadn’t done much testing on during my review was sustained motorway journeys, especially in cold or wet weather, and the shorter screen was directing a lot of cold, wet air onto my upper body. On balance, I’ve returned to the taller screen for the moment, but I may have to look into an aftermarket solution that can be adjusted for height on the go.
Kawasaki’s suspension supplier did good work, but there’s room for improvement.
Custom seat is so good that I’m tempted to have my other bikes upgraded too…
The Suspension
While all of this was going on, there was another area that was getting addressed: the suspension. An appointment with my preferred specialist MCT was booked as soon a delivery date was confirmed. Most people probably wouldn’t understand why I’d put time and money aside to fix something that wasn’t really broken, but the truth is that every motorcycle suspension ever made is compromised by its attempts to accommodate the weight of a mythical average rider. I weight 20-30kg less than this target figure, meaning that most bikes are too stiff, delivering a bumpier ride and deflecting easily on the side of the tyre. Oil, springs, and shim stacks are selected at the factory, and while some manufacturers do a better job than others of hitting that one-size-sorta-fits-all sweet-spot, there’s always room for improvement.
In the case of the Ninja, it turns out Kawasaki did a good job. Darren was able to get the forks spot-on using only the external adjusters, spending a good 20 minutes or so bouncing the front end and measuring responses while he twiddled away with spanners and screwdrivers. The shock was a different matter, with disassembly and a rebuild with a different shim stack required to get good results. I’d asked when making the booking if, like my V-Strom and T-Max, an aftermarket shock would be desirable. But apparently Kawasaki had done a good job here too, cutting very few corners in the manufacture of what would normally be a low-precision mass-manufactured item. I was told that a far cheaper rebuild would deliver results in the same range as a top-quality Nitron, and I never need convincing to save money!
The Other Stuff
Other modifications were smaller in scale, though still important. A 12-volt, 3-amp USB charger wired in to the battery and paired with a new QuadLock mount in the steering stem means that my phone stays charged while playing music and providing satellite navigation on my adventures. A BikeTrac tracker had to be installed by a specialist but will provide peace-of-mind when parked up outside a B&B or Hotel while on tour. It’s entirely transparent in operation, with the system arming and disarming with the ignition key, so you never need to think about it. But if someone tries to move the bike with the ignition off a 24/7 call centre can track the location of the bike anywhere in the world and will alert me (and the police) by text and phone that someone’s making off with my shiny new Ninja.
Podcasts, Audiobooks and music keep me sane while Scenic and Google Maps stop me from getting lost.
Paddock stand bobbins are a frustrating necessity for chain maintenance, thanks to the lack of a centre stand. Even an aftermarket option is impossible, owing to the location of the primary exhaust silencer in front of the rear wheel. Kawasaki found a way to solve this problem on their closely-related Versys 1000, so this is certainly an annoying oversight, though not one I can’t work around. Finally, I did briefly have a fender extension installed on the front mudguard to protect the exhaust headers, but despite copious use of the provided double-sided sticky pads it was dislodged and lost after just a couple of dry rides. I should order another, remove the front wheel, brakes, cable guides, reflectors, and mudguard to drill and more securely install it the second time around. But honestly, I’m too busy riding the thing.
The Ride
After 2,000 miles, everything I said about the riding experience in my review last year is still true; it really is an excellent motorcycle for everything from short blasts to day-long trips, with excellent LED headlights making even cold, wet commutes tolerable. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Ninja name is a bit of a misnomer, with the previous Z1000 moniker more accurately reflecting its ‘naked bike with a fairing’ heritage. Try and slice down road with a body-forward position like on a true sportsbike and you’ll find the Ninja to be a bit of an imprecise and overweight handful. Get on top of the flat, raised clip-ons and boss it around like you would a big naked bike and you find making smooth, rapid progress far easier.
The relatively high 235kg kerb weight, though low compared to the big adventure bikes, means that a smoother, flowing riding style is rewarded more than a high-energy stop/turn/go approach. The power reserves may not be prodigious compared to the likes of BMW’s S1000R or XR, but what it gives up in top-end it makes up for in an engine that can pull smoothly from 1,500RPM in sixth gear without so much as a shudder. You can ride in any gear at any speed, the only feedback being a slight turbine-like whine and a satisfying wave of acceleration as you overtake anything on four wheels with ease. Explore the upper third of the rev range and things start to tingle through the seat and bars, with a bit more of a rasp from the otherwise muted airbox. But even wide-open and snapping through the gears with the quickshifter, you never have the same sense of awe and faint terror that you’d get on the old Fireblade. Nor do you get the same raw, angry roar that the Street Triple would emit when encouraged to really let loose, which is definitely something I miss.
The ride-by-wire throttle is direct enough, but the lack of an actual connection to the engine is certainly felt. This is not a fizzing, raucous machine, and were it not for the faint drone of the barely-audible exhaust at idle you could easily be convinced that this was Kawasaki’s first electric drivetrain. I’ve been told that the fully-stock exhaust on my Yamaha T-Max is louder on approach than the Akrapovic silencer of my Ninja, and above walking pace the exhaust is entirely inaudible to the rider. I could invest in the matching set of de-cat headers and associated remap to liberate both noise and an extra 10bhp, or I could embrace the silence, slipping unnoticed between sleepy countryside villages and safe in the knowledge that I’m not going to find myself barred from riding in the increasingly noise-averse Austrian Alps. And with more than double the power of my V-Strom, sometimes its better not to draw attention to oneself.
It looks good and cuts almost 3kg of weight, but the paperwork confirms that it’s no louder than stock.
The brakes are excellent, though I’m sure some more aggressive pads would add a bit of extra bite. The clutch is one-finger light and utterly unnecessary for upshifts, though I need to talk to my dealer about downshifts. In theory the quickshifter should auto-blip and make shifting down through the gears as seamless at it does going upwards. In practice it’s anything but, and you get much smoother changes by dipping the clutch and handling things yourself. I need to find out if I’m expecting too much or if there’s a problem that needs investigating.
The dashboard is easy to read and has all the data even I could wish for, though the interface for changing settings isn’t as intuitive as it could be. In my experience, no-one has figured this one out yet, with both cars and motorcycles either relying on byzantine menus or complicated, memorised combinations of long and short presses of a few multi-function buttons. Resetting the various trip meters on the Ninja 1000SX is a bit like using morse-code to order a takeaway.
It has to be said, we’re deep in serious nit-pick territory now. The distance-to-empty calculation on the dashboard is utter lies, ambitiously suggesting I can still get more than 100 miles on a quarter tank before rapidly changing its mind as reality begins to bite. In practice, averaging over 50mpg in mixed riding (which is impressive in and of itself) means more than 200 miles between fill-ups. It’s not the 250+ miles I can easily get from the V-Strom, but it’s better than the ~160 miles the T-Max manages. And given what I’ve heard about the new Ducati Multistrada V4’s 35MPG thirst, I’ll take what I can get! Kawasaki claim 19 litres of fuel capacity, but on one rather ambitious run to empty I actually managed to squeeze more than 20 litres under the filler cap, so it sounds like they’re playing the opposite game to Triumph on that score.
The standard-fit Bridgestone S22’s aren’t fantastic, with questionable cold and wet grip, but at least don’t exhibit any of the handling-blunting traits that OEM rubber reported on other Kawasakis. What looks like a pretty rapid rate of wear may end up being a blessing if I can throw on some Michelin Road 5 or Metzeler Z01 alternatives in short order.
I will admit that, when trickling through slower traffic on the commute, I have wondered if I shouldn’t have taken the time to test out Kawasaki’s closely-related Versys 1000 instead. It’s an even softer version of the same engine hauling around an even heavier chassis, but it does have the more upright ergonomics I enjoy so much in adventure bikes. But once up to speed it matters far less, and the reality is that you never get the same direct connection to the front wheel that inspires so much confidence to press on through a set of risers. But the extra cost of a Versys makes the compromises it offers harder to stomach, and given the fact that I rarely carry a pillion these days, the Ninja still feels like the right choice. And it goes without saying that if I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.
Until then, I’m looking for every opportunity to get out on the Ninja, but still find my other two bikes receiving regular attention. My three-bike garage now has three sensible, touring-capable motorcycles, all suited to very different kinds of riding, and only time will tell if any of them end up gathering more dust than others. Then again, I do still have a couple of motorcycling niches left to fill…
As long-time readers of mine will know, I have…opinions…about motorcycle dealerships. I like to think that they are informed and considered opinions, based on collected facts and anecdotal observations, both my own and of others. I have interviewed dealer principles, spoken off the record with motorcycle salespeople from all over the world, looked at available data, and ultimately drawn unflattering conclusions that have upset more than a few people. This is because I believe in being honest and in challenging those who make mistakes to do better. I always hope that, in some small way, this will help the motorcycle industry learn, improve, and grow. But even so, it’s good to get an expert’s perspective once in a while.
Martec’s approach combines performance measurement with both on-site and classroom training.
Martec Europe Ltd. have been working with UK car dealers for thirty years, helping principals and team leaders to understand where, when, and how they could improve their customer satisfaction and retention. The ingrained culture of any industry can leave businesses stuck in the same rut for years, even decades. This inflexibility can – and frequently does – spell disaster for slow-moving companies unable to roll with the punches as consumer habits and expectations change. Survival is for the most adaptable, and history is littered with examples of brands and businesses that failed to move with the times. And so, I picked up the phone and called Neil Pursell, Martec Europe’s Managing Director, to get his perspective.
Martec’s business is one of two halves. The measurement side of the company downloads recordings of incoming customer calls, emails, video messages, and web chats direct from client dealership’s computer systems. They then use an army of human reviewers to carefully evaluate each customer interaction against recognised criteria. The training side of the business then puts together bespoke packages to help dealership staff address the areas in which they are weaker.
“We’re a motor industry-specific training and solution provider,” explains Neil. “We’ve got thirty years’ of UK motor-industry experience, and it would be fair to say that the vast majority of that experience has been in cars, vans, and trucks rather than motorcycles. Still, throughout that time we have also worked with a number of motorcycle dealerships and dealership groups that also have a presence in motorcycle retail.”
Neil is a keen biker and self-professed motorcycle enthusiast, having been riding since his twenties and can currently be found enjoying either his Triumph Tiger 800, Triumph Speed Triple, or Harley-Davidson Fat Bob – one, as he puts it “for each type of weather!” So was it love of bikes that made Neil pivot Martec further towards the two-wheeled world?
“The experience…that we’ve had with car dealerships over the last thirty years is relevant to lots of different industries and industry sectors,” he says. “Over the last five years in particular I’ve noticed that the motorcycle industry seems to be challenged with bringing in and accessing new types of customers, and that’s very reminiscent of our experience in the motor industry.”
I asked Neil if he could elaborate. “When a manufacturer launches a wholly new product, it automatically has an affinity with its current customer base. But to succeed, it has to attract new customers or it will only divide up its existing market share amongst its expanded model range. So, they have to work out how to attract a new type of driver. The motorcycle industry seems to have a similar challenge with a need to attract a new type of rider, while ensuring that they don’t lose their existing rider base.”
I ask Neil for an example from the car world, and he cites the challenges Land Rover faced at the Freelander’s launch back in 1997. At the time, Land Rover sales staff had plenty of experience talking to their typical, more rural customer. But the customers showing up to look at Freelanders were from a different world, and most had no experience or interest in driving through fields or down muddy lanes. What they wanted from a vehicle was completely different, and sales staff initially struggled to establish a rapport with their potential new customers. Neil explains that finding that common ground and establishing a human connection is key to “helping a customer through a sale”, as without it you miss all the cues and hints that help navigate the conversation.
It seems to me that, if Land Rover had never figured out how to talk to these customers, the brand might no longer exist today. Their inability to address new markets would have strangled their growth and allowed competitors to chip away at their traditional customer base. The parallels with motorcycling today are striking. “The bike industry is trying to get people in their 20’s into the idea of riding motorcycles, as well as bringing in more female riders, commuters, and a generally more environmentally-conscious customer than they’ve had in the past. It isn’t the standard type of prospect (customer) that motorcycle dealers will have been used [to talking] to.” Crucially, Neil points out that these new “prospects” might not already be fans of the brand, or of motorcycling at all, and that can lead to a serious breakdown in communication for a salesperson that isn’t used to finding common ground with a new type of customer.
The art of car sales has changed a lot in the last couple of decades, but motorcycle sales tactics seem to be stuck in the past.
“People go from a state of curiosity about a product, then move into a state of interest, before moving to a state of intention to purchase.” A traditional customer arriving at a motorcycle showroom might already be at the ‘intention’ stage – they ‘intend’ to buy a new motorcycle soon, and it’s just a question of which bike and from which dealer. “But if I’m only considering riding a motorcycle as my form of transport, perhaps to get to the station or do the shopping, then I’m going to come across as only ‘curious’ and perhaps quite ‘cold’ or not that interested. And that’s where sales people in the motorcycle industry need help – to recognise that this perceived temperature isn’t really an indicator of the likelihood of purchasing.”
“If we think of someone on a journey to buy a motorbike starting off at ‘0’, and ultimately making their purchase decision and paying their money at ’10’, you can imagine that people who are ‘curious’ are going to be a ‘0-2’, people who are ‘interested’ are going to maybe be at ‘3-6’, and people with an ‘intention’ to purchase are going to be at ‘7-9’. So if you’re a salesperson and you have only ever worked with people who are already at ‘7’, then you probably won’t…be polished at getting someone from ‘3’ to ‘5’ and beyond.” These are things that motorcycle sales staff have rarely had to do before, so it’s unrealistic to expect them to be good at them. And those are the exact skills that training can provide.
Basically, the scales that sales staff in motorcycle dealers use to gauge how likely someone is to buy a bike, and therefore how hard they should pursue that prospect, are often too narrowly focused. They require re-calibrating, so that they can treat every single person who calls up or drops by as a potential customer. “The signals, the dialogue, and the conversation that goes along with someone who is in this ‘curious’ state doesn’t sound, to a salesperson, like someone who’s interested in buying. In their head, they’re saying ‘you don’t sound like a customer at all’.”
4x4s are popular now, but salespeople from just 20 years ago might have struggled to communicate with today’s customers.
Sales staff in the bike industry already talk about the concept of “helping their customer to buy a motorcycle”, but a more ‘curious’ customer will need an awful lot more help than staff are used to providing. “They need a slightly more nuanced or advanced process to recognise that [these customers] have more hurdles to cross before they ultimately make their decision,” explains Neil. And speaking to these new kinds of customers requires a completely different conversational toolkit. Anyone who rides a motorcycle gains a number of shared touch points with other bikers – the rush of the acceleration, the feeling of moving your body as you control the machine, the exhilaration of leaning the bike through a set of corners. “But the person coming in to talk about riding their scooter to the station and back every day doesn’t have the same terms of reference, so the conversation topics will be very different.”
Very few car sales are to genuine enthusiasts. Growing motorcycling means embracing customers who just need transport.
Neil recounts how, when he first started out in the automotive industry many years ago, women purchasing their own cars for themselves at a dealership wasn’t as common as it is today. This meant that salespeople at the time were ill-equipped to spot the verbal and social cues that a female buyer had any kind of intent to purchase a car from them. “It’s pretty similar, in a sense, to female bikers. If you have only dealt with female prospects twice a year, then you aren’t going to get experienced at how you might recognise their cues, what they want to hear, and what questions they need to have answered in order to help them buy.”
Similarly, if you mostly deal with existing bikers, likely in their 40’s-60’s, then you’ll never get any good at spotting the cues that the young man in a suit could ever be persuaded to swap his railway season pass for a PCP plan. It’s all about making a positive assumption, and then adjusting your conversational style to match that of the person in front of you, rather than simply sticking with a single approach. “In the motorcycle industry, this idea of flexing your approach depending on the customer you’re talking to seems like a new concept, whereas it’s not in the car world – it’s been around for a long time.”
It sounds like the onus is very much on dealerships to have their staff trained to be more flexible when handling unexpected queries and ensuring that every potential customer is treated with the same care, attention, and enthusiasm as a seasoned biker waving their credit card would be. Getting new riders to even visit or telephone a motorcycle retailer is difficult enough, and it seems like staff are letting those sales slip through their fingers.
The engineers have overcome their love of heavyweight air-cooled nostalgia; can the sales staff?
Neil has data that shows just 16% of telephone enquiries to bike dealerships result in the customer scheduling an appointment to come and look at a motorcycle. But of those customers who are persuaded to make appointments and visit the showroom, more than 80% end up completing a purchase. Martec’s analysis of these calls confirms that sales staff are making snap decisions to classify callers as ‘non-buyers’ and aren’t moving to capture basic information or ask basic questions. Because those callers aren’t ticking the expected boxes, they’re being dismissed, and staff aren’t even giving them the opportunity to become ‘interested’, never mind develop an ‘intent’ to purchase.
“In our analysis, we look for key moments in those interactions that we consider essential to help the customer move in the right direction. Simplistically, there wouldn’t be any contest that an interaction should start with some form of greeting…and should probably include introductions. We also know that there are certain steps that would promote success, one of which would be to capture the customer’s contact details. And it is also important that we try to promote a next step. Most dealerships would want a customer to visit, though obviously not in Covid times! But customers are showing their highest level of ‘intention’ when they are in the showroom, rather than on the telephone.”
Many, if not all of these steps are often skipped entirely if the salesperson does not immediately get the right verbal signals to suggest that a customer is already well on the way to making a purchase. This has the effect of ensuring that only the most determined shoppers end up ever buying anything, reinforcing the negative feedback loop we see today.
Winning new customers means breaking old habits and learning fresh skills.
All of this collated information is fed back to dealer management, where it is up to them to encourage their sales staff to change their approach, preferably through training. But Neil believes that motorcycle manufacturers have a role to play here as well, especially as brands move into new segments. Harley-Davidson, the ultimate example of traditional motorcycling, are once again facing this challenge with their new Pan America liquid-cooled adventure bike. The type of customer who might buy one of these is far more likely to show up on a dirt-caked Triumph Tiger than an air-cooled Harley. Sales staff will face a completely different set of questions from a completely different type of customer.
Neil with his Harley
“Most car manufacturers have learned that, if you bring a new model in, you have to put quite a lot of resource into getting the network ready,” he says. “If Harley-Davidson have looked at what some of the car manufacturers [would] have done to prepare the network for this new style of customer…then they will be in a good position, because they will have a network of people that are ready to answer these new customers’ questions.” I comment that, in my experience, Harley’s sales staff have a history of struggling to promote products so different from what they were used to. Here’s hoping that Neil is right, and that Harley-Davidson are even now drilling their staff on how to best help potential Pan America customers sign on the dotted line!
So assuming sales staff can learn these skills, how do you measure success? “There are some milestones that sales people need to touch as they help the customer along the journey, and we measure those. Once you have a dataset that compares more than one individual, then you can see a correlation between achieving those milestones and ultimate success.”
But how can dealerships trust Martec’s numbers, given that it’s in Martec’s best interest to demonstrate the positive results of their training? “Because we work with so many different organisations, we use the organisations’ own Enquiry Management System (EMS) to measure their effectiveness before and after. In essence, we use their own ruler to measure the change. And if a dealership doesn’t have or is not using an EMS, then part of that training would be to encourage or promote the use of one. Using a client’s own ‘ruler’ to measure success makes that success that much more tangible. In a sense, it’s very simple: how many opportunities does an individual salesperson get presented with, and how many of those opportunities ultimately turn into a purchase? How many chances did you get, and how many did you take?”
Martec has also conducted research on behalf of clients using secret shopping phone calls in the guise of customers in the very early ‘curiosity’ stage, proving Neil’s point. “The dealers we called did not seem to recognise that ‘curiosity’ about a vehicle could turn into a sale…they interpreted the temperature of the enquiry to be not an enquiry, as opposed to an early enquiry.”
I ask Neil if he’s concerned that the reduced profit margins on less exotic machinery might be a factor in discouraging dealerships to take a serious interest in commuters and new riders, who tend to buy far less expensive motorcycles. He hopes not, he says, as that would be incredibly short-sighted. “Salespeople are normally rewarded on the whole transaction. So if somebody changes their Ducati Monster for a new one, they probably don’t buy new leathers, a helmet, gloves etc. all at the same time. Whereas for a commuter who has not been doing it before there’s a stronger probability that you would be able to sell them a complete kit, which would include the bike, but would also include everything else they needed. From a commercial perspective, that transaction might actually be as or more profitable than someone buying their 20th superbike.”
As ever, success or failure of motorcycle dealers and indeed the individual sales staff is going to depend on their willingness to change, to adapt. If a curious commuter phones up to ask about how a scooter could help them tackle the three-mile trip to the train station more efficiently and cheaply than their car, they need to be met with the same enthusiasm and warmth that would be shown to an excited Ducatisti wanting to put down a deposit for a new Multistrada V4S. Selling a commuter their first Honda PCX might not be the thrill that gets sales staff up and into work in the morning, but it could earn both them and their employer just as much money. What’s more, it’s vital to the future of the motorcycle industry in general. After all, to turn commuters into die-hard life-long motorcycle enthusiasts, we first have to sell them that first taste of the freedom and excitement that only two wheels and and an engine (or motor!) can offer. There’s no point in preaching to the converted.
Let’s hope motorcycle dealers learn this lesson quickly.
Thank you to Neil Pursell from Martec Europe for his time and input in researching this article.
This month Nick Tasker reviews the other Italian bikes that warrant some page space, along with the rest of the Japanese and the European manufacturers, Indian and Chinese, plus the electric bikes new to the market.
THE OTHER ITALIANS
While Ducati may be the quintessential Italian motorcycle, it’s easy to forget that their sales volume is completely overshadowed by those of the Piaggio Group. Their Moto-Guzzi brand has taken the best part of their V85TT adventure-touring bike – the charismatic 850cc air-cooled engine – and used it to give their ageing V7 platform a new lease of life. Keeping air-cooled engines alive post-Euro5 is going to be very difficult indeed, and it will be interesting to see just how long the traditionally-minded manufacturer can keep it up. With the death of the old V7 engine, Moto-Guzzi is now a single-engine manufacturer, building effectively just three models. I suspect that the next couple of years’ sales figures will determine whether or not parents Piaggio decide to invest the considerable resources required to develop a future-proof, potentially electrified drivetrain for this niche brand. If you like old-school, air-cooled naked bikes, buy one while you still can.
On the other side of the corporate roster sits Aprilia, another Piaggio brand that’s been shedding models for years now. With every penny apparently going into keeping the remaining few models competitive through occasional nips and tucks, this ‘other’ Italian sportsbike company surprised everyone last year by announcing their new RS660 sportsbike. Lightweight, festooned with high-end running gear, and extracting an impressive 100bhp from a 660cc parallel twin engine, almost 50% more than the Japanese competition. The price tag (£10,000) is closer to what bikers used to pay for their 600cc-class sportsbikes than the current crop of more practical middleweights, so it will be interesting to see if there’s really a market for such a machine. The reduced piston count should mean a less peaky, more road-focused delivery and Aprilia promise that the suspension is tuned for bumpy B-roads, not glass-smooth racetracks. I’m looking forward to finding out if it can live up to the hype.
Light, the right amount of power, sensible suspension and leading edge electronics? Consider me intrigued…
But while many won’t agree, the Italian bike I’m most keen to actually ride after the Multistrada V4 does, in fact, sport an exposed trellis frame and single-sided swingarm. What it doesn’t have is front forks, a pillion seat, or a surfeit of power. The Italjet Dragster 125/200 look, quite frankly, like concept bikes or one-off specials made by someone who really misses their Peugeot Speedfight. Even Italjet’s own webpage has to confirm that no, they are not joking – this really is a production bike. It’s expensive for a 125/200cc scooter, but at around £5,000 it’s still nothing compared to what most people spend on their two-wheeled toys. And imagine the crowd you’ll draw after parking up at your local bike meet on one of those!
The end of an era; if you want to tour with lots of luggage and a pillion, you’d best buy an adventure-tourer. Everyone else is…
Nips, tucks and new tech abound, but still no word on a UK price…
Looks great, probably handles well, and will have fantastic electronics. So why aren’t I excited?
Sounds good on paper, but have the clutch-cooling oil jets been fixed on this one?
Slim pickings here – mostly just new paint and stickers across the board. Plenty of models are living on borrowed time, with derogation rules allowing pre-Euro5 models to be sold only while limited stocks last. Suzuki and Yamaha’s showrooms will look noticeably less diverse as 2021 progresses and for the first time since the 80’s Honda won’t have a V4-powered bike in its line-up. The Yamaha FJR 1300’s almost two-decade-long production run is coming to an end, with changing tastes having already killed off the Honda ST1300 Pan European and Kawasaki GTR1400. But even though adventure-tourers are the flavour of the month, the Yamaha Super Tenere never found much of an audience and the cost of Euro5 compliance was evidently too high to justify.
On the other hand, Tracer 700 & 900 have become Tracer 7 & 9 respectively, the larger of the two gaining a number of high-tech features alongside it’s fractionally larger and cleaner three-cylinder engine. It sounds like some of the things I complained about in my review have been addressed (better handling, new up-and-down quickshifter), along with a few things I didn’t really have a problem with (bigger panniers, new electronically-controlled suspension). The latter could result in another unwelcome price bump, and given that the Tracer 900GT was already in danger of losing the value proposition compared to the Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX, this could be a real problem. Move too far up-market and suddenly the more prestigious European offerings start to look more reasonable by comparison.
Speaking of the Europeans, BMW has updated their S1000R naked bike. No ShiftCam technology here, just mild Euro5 tweaks, but the styling is much more cohesive and makes for a significantly more attractive motorcycle in my opinion. But I’m afraid it’s also one of the least interesting offerings in the segment. Flat-plane crank inline-four naked bikes are a little bit like washing machines. They’re very good at their job, they just aren’t usually terribly interesting. And when similar money buys you almost any other engine configuration, you’ve got to discount a lot of other really charismatic motorcycles to end up at the S1000R.
KTM realised that everyone was pushing 800cc adventure bikes up to 900cc and did the same thing, creating the 890 Adventure in the same various flavours as the previous 790. I really wanted to consider that bike as a V-Strom 650 replacement, but the damning reliability reports from the then-new power plant combined with the existing stories I keep hearing about electrical problems prevent me from seriously considering the Austrian brand. Maybe the new 890 platform will be the point when things change; maybe not.
In Kawasaki’s world things have been pretty quiet, save for the unveiling of the updated Ninja ZX-10R. Speaking as something of an apologist for what many people would consider to be ugly motorcycles, I am afraid to say that I haven’t seen a front fairing design this…unfortunate in a very, very long time. Then again, given that no-one except racers buys them anyway, and the fact that they’ll just replace all the bodywork with race fairings, it probably doesn’t matter too much.
I know you can’t see it while you’re riding it, but…
INDIA & CHINA
This is where things get a little left-field. There are now so many Chinese manufacturers masquerading as old European brands that it’s hard for even an obsessive like me to keep up. Traditionally fiscally flaky Italian firms like Benelli have enjoyed drinking from the financial firehose of Chinese investors and have a slew of impressive-looking, if rather underpowered and overweight models in showrooms. Chinese manufacturers desperate to shed the stigma of their previous sub-standard efforts have been snapping up defunct British nameplates and using them to flog ultra-trendy small-capacity bikes for years, and some of the results have been just as bad as you’d expect. But for every zombified AJS there are a few that claim to source their engines and electronics from China, yet assemble them in Europe according to our more exacting quality and longevity expectations. Herald even claims that they are graduating from this process after ten years and that their new Brute 500 is wholly manufactured in the UK. Now there’s something I’d like to see in person…
Regardless of where they’re built, it’s true that the quality and dealer support for these less well-established brands has improved dramatically in recent years with the more successful and, one hopes, trustworthy of them all branching out into larger capacity offerings. CFMoto have been selling ultra-budget, Kawasaki-derived 650cc motorcycles for a few years now, and a recent tie-up with KTM is set to extend their range with engines sourced from their new Austrian partner. Chinese police are already testing a 1290-derived fully-faired bike that would be an interesting BMW R1250RT competitor, especially at half the price.
Their countrymen over at Zontes haven’t been selling products in the UK quite as long, but they’re clearly determined to catch up fast. While their 125cc selection does a good job of imitating Kawasaki and Suzuki’s various naked models, their catchily named ZT310-T looks like a Triumph Tiger 1200 that shrank in the wash. Part of the truly enourmous Guangdong Tayo Motorcycle Technology Company, Zontes are keen to follow CFMoto in demonstrating that Chinese brands can deliver more than just throw away learner bikes. The spec list is quite frankly incredible given the £4,199.99 asking price. Keyless start, TFT dash, electric screen, backlit switchgear, Bosch-sourced ABS, Lithium-Ion battery…some of these are features that bikes four times the price don’t always offer.
Designed and built in the UK, they claim. That exhaust system screams “small-series type approval”…
If the Interceptor is anything to go by, then the Meteor could be the bargain of the century.
It’s also available with either forged 17” wheels or a spoked 19”/17” combo, depending on whether you expect your journeys to take you onto gravel or not. This thing undercuts the much-vaunted Royal Enfield Himalayan on price and weight while beating it handily on features and performance. It’s well worth checking out the feature video on their UK website which, unlike a few Chinese brands I could mention, actually works and looks like it was designed by professionals. No, I don’t expect the bike itself to be up to the standard of bigger, more expensive European or Japanese fare, but my own experiences with the Himalayan weren’t great and plenty of people took a chance on those at a similar price point. If your £20,000 BMW is too precious to actually take off-road and comes out in a rash in the winter salt, then maybe a Zontes ZT310-T could be worth a look.
Speaking of Royal Enfield, their less off-road focused bikes continue to show promise. Hot on the heels of the universally acclaimed and best selling Interceptor 650 comes the Meteor 350. A more cruiser oriented offering, the new bike will cost just £3749 on the road here in the UK. If the quality and riding experience are up to that of the Interceptor, that price could help move a lot of metal once stocks arrive at UK dealers. Japanese small capacity cruisers have always struggled to maintain the all metal authenticity cruiser riders crave, and the Interceptor’s success proved that well-judged running gear and an ultra-competitive price can make up for the power deficit that often prompts the Japanese to choose water-cooling for their offerings. Royal Enfield has serious ambitions for the western market and I’m very interested to see if the Meteor helps maintain their momentum.
Electric
Those of you who have been paying attention at trade shows over the last couple of years will have noted the proliferation of small electric motorcycle and scooter companies. SuperSoco always stood out for me, simply because their design spoke of ambitions beyond the fray of rushed lookalikes. Their bikes have a unique visual aesthetic that suggests actual care and thought are steering the brand even if the performance limited my interest in the past. But while many of these cheap cash-in marques have come and gone, SuperSoco is still here, and frequently sold alongside the more established electric brand Zero in dealerships. What’s more, for 2021, they’re finally offering a 125cc-equivalent option in the shape of the TC Max. It’s currently available for just £3,825 after the UK government’s OLEV Plug-In Motorcycle Grant, which is slightly cheaper than Honda’s similarly styled and performing CB125R. 125’s aren’t exactly expensive to fuel and tax, but charge the removable battery at the office and the savings could add up quickly. Definitely worth a look!
60 miles of range at 30mph isn’t much, but then it doesn’t cost much either.
In the same vein we have relative newcomers Horwin, imported to the UK through electric scooter stalwarts Artisan Electric. I’ve never been overly impressed with Artisan’s product: plastic and fake chrome covered imitations of classic Italian scooters matched with relatively low-tech electric drivetrains. They’ve lately diversified into more futuristic designs which I think are much better executed. Their tie-up with Horwin brings the very stylish EK3 electric scooters to the UK for under £4k, but it’s the CR6 retro-bike and upcoming CR6 Pro that really caught my eye. The latter uses the same motor and battery combo, but adds a 5-speed manual gearbox and clutch to eke out every drop of performance and theoretically push the bike up past the 60mph mark. I’m forever pondering the idea of getting another 125cc motorcycle to handle my 70-mile round-trip commute and it would be very interesting to see if the technology has finally reached a point where electric becomes a viable option.
Bring on 2021
As you can see, there’s lots to be excited about for the 2021 riding season. Motorcycling was one of the few success stories of 2020 as dealers reported record sales following the first lockdown in spring. Commuters were encouraged by the government (and, perhaps, common sense) to avoid the crowded petri dish that is public transport but unable or unwilling to switch to their car or bicycle. It seems they suddenly discovered what the rest of us have known all along: that motorcycling is the perfect way for most people to get to work. CBT’s were booked solid and 125’s flew out of showrooms.
But bigger bikes sold well too, even amongst the luxury brands. Perhaps those buyers were simply looking for an outdoor hobby that allowed them some fresh air with built-in social distancing. Perhaps the sobering news gave people the nudge they needed to finally get up off the couch and live a little. All that lockdown enforced time for self-reflection may have helped many realise that life can be short, and that no amount of risk-aversion, healthy eating, and clean living can fully protect us from something like Covid-19. As an otherwise fit, young, healthy individual who caught it early on and was on oxygen a week later, I can confirm that it’s not just the frail, infirm, or incautious who can fall victim to this invisible killer.
Yes, motorcycling can be dangerous, and going for a ride without the right gear and training can multiply that risk significantly, but perhaps 2020 helped a number of non-riders consider that a little bit of risk can be worth it, given the thrill and excitement that motorcycling offers. None of us really know how much time we have on this planet and, as the saying goes, don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today.
So, 2020 is finally over. I don’t think there has ever been a year that so many people all over the world have looked forward to seeing the back of. As motorcyclists in the UK, we snatched a scant few weeks of good riding between various lockdowns, but European trips were largely cancelled. The smart ones with flexible schedules shot off to Scotland at the earliest opportunity, but the weather was typically appalling by that point in the summer. In the end I escaped the claustrophobia of my own four walls on four wheels, not two.
My motorcycling blog saw traffic more than double as bored bikers headed online for their motorcycling fix, but I was generally stuck at home and able to provide little in the way of new content. With a vaccine on the horizon and hopes of a return to normality for 2021, has the global pandemic permanently changed motorcycling in any way?
Looking over my notes from the last few weeks’ sustained barrage of press-releases a few trends do start to emerge. For one thing, we might be about to see history repeat itself as the complacent European and Japanese brands find themselves tripping over more affordable and increasingly well-spec’ed offerings from India and China. The flood of cheap and nasty 125s has abated, with quality and features improving as product ranges expand up the capacity ladder.
At the same time, we’re seeing traditionally off-road-exclusive brands like Fantic bring genuinely intriguing road-legal offerings to market. I don’t quite think we’re going to see Triumph once again swept aside in a wave of better and cheaper machinery as they were in the 70’s. The more established brands do seem to have learnt their lessons from history. Manufacturers with existing small-capacity programmes are expanding them; those without are scrambling to extend their large-capacity-focused ranges downwards. Still, competition is going to be fierce and some of the established businesses may not be able to survive on the more meagre profit margins that will be on offer once traditional motorcyclists stop buying £20,000 toys in the numbers they’ve become accustomed to.
As old age begins to bite, motorcycling’s traditional bulk-buyers are increasingly looking for smaller and lighter machines that will be less likely to overwhelm them at the next stop light. The few young riders that are fighting their way into the sport despite all the roadblocks don’t have any loyalty to the old brands and are just as likely to consider a Zontes as they are a Yamaha. They also don’t know or care which brands are genuinely European and which are simply classic brands slapped on Chinese-made hardware. A long-time motorcyclist might be able to tell the difference between an unbranded brake calliper and a top-shelf Brembo item, but they’ll still struggle to convince a cash-strapped twenty-something that such jewellery is worth five times the price.
All of this means that I’ll be watching how the industry reacts and changes over the next couple of years with great interest, and that the list of bikes I’m looking forward to riding in 2021 has never been more diverse. Let’s take a look, shall we?
HONDA
By sheer number of interesting new models, the Japanese brand takes the top spot. That being said, like many of their established competitors, we’re mostly talking about small capacity bumps (CRF300L, Forza 350/Forza 750) and light styling work (NC750X) as older engines are reworked to meet the new Euro5 emissions regulations that come into force this January. We may no longer be part of the EU, but the UK market isn’t anywhere near big enough to justify the development costs of its own models, so we get what Europe gets. The good news is that in most cases these emissions-related tweaks also result in more power and in a few surprising, but very welcome cases, less weight.
But wow, talk about blindsided – I did not see either the Trail 125 or CMX1100 Rebel coming, though perhaps I should have. In the same way that the original Trail 90 was derived from the C90 of the time, it must have been relatively cheap/easy to repurpose and restyle the current Cub platform to create this intriguing new off-road focused model. The low-range gearbox its ancestor featured may be missing, but the Trail 125 makes up for it with more power.
And while ground clearance improvements may be marginal, that rear-mounted snorkel and light weight should mean you can take this thing damn near anywhere – as long as you’re not in a hurry. The only slightly worrying thing is that Honda UK has been strangely silent on UK/European pricing and availability, with all the press focused on the US launch. Here’s hoping we’re not going to miss out like we did with the CTX700…
The Rebel 1100 is interesting if only because it shows that Honda are serious about extending their platform-sharing approach to every engine in their range. Shoehorning the latest Africa Twin’s 1.1-litre parallel twin engine complete with DCT gearbox into their existing CMX500 Rebel chassis caught everyone by surprise, but now adds credence to the rumours of a similarly-powered CB1100X sports-tourer. I’ve got a soft spot for feet-forward cruisers, but an even softer spot for do-everything road bikes that combine reasonable power with all-day comfort and hard luggage. Add in Honda’s excellent six-speed dual-clutch transmission and you’ve got a potential 2022 bike I’d ride tomorrow.
Look at that snorkel! Look at that luggage rack! Imaging how light it is! I bet you could ride that anywhere…
Triumph
Triumph’s new entries are notable, if not necessarily terribly compelling. The brand announced it would cut a quarter of its UK workforce during the summer and the pressure was presumably on to put some new metal in dealers without spending any significant sums on development. The internet (and some personal friends) collectively lost their minds over the Trident 660 and as an avowed previous-generation Street Triple fan they assumed I would be all over it. But I’m afraid that I may be as cynical about this machine as I suspect Triumph’s product planners were. Detuning and sleeving down their current 765cc three-cylinder engine and slotting it into a cheaper steel-tube chassis with even cheaper brakes and suspension is a price-point play, plain and simple.
Basic steel frame, two pot sliding calipers and a sleeved-down engine. I just can’t see what all the fuss is about...Some stickers and ten horsepower off the top; laziest rebrand ever
The retro styling is very fashionable right now, and the £7k price is extremely competitive, but it’s very telling that journalists coming back from the launch have been very polite and noncommittal about the performance. I’m sure it’s fine, and if you really want a new middleweight naked that looks a little less futuristic than the current alternatives then, by all means, go right ahead. But one day you’ll pull up next to a more powerful, lighter, better-specced 675cc Street Triple and I suspect that you may have some regrets. Low-mileage Street Triples from that era can be had for less than half the price of a new Trident 660, and won’t really depreciate much further. And if your heart is truly set on that single round headlight, there are kits you can buy for the Street Triple that’ll do that for you too.
Then we have the ‘new’ Triumph Tiger Sport 850. The name alone had my attention, as I pictured a smaller, lighter, more modern version of the practically Neolithic 1050cc-engined Tiger Sport. I imagined a slick half-fairing, aerodynamic hard luggage, and a full suite of touring creature comforts. Instead, some bright spark has put new stickers on the base-model Tiger 900 and taken 10bhp out of the engine. Hilariously, none of the marketing material suggests any actual mechanical changes, implying that said power cut was achieved solely through software changes. I daresay a Power Commander and some dyno time could get it all back just as easily.
If ever there was a motorcycle designed by the marketing department, this was it. The base-spec Tigers probably weren’t selling terribly well, as no-one walks into a dealer and then signs up for a fractionally cheaper PCP plan in exchange for losing most of the features that made the bike so compelling in the first place. My read on such models is that they exist purely to allow the advertisers to quote unrealistic starting prices in their ad copy, and are rarely actually purchased by anyone (I’m looking at you BMW). My guess is that no-one was buying base-spec Tigers, but Triumph didn’t want to lose the opportunity to write “starting from £9,300!” in their ad copy. This is their attempt to bring in some buyers who can’t convince themselves to accept the stripped-back option, but could live with it if they convinced themselves that it was actually the “sporty” option. It’s the most cynical thing I’ve seen a manufacturer do in a long time and suggests that Triumph are really feeling the pressure.
Ducati
Ducati are a brand I usually steer well clear of, because their line-up already contains too many things to tempt me. Admittedly, the purchase prices and running costs can usually throw a bucket of ice water on any serious notions of ownership. In the meantime, the brand is slowly but surely shedding everything that kept it rooted to the past, and not everyone is happy. Traditionalists are losing their minds over the fact that the new Monster abandons not only its iconic steel trellis frame but also the stylish single-sided swingarm they know and love. They complain that the reinvented version looks too much like the Japanese competition, which is deeply ironic if you know your motorcycling history. But I strongly suspect that folks old enough to lament the loss of these ‘defining’ features haven’t bought a Monster in years – they’ve been buying and riding far more powerful, expensive motorcycles and were never the target customer anyway. Younger riders who choose Ducati for their £10k naked bike aren’t likely to care how true to the spirit of the original M900 their new bike is. But they will probably appreciate the significant weight savings brought by that new extruded aluminium frame.
No trellis frame? No single-sided swingarm? Traditionalists hate it, people who’ll actually buy it don’t care.
I need to start playing the lottery…
It will be interesting to see how those older, more affluent riders react to the new Multistrada V4. If moving away from the classic L-twin and it’s expensive-to-service cambelts wasn’t bad enough, Ducati surprised the entire motorcycle world late in 2020 by announcing that their V4 Granturismo engine would also leave behind desmodromic valve actuation in favour of the same spring-based system that every other engine manufacturer in the world has been using for decades. Modern engineering means that the advantages of using separate followers to close as well as open the valves of a four-stroke engine have fallen away. And while tradition might have been reason enough to persist until now, switching to a mechanically-simpler system has also allowed them to double the valve-check service interval to a staggering 36,000 miles.
Kawasaki have been embarrassing the competition for years with their 26,000 mile intervals, and Triumph’s more recent large-capacity engines aren’t bad at 20,000 miles. But I’m willing to bet that plenty of Multistrada owners won’t ever cover 36,000 miles in the entire time they own the bike, trading in as many do every three years under their PCP agreements. Those owners will never actually pay for a valve check ever again. For people like me who keep their bikes for years and rack up six-figure mileages, this means significantly reduced servicing costs over the life of the bike. Throw in world-first features like adaptive cruise control and the kind of refinement and attention to detail that Audi’s stewardship has instilled over the Italian brand’s recent history and we’re left with a seriously compelling do-it-all motorcycle.
Tour, commute, embarrass sportsbike riders at trackdays…I bet you really could do it all, and perhaps even without the traditional flakiness and servicing expenses for which Italian motorcycles have been known in the past. The only two flies in the ointment are the reported thirst of that engine (compensated somewhat by the impressive 22l fuel tank) and the purchase price. In theory you could ride out of your local Ducati dealer on a Multistrada V4 for ‘just’ £15,500, but given what you’d sacrifice over the ‘S’ version, I daresay nobody will. I expect the base model to be quietly dropped after the first year, just as they did the cooking-grade Multistrada 950. Add the ‘Travel & Radar’ pack to get the touring basics like panniers and heated grips (as well as that fancy radar-guided adaptive cruise control) and you’re going to need to find more than £20,000. I’d also be adding a top box and a bit of crash protection, so let’s call it a nice round £21,000. At that price, it had damn well better be the only motorcycle you’ll ever need, because you’re certainly not going to be afford to buy any others.
Nick Tasker
First published in Slipstream January 2021
Next month Nick moves on to review the other Italian bikes that warrant some page space, along with the rest of the Japanese and the European manufacturers, Indian and Chinese, plus the electric bikes new to the market…
Are motorcycles finally ready to embrace electric motors?
2020 will be remembered for a lot of (mostly terrible) things, but it also stands to become the turning point for electric car ownership in Western Europe. A number of regulatory and social factors have collided with the relentless march of technology, and electric cars are finally good enough to replace their petrol-powered versions for many people.
There is now genuine choice from a broad swathe of manufacturers at a wide range of price points and form factors. Need something cheap and cheerful? The Renault Zoe has you covered. Got kids to haul around? The Kia E-Niro awaits. Money to burn? Sir or Madam’s Porsche Taycan is right over here. Time to replace your Volkswagen Golf? Try the ID3. All good cars at competitive price points, and despite their high-tech electric powertrains they are all genuinely usable real-world transportation.
Car manufacturers in Europe are under the gun of course, with new internal-combustion-engine (ICE) powered cars set to be banned from sale in the next couple of decades. The UK government has triggered one of the shorter countdowns, with 2035 looming large for manufacturers who have yet to dip a serious toe into electric waters. True, questions remain on how those forced to park on the street will charge their cars, and our high-speed recharging infrastructure is a patchwork of broken and incompatible chargers, but I’m confident that those problems can be solved in time. Price and range still leave room for improvement, but we’re honestly not far off. No, the bigger question and my chief concern is how our precious motorcycles will fare in this brave new world.
For now, the upcoming UK ICE ban does not include motorcycles and scooters, so it sounds like you’ll still be able to buy petrol-powered two-wheelers in 2035. Of course, there’s plenty of time for our Government to change its mind, and even if not, it’s only a matter of time before ever-tightening emissions regulations squeeze the petrol out of your tank. It’s also true that our electric two-wheeled choices are getting better, even if pickings are slim at the moment. In a few short years promising newcomers Alta Motors and Mission Motors have both risen and then fallen again, while electric pioneers Zero have been quietly, ahem, plugging away.
Despite Harley-Davidson’s £30,000 Livewire and its high-profile television debut garnering all the publicity, it’s Zero’s new SR/S that caught my eye this year. Essentially a faired version of 2019’s SR/F, the SR/S and its naked sibling mark a turning point in Zero’s product design and capabilities. Their previous offerings with their less powerful, shorter-ranged bikes never caught the imagination of mainstream motorcycling. Performance and finish quality equivalent to a 20-year-old Kawasaki Ninja 250 and asking prices not far removed from high-end Ducatis were of little interest to all but hard-core early adopters, though they did show up in some odd places. I’ve never ridden one because, quite frankly, they were just too expensive and too short-range to be serious contenders for any of my purposes.
But the new SR platform is a very different beast. Gone are the spindly wheels and questionable running gear, and instead we’re looking at proper modern sports bike tackle. Sure, the J. Juan brakes are an oddity and don’t quite match the bite and power of the best Italian or Japanese competitors, but twin four-piston radial-mount calipers are nothing to sniff at. Showa adjustable suspension front and rear ticks a quality box, while LED headlamps and a TFT dashboard present the very picture of high-tech modernity. But where you’d expect to see cylinder heads and a catalyst-packed exhaust system poking out from under shiny plastics, we instead see a lightly-finned battery pack and gold-anodised electric motor.
And what a motor it is. Packing 110bhp and a frankly ridiculous 190Nm from a single moving part, Zero’s latest-generation permanent-magnet brushless motor spools the fat 180-section Pirelli Diablo Rosso 3 rear tyre up through a maintenance-free kevlar belt drive. Numbers like this have to be taken with a pinch of salt, because the way that electric power is delivered is so different to what we’re used to. But in the right throttle mode, the SR/S builds speed more than quickly enough. I actually suspect that output at lower speeds is being limited by the traction control to prevent either burnouts or wheelies, and I wasn’t brave enough to try switching it off.
Conventional… until you notice the lack of exhaust
Zero were one of the first to market.
An unassuming piece, this beast of a motor has to be held back by electronics.
Even my dealer had trouble adjusting the settings, and that was with the bike stationary.
Electric motors deliver 100% of their maximum torque straight from zero rpm, so there’s no waiting for an engine to spool up and into its power band to make swift progress. But also unlike an internal combustion engine, that torque figure never gets any higher as revs climb. In unrestricted form an electric motor’s dyno chart would be a straight diagonal line, with output plummeting as revs rise. The Zero’s chart is weirder still, supporting the theory that the bike is massively limiting its output until almost 4,000 RPM. I suspect that 140Nm isn’t the maximum twist the motor can produce – it’s simply the maximum that the bike’s traction control system has decided that it’s safe to deliver.So what does that feel like to actually ride? Well, it’s…different. An electric motor under load actually makes quite an interesting array of (admittedly quiet) noises, and is honestly a lot more interesting to listen to than many of today’s overly-silenced petrol bikes under many conditions. It is utterly silent when stationary, however, and it’s almost eerie pulling up to a set of traffic lights and being able to hear the sounds of the city or countryside around you. It’s also hilarious to swoop past traffic on the open road in total silence, having changed no gears – just twist and really go.
There’s a hell of a lot to like about electric powertrains. Obviously, electricity is cheaper than petrol, but the fact that you can top up at home and leave the garage with a fresh ‘tank’ every day is a novelty that never gets old – or so I’m told. At a stroke, zero-emissions zones are of no consequence, and you’ll never wake up your neighbours leaving for an early Sunday blast, nor get dirty looks from people as you rattle past them outside peaceful village cafes. The instant on-demand power at any speed is addictive, and you’ll never experience a power train with more immediate throttle-response.
The ownership experience should be more relaxing, too. All those dirty, messy, oily reciprocating parts are gone, replaced with a big sealed battery pack and a spinning shaft inside some electromagnets. There’s no oil to change, no valves to adjust, no filters to replace – not even a chain to lubricate! Aside from your tyres and brakes there’s nothing to warm up when cold, nor anything to bed in when new. An electric motor is a devilishly simple thing compared to the incredible complexity of an internal combustion engine, and needs practically no maintenance. And that’s what makes Zero’s insistence on a 4,000-mile service schedule so baffling. Yes, pivot points need lubricating and brakes and tyres need checking, but not even Suzuki insists on dealer visits that often. Still, an electric motorcycle is a prime candidate for easy low-cost home servicing.
But there are downsides too – both to electric motorcycles in general and the Zero SR/S in particular. Electric motors are extremely efficient at turning energy into motion (95+% is not uncommon) with petrol engines struggling to convert more than 20-35% of their fuel into motion. Yet even state-of-the-art lithium-polymer batteries are hopelessly poor at storing energy when compared to liquid fuels. Based on a number of sources, it’s generally agreed that the energy density of a high-tech 14.4kWh battery pack like the Zero’s is handily beaten by just two litres of bargain-basement supermarket petrol. And that battery pack is heavy, pushing the otherwise mechanically simple SR/S up to a meaty 230kg curb weight.
The efficiency of that electric motor is a good thing then, because I doubt that even my V-Strom 650 would get very far on just two litres of fuel. But while Zero claim 150 miles’ range in the city, after just 13 miles of mixed riding I had already drained 23% of my battery’s charge. Ride normally and a fully-charged battery wouldn’t get you much more than 60 miles. Ride hard and you wouldn’t last an hour before stopping dead at the side of the road. Trundling in a more relaxed manner between public charging points might make a new type of touring possible, but one mistake and you’d be calling for someone to collect you in a van.
No clutch lever, obviously – just direct, instantaneous drive.
Commuting might make more sense. Regenerative braking, where ‘engine braking’ is actually the electric motor converting your unwanted momentum back into electricity, makes stop-start traffic a far less wasteful endeavour, and the average European commute would be comfortably handled by the Zero’s battery pack. My own ~70 mile round-trip to work and back might be a challenge, except that my employer has installed free electric charge points all around the parking lot. I’m the perfect target customer for a good electric motorcycle.
But while the Zero SR/S nails the electric part, it falls somewhat short on being a good motorcycle. I was actually surprised when I checked the specs later and found that the bike weighs ‘only’ 230kg, because on the go it feels like it weighs a lot more. In a straight line, even on bumpy roads the suspension does its best to hide the bulk, but arrive at a corner and suddenly you realise that there is almost no feel from the front forks. I can only surmise that the suspension and chassis are simply underdeveloped, the result of a tech company building a drivetrain first and a motorcycle second. The bike understeers when first tipped in, then dares you to lean it further to complete the turn, all while the front end is communicating nothing about how much grip is actually available. The contrast to Kawasaki’s identically-weighing Ninja 1000SX could not be starker.
Approaching a corner is almost as bad as riding around it. The brakes are fine, but again, the front forks let them down. You don’t have the confidence to squeeze hard, and for some reason the sportier the riding mode, the less of a braking effect the motors are programmed to give you. The result is that you freewheel into every corner as though in sixth gear, yet don’t have the front-end feedback you’d need to trail-brake to compensate. And before anyone suggests dragging the rear brake as a solution, it’s so ineffective that it’s barely adequate for slow-speed manoeuvres, never mind high-speed corner entry!
That battery sits low in the chassis, but doesn’t actually hold that much energy.
J.Juan front brakes are fine, but Showa-sourced forks deliver little feedback.
Unpack your sandwiches and a good book, and plug in the charger.
Direct-action shock absorbs bumps well, with plenty of adjustability.
Perhaps these handling issues are merely a symptom of my age-old problem – I simply don’t weigh as much as the suspension’s designers anticipated. Zero is an American manufacturer, so their average rider specification may well skew heavier than the European or Japanese brands. I am usually able to determine whether a suspension is otherwise good or bad just by riding it, and can make an educated guess as to how the bike would perform once adjusted for my lighter stature. But in the case of the SR/S, I simply can’t tell. Maybe the Zero would positively scythe down British B-roads after £1,000’s worth of suspension work, but that’s a heck of a gamble on an already £20,000+ motorcycle.
Switching the bike into ‘Street’ or even ‘Eco’ mode cranks up the regenerative engine braking in stages, and ‘Eco’ provides much more natural control going into bends as a result. But with the throttle set this way getting back on the power is so slow and woolly that you lose all precision, making corner exits a sloppy mess. My dealer tells me that it’s possible to configure a ‘Custom’ mode that would combine the crisp throttle-response of ‘Sport’ with the maximum engine braking I craved, so maybe that would provide a solution for more enthusiastic riding.
But switching back into a gentler mode for cruising is not easy. The clunky mode-switch requires multiple press-and-hold operations, and you’ll need to spend a frankly dangerous amount of time looking at the dashboard to confirm that your inputs have been registered before moving on to the next stage in the process. Imagine trying to program the timer on a digital watch while also riding a motorcycle and you’re just about there. The heated grips are a similar story – adjusting the heat requires delving into a menu and holding various mode switches down for a few seconds. Would an extra button or two really have been so hard?
And the thing is, when riding progressively an experienced motorcyclist will adjust their engine braking constantly by selecting the appropriate gear for the speed and difficulty of each corner. Binding the regenerative engine braking to throttle modes makes this impossible, and makes you wonder why there isn’t a foot-operated lever of sorts that would allow you to adjust the level of the effect in real-time? Electric cars do this exact thing with paddles behind the steering wheel, and the concept works perfectly.
The overall impression the bike gives is of a product entirely built around its core technology, with details at the periphery left as something of an afterthought. The much-lauded hard luggage requires one of the ugliest pieces of bolt-on scaffolding I’ve ever seen, and the optional top-box mount is barely integrated at all. The bike is meant to epitomise the latest in high-tech transportation, yet features what I believe are 2006 Triumph Daytona 675 filament-bulb indicators. The switchgear is rather cheap and nasty, and the plastic hatches on the faux-tank and charging ports are very flimsy indeed. When so much of the bike oozes class, these other pieces stand out a mile and would really spoil the ownership experience.
No gear lever, of course, but you do get belt-drive and a centre stand.
The seat seems fine for short trips; you’ll never get a chance to try it on long ones.
The seat and general riding position is relatively comfortable and nicely detailed, the paint and lines of the bodywork clean and uncluttered in pleasant comparison to many modern motorcycles. The wing mirrors are incredible – mounted low, like old BMW tourers, they provide a clear rear view completely devoid of shoulder or elbow. I’m a fan of the clean and easy-to-read dash, even if the user interface for configuring it is a nightmare. For my height the windshield works really well, keeping pressure off my chest but directing clean airflow at my helmet. With the handling issues resolved, it would be a lovely motorcycle to spend time on.
Low mounted mirrors are excellent, something other manufacturers should take note of.
Really well-judged screen is effective, with no adjustment necessary or possible.
Of course, that brings us back to the range, because you’d be spending just as much time drinking coffee while it charged as you would riding it. And that’s not really Zero’s fault, who have been relentless in their push to bring practical electric motorcycling to the mass market. Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire can reportedly get a little further on a full charge and has the added benefit of DC fast-charging support, rare as such chargers are in the UK. Given Harley-Davidson’s more extensive experience of actually building motorcycles, perhaps the overall result is a little more cohesive – although you’ll certainly pay for it. A brand-new LiveWire makes Harley’s petrol bikes seem cheap at an eye-watering £30,000 a piece.
Consider the specifications and performance of both these examples and you’d reasonably expect petrol-powered equivalents to cost around half what Zero and Harley-Davidson are asking for their premium electric motorcycles. And while electric cars seem to be around £5,000-10,000 more than their internal-combustion cousins on a spec-for-spec basis, it’s a fact that those massive battery packs add a tremendous cost to the parts list. The SR/S and LiveWire have batteries that are much, much smaller, so where is all that extra money going?
I fear that the answers lie in sales volume and development costs. Even if electric vehicle battery cells can be purchased wholesale from any number of suppliers these days, developing a good motor and the supporting electronics costs money. Then there’s the engineering required to slot it all into a modern chassis, whose design has been steered by the physical dimensions and necessities of internal combustion engines for more than 100 years. Styling, marketing, user interface design – all the things that don’t directly contribute towards the individual cost of a product must still be paid for in the end, and when that cost is spread over a relatively small number of customers, each sale must cover a larger chunk. Later, when all that prior expense has been paid off, and if the products continue to sell, then prices can come down. That’s why a new Suzuki SV650 today is significantly cheaper than its inflation-adjusted 1999 ancestor. Cars, even electric ones, can amortise those costs over hundreds of times as many actual sales, rapidly closing the gap on their petrol-powered versions.
The people who jump in at those early price points, who are willing to pay an outsized chunk of the manufacturer’s research & development costs are called early adopters, and it is they who Zero and Harley-Davidson and all the other nascent electric motorcycle manufacturers are aiming for. They need that money to pay for the work that’s already been done, so that future models can be offered to the rest of us at more palatable price tags. And perhaps some of that money will go towards refining the experience, sanding down the rough edges and ensuring that those future products aren’t just notable for their powertrain, but instead notable for being really great motorcycles.
First published in Slipstream December 2020
TFT dash is easy to read, but the user interface is an ergonomic disaster.
That battery doesn’t cost £10,000, so why is the SR/S £10k more than a Ninja 1000SX?
And if it sounds like I’m disappointed, it’s because I am. I really wanted to come back from my time with the SR/S gushing that it was worth the sky-high price, that electric bikes had finally reached the point when they were good enough to not only compete with conventionally-powered motorcycles, but to replace them as well. If you’re a technology enthusiast with money to burn and can overlook the many rough edges then there’s plenty to recommend here. But for everyone else, I have to recommend sticking with petrol for a couple of years longer.Nick Tasker Rear brake is terrible, barely enough for low-speed manoeuvres.
An absolute winner on paper; can the reality live up to my expectations?
Now here is a bike I’ve been waiting a very long time to ride. I never found time last year, and with the pandemic shuttering the country for months on end it’s taking some time to work through my shortlist of sensible do-it-all motorcycles. Can Moto-Guzzi’s retro-inspired entry into the increasingly-crowded market win me over?
On paper, things look pretty good. Technical specifications list a modest 80bhp from the modified 850cc version of Moto-Guzzi’s venerable ‘small-block’ twin pushing an acceptable 229kg wet weight. Part of this mass is accounted for by the class-leading 23 litre fuel capacity, a welcome sight in a world where BMW’s F900XR carries just 15 litres. ABS and traction-control are to be expected, full LED lighting is on-trend, but cruise control is still a welcome surprise. Four-piston Brembo front brakes bode well, and an air-cooled shaft-driven drivetrain is a fantastic recipe for a low-maintenance motorcycle.
Build quality is first class, even if aesthetics are highly subjective. I can appreciate the retro styling, but some colour schemes are definitely more appealing than others. There are fine details galore, including the Moto-Guzzi wings emblem designed right into the twin headlight housing as an LED running light. Paint is glossy and thick-looking but the number of exposed alloy surfaces suggest a salty winter might not be a good idea. Still, this is clearly a clean-sheet design – there are model-specific castings everywhere, and even the V9-derived engine is essentially all-new for this application.
Colour dash is modern, but very much a first effort with clunky menus and tiny text.
850cc 90-degree longitudinal twin has lost none of its character.
The rather small full-colour dashboard comes to life with a flashy animation, confirming that Moto-Guzzi are trying hard to be taken seriously in an increasingly high-tech market. But the noise and physical response that result from pressing (and holding) the starter button tell a very different story. The starter motor clunks, seethes, and whines, and the two cylinders cough and splutter into life after a second and settle into a loping, uneven idle. This is nothing like the refined experience recent BMW boxer twins have become; it’s far more akin to coaxing a Harley-Davidson to life.
That engine – and the sensations and motions it generates in the chassis even before you’ve selected first gear – set the tone for the entire riding experience of the V85TT. My words on that score should not necessarily be taken as criticism – I happen to love this sort of mechanical theatre. It gives each ride a sense of drama and occasion, but others may find the crudeness at odds with their expectations and quickly resent it.
Holding the bike upright in preparation for takeoff, the whole machine throbs beneath you, and blipping the throttle causes the chassis to twist to the right in reaction to the spinning crankshaft. Dropping into first is a little clunky, but once warmed up the gearbox is as slick as any I’ve used, to the point where clutchless shifting becomes easy and fun. Not that using the clutch is hard work – it’s feather-light, a modern affectation that hints at the modern engineering lurking beneath the old-school aesthetic. The ride-by-wire throttle is equally light, enabling the one-button cruise control and variable riding modes that, while having zero discernible effect, are de riguer for any new motorcycle in 2020.
Once on the move, the mixed bag of new and old starts to become more problematic. The brakes work as well as you would expect from premium parts, and the suspension is on the good side of firm, but never quite settles. Turn-in is a little slow, possibly due to the extra weight of those spoked and tubed wheels. Still, the wide handlebars make it easy enough to lever the V85TT into corners, where it will happily hold or adjust a line without complaint. Trundling around town, the throttle seems a little imprecise, and there’s a definite feeling of stumbling from the engine, especially down low. I suspect that tuning an air-cooled engine to pass 2020 emissions regulations required some difficult compromises, and the ride-by-wire throttle is clearly being used to filter throttle inputs in compensation for the dips and bumps in the torque curve.
I like to think I’m a technical guy, but I couldn’t get the V85’s cruise control to work at all.
Beautiful to look at. Worst seat ever.
Outside of 30 mph speed limits some issues become magnified. The bike I rode was still being run in, with the engine speed limited by the computer to just 7,000RPM. Anything above 5,000 generated an increasingly distressing array of Christmas lights on the dashboard as the on-board computer implored me to take things easy with the new engine. As such, short-shifting was the order of the day, and while the 850cc 90-degree twin is willing enough low down, there isn’t enough power there for progressive overtakes, and not enough of a rev ceiling to go in search of all of the power plant’s claimed 80 horses. Once the unusually-long 1,000-mile running-in period was over and the full range of the engine could be used, things might be easier, but I can’t imagine the engine vibrating any less at higher revs. While this is one area where I was unable to make a fair assessment, I’m confident in saying that this is an engine that will always be happier on a relaxed trundle than a spirited ride.
And honestly, that could be said for the entire motorcycle. The firm yet unsettled suspension detracts from the enjoyment of the ride, giving a worryingly numb or detached feeling. Combined with the rather imprecise throttle, the V85TT comes across as somewhat bewildered at or above the national speed limit – more of an ivory-handled butter knife than a carbon-steel scalpel. But then you have to ask yourself – what would you rather have in your hand when buttering a scone during an unhurried afternoon tea?
The fact is, the Moto-Guzzi V85TT might be very good at a certain type of motorcycling, and might be the perfect choice for a certain type of motorcyclist. That person would still need to do something about the horrendous windshield, which generated buffeting so bad it almost gave me a headache after an hour. Standing full upright on the pegs only just put my helmet out into clear air, while ducking right down improved matters significantly.
Next, a new owner will need to do something about the worst seat I’ve ever encountered on a motorcycle. I can see what Moto-Guzzi were trying to do – it’s narrow near the front to facilitate a shorter reach to the ground, and wider further back for comfortable seating. But pushing yourself back that far creates an uncomfortable reach to the bars and prevents you from bracing your knees against the tank. I understand that shorter riders need to be accommodated, but those riders would also have even shorter arms, making this configuration a lose-lose for all parties. Moto-Guzzi offer an optional comfort seat, but I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about gambling on that solution with my own money.
Every bike should have a shaft drive, in my opinon.
Mode switch seems to be entirely for show – the bike doesn’t feel any different regardless.
Exhaust looks bland and is mostly drowned out by the wind noise.
There are a few other small niggles. The indicator switch has no click when you press it, and very little travel, meaning that you’ll need to look down at the instrument panel to check if you’ve actually cancelled your signal. I couldn’t figure out how to activate the cruise control system, and it took two of us to deduce how to change engine modes, which, as I’ve mentioned above, seem to have zero actual effect. If you move your boots too far back or in and touch the frame you’ll discover the unpleasant buzzing vibrations that the rubber-faced pegs are hiding, so you have to be careful where you place your feet. And the tubed tyres mean that any punctures will require either tyre levers or a breakdown truck, rather than a 5-minute plug at the side of the road.
It’s a damn shame, as I’ve recently confirmed that the maintenance costs on Moto-Guzzis are hilariously low, thanks to those exposed cylinders and lack of coolant. Not only can mechanics get to the valves easily, adjusting them is the work of a moment due to their old-fashioned pushrod design. No chain to oil or adjust removes a tedious job at the end of a long day’s touring, and the oversized fuel capacity and impressive 55mpg should make for an excellent touring bike – and for some people I’m sure it will.
For my purposes, I need something a little sharper on a twisty road with fewer potential compromises to put down the £11,000 Moto-Guzzi want me to hand over in exchange for my own V85TT. It’s possible that I could fix the handling and comfort with suspension mods and a new seat, resolve the buffeting with an aftermarket screen and get used to the frustrating switchgear. Maybe I could convert the wheels to tubeless tyres, or replace them entirely with an aftermarket alternative. That done, I could perhaps enjoy the character and practical benefits of an air-cooled, shaft-driven Moto-Guzzi. But that’s a lot of ifs and maybes, a lot of financial risk I’d have to be comfortable with, and I’m not sure I’m willing to do that.
If you like what the V85TT has to offer but don’t actually do any long-distance touring, then the reality is that you can pick up a V7-III Stone for almost £5,000 less and enjoy that same low-tech, low-effort, low-precision experience while trundling around your local roads. But if you are planning to do a lot of long-distance travel or need something you can rely on as your do-it-all daily bike, I’m afraid I have to recommend looking elsewhere.
Can Kawasaki’s updated Sports-Touring stalwart win over a V-Strom fanboy?
Kawasaki’s Z1000SX has been a best-seller for the brand ever since it launched in 2011. It almost single-handedly breathed life into the dying sports-tourer genre of motorcycling, offering ageing sports bike enthusiasts an alternative to the unstoppable adventurer-tourer juggernaut. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, and has been revised every couple of years since with nips and tucks to keep customers happy. Now the evergreen bike has been re-branded the Ninja 1000SX, and has received a plethora of upgrades to match. Is it enough to tempt my fancy?
A first-generation Kawasaki Z1000SX actually made it onto the same shortlist as the freshly-updated Triumph Street Triple R, the bike I eventually purchased in 2013. Back then my criticisms were that it was expensive and heavy, and I was keen to try something light and flickable after my 250kg Suzuki Bandit 650S. But all the reasons I considered it then are still true today, and at £12,000 on the road for the Tourer model it’s downright reasonable compared to some of its increasingly expensive competition.
A shame then that it’s still a 235kg proposition, a mass figure that’s quite apparent when wheeling the bike around for photographs – and that doesn’t include the 56 litres of included waterproof plastic panniers that clip neatly onto the integrated luggage racks. You could save yourself £1,000 and choose the standard bike, but alongside those boxes you’d also lose the taller touring screen, tank pad and heated grips. The version I was given to ride for this review lacked all of those extras, but they’re certainly features I’d want on my long-distance touring motorcycle.
What has changed in the last decade is that motorcycle user interfaces have become significantly more sophisticated. Tucked away in the Ninja’s fairing is a neat little full-colour computer screen, providing more information than most people would ever want about their ride. The basics are all there – speed, tachometer, gear position – alongside some more modern content such as average and instant fuel consumption. Toggle through the display and you can also find some truly nerdy delights such as battery voltage and highest-recorded lean angle. You can even set the display to show you your current lean angle in real-time, a feature that is almost guaranteed to result in a spectacular crash!
While the right-hand switch cluster holds nothing more than an integrated starter/kill-switch, the left cluster has been hoarding the remaining buttons. Not only can you control every aspect of the dashboard from here, you can also activate this bike’s new killer feature – electronic cruise control. Z1000SX owners have been clamouring for this feature for years, and the best compliment I can give is that it works exactly as intended. What’s also new is the two-way quick-shifter, allowing you to change up and down through the gearbox without touching the clutch. Usually, I find these systems tend to disappoint, working only at high revs and at wide-open-throttle, but Kawasaki have clearly spent a significant amount of time calibrating their implementation. Any gear, any engine or road speed, any throttle opening – it just works seamlessly.
Passenger grab rails incorporate the mounting lugs for the 28-litre hard panniers.
Not as big and beautiful as BMW’s, but Kawasaki’s TFT dashboard is well designed.
So many buttons on the left cluster, and yet only a single switch on the right.
Quick-shifter works flawlessly up and down the gears; it’s genuinely useful.
Not that using the clutch is a hardship – it’s ridiculous how light modern slipper clutches are, and the Ninja is no different. Kawasaki apparently removed three of the six clutch springs and still somehow generate enough clamping force to keep all 140 horsepower directed at the rear wheel. The new electronic throttle is equally light. With no direct connection to the throttle plates, only a light return spring is working against your wrist, and the combination of the two controls makes tickling out into traffic as easy as on an automatic scooter.
Fuelling is ever-so-slightly fluffy at low revs when cold, but the engine quickly shakes off any cobwebs and provides entirely linear drive as you trundle through town. There’s no drama, it’s all very civilised, with no trace of the low-rev jerkiness I’ve come to associate with big-power motorcycles. What’s more, you can choose pretty much any gear you wish for this job – even sixth works just fine, the 1,043cc in-line four responding without hesitation or complaint to any request at any speed. Kawasaki could have left the engine modes on the drawing board and just reminded their customers that the gearbox will do the same job of modulating rear-wheel torque just fine.
Once opportunities to make progress appear, you might expect me to report that a twist of the wrist transforms the docile steed into a snarling, raging monster – but that simply never happens. I did find that you can provoke a slight head-shake through judicious throttle application in first gear, but the sophisticated traction control systems quickly bring things under control. Perhaps disabling some of these safety features would add a little terror to your day, but the only thing that makes the default bike scary is when you look down at the speedo and realise that you’re going a lot faster than you thought you were.
The brakes are excellent; the suspension sublime.
Rear shock preload can be adjusted easily to cope with luggage or passengers.
It’s deceptive. Whereas other bikes let you know you’re going fast through noise or vibration, the Ninja simply hums along quietly as you smoothly build speed. It’s almost as though Kawasaki have found a way to dampen inertia itself – you twist the throttle, and the tiniest moment later you are simply going faster. A lot faster. It’s just as well that the Kawasaki-branded mono-block four-piston brakes are so good, because you’ll want to know you can safely and quickly scrub off any excess speed before the next corner arrives. Overall, it’s honestly hard to judge your speed because it’s just all so eerily smooth…which is also when you first notice just how astonishingly good the suspension is.
You see, the way I can usually tell that I’m going too fast on most motorcycles is when I’m holding on to the handlebars for dear life while being bounced out of the seat. When I upgraded the suspension on my V-Strom I initially thought I’d wasted my money because nothing seemed to have changed…until I checked my speedometer. Good suspension does that – it lets the useful information from the road surface through while filtering out all of the noise and sharp edges that unsettle both rider and chassis. You should know that there was a nasty bump there without actually getting…well, bumped, and can instead focus on maintaining smooth, fast lines.
Well, the Ninja does that out of the box. I’ve never encountered a stock suspension setup this good before – it’s almost like it’s already been reworked for my 11 stone weight. Gripping the tank with my knees I could feel exactly what the front wheel was doing, could intuitively tell how much grip was available to work with, and as a result had more than enough confidence to scythe along atrociously-surfaced Northamptonshire roads within minutes of setting off. I was able to safely exploit the entire width of the carriageway, positioning myself and the bike for maximum advantage without worrying that I was going to be launched off my line by a mid-corner bump. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the council had magically resurfaced my test route just minutes beforehand. Amazing.
The trade-off for slightly softer, more compliant suspension is that you lose some handling precision. It’s the same on my V-Strom – at very high speeds you start to notice just a touch of vagueness, and the chassis seems to take a little longer to settle itself after big inputs – from yourself, or from the road. While the Ninja 1000SX enables a fast, smooth riding style, it also requires it. There’s no defying physics here – a 235kg motorcycle cannot be forced to react like a 190kg Supersport, and you won’t be flicking the big Ninja from side to side like a ZX-6R. It’s not exactly ponderous, nor are brakes or acceleration noticeably blunted by the extra mass as on some bikes I’ve ridden. I suspect that you’d want to tighten up the damping somewhat before your next trackday, but here in the real world, on real roads, it’s a compromise I welcome with open arms.
Wide, plush, comfortable – one of the best seats in motorcycling.
Tilt-adjustable windshield delivers good results in any position. Touring version is taller.
Supporting both the suspension and indeed my bony backside is one of the most comfortable motorcycle seats I’ve ever spent time on. In an era of narrow, scalloped designs prioritising low height over long-haul comfort, the Ninja’s seat is defiantly wide and plush. Another tricky area, wind protection, has also been resolved without apparent difficulty by Kawasaki’s engineers. The standard windshield can be manually adjusted for angle, and all positions result in a flow of quiet, clean air to my helmet. When so many stock windshields go in the bin on day one due to horrendous buffeting, Kawasaki should be commended for getting this part right straight from the factory.
What else is there to say? The wing mirrors are excellent, and even fold in neatly on a spring-loaded mechanism, allowing you to pop them back into position in seconds should you need to squeeze through a tight spot. Every light on the bike is LED, and the front indicators are even neatly faired-in for improved aerodynamics. You get a hydraulic preload adjuster on the rear shock for when you’re carrying a pillion or have over-filled those panniers, and both front and rear suspension is fully adjustable. Yes, you have to fetch your screwdrivers and do it yourself, but given how good the out-of-the-box setup is, that’s honestly not a problem.
Problems, in fact, are few, but they are there. The Ninja 1000SX is a sports tourer, and yet it’s unique amongst its competitors in not supporting the simultaneous fitment of both a top box and panniers. What’s more, Kawasaki say that this is on purpose, and that having all three boxes mounted at the same time would make the bike unstable at high speeds. Yamaha used to say the same thing about their FJR1300, but even they seem to have that figured out by now.
There’s also no way to mount a centre stand, as Kawasaki have filled that space with an ugly under-body exhaust silencer. Maintaining the drive chain would require a paddock stand at home, and an automatic chain oiler may be worth considering for solo tourists. Further still, because the Ninja 1000SX is technically a new product in the eyes of the insurance industry, the quotes I received were 50% more than an identical Z1000SX from the same insurers. Once the algorithms figure out that we’re no more likely to crash this new bike than the old one, prices should theoretically level out.
If I wanted to nit-pick I’d question Kawasaki’s mounting of the rear brake caliper underneath the swingarm where it will surely seize solid in winter salt. But they’ve been mounting it there since the 80’s, so maybe they know something I don’t. It does mean that paddock-stand lugs are set quite far forward, which might cause clearance issues for some stands. And I’m always going to wish they’d found a way to take 20kg out of the wet weight without compromising load capacity, but I guess that’s a trade-off I’ll have to accept. The dashboard screen is a little small perhaps, and I do worry that it will look out-of-date long before the rest of the bike does. And when everyone else is spoiling us with gold-anodized Nissins or big-block Brembos, the black Kawasaki-branded brakes look a little down-market. But honestly, these really are minor complaints.
No, the only big issues with this bike lie with its motor, and it’ll be up to each individual to decide if it’s a big enough fly to spoil the ointment. First up, my perennial bug-bears of fuel economy and it’s sibling fuel range. 19 litres of petrol seems like a reasonable amount until you look at www.fuelly.com and realise that 45 mpg (UK) appears to be average for this engine. That means around 180 miles to empty, with the low-fuel warning light coming on at just 150 miles or less. What’s softened my stance on this issue recently is the results of my research into long-term running costs, and determining that an extra 10 mpg really wouldn’t save you that much money, even over 100,000 miles. Maybe fuel prices will suddenly spike to £5 per litre and we’ll all switch to Honda PCXs, but otherwise it’s unlikely that many others will notice or care.
Paddock stand mounting lugs are forward, rotating chain adjuster is unique.
The second issue with the motor is down to the complexity and how it’s installed in the motorcycle. Kawasaki quote £400-£600 for minor/major services, and an additional £400 to check the valve clearances – more still if they need adjusting. That big engine is buried under bodywork, hoses, and wiring, and takes a long time to dig out. Combined with the poor fuel economy the Ninja 1000SX becomes one of the most expensive motorcycles to own long-term. It could be worse – valve checks only need performing every 26,000 miles, and if you’re comfortable handling oil and filter changes yourself you could save a lot of money while still leaving the really tricky tasks to the professionals. Still, that’s modern motorcycles for you – high performance, features, and reliability make for complex machinery. One more reason to look forward to electric motorcycles, perhaps?
The final issue with the motor is that it’s a little too good at its job. In-line fours have always prioritised high power-per-displacement ratios – it’s the boring choice, but it delivers results. Interesting inline-fours have existed in both cars and motorcycles in the past, but noise regulations have smothered raucous induction tones and made high-revving screamers impossible. The fact is that noise and vibration are waste products, energy not being used to drive you forward.
And while I still very much enjoy the aural sensations of an internal combustion engine, the tides are turning against us, with whole stretches of road in Germany and Austria now off-limits to all but the quietest bikes. The 1,043cc engine in the Ninja 1000SX has been around since 2003 in various forms, but it’s now so quiet and refined that I can’t imagine an all-electric drivetrain being that much different to experience. There’s a little more mechanical noise at very high revs, but it’s not really something you’d go chasing for aural pleasure.
Maybe you’d get used to it. Maybe you’d modify the airbox, swap out the exhaust, and liberate a little of that early-2000’s Superbike sound. Or maybe smooth, quiet efficiency is exactly what you’re after. Maybe you don’t want a torque curve littered with spikes that send the front wheel skyward when the engine comes on-cam. Maybe you just want to cross continents in speed and comfort, and then embarrass noisier, flashier riders as you overtake them on the outside of a corner while waving nonchalantly at them. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then the Ninja 1000SX might be just the bike you’ve been looking for.
I rode home after returning the Ninja on my de-baffled V-Strom, air-box and exhaust roaring a rousing symphony every time I slammed the throttle wide open for another overtake. It’s something I’d certainly miss were I to swap a mid-capacity 90-degree twin for a turbine-smooth inline-four. But the rest of the package is just so damn good that I may well forgive it this one flaw and learn to enjoy a different type of motorcycling for a while.
As with perennial questions regarding the length of a piece of string, the answer is always “it depends”. But it’s easy to forget that the showroom price tag is just the tip of the iceberg. Every year you pay for your share of the potholes with the road tax licence, shield yourself from unforeseen events with insurance, and pay your local MOT tester to confirm that your machine meets the minimum possible safety standards. On top of that you’ll be paying for fuel and servicing, both of which increase proportionally along with how much you actually ride.
These are the costs that are often forgotten when the smiling salesperson at your local motorcycle dealer is explaining just how cheap owning a brand-new high-tech, high-powered dream-machine could be. They’re keeping you focused on the cost of the equipment, and you’re forgetting that the cost of actually using it can be far higher. I’m sure that I’m not the only person who’s ever been caught in horrified surprise when the bill for the annual service is presented.
I’m always shopping for new bikes in one way or another, and at the moment I’m semi-seriously planning for my V-Strom 650’s eventual retirement. With my annual mileage, I could easily see 100k on the clock before the end of next year, which seems like a reasonable life expectancy for a well-maintained modern machine.
Are cheaper bikes actually cheaper to own over the long haul …?
It’s wearing its miles well, but I’ve decided that it’s time to figure out what I’m going to be riding for the next 100k. The great news is that there’s never been a better time to shop for an upright do-it-all motorcycle, so it’s time to do some maths.
My loose requirements have led me to a long list of Adventure-Sport and Sport-Touring motorcycles which, in their base spec, can be ridden away for £13,000 or less. That being said, I usually choose a higher-spec to start with and it’s always worth remembering that adding luggage usually costs extra still. Comparing apples to apples is very difficult indeed. I’ve used www.fuelly.com to estimate real-world fuel economy to the nearest 5 mpg (UK), and used my current local petrol prices of £1.069 per litre to calculate the cost-per-mile to fuel each bike.
I’ve also contacted dealers for each manufacturer to confirm the service intervals and pricing for each bike on my list. Some brands were a pleasure to deal with, and for some brands it was like trying to get blood out of a stone. Special mention must got to Blade Motorcycles Cheltenham who had one of their service managers call me directly to answer my questions and provide some valuable insights. Sales staff are trained to be friendly when they’re trying to take your money; knowing your dealer has a similar approach to their after-sales service is well worth while.
Despite my considerable efforts, the miles are starting to take their toll.
I’ve given up trying to get numbers from Honda, so their bikes aren’t represented in my data. I’ve called and emailed half a dozen dealers, and was basically fobbed off or ignored entirely. It’s also worth remembering that while manufacturers will specify the number of hours each service takes and the parts needed for each one, individual dealers control their own labour rates and part markups. The data I’ve gathered should be used as a guide only, and I always recommend getting quotes in writing from your local service department for any motorcycle you are considering, and then follow up with your own calculations.
Most bikes have a different service schedule, but all follow a fairly similar pattern that then repeats as mileages continue upwards. For example, every bike I’m looking at needs a break-in service at 600 miles, and most then follow with minor/major alternating services at fixed mileage intervals. In most cases, a major service includes a valve clearance check and adjustment, which dramatically increases the cost due to the time involved. Moto-Guzzi’s air-cooled engines need their clearances checking and adjusting at every service, but Yamaha’s only need doing every 4th visit.
To smooth things out and give a realistic estimate of long-term total cost of ownership I added up the total cost of servicing up to the point when it started to repeat, and then divided that by the number of miles it took to get there, giving me an approximate cost-per-mile for maintenance that I could extrapolate from. None of this included suspension servicing, time-based maintenance such as brake fluid or coolant changes, and tyres and other consumables need to be added on as well. But without any reliable data to draw from, estimates for those costs would be so inaccurate as to be worthless, and so I’ve ignored them here.
Finally, in order to get a comparable lifetime cost, I’ve assumed 100,000-mile ownership, multiplying the cost-per-mile of fuel and servicing by that number to get those total costs, then adding them to the original base-model purchase price of the vehicle. Again – these numbers are for comparison only, and your mileage will literally vary. But what we do see in these results is very interesting indeed.
I’m making a couple of assumptions (purchase/petrol price) but the numbers don’t lie.
Sorted by total cost, the results are somewhat surprising.
First up, some motorcycles and brands are incredibly expensive to maintain. Secondly, while some bikes are more expensive to buy up-front, their reduced fuel consumption and servicing costs can make them more competitive than they would initially seem. The obvious example here is my wildcard electric motorcycle, the Zero SR/S. Almost £20,000 for the base model with no extras, but cheap(er) servicing and tiny fuelling (electricity) costs mean that it sits right in the middle for total cost of ownership. An interesting detail here is that Zero want you to bring their bikes in for a service every 4,000 miles, something their dealer was unable to give me a good explanation for. An electric motor requires no servicing, so the only things your dealer is charging you (hah!) for are checking that nothing’s worked loose and inspecting the brakes and tyres. If there was ever a candidate for home-servicing, it would be this one.
Here it is: the most expensive all-round motorcycle you can own.
Triumph unfortunately lose this competition right away. Not only are their bikes priced quite high thanks to their features and technology, the relatively frequent servicing costs are truly eye-watering. The bigger Tiger 1200 fares a little better here with its impressive 10,000-mile service intervals, but the thirstier engine and high purchase price cancel out the gains almost exactly compared with the cheaper Tiger 900. Clearly Triumph’s engineers are placing ease of servicing very low on the priority ladder. That being said, the tick-sheets I’ve seen suggest that some of this is at least due to a far more thorough schedule of work – no other manufacturer that I know of includes greasing suspension linkages and changing fork oil as official service items.
Seeing Ducati taking a dishonourable second place shouldn’t really be a surprise – they’re expensive to buy, you expect them to be expensive to service, and that turns out to be true. The Italians have tried to improve matters in recent years by increasing the intervals with which your dealer will empty your wallet, but empty it they will. More surprising is to see Kawasaki nipping at their heels, with the Z1000SX and Versys 1000 siblings costing almost as much to run in the long term. It’s a triple-threat here, with Kawasaki pushing their pricing up in recent years as they’ve piled on the technology. This combines with frequent and expensive servicing and a relatively ancient engine design that delivers fairly shocking fuel economy figures.
Modern design and electronics, but thirsty and difficult-to-service engine raise costs.
Cheap to buy, frugal on fuel and low-cost servicing, but questionable reliability.
Almost as surprising was to see Suzuki’s V-Strom 1050 close behind. Suzuki is another once-budget brand that has recently developed up-market aspirations, and the elevated purchase price coupled with eye-watering service costs make for unflattering comparisons with the competition. BMW’s big 1250cc boxer needs servicing slightly more often than Suzuki’s venerable v-twin, but the ease with which the mechanics can access those exposed cylinder heads means that servicing is some of the cheapest around. You can push the purchase price up with frightening ease once you dip into the not-really-optional extras, but it’ll still work out cheaper in the long run than the decidedly less sophisticated Suzuki.
Yamaha’s Tracer 900 suffers from the same problem as other Japanese motorcycles. It’s becoming an expensive bike, especially if you start adding on luggage and opt for the better-equipped GT model I recently reviewed. But because valve clearances only need checking or adjusting every 24,000 miles, maintenance costs are kept under control, and like the big BMW it manages impressive fuel economy for such a powerful motorcycle. I’ll get to this later, but I’m also more inclined to believe that the Tracer 900 would last 100,000 miles without too much trouble, whereas I’m not sure the R1250RS would.
Same exposed cylinders and also no chain or coolant to replace.
Our two oddballs come next, coming within spitting distance of each other. In KTM’s case, it’s because the 790 Adventure only requires the attention of a mechanic every 9,000 miles, and owners are easily returning an impressive 60mpg (UK). Reliability is a concern, with recent KTMs becoming infamous for requiring unscheduled dealer visits even during the warranty period. Not a problem for some, but a deal breaker for me I’m afraid. The Moto-Guzzi needs more frequent servicing, but that work is very cheap thanks to the exposed cylinder heads and relatively low-tech engine. The V85TT also boasts shaft-drive meaning that chain and sprocket replacements will never be necessary. What’s more, an air-cooled engine means it will never need coolant changes, a further cost saving compared to all the other bikes I’m considering. A very tempting choice indeed.
Next comes another surprise. Despite featuring an increasingly-common parallel twin engine layout, the BMW F750GS and F900XR are apparently very easy to work on, resulting in very cheap servicing, even at a BMW main dealer. They’re not cheap to buy, especially when you pile on the usual practically-mandatory option packs, but genuinely impressive fuel economy helps to push ownership costs down further still. These new engines are made in China, not Germany, so reliability remains to be proven, and BMW haven’t exactly been winning awards on that score of late in any case. But if you got lucky, either bike represents a very affordable way to enjoy that BMW ownership experience.
Next comes another surprise. Despite featuring an increasingly-common parallel twin engine layout, the BMW F750GS and F900XR are apparently very easy to work on, resulting in very cheap servicing, even at a BMW main dealer. They’re not cheap to buy, especially when you pile on the usual practically-mandatory option packs, but genuinely impressive fuel economy helps to push ownership costs down further still. These new engines are made in China, not Germany, so reliability remains to be proven, and BMW haven’t exactly been winning awards on that score of late in any case. But if you got lucky, either bike represents a very affordable way to enjoy that BMW ownership experience.
Surprisingly cheap to own, but BMW reliability has been slipping of late.
Bringing up the rear in the best possible way are the quartet of Kawasaki’s Versys/Ninja 650 pairing, Yamaha’s smaller Tracer 700, and in last (first?) place, Suzuki’s own V-Strom 650. I didn’t do these sorts of detailed calculations before choosing my own V-Strom back in 2015, but it’s interesting to see that even if I’d bought new and paid a dealer to take me all the way to 100,000 miles it would still have been the cheapest bike in the segment to own. In my case I’ve saved money by doing my own maintenance, then spent it again on performance modifications, but so far my own records suggest that I’m coming in way under-budget. This is important, as all four of these smaller-engined ~70bhp machines still require a big-bike-sized amount of regular maintenance. Good fuel economy and low purchase prices help keep the numbers down, but their comparatively low-tech nature makes them prime candidates for learning to change your own oil and check your own valves.
Mechanically simple engines present a realistic home-servicing opportunity.
With rising price tags, the Japanese bikes are now competing directly with the Europeans.
We can draw some interesting overall conclusions from all of this. Firstly, while recommended retail price is a good indicator of lifetime ownership costs there are enough outliers to warrant closer inspection. Secondly, if a bike looks easy to service, then it probably is. Exposed cylinders make for quick, and therefore cheap, valve clearance checks, while complex multi-cylinder engines are generally difficult to work on. Thirdly, the Japanese manufacturers may want to be careful about how quickly they’re moving their products up the premium bike ladder. Most consumers – and in some cases, their own build quality and dealership/ownership experience – still mark them as more budget offerings compared to their European competition. If they drive pricing up to far too quickly, they’ll find that they’ll lose more budget-oriented customers to previously-dismissed players like Moto-Guzzi, while still being unable to tempt customers away from their new premium competition at Triumph, Ducati, and BMW.
Fourth, Triumph needs to get their act together. I stopped taking my own Street Triple R to my dealer very early on because of the laughable quotes I was being given for scheduled maintenance, and it looks like the latest evolution of that engine is even more expensive to work on. Ducati has worked hard to shed it’s expensive-to-maintain reputation because it was genuinely hurting sales. If Triumph can’t engineer their bikes to be easier and therefore cheaper to service then it won’t be long before they pick up that particular thorned crown.
Fifth, electric bikes are getting very close to where they could be seriously considered as sensible all-weather, all-purpose commuters. The range and charge time mean that touring is out of the question, but if you rack up big mileages riding to work you can just about break even with the petrol-powered competition. Just as we’ve recently hit a breaking point in electrically-powered cars, practical home-charged motorcycles could be just around the corner. It will be interesting to see what Fuell’s upcoming offerings look like in this regard, and even Honda are said to be preparing an electric version of their CBF300 with a focus on affordability.
Sky-high purchase prices are coming down but frequent servicing is a puzzler.
But as I’ve suggested earlier on, you’ll want to do your own calculations and see how the numbers stack up for you, but this should at least get you started and it’s enabled me to draw some interesting conclusions. Most bikes will never see the sort of mileages I’m suggesting, which is just as well as I don’t trust a lot of them to last that long. What’s more, while bikes like my V-Strom are proven to be reliable well beyond their warranty period, owning the likes of a BMW could potentially get very expensive once coverage expires. I’ve never seen a high-mileage Multistrada, but don’t know whether that’s because no-one rides them that much or because they all explode long before they reach six digits. I do know that my local independent Ducati mechanic is always over-subscribed, but maybe their newer engines are more long-lasting than their old air-cooled stuff.
One final point to remember is that every motorcycle is designed to a brief – it’s designed to fulfil certain criteria, and longevity is one of those. Honda know that Goldwing riders will hit six digits with ease and regularity, and a reputation for reliability is what keeps them coming back. That’s why Honda’s engineers spend extra time, money, and resources ensuring that those bikes probably will hit 100,000 miles without breaking a sweat. And I’ve seen a 50,000-mile tear-down of a modern Tiger 1200, and absolutely everything was still perfectly in-spec, a good sign that the engine had been designed to do big miles.
Improved reliability, but would you trust it to last 100,000 miles?
Doing high mileage? Buy a bike that can handle it.
BMW once told me that their customers trade their bikes in for a new one on average every 20 months, after which the bike is sold into the used market. Cynically-speaking, that second owner matters far less to BMW than someone who guarantees them a regular income for years to come by buying their bikes brand-new. If that first-owner, the person they’re trying to impress and keep coming back never sees 30,000 miles on any one bike, how much effort and money do we really think their engineers are spending to ensure that those engines will last two or three times that long?
Honda has an incentive to ensure that Goldwing owners’ reliability expectations are met.
But just as important as the design brief are your requirements as a customer, as a motorcyclist. If you like buying new bikes fairly regularly and never rack up big mileages, then long-term servicing costs probably won’t matter to you. If you ride infrequently, then the difference between 40 and 50mpg is completely irrelevant. And if you don’t depend on your bike for daily transport or regularly take long trips, then maybe you’re happy to risk needing that warranty every now and again. And let’s face it, thanks to PCP, a lot of people spend more on their monthly phone contract than it would cost for some new motorcycles. If that’s you, then knock yourself out – go enjoy the incredible variety of choice available to you at your local showrooms.
MV Agusta TVL: Money or reliability no object, my perfect motorcycle. But sadly, both are factors
But if, like me, you want to buy and keep a bike long-term and expect to put big miles on an engine without dealing with unexpected repairs, I suggest you be a little bit more discerning. Choose a bike that the manufacturer intended for that purpose. Do the maths and make sure you aren’t going to encounter any nasty financial surprises, and maybe you’ll find that some options you’d previously dismissed become viable choices after all. Do your homework and you can sometimes extend that new-bike honeymoon period to the full 100,000 miles.
With the global economy about to swan-dive into depths not seen for more than a century and many European governments piling on the pressure to speed up the transition to zero-tailpipe-emissions motoring, many are arguing that motorcycling faces an uncertain future. Some manufacturers are well-positioned and making positive steps to prepare for difficult times ahead, but many other old and established brands may well be caught short.
I’ve covered more miles on Suzuki motorcycles than all other brands combined, either owned or borrowed. Both of those I paid for with my own money were workhorses, used for everything from commuting to trackdays to touring, and while masters of no individual discipline they were undoubtedly competent at all of them. But miles travelled don’t translate to profits – quite the opposite, in fact, as those who actually use their bikes as practical daily transport contribute less to manufacturer’s bottom lines than our fair-weather brethren.
After 70 years, is Suzuki’s motorcycle business running out of steam?
We perhaps spend more on tyres, but dealer service schedules and pricing are directly at odds with the penny-pinching mindset of the year-round rider. And while modern motorcycles are more than capable of shouldering six-digit figures on their odometers without exploding, the market is skewed to undervalue well-used examples. PCP doesn’t work when a three-year-old bike already has 30,000-60,000 miles on the clock, and the steep depreciation hit makes regular replacement uneconomical. So we run our bikes until they literally fall apart, maintaining them ourselves to extract the best value-for-money from our investments.
The problem with building a great bike is that there’s no incentive for customers to upgrade.
The result is that brands who specialise in sunny-Sunday toys that get replaced every 18 months with well-padded profit margins have flourished in recent decades, while those making more basic but long-lasting machinery have struggled to maintain, never mind grow, their market share. I find it unlikely that the likes of BMW, Ducati, and KTM deliberately engineer their machines to fall apart after 30,000 miles; I simply suspect they don’t bother to ensure that they don’t. Their marketing departments work hard to engender customer loyalty towards their brands as a whole, not towards the particular bike that they happened to choose this PCP cycle.
Supporting that regular upgrade habit requires that there be significant perceived improvements year after year, so that a three-year-old motorcycle will seem old-hat next to the current version. While top speed, weight, and power figures were once the way to woo buyers with wandering eyes and bulging wallets, these days electronics have to provide the incentive to trade in early. But that kind of technological arms race is expensive, and those without the resources to invest in future product risk falling behind. It’s a vicious cycle – without the fancy tech to tempt owners to upgrade you don’t earn the profits necessary to fund the development of the next wave of marketable bells and whistles.
Goldwings are famous for easily swallowing hundreds of thousands of miles.
Owners love their Bergmans, but not enough bought new ones to justify further updates.
This might not be the end of the world if a given manufacturer could simply continue to sell their existing models to their core customers. But even if those customers weren’t eventually lured away by the promise of newer, better motorcycles, emissions, noise, and safety legislation mean that some degree of ongoing product development is essential. Wait too long and you’ll find you’re no longer allowed to sell some of your bikes, and your product range gets whittled away to nothing. With limited budgets, you have to pick and choose where to spend your research & development funds. And just like a battlefield medic, you sometimes have to let some of your patients die in order to save others.
This is the exact situation that Suzuki seems to find itself in at the moment. When the 2007 financial crisis hit, the Japanese manufacturers battened down the hatches, freezing research & development spending and hoping to ride out the dip. A number of European manufacturers did the opposite, using the time to develop new technology and modernise their entire product range. The result was that, as economies improved and buyers returned to showrooms, they found that there was no reason to replace their 5-year-old Japanese motorcycle – the brand-new models were exactly the same as the ones they already had in their garage. But the likes of BMW had leapt ahead, offering a truly next-generation range of motorcycles, and converting customers in their thousands. The fact that exchange rates meant that European exotica was not dissimilarly priced to more basic Japanese fare merely accelerated this shift.
Yamaha rallied magnificently with their modular 700cc twin-cylinder and 900cc three-cylinder platforms, designed from the ground-up to be fun and affordable for all. Their range was almost completely renewed in just a few years, with the resultant profits providing the necessary funds to keep bikes such as the ageing FJR1300 compliant with government legislation. Honda dragged their heels a bit, reluctant to invest in genuinely new engines and platforms, but also used their NC-series to corner the commuter/courier market at a time when no-one else was even trying to cater to those buyers. What’s more, their small-capacity motorcycles and scooters continued to sell in incredible numbers in markets that would consider a 750cc bike to be grossly oversized.
It’s also worth remembering that motorcycles are just a small part of Honda’s business, the corporation having plenty of capital to invest in long-term product planning. Kawasaki is an even starker example here, with motorcycles representing a mere footnote in a corporate portfolio that includes gigantic cargo ships and military aircraft. They’ve been able to regularly renew and refresh popular bikes such as the Versys 650 and 1000, not to mention the best-selling Ninja 1000SX, providing them with comfortable margins and a loyal customer base.
Yamaha’s bulk sellers earn enough to cover the costs of keeping the FJR alive for now.
But Suzuki has none of these safety nets, and has been struggling to attract new customers for more than a decade now. Their car business folded entirely in the United States and is facing tough competition across Europe in the low-cost segments from the likes of Hyundai and KIA. Their small-capacity bikes remain popular in south-east asia, but profit margins are thin and increased competition from the Chinese manufacturers is eating into their volume. Europe and America used to be the cash cows whose high-margin product paid the research & development bills, but those funds have been drying up for a long time now.
The result is that Suzuki’s product range has stagnated, with key lines being forced to retire due to increasingly-stringent emissions legislation. What little money remains has been spent carefully, one bike at a time, in the hopes of striking gold and kick-starting a sales success that could, in turn, fund further development of their ageing lineup. But time and time again it seems that the upgrades and face-lifts are too little, too late, and always one or two steps behind their competition.
A popular, steady seller, but the money for Euro 5 upgrades just wasn’t there.
The V-Strom 650 remains a steady, if unspectacular seller amongst the practically-minded, which is probably why Suzuki has continued to spend the minimum-necessary funds to refresh the design and stay ahead of emissions legislation. The fully redeveloped V-Strom 1000 launched in 2014 with the fanfare befitting a major brand’s new flagship, but BMW had stolen their thunder with the all-new watercooled and tech-laden R1200GS just one year earlier, and buyers weren’t interested. With PCP the new and exciting way to make expensive bikes affordable, the lacklustre residuals of historically rust-prone Suzukis made their bikes deeply uncompetitive in this strange new financial landscape. It didn’t matter to most people that the retail price was thousands of pounds cheaper; if you were buying on PCP, then BMW offered you a lot more bike for very similar money.
Pivoting towards their traditional cash-cow, the GSXR-1000, may have seemed sensible, and in 2017 we got an all-new litre-class sportsbike with modern electronics and segment-competitive horsepower figures. But this was the first serious effort in over a decade, and those traditional customers had moved on. With the Japanese brand now seen as a budget alternative to the more desirable European offerings, matching the now well-established upstarts on the spec sheet wasn’t enough to bring buyers back in sufficient droves. What’s worse, choosing to pin their hopes on these two big bikes meant that the money necessary to keep the GSX-R 600, GSX-R 750, Hayabusa, Bandit 650/1250, and even the Burgman 650 compliant with the latest round of European emissions regulations simply wasn’t there. Visit a Suzuki dealership today, and the choices are looking very limited indeed.
The 2014 V-Strom 1000 was fantastic, but customers ultimately voted with their wallets.
Which brings us to Suzuki’s latest refresh of their big adventure-tourer in the shape of the new(ish) V-Strom 1050. Suzuki is counting on the styling to do the lion’s share of the work, and it’s certainly succeeding in turning heads amongst the traditional motorcycle press. And if the public show the same interest, Suzuki is hoping that the technology upgrades will carry them the rest of the way to their cheque books. We’ve got cruise control, lean-sensitive ABS & traction-control, not to mention various gimmicks like hill-hold assist. We’ve also got a new LCD dashboard, just in time to be considered out-of-date next to the current crop of big-screen full-colour TFT dashboards the competition are triumphantly displaying. Still, it works, and it’s a pleasant enough bike that does a perfectly adequate job of being a good all-round motorcycle.
But while Suzuki have increased the spec to match their competition in the adventure-touring space, they’ve also upped the price to match, giving up their value card and going toe-to-toe with the likes of Triumph’s new Tiger 900 and Ducati’s Multistrada 950. And as much as I am a fan of Suzuki and their V-Strom line in particular, I don’t think this is a fight they can win. Personally, I’m not sure I trust Ducati’s engines to last 100,000 miles without serious work, and the servicing schedules and costs are clearly not designed with high-mileage riders in mind, but it’s a much more exciting bike to ride. My experiences with modern Triumphs suggest that they can shrug off salty British winters far better than a V-Strom can, but again – servicing costs become prohibitive when used regularly.
I’d like to say that this is an area where the new V-Strom has retained its edge, but dealer rates for both basic oil changes and valve adjustments are equally eye-watering. I’ve historically found that Suzuki’s motorcycles are very easy to service at home, so a competent home mechanic might perhaps choose the Japanese option for this reason alone. But as stated earlier, the people willing to spend £12,000 on a motorcycle and also get their hands dirty maintaining a 20,000-mile-per-year vehicle are a very small and unprofitable minority. Suzuki was hoping to lure in buyers from other brands, but I fear all they’ve actually done is freed up their existing customers to go elsewhere.
The new V-Strom 1050XT looks the part, but underneath it’s a 6-year-old bike. Competition is fiercer than ever, especially at this new, higher price point.
For my part, I’m planning to spend some more quality time with the top-spec V-Strom 1050XT soon. While my short initial ride failed to disappoint in the way that many over-hyped and over-priced alternatives have, it also failed to bowl me over. If my own personal V-Strom 650 exploded tomorrow and I wanted a well-specced replacement, it’s newer, bigger brother would do a fine job of filling those particular boots. But the market for sensible, upright, all-weather do-everything road bikes is now very, very crowded, especially at this price point. I’ve got an appointment to look at both Yamaha’s Tracer 900GT and have my name down for a ride on a Moto-Guzzi V85TT as soon as it’s available. Ducati’s Mulistrada 950 waits in the wings, and BMW are trying hard to tempt me with their new F900XR. And finally, there’s the Tiger 800 XRT that so impressed me last year, and its brand-new 900cc replacement.
If Suzuki can’t keep me as a customer, then who else is left?
There are a lot of motorcycles that, on paper, look perfect. Ride enough bikes and apply a little critical thinking and you can start to spot the things you like and the things you don’t in each offering. Eventually, you build up a list of the best aspects of each, mentally combining them into one bike that, if it existed, would have no peer. For me, that bike could well be the Yamaha Tracer 900 GT.
Years ago Triumph emailed existing Street Triple owners like myself a survey in an effort to discover what features and technologies we would prefer they focus on for future versions of our bikes. Many of the items they proposed in that survey made it into the current 765cc Street Triples, but one major variant never materialised. I’d always believed that my Street Triple would be perfect with a small half-fairing and hard luggage. Triumph teased that very idea in the survey, but it would appear that more power and gadgets were more interesting to other respondents.
MT-09-derived 850cc triple provides smooth, balanced power across the whole rev range.
Now that platform sharing has become the new normal, bikes like the Tracer series are inevitable. Developing, and crucially homologating a road engine is an expensive business, so manufacturers have joyfully embraced the opportunity to cheaply fill out their product lineup by reusing the same architectures. Take BMW as an example; there are Naked, Sport-Touring, and Adventure motorcycles based on their 1250cc boxer engine and associated running gear. The same is true for their 1000cc inline-four, which can be had in Supersport, Naked, or Adventure- format.
Yamaha’s naked MT-07 and MT-09 motorcycles donated much of their engineering to their Tracer variants, and the 700cc engine has even arrived in Teneré format. But while the Tracer 700 has previously proven itself a worthy adversary for the Suzuki V-Strom 650, the Tracer 900’s 847cc three-cylinder engine means that the bigger bike has the potential to represent that most elusive of concepts: a perfect combination of sporting performance, touring capability, and every-day riding practicality.
Low-slung exhaust hides a modern bulky silencer better than many designs.
First impressions of the GT-variant Tracer 900 are good. Four-piston radial brakes on adjustable upside-down forks? Check. Smart half-fairing with adjustable windshield and standard-fit handguards? Check. Integrated scaffolding-free lockable panniers with optional top box? Check. Cruise control, TFT instruments, LED headlights, reasonably large fuel tank and surprisingly frugal engine? Check. While 200 miles per tank is nothing to write home about in my book, it’s still welcome in a world where manufacturers are increasingly using theoretical incremental gains in fuel economy to justify smaller and smaller fuel tanks. Heck, you even get a centre-stand, something many other bikes don’t even support, never mind fit as standard.
There are, of course, also a few disappointments right off the bat. While the design is, in my eyes, a significant improvement over the ugly original, there are still a lot of untidily routed and exposed cables and hoses. Unlike the V-Strom 1050, the mudguard is too short to do any useful work. And despite this being a top-of-the-range flagship model in 2020, Yamaha still ask you to pay extra for indicators that don’t rely on super-heated wire filaments for illumination.
Some of the plastics seem a little flimsy, some of the decals look a bit cheap, and after experiencing BMW’s beautifully animated and easy-to-use TFT dashboard, Yamaha’s version looks functional at best. Brake hoses are cheap-looking rubber as opposed to braided steel, and the clutch lever is non-adjustable – something I’d expect to find on a 125cc learner bike, not a premium Sports-Tourer. Features aside, the Tracer can’t quite shake its budget-bike roots. This is a problem when the GT model now costs more than £11,000.
Pulling out into traffic, the riding dynamics of the Tracer don’t immediately impress either. When cold, throtte response is decidedly fluffy at lower rev ranges, and experimenting with the three throttle modes only seems to make things worse. Fixed in the lower of its two adjustable positions the seat seems to tip you forward into the tank, and even at its closest position, the brake lever is a bit of a stretch for small hands. The suspension seems fussy, never quite settling itself, as though the forks and swingarm are rubber-mounted to the frame. In reality, it’s likely that double-rate springs have been used in the forks, a common tactic in cheaper mass-produced units.
Handguards look small, but seem to be effective at deflecting wind and rain.
Once out of town and with the engine up to temperature, matters begin to improve. As familiarity with the light and sensitive throttle grows, so does the confidence to exploit more of the vast swathes of usable torque the three-cylinder configuration offers. Seemingly happy at any speed in any gear, choosing a different ratio merely changes how responsive the engine is to your throttle inputs. It sounds fantastic too, a rare feat on a standard exhaust system these days.
TFT dashboard is functional, but is beginning to look long in the tooth.
Front brakes work well, with plenty of power if not necessarily the instant bite I personally prefer, but further into the stroke the forks harden considerably causing the front wheel to chatter along the road surface and robbing you of any confidence during high-speed late-braking manoeuvres. Your mileage may vary along with your bodyweight, but once again we are reminded that motorcycle suspension will always be a one-size-doesn’t-fit-anybody affair. But while as a new owner my first stop would likely once again be MCT Suspension for a complete overhaul, once you start to turn the wick up it’s clear that the underlying chassis is excellent and the bike really starts to shine.
The riding position begins to feel much more Supermoto than Adventure-Tourer; you feel like you are sat much closer to the front wheel than on e.g. a V-Strom. I always believed that larger 19” wheels conferred an advantage on bumpy Northamptonshire B-roads, but Yamaha has clearly demonstrated that they can handle rutted surfaces just fine with the smaller, and therefore more accurate 17” wheel. There’s a sense of playfulness that other, similar bikes simply can’t match, helped of course by the class-leading 214kg wet weight. A modern frame and modern engine mean a 30kg mass advantage over many competitors, and the results are immediately apparent in how quickly the bike gains and loses speed.
It’s also a likely factor in how long the Tracer 900 can make its 18 litre petrol tank last. In mixed riding, the trip computer reported that I’d managed 56mpg (UK), something that Fuelly.com confirms is a realistic and achievable real-world average. Take it easy, and pushing past 60mpg (UK) should be possible, a remarkable feat for a bike that, in the right gear, can build speed with deceptive and frightening ease. More than once I found my grumbling about brakes or suspension tempered when I glanced at the speedometer and found that I had wildly underestimated my rate of progress.
And you know what, I was having fun. It was hot, muggy, occasionally raining hard, and I was threading an unfamiliar bike along unfamiliar roads, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Yes, the stock suspension is far from perfect and would definitely benefit from the significant and expensive attentions of a specialist, but the potential is clearly there for this to be an exceptional multi-purpose motorcycle. And yes, the windshield, even in its highest position, is far too short for me, but ducking down just a little resulted in a bubble of silence with rain streaming off my visor. Clearly, a slightly taller windshield would do the trick, but it’s not something I would be enthusiastic about spending money on given the motorcycle’s stated touring intentions.
Four-pot calipers are fine, but let down somewhat by the front forks under hard braking.
Furthermore, the cruise control refused to engage in 30mph zones, a maddening oversight given the obvious licence-preserving benefit, and the right-side pillion footpeg can catch on your boot if you ride on the balls of your feet.
The minor annoyances continue with unintuitive on-screen menus, and the clickable scroll-wheel on the right-hand control cluster is stiff and awkward to use. Your left boot will catch on the footpeg when trying to lower the sidestand, and the up-only quickshifter is clunky at anything other than high-rev, high-throttle applications. The fuel gauge won’t tell you anything useful until after you have less than half a tank remaining, and activating or adjusting the heated grips can only be done by navigating into a submenu. It’s all a little bit…unrefined. Unfinished. And like Suzuki’s V-Strom 1050XT, at this price point the Tracer 900 GT is picking fights with Triumph Tiger 900s, BMW F900XRs, and Ducati Multistrada 950s – all bikes with more brand cache and decidedly more premium user experience.
Seat is two-position adjustable and both gel and heated alternatives are available.
Of course, buying European carries its own perils, not least of which are the cost and frequency of servicing. With valve clearance checks not due until 24,000 miles, the Tracer 900 costs just 6p per mile to maintain, and Yamaha regularly tops the reliability surveys that the likes of BMW and KTM sink to the bottom of. The Tracer is also noticeably lighter than anything in its class, a side benefit, perhaps, of dispensing with any off-road pretensions.
Windshield is adjustable while riding and well designed, but about 10cm too short.
Quickshifter only works going up the gears and is awfully exposed in this application.
As such, the Tracer 900 GT definitely makes my shortlist, in a way that I’m not sure the heavier, more expensive, and less exciting V-Strom 1050XT does. I’m still going to be sampling more of the competition first and may yet be swayed by the Moto-Guzzi V85’s charismatic air-cooled engine and shaft drive, or Triumph’s genuinely impressive build quality and uniquely-configured three-cylinder engine. As always, I’ll have to weigh up the pros and cons and may still decide that the Tracer 900 GT is the best choice for me, even with all its minor faults. So I can only recommend that you do the same and make up your own mind before handing over your credit card.
Impractical, too small, no wind protection…a perfect all-round motorcycle?
Has it really been six years? My RoadTrip report reckons so. It was the 5th of October 2013 when I signed the paperwork and rode away on my brand new Triumph Street Triple R. More than 40,000 miles later the very same motorcycle still sits in my garage, and though the odometer ticks up far more slowly these days, it still puts a smile on my face every time I ride it.
Part of that is down to how light the bike is. Triumph’s engineers shaved several kilos off the Street Triple’s wheels, frame and exhaust system for the 2013 model update, shifting the centre of gravity forwards and creating a bike with the same power to weight ratio as the original Honda Fireblade. 105bhp goes a long way when you only have 180kg to push around, and the lack of weight also helps fuel, tyres and other consumables to last longer when compared with heavier and more powerful motorcycles.
What’s more, this is a bike that seems to be growing in popularity, even as its 765cc successor receives styling tweaks and a price cut for 2020. It’s weird how many people have approached me in recent months to ask me my opinion on the older 675cc Street Triple. Perhaps the fact that the new, 17kg heavier version adds so very little to the experience and costs more than twice what a good-condition used example does has something to do with it. With that in mind, let’s dive into what almost seven years and 40,000 miles can tell prospective buyers about this wonderful little motorcycle.
Continuous hard riding pushes MPG down into the mid-40s, but the average is impressive
Firstly, the engine is a delight to use. It’s torquey off-idle and, with practice, you can pull away with barely a hint of the throttle. And yet, it’s smooth all the way to redline with a screaming, snarling exhaust note that puts an inline-four to shame. You can ride around in the middle of the rev range enjoying instant throttle response or waft along in a higher gear returning seriously impressive fuel economy numbers. And with the world moving to bigger, low-revving twins, the joy of a genuinely usable engine that can still rev to 12,500 RPM is something to be savoured.
Brembos would be a little sharper, but there’s honestly no need, even on a racetrack.
The brakes are great; in the years since taking ownership, I’ve had chances to sample some serious Brembo equipment that beat them on both bite and feel, but only by direct back-to-back comparison. Low weight means less mass to stop, and your forearms will give out long before you extract full power from the twin 4-piston Nissins. Triumph equipped the Street Triple R with high-friction sintered-metal brake pads as standard, and it’s the only bike I’ve ever owned where I haven’t felt the need to deviate from the OEM specification.
The fully-adjustable suspension wasn’t quite as great out of the box. As I’ve mentioned many times in previous articles, it doesn’t matter how high-quality or how clever the components are – a stock suspension setup will always be a compromise. The average rider doesn’t really exist, which means that the spring rates and valving will always be set either for someone lighter or heavier than you are. I seriously considered trading the bike in after just a few months because the bucking over bumps and skittering around corners had my confidence in tatters.
When I met Darren from MCT at the London Motorcycle Show and described my symptoms, he was quick to confirm that I wasn’t the first person to bring one of those Street Triples to his attention. He reckoned that there was a design flaw in the forks and that remedial work was necessary. It was an expensive trip, involving modification of the fork internals, but the results were transformative. Suddenly, I was riding what every journalist had promised me I had bought – one of the best-handling motorcycles in the world.
A further tweak was the reduction of the rear tyre pressure after my TVAM Observer commented that the contact patch on my rear wheel looked far too small. Reducing the pressures from the 42PSI indicated in the owner’s manual to the 36PSI recommended for the almost-identical Daytona 675 resulted in a much less skittish rear-end. There was no drop-off in fuel economy, nor an increase in tyre wear, and my only explanation for Triumph stating different pressures for functionally identical motorcycles is to blame their lawyers. With no separate rider/rider-with-pillion pressures listed as with most Japanese motorcycles, I concluded that the Triumph legal team didn’t trust their owners to make the necessary adjustments, and erred on the side of caution when writing the owner’s manual.
Same frame, same wheels, same engine, same suspension… different tyre pressures?
Shaving off several kilos makes a big difference in such a lightweight machine.
The next upgrade, and one I thought long and hard about, was the exhaust system. Believe it or not, the sound or volume was not the primary factor here, rather that the stock system is huge, ugly, and heavy, taking up a surprising amount of space underneath the bike. The catalytic converter is a separate piece from the silencer, so my exhaust emissions remain unchanged, and I’m still within the noise limits for most UK trackdays.
And that’s more or less it! I wanted to keep the bike lean and simple, and resisted excessive modification. I tried a filler-mounted tank bag for a while, experimented with Lomo drybags and eventually settled on a stack of Kriega luggage for my touring needs. A TwistyRide phone mount coupled to a 3A 5V charger handles GPS duties, and a 12V socket wired into the tail unit provides power for a compressor when encountering punctures. And finally, I swapped out the throttle grip for one from a contemporary Speed Triple, reducing the amount of wrist rotation necessary to fully open the throttle. It makes the bike a little snatchy for those not used to it, but means I can enjoy the whole engine, not just the first two thirds.
Without fitting scaffolding to the back of the bike, tailpacks are the only luggage option.
Somewhat disappointingly the paint on the tank quickly became scuffed where textile trousers rubbed on it and the seat has actually cut all the way through to the primer. The official accessory crash-bungs failed miserably at their one job when I finally tipped the bike over at a standstill last year. The indicator hit the ground first, bending the small mounting frame behind the fairing and finally crushing and popping open one of the cells in the radiator. Luckily the plastic pieces weren’t too expensive to replace, and while a new radiator was more than £400, a local specialist was able to repair and clean the old one for a mere £15. There wasn’t a mark on the crash bungs. Useless.
The crash bungs had one job, which they failed to accomplish the only time they were needed.
Other than that, the only issue to report is a hot-starting issue that’s plagued the bike for more than 30,000 miles. Often, when stopping the engine just long enough to fill up with petrol it coughs, splutters and stalls when trying to start again afterwards. It needs a little bit of coaxing and then settles down after a few seconds, but I’ve never been able to figure it out. I recently met another owner who’d experienced an identical issue and traced it to the idle control stepper motor, so maybe I’ll see if I can pick up a used one and swap it out.
Straight bars are a real asset on a tight track like Mallory Park.
And that’s it! With the help of ACF50 my bike commuted through two British winters before the V-Strom took over that job, and the standard-fit stainless bolts are all still shiny. Triumph charged me a fortune for servicing to maintain the two-year warranty, then refused to help when the hot starting issue materialised, so I gave them the finger and have been doing everything myself ever since. Oil changes are easy, but valve checks are a nightmare and due every 12,000 miles, so you’d best hope yours don’t need adjusting! You’d also better have a Windows laptop and a DealerTool handy, as that’s the only way for home mechanics to balance the throttle bodies and reset the service warning indicator.
What of the new 765cc Street Triples that Triumph launched a couple of years ago – am I tempted to upgrade? In a word, no. The resale value of a 40,000 mile Street Triple would barely cover the deposit on the new bikes, and the extra power and needless riding modes don’t interest me. And if you read the small print, you’ll notice that Triumph has started quoting dry weights for their bikes these days, leading some short-sighted journalists to claim that the new bike is slightly lighter than the old one. More recently a magazine actually weighed one and found that the bigger engine and reinforced frame add around 17kg to the total mass, cancelling out the benefit of the more powerful engine.
And in truth, those changes wouldn’t really add to the experience for me. Traction control is always nice, but the fact is that there’s nothing a Street Triple can dish out that modern sport-touring rubber can’t handle, even at a racetrack. If Triumph had made good on their threats to create a version with a half-fairing and hard-luggage, things might have been different. But as it stands, it wouldn’t be much of an upgrade.
Scotland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg…
In the last six years I’ve commuted, visited friends and family, travelled the length and breadth of the UK, explored its limits on the racetrack and scraped my pegs around alpine hairpins. It’s handled the Hard Nott Pass and the Nürburgring, moved house with me three times, and eaten 5 sets of tyres. It’s drunk more than 3,400 litres of petrol, chewed up two sets of chains and sprockets, ground down four sets of front brake pads and even worn out a set of front disks.
I’m planning more trackdays, more trips abroad once the present situation opens up the tracks and borders for foreign travel, and still go looking for every opportunity to take my Street Triple R out for a spin on our bumpy local roads now we can get out there again. It’s not as comfortable or practical as my other bikes, it’s not great at motorways or in bad weather, and it’s the worst motorcycle I’ve ever owned for carrying luggage. But with motorcycles getting heavier, with electronics filtering our every input and with the days of new petrol-powered bikes numbered, I’ll treasure my Street Triple R for as long as I possibly can.
I’ll update you all when I hit 100,000 miles, or when it explodes – whichever comes first!
How many of you have ever actually looked at the section of your bike’s owner’s manual titled “Service schedule”? At best, you’ve maybe glanced at the long list, noted the intervals, and made a note to drop your bike off with your dealer or independent mechanic at the specified mileages. The problem with this hands-off approach is that you risk a lot of important stuff getting missed, and suffering the reliability and financial consequences later on.
Whether it’s listed in your manual or not, the official maintenance schedule for your particular model of motorcycle will be defined by your manufacturer. They will have dictated what needs to be done at what mileage and time intervals in order to ensure reliable operation of the machine, or at least to ensure a minimum of warranty claims. The obvious, common stuff will be things like checking and lubricating pivot points (levers, sidestands, foot pegs), checking that no nuts or bolts have vibrated loose, and changing the engine oil. This stuff is easy to do and doesn’t take long, so it’s relatively cheap and makes the customer feel like they’re looking after their bike. Without this work, you’d notice significant degradation in your end-user experience of the product, followed by serious, and easily observable technical faults, such as your engine exploding.
See, long-term reliability and performance isn’t always a priority for the original manufacturer. If you’re a good little customer, you’ll be swapping your bike for a new one every 24-36 months anyway, so any long-term issues won’t crop up under your ownership. If the second or third owner experiences problems, who cares? Those riders aren’t really their customers, so their experience isn’t as important.
Of course, this short-sighted view is why I’d never want to own a BMW or KTM out of warranty but might consider giving Honda, Yamaha, or Suzuki my new-bike money one day. And if no-one wants to buy your used bikes, then suddenly the PCP business model collapses, and your ‘subscribers’ can’t afford your expensive new bikes anymore. But making the maintenance schedule entirely comprehensive would likely hurt new-bike sales. Servicing costs are a significant consideration for many buyers, so Ducati has worked very hard to reduce the frequency with which their bikes need taking in for maintenance. Initial purchase costs can easily be dwarfed by running costs if you’re not careful.
After 33,000 miles, what was left of my V-Strom’s fork oil resembled muddy hot chocolate.
Ask an experienced mechanic what you should be doing regularly to keep your machine at peak performance and you’ll likely be listed a number of things that aren’t on any manufacturer’s maintenance schedule. For example, suspension. Triumph, credit where it’s due, instruct their dealers to change the fork oil as part of regular servicing. Fork oil degrades over time, affecting damping performance, but isn’t considered a service item at all by many manufacturers.
Of course, shock absorbers degrade at the same rate in the same way, and stock units on most bikes are usually not rebuildable. In order to return like-new performance, you’d have to replace the entire shock absorber every 16,000 miles or so. No manufacturer wants to put that on their maintenance schedule, as OEM shock absorbers are hellishly expensive. I once asked a BMW rep at a trade show what their solution was for people wanting to get the suspension on their R1200GS refreshed. With an entirely straight face, he told me that it would never come up because at 18,000 miles I’d naturally be trading the bike for a new one anyway.
Aftermarket shocks can be serviced every 16k miles; stock units can only be replaced.
After a few harsh winters, the running gear under your bike will be in dire need of some TLC.
Staying with suspension for a moment, most modern bikes have complex linkages designed to allow short-stroke shock absorbers to support a wide range of wheel movement. These linkages are usually slung low in the chassis, often placed directly in front of the rear wheel, and get absolutely pelted with rain and salt. What’s more, there’s frequently very little grease pumped into those bearings from new, and after just a few thousand miles of wet-weather use can often by at risk of seizing up and acting against the movement of the suspension.
Because of the torque being applied to these moving parts, it’s rare for a suspension system to seize solid – you simply get metal-on-metal grinding that quickly turns into expensive damage. In the meantime, you’ll experience added stiffness to the ride, but odds are it’ll be so gradual that you won’t notice until it’s too late. Dismantling these linkages can be a very involved job – on a Yamaha FJR1300 you even have to remove the exhaust system – making it very expensive in terms of labour hours.
In a dry climate, with a bike that’s only ridden in nice weather, you could probably go for years and not have a problem. But I’ve taken apart linkages on both my Yamaha T-Max and Suzuki V-Strom when they had relatively low mileages, only to find that I’d caught the problem just in time. One of the linkages on the T-Max was completely seized at less than three years old, and the bearings all showed tell-tale signs of rust. This premium scooter had a full dealer history when I bought it, but nowhere in the maintenance schedule are suspension linkages mentioned at all. But worst of all is when stuff is on the service schedule, but lazy mechanics don’t do it because it’s too much work. Depending on how honest your mechanic is, you might still be paying for the work, but I have strong evidence to suggest that my Triumph dealer never checked the valve clearances during my Street Triple’s 12,000-mile service, despite charging me for the work. “Everything was fine, nothing needed adjusting, that’s 3 hour’s labour please.” I can almost understand the logic; if you’ve checked dozens of engines and they’ve thus far been in-spec at the 12k mark, then it’s very tempting to assume that they’ll all be fine. But you can’t officially not do it, or the manufacturer will blame your dealership if there’s an engine failure under warranty. So you tick the box and move on to the next bike on your to-do list.
Steering head bearings are a similar story. Buried under fairing on many bikes, and requiring hours’ of work to get to even on unfaired models, checking, re-greasing and adjusting them must be a task that’s tempting to ignore. And how would the customer even know, one way or another? Steering head bearings can fail at any time, even if well maintained, and are considered a wear item. No warranty claims, no proof, no problem!
Getting to the steering head bearings is no mean feat, even on a naked bike…
The next problem you have is detailed service records, or the lack thereof. If you’re taking your bike back to the same main dealer, or a dealer with access to a shared records system, you might be OK. They’ll be able to look up what was done last visit and therefore know what is required this time, be it an annual service or something mileage-based. If you’re relying on a different dealer or a mechanic that simply doesn’t keep those kinds of detailed records, you’ve got a problem. You’ll have a stamp in the book showing when the last service was completed, but no details of what work was completed. So the mechanic will ask you what needs doing this time, and unless you’re like me and keep track of individual service items yourself, you’ll have no idea.
Is it time for the brake fluid to be changed? The fuel hoses to be swapped? Are you due a valve check or not? Some items are time-based, others on mileage alone, some a combination. Asking a mechanic to “service” your bike is like asking an artist to paint you a picture – you’re going to need to be a lot more specific. Asking for a “basic service” usually means changing the engine oil and filter, maybe an air filter, a check of the brakes, followed by a quick once-over to make sure nothing external is leaking or otherwise obviously broken. Do that same thing every year or every mileage interval and you’ll probably avoid catastrophic engine failure and maintain basic safety, but long-term reliability and performance will suffer, and you could be storing up some big, expensive repair bills for the future.
My approach is to meticulously document everything
Some independent dealers might list “bronze”, “silver”, and “gold” services, along with what each one entails. All will be generic, none will be model-specific, and even if you follow a sort of minor/major cadence there will be plenty of things that get missed from the official schedule – not to mention the unwritten list of other stuff that really should receive regular attention. The only thing you can do is educate yourself by talking to experts, asking hard questions of your mechanic, and keeping your own records and schedules. That way, you can be in control, can be sure that your bike is being properly maintained, and avoid some really nasty surprises further down the road.
Here are a couple of tips and best practices I’ve developed over the years:
Keep detailed service records of exactly what was done and when. Ask your mechanic or service writer for a full breakdown when you pay the bill.
If using an independent mechanic, do your homework and get hold of an itemised service schedule for your bike. If they are true professionals, they won’t mind looking at the previous work notes and official service schedule before talking to you about what they recommend needs doing based on your bike’s history.
Use forums and owner’s clubs to find out if there are any model-specific maintenance pieces that should really be added to the manufacturer’s list of service items. Discuss these items with your mechanic, with a view to seeking their advice – no mechanic wants to think that their experience is valued less than “wot I read on the internet”, so be diplomatic.
Find a mechanic you can trust and stick with them, making sure they understand that you’ll be using their services again. If they’re going to have to pick up the pieces of any corner-cutting, they’ll be less likely to cut those corners in the first place.
If you intend to keep the bike for the long-haul, let your mechanic know. The advice they would give to someone looking to keep a bike short-term might well differ from what they would tell someone who wants to still be relying on the same machine in 50,000 miles.
Have any particular maintenance tasks you think are frequently overlooked, or maybe a particularly clever way of logging everything? Send me a message and let me know!
A family relative recently advised me that they would be cancelling their subscription to a mainstream motorcycle magazine, commenting that they found my own reviews more useful and interesting than those written by apparently more experienced and certainly more professional motorcycle journalists. He complained that the reviews were all overly positive, with no real-world detail or relevance to himself as a motorcyclist.
Naturally, I was extremely flattered but advised him that he should temper his criticism somewhat given that, in many ways, I had a much easier job than writers who needed to earn a living doing this stuff. Let’s not forget that I write for both my blog and for Slipstream as a hobby, as a critically-minded enthusiast of all things two-wheeled. Then again, I too have issues with motorcycle journalism as it is delivered elsewhere – it’s one of the reasons I started writing about bikes in the first place. After all, if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.
So let’s examine some of the claims and see if they’re just baseless rumours, or if there’s some fire behind the smoke.
Magazines are paid-off by manufacturers!
I’ve heard from sources in the industry that this has happened in the past. It may persist in some quarters today, though editors I’ve heard from hotly deny it. My suspicion is that any coercion was and remains far more indirect, as motorcycle magazines are generally dependent on three things to survive:
a) Magazine sales
b) Press bikes
c) Advertising revenue
Online sources rarely have access to direct sales or subscriptions, with most content being delivered for free, but also have significantly reduced distribution costs. Printing and shipping magazines around the country isn’t cheap! Web media also have access to a far wider – often global – audience, although language barriers still restrict readership. There have certainly been instances when advertisers have threatened to pull advertisement spending unless the product is reviewed favourably, and editors have had to make some very difficult commercial decisions.
I’m certainly going to continue being suspicious of glowing reviews of products that are advertised on the same page(s) of a publication that is making money advertising said products. Then again, sometimes stuff is just awesome, and an accompanying advertisement is merely a coincidence. I would like to think that my own record speaks for itself, and I can certainly promise that I would sooner refrain from reviewing a product at all than write an artificially biased piece. Any advertisers wishing to promote their clients or products in Slipstream are welcome to get in touch but should be advised that favourable coverage must be earned, rather than bought.
Press Bikes are another issue. Magazines, both online and print, rely on free loans of the motorcycles and products that they write about – buying an example of every new item would be prohibitively expensive and uneconomically viable, given their current business model. There are some exceptions – me included – who stick to writing about bikes and products they’ve purchased or borrowed from dealers, limiting our scope but freeing ourselves from our dependence on the continuing goodwill of their providers. I’m aware of at least one publication that can no longer get access to Yamaha products, for example, after they wrote one too many scathing words about the company’s motorcycles.
Working in the Marketing/PR industry myself, I have to say that such childish responses seem counter-productive. Far from cowing the journalists in question, it’s simply guaranteed that their negative appraisal of the company’s products can never be reassessed in light of new developments. The journalist in question is still writing gleefully about how Yamaha sulkily took their toys and went home, and aren’t being given the chance to ride newer bikes they might enjoy and therefore write about more positively. You can’t hide anything on the internet, so a negative review simply helps put the positive ones into context and improves their perceived legitimacy.
Unfortunately, I suspect that there are a few journalists (and certainly plenty of influencers) who are at least partially cowed by these implied (or even explicit) threats and choose to tone down any criticism, attempting to balance their editorial integrity with their desire for press fleet access. You can learn to read between the lines on such pieces, but it certainly cheapens their value and limits their usefulness to the informed consumer.
My reviews depend exclusively on loan bikes from dealers across the country, and I’ve occasionally travelled significant distances for a few hours on a rare bike I wanted to write about. I also tend not to bother riding or reviewing bikes I don’t expect to enjoy, meaning that my more scathing pieces are written out of disappointment rather than schadenfreude. That being said, I’m sure there are one or two manufacturers who have blacklisted me in advance, just in case I do ever get in touch
Journalists are out of touch with owners!
As mentioned earlier, few – if any – motorcycle journalists have paid with their own money for the bikes they are reviewing. If they had, we’d have to worry about a different kind of bias creeping in. In the same way that few parents will admit that their own children are anything less than perfect angels, it can take a long time for someone to admit that their new bike has any faults whatsoever. And in truth, the reality is that modern motorcycles are all pretty good.
I may only ride each bike I review for a couple of hours, and there’s certainly a skill to quickly evaluating all aspects of a motorcycle that I’ve had to develop. Journalists with access to press fleets may have a bike for a few days or even a couple of weeks, and some publications occasionally run a long-term bike for months and thousands of miles. The longer someone spends with a bike, the wider the variety of circumstances and environments in which they use it, the more likely they are to expose any flaws in the design. In my case, even a positive review is intended to encourage a test ride rather than a blind purchase, and I always try to be clear on when I am speaking from direct experience and when I am merely speculating based on limited data.
Unbeholden to advertisers, I can deliver an unvarnished report (eg: not a fan of this Road King)
But even a long-term loan isn’t the same as handing over your own credit card. That is why the test-ride is so important. Even a professional journalist who tries to speak objectively is unlikely to ever be considering a bike they review for a personal
purchase. Motorcycle Journalism doesn’t pay particularly well, and with a constant conveyor belt of new bikes to ride, rarely have they the means or the need to buy a brand-new motorcycle for themselves. Some journalists are better than others, of course, but I challenge any of them to say, hand on heart, that they are as careful and critical of their analysis when their verdict will have no impact on them personally or financially. Every motorcycle I review for Slipstream is a bike I seriously considered buying, and long-time readers will note that my archives are littered with proof that I am occasionally sufficiently impressed to open my wallet.
I am convinced that this disconnect between purchasers and principle public mouthpieces is one of the reasons we’ve seen the average transaction price of motorcycles creep up over the last couple of decades. It’s no surprise that every BMW motorcycle delivered to reviewers is the fully-equipped top-of-the-range version. As a result, it’s equally unsurprising that the lucky journalists who get to ride these technological wonders are almost universally impressed by the experience. Personally, I’m far more impressed when a manufacturer can deliver a great experience on the cheap – it takes far more skill than simply throwing money at the problem.
I once saw MCN unfavourably compare a £10,000 V-Strom 1000 to a brace of £15,000 alternatives. Not once was the cost differential mentioned as a factor, nor some sort of weighting system used during the final scoring. That’s a bit like telling me a million-pound mansion is more comfortable than a £100 tent; quelle surprise! Yes, PCP has hidden this cost differential for many people, but that’s no excuse for ignoring the price entirely.
Judging by the sales numbers, far more of us are riding older bikes than brand new ones.
But even a long-term loan isn’t the same as handing over your own credit card. That is why the test-ride is so important. Even a professional journalist who tries to speak objectively is unlikely to ever be considering a bike they review for a personal
purchase. Motorcycle Journalism doesn’t pay particularly well, and with a constant conveyor belt of new bikes to ride, rarely have they the means or the need to buy a brand-new motorcycle for themselves. Some journalists are better than others, of course, but I challenge any of them to say, hand on heart, that they are as careful and critical of their analysis when their verdict will have no impact on them personally or financially. Every motorcycle I review for Slipstream is a bike I seriously considered buying, and long-time readers will note that my archives are littered with proof that I am occasionally sufficiently impressed to open my wallet.
I am convinced that this disconnect between purchasers and principle public mouthpieces is one of the reasons we’ve seen the average transaction price of motorcycles creep up over the last couple of decades. It’s no surprise that every BMW motorcycle delivered to reviewers is the fully-equipped top-of-the-range version. As a result, it’s equally unsurprising that the lucky journalists who get to ride these technological wonders are almost universally impressed by the experience. Personally, I’m far more impressed when a manufacturer can deliver a great experience on the cheap – it takes far more skill than simply throwing money at the problem.
I once saw MCN unfavourably compare a £10,000 V-Strom 1000 to a brace of £15,000 alternatives. Not once was the cost differential mentioned as a factor, nor some sort of weighting system used during the final scoring. That’s a bit like telling me a million-pound mansion is more comfortable than a £100 tent; quelle surprise! Yes, PCP has hidden this cost differential for many people, but that’s no excuse for ignoring the price entirely.
Motorcycles are still very diverse, so these generalist magazines have many different journalists on the books, each one with their own preferences and biases, each predisposed to look favourably upon certain brands or types of motorcycle. They also tend to be more familiar with the bikes they personally enjoy, and it therefore makes sense that a magazine editor would send their sports bike junkie to review the new Kawasaki ZX10R, rather than the weatherworn touring enthusiast. This means that each review is written by the journalist most likely to enjoy each bike, and least likely to question the core tenets of its philosophy.
A Kawasaki H2SX would likely be labelled as overweight and slow to turn by someone who preferred dedicated track bikes, and a relaxed touring enthusiast would flay it for its appalling fuel economy and missing top box. And while it might be amusing to read such reviews, it wouldn’t really provide any useful information to anyone. Of course, anyone who hasn’t figured out what sort of bikes they like won’t glean any useful data from a slew of universally positive reviews either. Match the right journalist to the bike and you’ll learn that every bike has good brakes, handles well, gets acceptable fuel economy and is sufficiently comfortable for longer rides. Everything is relative, unfortunately, and what’s comfy or economical from one person’s perspective might be considered shockingly poor from another.
I wear my biases openly, usually opening my articles with statements explaining what I was looking for in each case. I try to detail the parameters I consider good for each aspect and make sure to explain why I do or don’t like something about a particular motorcycle. I’m predisposed to favour less expensive, less powerful bikes, and value practicality, reliability and longevity over outright performance. I’m suspicious of technology for technology’s sake, and my particular physiology means I don’t find sports bikes comfortable, so I’ll probably never bother reviewing one – you already know it’s not going to be a positive write-up.
One big difference, however, is that I am aware of my biases, and can use that information to improve my objectivity. Even if I don’t like a bike, or rather, decide that it’s not fit for my particular purpose, I’ll always do my best to speculate about the purposes for which it might be suited. My hope is that this will help my readers draw their own conclusions and inform their own decisions. I can give friends and family members more personal advice because I know what their particular biases and preferences are, and can more accurately gauge which bikes I think they would enjoy or would fulfil their needs.
I’m afraid I don’t know you. You’ll have to make up your own mind.
Turns out an oversized scooter makes an excellent two-up touring bike.
While I ride some motorcycles purely out of a sense of curiosity, newcomers to this site may not realise that, in many cases, I’m simply documenting the process by which I search for my next bike. I usually have very specific requirements, and I’m always very, very picky.
In this case, I had a very specific objective. To achieve it, I first tried out a Honda Forza 300, then a Harley-Davidson Sport Glide, before finding what I was looking for in a Yamaha T-Max 530. That meant that it was time to put my money where my mouth was and bring home a very lightly-used 2-year-old matte-black ‘DX’ variant of my very own. Buying used always carries risks, and I assumed I was relatively safe given that Yamaha regularly tops reliability surveys. And with just 2,300 miles on the odometer there weren’t a lot of opportunities for the previous owner to have abused the bike before I took ownership.
Sadly, the honeymoon period lasted just 24 hours before an electrical fault prevented the bike from starting after I rolled it out of the garage the very next morning. As you might imagine, I was fairly aggravated, but a private sale of a just-out-of-warranty vehicle left me with no recourse. Without a wiring diagram it quickly became apparent that I was stuck, and none being publicly available for such a new bike I gave in and paid my local Yamaha dealer to take it away.
Six hours of labour later the technicians finally traced the broken wire buried under the fairing and I was back in business, albeit with my wallet somewhat lighter. Still, their exhaustive search meant that any other potential gremlins have clearly been driven off, as my new T-Max has been faultless in the 4,000 miles since – many of which were under fairly extreme conditions.
My intention was to use the T-Max for a two-up low-speed 3,000-mile tour of the Italian and Austrian Alps, which my girlfriend and I set off for as August drew to a close. Luggage proved to be more of a challenge than expected, with the official Yamaha top box inexplicably on indefinite back-order, and the aftermarket racks too ugly for me to seriously contemplate. I was able to track down the smaller of the two options from a German dealer and made do by moving some day-to-day items to a ‘Tunnel Bag’, a sort of scooter tank bag that wedges between your legs. I took the under-seat storage, she claimed the top box, and we packed light.
Engine performance was sufficient for the intended task, with the DX-exclusive throttle modes proving more useful than expected. ‘T’ is very relaxed, exacerbating the already rubber-band-like throttle response of the constantly-variable transmission. Perfect for rolling on and off the power while trundling around, but also responsible for making slow-speed manoeuvres even more difficult than usual. In contrast, ‘S’ mode is considerably sharper than the only engine mode on the standard T-Max I reviewed, and it was quite a shock the first time I tried it out.
The engine reacts instantly, and the CVT’s design ensures that peak power and torque are delivered to the rear wheel at all times. With a relatively light curb weight of 215kg – the same as my V-Strom 650 – the T-Max shoots forwards immediately, the rate of acceleration defying its 45bhp peak power figure. Coupled with the surprisingly supple and controlled suspension, I was able to keep up with far more powerful motorcycles when blasting around solo. Two-up the power deficit becomes more apparent, with engine response far more sluggish and a noticeably reduced top speed.
Buying used means that the previous owner pays the 30% depreciation.
Yamaha claim 100mph is possible, but with the electronically-adjustable windshield at maximum and a top-box and pillion adding extra weight and drag this is clearly a fantasy. I set the electronic cruise control to a GPS-verified 130km/h as we blasted down the French autoroutes, but with the bike loaded this way the computer was unable to maintain those speeds during some of the steeper sections to the east of the country. Still, this extreme stress-test does mean that the kevlar-rubber belt transmission is clearly up to the task.
… but a private sale leaves you with zero recourse if something goes wrong.
Suspension proved itself to be just as impressive two-up and loaded with luggage as it had when riding solo. That being said I was disappointed to discover that even maxing out the preload on the rear shock could not maintain the chassis attitude, sagging a few degrees under our combined 130kg. On darker days and in tunnels I was regularly flashed by oncoming drivers convinced I had left my high-beams on, and the maximum 45-degree lean angles were noticably reduced. The centrestand touches down first on the T-Max, and with very little give it would be very easy to lift the bike off the ground on sharper bends. I think a stronger spring or new shock may be in the T-Max’s future.
Brakes are another area that proved adequate for the task at hand, even if they aren’t up to enthusiastic use when fully-loaded. With the centre of gravity so low in the vehicle, there’s not a great deal of weight transfer, limiting total braking before the ABS cuts in. Braking felt perfectly safe and stable in most realistic circumstances, but the feedback from the chassis, suspension and brakes advises against hooligan behaviour. If you’re a quick rider, and like to ride as fast two-up as you do solo, then this might be the bike for you.Fuel economy seems enormously variable. Spirited, mixed solo riding returns around 55-60mpg, and relaxed two-up touring sits in the 60-70mpg range. The full-speed autoroute trip drained the 15-litre tank in just over 100 miles, meaning that we were filling up once an hour and just scraping 40mpg. Later experiments at slightly reduced cruising speeds saw economy climb into the low 50’s, proving that no engine is truly efficient when running at its absolute design limits.
Comfort and stability were fantastic. The electric screen allowed me to dial out wind noise under the vast majority of conditions and the seats were comfortable for hours and hours of riding for both rider and pillion. I would prefer the handlebars be set further back, but then I do have notoriously short arms, and at 5’8” I was easily able to stretch out my legs on the spacious footboards. The wide seat meant that I had to settle for tiptoes on either side at a stop, but putting a single foot down flat is perfectly possible with the other on the boards. The weight is held low in the chassis, so balancing when stationary is much easier than it would be for a similarly-weighted adventure bike.
Oil changed, suspension adjusted, luggage packed and ready to go!
There are only two “modes”, but unlike many bikes they’re both different and useful.
Handling wise you’re limited by the slightly odd-feeling front-end. The low centre of gravity means limited weight transfer, so the T-Max handles a little bit like a telelever-equipped BMW; you just have to learn to trust it. That being said, turn-in is sharp and light, with the smaller 15” wheels providing less gyroscopic resistance than the 17-19” rims most motorcyclists are used to. Ground clearance only seems to be an issue if overloaded or riding excessively enthusiastically, and in ‘S’ mode the engine is responsive enough to allow you to maintain positive throttle through bends. Conversely, ‘T’ mode adds enough lag to discourage faster lines through corners, and I don’t recommend attempting hairpins or other low-speed manoeuvres with the throttle set this way.
It’s worth noting that the T-Max’s automatic clutch disengages at around 12mph on a closed throttle, resulting in a sudden loss of engine braking – very disconcerting if you’re following slower traffic through a downhill hairpin. I recommend trailing the rear brake all the way through such bends with the throttle partly open to maintain control. While it’s definitely easier to execute accurate manoeuvres with a clutch, you can certainly learn to work around the foibles.
The advantages are that you never have to change gear, never wear out your left hand in traffic, and are never going to find yourself in the wrong gear on an uphill hairpin. Instead, you can focus on your Roadcraft, maintaining the right lines while enjoying the stunning scenery. Whether rolling through sleepy Italian towns or dicing through Alpine passes with sportsbikes and adventure bikes, the T-Max never missed a beat, and the only times I wished for more power were when overtaking faster-moving traffic.
More relaxed touring returned acceptable, if not hugely impressive numbers.
Back home I’ve filtered down the motorway and into central London with ease, collected groceries using the cavernous underseat storage, and genuinely enjoyed a few twisty back-road blasts. An adventure bike is still a better all-round motorcycle, and for many riders a big scooter might be a step too far if they enjoy enthusiastic riding on solo trips. Even on days when my girlfriend and I broke from the rest of the group and did our own thing, we never once found ourselves wishing we’d brought something bigger, faster or more expensive. What’s more, I’ve since taken the T-Max out on some local loops and can confirm that I had no less fun than when riding the same roads on my proper bikes.What won’t come as a surprise to BMW or Harley-Davidson riders is the sheer joy at not having to lubricate a drive chain at the end of a day’s ride, nor having to scrub oily residue off the rear wheel and surrounding fairings at every wash. The belt drive certainly has its disadvantages; if it ever needs replacing, the part alone is more than £300. But Yamaha does not quote a replacement mileage, merely an inspection interval, and I’ve spoken to Harley-Davidson owners who are still on their original belt at 75,000 miles. Pulleys weigh more than sprockets, and the whole arrangement saps power over a traditional chain. If you get unlucky and pick up a piece of gravel it’ll punch a hole right through it, but all things considered, it’s a compromise I’m happy to make.
The release button on the glovebox door became very sticky after a couple thousand miles and needed lubricating with silicone oil, and the 2-amp fuse on the 12v socket popped when I tried to top up one of my tyres using my compressor. The toolkit is extremely lightweight, containing only a screwdriver and a couple of Allen keys. Notably missing is the hex-key driver necessary to access the battery compartment, which would spell disaster if you managed to flatten the battery while away from home. You can’t bump-start a vehicle with an automatic clutch.
No chain to oil and so far almost 7,000 miles with no adjustments needed.
Not an inch of wasted space; I’m not looking forward to the valve clearance check…
I’d argue that servicing is both expensive and unnecessarily frequent, with an oil change every 3,000 miles, more substantial checks every 6,000 and even more work at the 12,000-mile mark, which also includes replacement of the internal CVT-belt. Labour charges add up quickly with so much bodywork to remove, and Yamaha’s prices for parts and consumables are fearsome. On the other hand, oil changes are easy, with Yamaha providing full instructions in the owner’s manual, and resetting the service reminder can be done simply through the dashboard.
I was able to figure everything out in the end, and in truth it’s simply a very compact motorcycle squeezed under some unconventional bodywork. Given how few of these are sold in the UK, it’s quite likely that the only difference between you and your local Yamaha mechanics are that they don’t have to pay to access the service manual. I may cave in when the valve check is due, as there’s not a lot of space to work with, but I have until the 24,000-mile service to make up my mind about that.
The tyres probably have another 2,000-3,000 miles in them, but uneven wear has affected turn-in slightly. A new set of Michelin Pilot Road 4’s are waiting in the garage, the newer version in the series not yet available in the T-Max’s smaller 15” wheel sizes. I’m also tempted to try a more aggressive pad compound, or braided hoses, for the front brakes and would like a more adjustable rear shock. But I have to remember that I didn’t buy this bike for high-speed hijinks, and that any upgrades need to be entirely focused on the mission for which it was purchased.
And on that score, the T-Max is an absolute triumph. Yes, it’s down on power compared to what most fully-qualified motorcyclists are used to, and no, the seating position isn’t for everyone. At the end of the day, you have to be honest with yourself about which features and specifications you’re insisting on out of habit or misplaced pride, and perhaps consider that there are alternatives to conventional wisdom, because it turns out that you don’t need a 1.3-litre 150-horsepower motorcycle to go climb mountains with your partner; a 530cc scooter works just fine.
Nick Tasker
First published in Slipstream February 2020
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