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.
The “perfect” motorcycle does not exist. This is largely because every rider is different, as is every ride. Break things down to a sufficiently-granular level and we’d each be switching to a different custom-made motorcycle for every stretch of road. At the other end of the spectrum we have a selection of choices in showrooms across the country, all of them heavily compromised to try and be ‘good enough’ for the ‘average rider’. I’ve never met this ‘average rider’, but they’re clearly nothing like me.
That being said, I never expected to be writing an article like this about my 2017 Yamaha T-Max 530 DX. The whole point of buying the most tricked-out version of a relatively high-spec bike is to avoid the need to immediately replace half the parts with better ones. My Suzuki V-Strom was poorly-equipped from the factory but I was able to improve both its performance and my enjoyment through aftermarket upgrades. So why was this necessary on my considerably more expensive T-Max?
The T-Max’s forks are quality items, but thicker oil and re-valved shims provide dramatic improvements.
The pressed steel shock housing was already beginning to rust; the milled aluminium replacement won’t.
Let’s start with the suspension. I mentioned in my 4,000 mile review that it seemed fine, if a little soft in the rear for two-up riding, the centre stand scraping at relatively modest lean angles. Turns out that was only half the story. Since writing that article, Yamaha recalled all of that generation T-Max to replace the centre stand and springs with newly-designed ones. The original design allowed the stand to swing down under the momentum of heavy hits to the suspension instead of keeping it neatly pinned up out of the way, resulting in it scraping when it shouldn’t have. So far, no more scraping.
That being said, a trip to my favourite expert at MCT Suspension confirmed that the rear shock was no good and delivered the bad news that it was not re-buildable, with aftermarket options thin on the ground. I eventually saved up for the only good choice – a custom-made Öhlins unit – but the verdict on the front forks was even more of a surprise. It turned out that the lack of perceived weight transfer was caused by said forks fully compressing almost immediately under any kind of braking inputs, never mind downhill two-up into an Alpine hairpin. The good news was that these were fully re-buildable, being basically R1 cartridge forks, something MCT have a considerable degree of experience with.
The results were, as I should have expected, transformative. Harsh impacts are smoothed out gracefully, with the scooter now feeling lighter on its tyres than ever. There’s more confidence when cornering, more usable feedback from the road surface in all conditions, and less wallowing in high-speed corners. Furthermore, a rear shock is an incredibly easy component to install at home and a great opportunity to clean and grease the linkage bearings. I’ve said it before, but coupled with a good set of tyres a suspension upgrade is some of the best money you will ever spend on your motorcycle.
The special 5-pointed adaptor is cheap to buy, but necessary to service the one-piece front brakes.Mid-winter salt can’t touch the powder-coated brackets or stainless brake fittings.Many brackets on the T-Max are made of the cheapest metal imaginable, corroding quickly.
With the front forks now behaving themselves under braking, the true weakness of the front brakes was exposed. Outright stopping power was there if you hauled on the levers hard, but it was clear that the single-piston rear was having more of an impact than all eight of the R1-spec pistons up front, which made no sense. Braking power was also very difficult to modulate, a typical characteristic trait of squishy rubber brake lines expanding slightly under pressure and creating a less-than-linear hydraulic force delivery.
A new set of braided-steel aftermarket lines would solve this, although in the case of the T-Max that meant disassembling half the motorcycle to extract the five different hoses and shipping them to HEL Performance so that the originals could be measured. This ‘upgrade’, at least, would not be entirely frivolous as Yamaha themselves suggest that the original hoses should be replaced at the four-year mark. Given the unbelievable amount of work this involved, I suspect few other people ever bother.
Next, the brake pads fit as standard to many motorcycles – even performance-oriented models – are a little on the hard side. This means that they last longer, which many owners would appreciate and means that they have a much softer initial bite, and manufacturers claim newbies appreciate. Given that an inexperienced rider’s reaction to poor initial deceleration is usually to panic and grab a whole handful of extra brake, I’m not sure I buy that argument. In any case, I wanted the maximum bite and the maximum braking performance I could get and that meant a new set of high-friction pads. I opted for EBC’s HH formulation, having had good results with them in the past.
The final piece of any brake upgrade is simply a good service. Fresh fluid would happen as part of the hose upgrade – the whole system had to be drained during disassembly. But I also took the opportunity to dismantle the callipers themselves, pulling out and cleaning the internals in the process. The one-piece design means that a special tool is required to unscrew the five-pointed caps from the outside, but once done makes rebuilding the callipers far easier than most. The seals were in good condition and could be reused, but the pistons were filthy and already showing signs of corrosion. Word is that the ones used in R1s are titanium rather than stainless steel and do not suffer the same fate, something I intend to investigate for a future upgrade. But for now, I was able to salvage what was already on hand.
These three jobs done, the T-Max now has the honour of being the best-stopping bike in my garage. Feel, modulation, and power are all first-class, the big scooter now boasting better brakes than even my Kawasaki Ninja 1000 SX. It should come as no surprise that a similar new set of hoses and pads for the Kawasaki are already in the garage and awaiting a quiet weekend…
While I had the T-Max in pieces, I also took the opportunity to remove all the bracketry for the brake lines and have them professionally powder-coated. As you can see from the photograph, both they and the thinly-plated metal parts of the brake lines looked like they had been dredged up from a lake after just a few winter rides and, with the stainless steel HEL hoses holding their own, I didn’t want the badly-corroded brackets to ruin the show. Powder coating is cheap and as you can see, effective.
Electrical upgrades included a 12v charging socket mounted in the battery compartment door, along with a single-led charge-state indicator. I installed the former so that I could have a high-current connection to the battery for my heated jacket and compressor, and to make it easier to plug in a battery maintenance charger. Lockdown effectively killed the (surprisingly expensive) high-capacity lead-acid battery Yamaha shipped the T-Max with and, with a high-tech lithium-iron replacement actually available for less money, I jumped at the chance to shed over 2.5kg from the front of the bike.
A special charger is needed to keep the new battery topped up without blowing it up and I’m advised that I cannot safely jump-start a vehicle with a Li-Fe battery installed, but so far those haven’t been problems. Less successful is the Gammatronix state-of-charge indicator. It technically works perfectly, and I’ve installed them on many other bikes with great success. The idea is that it’s small and unobtrusive, communicating a lot of information with minimum fuss. Solid green means you’re charging the battery at the correct voltage, flashing green means you’re a bit low, flashing orange means you’re properly draining the battery, and solid red means that your rectifier has failed and you should pull over before you fry your bike’s entire electrical system. The problem is that I installed it next to the 12v socket – useful when running a compressor to warn you that you’re flattening the battery, but not exactly in your sight line while riding the bike.
The modern LiFe replacement battery weighs less than 30% of the lead-acid original.
The 12V SAE plug doubles up as a quick-release battery charge connector
It goes without saying that I switched to better tyres as soon as the original Dunlop Sportmax’s were getting low (around 9,000 miles) and have been much-preferring the Michelin Pilot Road 4 Scooter replacements. They’re fantastic in wet and dry, warm or cold, with neutral turn-in and will hold any line you choose. I suspect they may not last quite as long, and at just under 5k on them I’m not sure I’d attempt a full lap of Scotland as they are now. Frustratingly, Michelin still don’t make a version of their newer Road 5 tyres in the 15″ wheel sizes the T-Max uses, which are pretty unique. I shall have to hope that Michelin keeps making the current versions for a very long time…
The Michelin Pilot Road 4 SC tyres are great, but nothing newer fits the T-Max…
Titanium doesn’t rust, and it’ll hopefully either sound good or at least be quiet…
The last upgrade I want to mention has been a little bit of a rollercoaster. I like to be able to hear my internal-combustion-engined motorcycles, and given that the T-Max’s 360-degree parallel twin shares the same firing order as my Dad’s Triumph Bonneville, I hoped that a slightly louder exhaust would also deliver its excellent aural component. With the homologated Akrapovic titanium system retailing at over £1,200, I understandably sought out a less official option.
I soon struck gold with a lightly-used IXIL system at a low enough price that it was worth a punt, and sure enough – everything was in the box. What’s more, IXIL are one of the few aftermarket exhaust manufacturers who still equip their full systems with catalytic converters. Seeing as we all have to breathe the same air I prefer to pollute it no more than strictly necessary. Installation was easy, and it sounded pretty good at idle – a nice, purposeful burble. But a few test rides exposed an unexpected problem – it sounded terrible.
You see, the aural interest from an internal combustion exhaust note comes from the variation, specifically how the tone changes as the load on the engine is varied through throttle inputs and engine revs. But the T-Max’s engine load is kept constant at all times through the constantly-variable transmission, and twisting the throttle open further merely increases the engine speed. The result is like the engine note from a racing videogame a couple of decades ago – the same sound effect, looped, and then pitched up and down with no further changes. The ‘upgrade’ hadn’t made the T-Max sound better – it had just made it louder. Less than two days later I refit the original exhaust and put the IXIL system up for sale.
That should have been the end of the exhaust issue, my regular joke now being that I’d actually prefer the T-Max to be quieter, and that I was looking forward to the inevitable hybrid and electric versions. But given my now-apparent intent to keep the bike long-term, I was facing a quandary. You see, for reasons known only to themselves, Yamaha had apparently made the original exhaust system out of poorly-painted mild steel and it was already starting to rust. And so, I returned to my search, this time focusing on trying to find a quiet-as-stock aftermarket system that was made out of something more durable.
Annoyingly, there’s only really one option out there: the aforementioned Akrapovic system. Homologated to be exactly as quiet as the OEM system and made from titanium and carbon fibre, rust would not be an issue. It took more than a year of waiting until a new-in-box example popped up on eBay, courtesy of a Yamaha dealer clearing out old stock in preparation for Christmas. I guess they were sick of it taking up space in their warehouse, and you can tell from a glance at the classifieds that almost no one was willing to pay the recommended retail price when new. So the exhaust was listed at less than half-price, and I was happy to oblige. The original mild-steel system is going to see out one more salty winter, with my shiny new Slovenian exhaust waiting in its box for a quiet weekend in the spring.
A brand new T-Max costs £12,000, yet still comes fitted with a cheap, mild steel exhaust system.
The replacement centre stand isn’t any better protected from the elements; powder coating is in the future.
But what of the parts of the bike I haven’t touched? Are they already ‘good enough’ for me, or do I still have further improvements planned? In most cases, it’s that I’ve tried and failed, having found the limits of what I can do with off-the-shelf parts. The fuel range is frustratingly low, and a change in traffic or weather can be the difference between needing to fuel up every time I make the 90-mile round-trip to the office or being able to squeeze in a second day before coasting to the pumps on the way home. The T-Max is so great for long-distance trips that having to start looking for fuel as soon as you hit 140 miles is maddening. Predictably, there are zero manufacturers offering bolt-on aftermarket long-range fuel tanks for such a relatively-niche maxi scooter.
I’d love to move the handlebars further towards the rider, as I’ve done on my V-Strom 650, but closer investigation has revealed this to be prohibitively difficult. Under all that plastic it’s just a standard handlebar in a clamp, so risers would work – but there’s almost zero slack in the myriad cables, wires, and hoses routed to the controls and buttons with which the ‘bars are festooned. Brake hoses and throttle cables are one thing, but splicing and extending dozens of wires to the various multi-function control clusters is a recipe for electrical gremlins. I have decided, for now, to leave matters as they are.
Every bike should have a manual hand brake; it’s honestly really useful.
Other issues? Well, I wish that the headlights were brighter, and being LED units already makes further upgrades impossible. Spotlights could be an option, though the lack of anywhere to mount them makes that difficult. More power would always be nice, and in East Asia the popular solution is to fit a tiny little turbocharger directly under the fairing. The results look hilarious, but I’m not sure that I’m quite ready to take such a dramatic step just yet. Yamaha already rebuilt the transmission for me under a recall (belt slippage at high speeds) and I don’t feel like pushing my luck on that score.
Headlights look cool and cast a clean white light, just not enough of it for dark winter commutes.
Of course, there’s lots that I’ve really come to appreciate about the T-Max. The handlebar-operated handbrake is fantastic for holding the scooter at traffic lights, allowing you to relax both hands and feet while you wait for the light to go green. I wish all my bikes had something similar. I really appreciate the keyless ignition, especially when it means not having to take my gloves off in the rain to fish around for a key. The small wheels and (relatively) short forks mean that the T-Max steers with precision, and you can really place it anywhere you like on the road. You can focus on absolutely nailing your lines through the corners, and with the upgrades to the running gear I never find myself arriving at a curve faster than I or the bike are prepared to deal with.
And what about the recently-updated versions? A couple of years ago Yamaha bumped the engine capacity and somehow the fuel economy, finally switching the remaining front indicator bulbs out for LEDs. This year the bodywork has been thoroughly refined, resulting in a more leant-forward riding position and narrower stand-over. They’ve also retired the two-gauge dashboard in favour of an all-new colour screen, with the option to subscribe for on-screen GPS directions. Of course, I’d have to do pretty much all my upgrades all over again, and the price tags the top-flight versions are commanding at dealers are truly eye-watering. So no – as nice as some of those features would be, I’ll stick with what I’ve got. When Yamaha finally bring out a hybrid version that gets 80mpg and can manage 300 miles to a tank, then we’ll talk.
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…
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!
Since returning from a European motorcycling adventure last year, I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn my experiences into an interesting article for the magazine. A straight-up ride report (“…and then we carved through yet another dozen hairpins…”) doesn’t make for terribly engaging reading in my opinion. And as readers of my scribblings will know, I prefer to try to educate while I entertain, and there’s always something new for all of us to learn.
So let’s consider this a review of sorts; a short(ish) summary of an unconventional motorcycling adventure, where I challenge conventional wisdom and somehow convince my first-time touring partner into coming along for a non-stop, full-speed dash through the European countryside.
To give you an overview, this was a 3,500-mile, two-week all-inclusive sampler of European motorcycle touring, an opportunity for me to show my partner what she had been missing all these years during which her riding had been constrained to our rainy little island. This included French motorways, Belgian forests, the valleys of the Mosel, forests of Bavaria, derestricted German Autobahns, Austrian food, Swiss Alpine passes, Italian roadworks, French lakes, Spanish mountain gorges and a lot of McDonalds restaurants.
Cramming my favourite bits of Europe and the entire Pyrenees mountain range into a 14-day vacation that included my own brother’s wedding was a little ambitious. 300-400 miles a day quickly proved impossible, with an average of 250 more realistic, despite my creative interpretations of continental traffic regulations. Rural road maintenance crews love to dig up (and then abandon) the only route out of town with maddening regularity, but empty sidewalks will work at a pinch. We also learned that Honda Fireblades consume around a litre of oil per thousand miles, and had ample opportunity to discover that 10W40 is pretty much the same in any language.
Pay at the Pump is one of the greatest inventions of the current century, and our continental cousins have embraced it wholeheartedly. So have McDonalds, with their restaurants now featuring multi-lingual touch-screens alongside table service. This means that meal stops can be short and your interaction with the locals can be reduced to an absolute minimum.
The more sociable among you may be horrified at the idea of travelling thousands of miles to computer-order the same bland-tasting American hamburgers for lunch, day after day, but the truth is that rural Europe really leaves you no choice. The Spanish and the French seem to compete for who amongst them can shut down the longest during the afternoon and, if you are somehow fortunate enough to discover some dingy roadside café willing to feed a pair of strangely-dressed foreigners with a limited grasp of the language, they do so only with extreme reluctance.
My purpose for travelling is to ride motorcycles on entertaining roads through spectacular scenery and the routes I chose clearly did not coincide with the European Good Food Guide. Google proved no help either, as outside of major cities what little information is available on the platform is inaccurate and incomplete, making the task of reliably locating any functioning establishment beyond multinational chain restaurants impossible.
And you know what? McDonalds isn’t so bad. The architects appear to have been competing with one another for the most interesting interpretation of the American fast-food staple, with regional variations in menus providing a modicum of culinary variation. The food is fine, the toilets are clean, the WiFi is good, and the air conditioning is extremely welcome. But most importantly, they’re open. And they have parking. And you can find them, easily, without having to detour to some traffic-clogged capital and traipse around baking city streets in a vain attempt to find somewhere that offers the bare-minimum of celiac-friendly menu options.
The Booking.com app means that you can pick your daily end-point during your afternoon coffee break, although first-time travellers should be aware of a few peculiarities. The French interpretation of the word Hotel is fairly broad and it is only after booking that it is possible to discover the latest allowable check-in time. This might be far earlier than you would expect and supremely unhelpful if you’re running late and still an hour away from the room you just paid for.
The following day we left Mandawa and headed for Bikaner, covering another good mix of road types and avoiding herds of camels. We were now really loving the Bullets, the big 500cc single, thumping away, exhaust burbling, plus the popping and banging on the overrun. We stopped off for a tour of the Fort of Junagarh then on to Bikaner, where we stayed in an ancient palace which now served as a 5 star hotel.
After a good breakfast of traditional Indian or European fare, we were back on our Bullets heading for the golden city of Jaisalmer, on the edge of the Thar desert. Dinner in the open roof-top restaurant watching the sun set on Jaisalmer Fort was spectacular. The fort looks like a giant sand castle rising from the sandy plains.
Breakfast Included is also subjective. In some places it’s a multi-menu banquet from 7am onwards, while in others you delay your departure only to discover you’d have been better off saving your money and opting for a petrol-station coffee & croissant instead. Our last hosts informed us upon check-in that breakfast wasn’t served until 9am – a full half-hour after our latest realistic departure time, should we still wish to catch our ferry. We left the room keys at an abandoned reception desk when we left. They’re just lucky I’d paid in advance before arriving as there was no-one awake to check us out either.
I do recommend picking somewhere that has an on-site restaurant, however. The couple of times we chose more characterful bed & breakfast options we got badly burnt when no alternative meal options were available in any nearby towns. The hotel’s own restaurant might not be the last word in quality or value but it’s better than cereal bars and bathroom tap water. I’ve decided to pack a can of baked beans and a tin-opener next time, just in case.
As for routes and riding, Europe certainly offers plenty of surprises. The observant number-plate spotter will note that while the British do not seem to venture much further east than France, the Dutch seem to have fled their own country en mass, with bikes and cars alike strewn across the entirety of German-speaking Europe. Petrol stations rarely sell anything other than E10, the 10% ethanol-fortified fuel that the continent switched to some years back. Those of you running newer bikes might notice a slight drop in fuel economy, while those running older machinery might notice it eating holes in your petrol tank and associated piping.
The Italians have an interesting way of discouraging speeding with, what I could only deduce were, speed-sensitive traffic lights. No junctions, no pedestrian crossings and they’d turn green again as soon as you’d stopped but if you approached them more slowly, they wouldn’t change in the first place – an interesting tactic, for sure. Speed cameras themselves are slowly spreading across the French countryside like an infectious disease, usually concealed and on otherwise perfectly safe roads. Fortunately the locals seem as unimpressed as I was, with the overwhelming majority having been comprehensively disabled through the generous application of spray paint.
Mountain passes, both in the Alps and Pyrenees, can vary tremendously in terms of traffic, road surface, severity of corners and width of carriageway. If a pass crosses a border, then you can often tell when you’ve moved into a new sovereign land not merely by noting the abandoned check-points, but from the sudden change in tarmac quality. Italy – I’m looking at you.
You might also find that a pass that was all flowing, well-telegraphed bends on smooth, wide, empty tarmac on one side of the mountain becomes a treacherous, single-width goat path with, in many cases, actual goats waiting for you on the other side of a blind hairpin. Cows, too, are frequently to be found enjoying the tarmac and evidently doing their best to cover every square inch in dung as they move up the mountain.
Tunnels are frequent and sometimes many miles long, offering a welcome respite from hot or wet weather. But beware – the smaller ones sometimes feature unexpected livestock seeking shelter from the rain, whilst the larger tunnels often sport surprise toll booths on the other side. The remote operators of these booths apparently subscribe to the very American idea that getting a foreigner to understand you is merely a matter of shouting more loudly at them, in this case through a tiny little speaker. It’s ok though; after a while they seem to give up and let you through anyway.
Choice of bike is important for a trip like this. A 100-mile tank range is insufficient, as taking the scenic route can easily mean fuel stops are necessarily further apart. Sportsbikes – even those with raised bars – simply aren’t comfortable for consecutive 10-hour riding days, and the rest of Europe seems to agree. We saw just two fairing-clad travellers in two whole weeks on the road. BMW has half the market sewn up with R1200GS’s littering the slopes and K1600’s and S1000XR’s dotted around liberally to break up the monotony. Harley-Davidson is clearly doing very well in Europe, with an easy third of our fellow bikers having chosen the bar-and-shield brand for their twisty, mountain adventures. Honestly, it was impressive to watch – limited ground clearance simply means your lines through the hairpins have to be spot-on.
But adventure bikes of all shapes and sizes are clearly the weapon of choice for travellers of all stripes. I finally discovered where all of Suzuki’s European V-Strom 650’s have been hiding – they’re all in the Alps, making the absolute most of their modest horsepower to embarrass their better-heeled brothers and sisters. More than once I wished I could hand out TVAM business cards as I overtook well-financed yet dangerously-unskilled riders on my way up a mountain. With cornering lines like that, they may well find their ride back down the mountain takes considerably less time than they might have previously expected.
No matter what you ride, make sure that you have a firm set of low-speed riding skills under your belt before you venture into these mountains. Some hairpins are closer to uphill u-turns than any of the bends you’ll encounter on our comparably flat little island. Also, ensure you have enough power and confidence to execute overtakes on relatively short pieces of road, or you may find a wonderful stretch utterly ruined by the maddeningly slow Fiat or Citroen blocking the view ahead.
Being comfortable on loose surfaces would be advantageous too. More than once we found the Spanish mountain roads strewn with gravel and at one point the racetrack-smooth tarmac simply stopped mid-way through a fast right-hander, becoming a genuine hard-core gravel track. My V-Strom took it all in its stride, but Jasmine on board her Fireblade was unamused.
Others may disagree, but I also recommend that you stick to a full waterproof textile suit for a trip like this. Leathers and waterproofs may be your preference for an unavoidable shower, but up in the mountains it’s easy to be caught by surprise. In the space of ten miles we went from sitting outside a café drinking hot chocolate in the sunshine to peering through dark clouds at flooded roads on the side of a mountain. If your default gear is already waterproof you can just ride on but anyone who needs to stop to get changed will already be soaked by the time they find somewhere safe to pull over. Heated grips can be most welcome, even in September.
Down in the foothills of Spain however, you’ll wish they were electrically cooled as well. Even in mid-September, and even in the hilly north of the country, we were consistently suffering high 20’s, with a genuine 33ºC predicted for the day after we set sail from Bilbao. A friend from Portugal had previously advised me that, should I wish to venture any further south, I should restrict my plans to early spring at the latest, and I think I can see why.
If you’ve never travelled in Europe, you’ve really got to get out there. TVAM runs a number of trips each year, with several specifically designed for first-timers to get their first taste of riding on the right. And it’s really very easy, and relatively inexpensive – the Eurotunnel is around £80 return for bikes and even less if you’re going for five days or fewer. Weekend trips are doable and your range only increases if you can get a Friday or a Monday off work too.
Travel light, take a toolkit, keep your smartphone charged up and enjoy Europe before they decide they don’t want us difficult Brits visiting anymore.
During the very first NEC motorcycle show I attended after bringing home my shiny new Triumph Street Triple R, my brother and I bought our very first sets of leathers. That may seem bizarre to those of you for whom that has always been your standard biking attire, but for many of us whose biking role models were Ewan McGregor rather than Kevin Schwanz, textiles are the default. The plan was to do our first trackday that following summer, but it’s amazing how easily something like that is put off, again and again.
Fast-forward to 2018 and Pat Coneley persuaded me to give his Road Skills Day at Thruxton a go, which aside from a single session at Brand’s Hatch and a terrifying lap of the Nürburgring, was my first real on-track experience. But as you’ll know if you’ve attended one of these yourselves, that was not a trackday. Riding a V-Strom and wearing textiles, we were limited to 100mph with artificial chicanes and had braking and turn-in markers laid out for us to aim for. Remember: Road Skills Day!
I learnt a lot from my instructor, and the experience as a whole, not least of which that it is possible to ride around a racetrack all day without crashing. What’s more, if I could do it on Michelin Pilot Road 5’s on skinny adventure-bike wheels, then it should be even easier on my Triumph. With my girlfriend itching to drag me along to a ‘proper’ trackday, I had run out of excuses, and so signed up for the No Limits Novice group, and prepared to depart for Mallory Park.
I packed a water bottle, tyre pressure gauge and compressor, along with a handful of cereal bars and sandwiches before setting the alarm for 5am. With sign-on at 7:30 and a planned petrol stop just before reaching the track I needed to leave plenty of time to arrive fueled-up and ready for the safety briefing.
As it happened, I needn’t have worried – traffic is understandably light that early in the morning, and unlike almost everyone else who had arrived in the paddock, I had no van to unload, no tyre-warmers to attach and no maintenance to perform. I had even printed and filled out the requested paperwork in advance, something I soon discovered made me practically unique amongst my fellow riders!
After dropping off the forms and collecting the appropriately coloured wristband, I had some time to kill, and began chatting to the other riders I was sharing the garage with. All were trackday veterans, despite several having placed themselves in the same Novice Group as I. Given that I was expecting to be sharing my sessions with nervous riders wobbling around on a variety of inappropriate machinery, this was certainly something of a surprise.
Looking around the crowd at the safety briefing was also enlightening – the vast majority of riders were men in their 40’s, with a few younger riders and two women. Despite this depressing gender imbalance, the sexist banter I was expecting failed to materialise, with my girlfriend experiencing nothing but friendly helpfulness all day. Aside from a few people mistakenly assuming that it was I, not her, riding the tricked-out Fireblade, there was no trace of the prejudice or stereotyping that often follows female riders wherever they go.
Noise testing (another item I had concerns about) proved another non-issue. My Street Triple on it’s after-market Scorpion exhaust had been measured at 105db by the over-zealous tester at Brand’s Hatch, leading me to suspect I’d never pass the 103db maximum allowed at Mallory Park. Assurances from my mechanic proved true however, with the baffled exhaust measuring just 97db when tested according to ACU regulations. If you’ve got a trackday of your own planned, I recommend getting your bike tested ahead of time, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear some fairly noisy bikes fly through under the limit.
When the tannoy called out for Novice riders to come to the pits, I was certainly nervous. How would I know when to brake and when to turn in? Without the usual roadside furniture of trees and streetlights, and the ever-present road-markings, how would I know how fast I was going? My major recollection from the single session at Brand’s Hatch was that the tarmac seemed to go on forever in every direction and that corners came at you out of nowhere. I was worried that I would low-side in the very first bend. I needn’t have worried.
The fact is, the track was very easy to read. Coloured rumble strips on the apexes of all the corners made the edges of the track easy to spot, and after a couple of sighting laps I was already winding the engine up to the limiter and leaning more, all while looking for overtaking opportunities past slower riders. Everything I’d learned at Thruxton came back to me, with braking and turn-in points easy to figure out after a few corners. The trick, just as then, was to start slow and build speed gently over time.
At the end of my first twenty-minute session, I was surprised to discover how warm I was, despite the cool morning air and uninsulated leathers. Remembering the advice on the Road Skills Day I’d brought along – and proceeded to drink – plenty of water, and topped up my energy with a cereal bar or two between sessions. With each of the three groups running back-to-back, I only had limited time to cool off and admire the shrinking chicken strips on my rear tyre before the call to the pit lane rang out once more.
After my second trip out I was already lapping some riders in my group, and out-braking most others in some of the tighter turns. The forward planning and smooth riding we learn from our Observers is just as important on track, and there were quite a few riders on track that day who could benefit from some advanced training. The long, fast corners were giving me difficulty, however, so it was time to seek expert advice specific to track riding.
Noise testing (another item I had concerns about) proved another non-issue. My Street Triple on it’s after-market Scorpion exhaust had been measured at 105db by the over-zealous tester at Brand’s Hatch, leading me to suspect I’d never pass the 103db maximum allowed at Mallory Park. Assurances from my mechanic proved true however, with the baffled exhaust measuring just 97db when tested according to ACU regulations. If you’ve got a trackday of your own planned, I recommend getting your bike tested ahead of time, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear some fairly noisy bikes fly through under the limit.
When the tannoy called out for Novice riders to come to the pits, I was certainly nervous. How would I know when to brake and when to turn in? Without the usual roadside furniture of trees and streetlights, and the ever-present road-markings, how would I know how fast I was going? My major recollection from the single session at Brand’s Hatch was that the tarmac seemed to go on forever in every direction and that corners came at you out of nowhere. I was worried that I would low-side in the very first bend. I needn’t have worried.
The fact is, the track was very easy to read. Coloured rumble strips on the apexes of all the corners made the edges of the track easy to spot, and after a couple of sighting laps I was already winding the engine up to the limiter and leaning more, all while looking for overtaking opportunities past slower riders. Everything I’d learned at Thruxton came back to me, with braking and turn-in points easy to figure out after a few corners. The trick, just as then, was to start slow and build speed gently over time.
I tracked down one of the instructors on offer at the end of the second session, and requested some pointers. When I lined up for the third time he told me to follow him for the first three laps, after which he would beckon me to overtake and then follow for the rest of the session. His lines through the corners weren’t drastically different to mine, but there was definitely room for fine-tuning.
I caught up with the instructor afterwards and he advised me that I wasn’t hanging off the bike enough, wasn’t taking the faster corners tight enough, and wasn’t using the whole of the track on corner exit, demonstrating that there was far more speed to be had there. I was also losing time by braking too late at the end of the long straight, and therefore making a mess of the corner entry and putting myself on too-wide a line for Gerard’s. While I was already faster than most of my group through the corners, the vast majority of riders were on faster, more powerful bikes and I had my work cut out trying to overtake on the straights.
My instructor pointed out that overtaking on corners was fine as long as I was giving the bikes in front enough room. With a wide track and no oncoming traffic to worry about, I was able to start picking bikes off in the bends, even passing a couple on the inside who took overly wide lines through the hairpin. It turns out all that Alpine practice had paid off!
While timing equipment was officially banned, I’d sneakily left my smartphone running a data recorder throughout the day, so that I could confirm that I was indeed improving session by session. Sure enough, laptimes were slowly dropping as lean angles increased, and only started to climb again when I began pushing myself to go fast, rather than focusing on riding smoothly in some of the later sessions. Thanks to this telemetry I was able to check myself and return to working on my technique. Go smooth to go fast!
As the final sessions approached, I began to notice worrying behaviour from some of my fellow riders. While I myself wasn’t particularly fatigued, due to many years of conditioning from 400-mile touring days, other riders were exhibiting symptoms of overconfidence or reduced concentration. Twice I had people try to outbrake me into the S-bends and then aim for the escape route instead. After having seen what can happen when two riders collided earlier in the day, I decided to pass on the very last session. Unlike many of these race-fairing equipped hotshots, I needed my bike to get home…
The final question was this. After a day of 100mph+ speeds and 45-degree lean angles, would I find returning to public roads and the constraints of the highway code irritating, or even impossible? Many of those I spoke to at the track no longer rode motorcycles on the roads, and some of the younger ones didn’t even have bike licenses. I’d heard about people finding traffic and other hazards too much to deal with after the relative calm and safety of the racetrack. I’m please to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my ride home, and found the speed limits no more onerous than usual.
In truth, while I learned more about myself and my bike from the TVAM Road Skills Day, riding around Mallory Park was tremendous fun and an education to boot. I’ve still got plenty more to work on (I never did get my knee down!) and I’ve confirmed once and for all that the limit isn’t my bike, it’s very definitely still me.
Would I do it again? You bet I would. I’m already booked in at Donnington Park…
I think many of us have pushed beyond our borders to explore Europe. Out there await wide, open stretches of dusty French countryside, verdant green German forests and snowy alpine mountain hairpins. But how many of us have pushed further than that, ventured away from our continent into Africa, Asia or America?
I recently returned from a three-week family visit to Canada; a country known for its vast tracts of sparsely populated land, where bears outnumber the people and Tim Hortons coffee & donut shops outnumber the bears. While there, I had the opportunity to borrow my Uncle’s Moto Guzzi Norge 1200, a bike no longer sold on these shores, and learn a little bit about motorcycling in Canada. Let’s just say the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Motorcycling & air travel work surprisingly well. Parking is often free, security is good, and helmets don’t count towards your traditional carry-on luggage allowance.
Petrol is cheap, but everyone still complains about the price. At last count, you’re looking at around 70p per litre, although if you refuel on Indian Reservations it’s cheaper still.
…and it comes in many flavours. Do you know what octane-rating your motorcycle needs? 85? 87? 93? According to your owner’s manual, it’s probably 91, or 97 if you own a modern BMW, but everyone here just buys the cheapest grade anyway. I hope their knock sensors are working.
The cars are enormous. The pick-up trucks we see on British roads are dwarfed by those driven in Canada & the US, and after a while you start to think of the Porsche Cayenne as an adorable compact car.
Filtering is illegal. And people really, really don’t like it when you do it. You can sit in traffic in 30C+ heat like everyone else…minus the air conditioning.
Speed limits are patronisingly low. We complain about Oxford nationals, but let me put things into perspective. Motorways are 60mph, A-roads are 50mph, and B-roads are usually 30mph. Around town 20-25mph is the norm. And it gets worse…
The Police don’t mess around. I was fortunate not to encounter this personally, but the police take an extremely dim view of speeding, and lurk behind billboards and trees with radar guns to catch you coming a mile away.
Every junction has a Stop sign. And boy, will they nail you for rolling through one of these. They’re everywhere, and particularly galling when a) you can see for half a mile in every direction and no-one is coming and b) you will have to repeat this stop/start pantomime a dozen times just to cross a small town, even when there are no other cars on the road.
Most roads are long and straight. In a country this large, be prepared to go cross-eyed staring at the horizon for hours on end.
No-one cares what you ride. Here in the UK cruiser riders won’t wave back, and sports-bike riders seem to ignore anyone not similarly equipped. In Canada, everyone waves!
Can-Am sell a lot of Spyders. The three-wheelers never really caught on here, but if you can’t filter, petrol is cheap, speed limits are low and parking is plentiful, then the disadvantages of the larger, heavier vehicles evaporate. They still can’t lean, though…
Everything else is a cruiser. It’s not quite as Harley-centric as the US, but pretty close.
All motorcycles look showroom-fresh. No-one rides in winter due to months of -30C temperatures and several feet of snow, and no-one rides in the rain because motorcycles are just recreational vehicles over there. That means no rust, no corrosion of any kind – you’ve never seen such a clean 2002 Kawasaki Ninja 250.
Canada has no annual MOT. You have to get a safety inspection when you first buy your vehicle (new or used), but after that it’s up to the owner to do their own checks. Or not, as the case may be. If you borrow someone else’s car or bike, don’t assume their brakes work, or that any other critical safety equipment is functional.
Safety gear is very optional. I saw a few people wearing jackets and gloves, though I’m unconvinced that they would have stood up to anything beyond a bit of light gardening. Helmets are open-face, often pudding-bowl design, and sandals are not uncommon.
Learners can ride whatever they want. Canada has graduated licensing, but the only limitations are that lower-class license holders aren’t allowed on motorways. 500-600cc motorcycles are considered good beginners’ bikes, and watching people wobble away from the training centre on brand-new, big-twin Harleys is a common (and comedic) sight.
Showroom sparkling
Big on cruisers…
… of any shape and size.
No-one is paying attention. Long, straight roads, cruise-control and ultra-soft suspension combined with low speed limits mean that even I found myself reaching for my mobile phone while out driving my uncle’s truck. Rest assured I stopped myself in time and re-focused on the road, but it goes a long way to explaining the continent’s ‘distracted driving’
You can turn right on red lights. This is fantastic. You’re driving on the right, so if it’s safe to do so you can trundle right through that red light rather than waiting pointlessly.
Good riding is hard to come by. Interesting riding can be scarce, and it’s likely that you’ll need to travel a great distance – several days or more – to find the really good stuff. The local riders just ride the motorways from one Tim Hortons to another Tim Hortons; stopping to eat a donut and admire each other’s chrome before heading on to the next one.
Tarmac is optional. Gravel roads are common once you get away from the main routes, and it’s not uncommon to encounter patches of sand or gravel mid-corner out in the countryside.
I’m told that pushing on to the Rockies will give you some of the most spectacular riding of your life, and that the best riding can be found off-road, out in the endless wilderness or spectacular national parks. But Canada will warp your sense of scale; the entirety of the UK would comfortably fit inside the smallest Canadian province, so simply getting to those roads will eat up your whole trip. Your nearest trackway is several day’s drive away.
After riding in Canada, even the M1 will seem like a cornucopia of excitement, variation and engagement. It was nice to visit my family, but I couldn’t wait to ride my own bike back at home again.
Nick Tasker
First published in Slipstream August 2018
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