Table of contents for December 2016 in Performance Bikes

THIS YEAR SAW another Brit-dominated season, with home-grown riders winning 23 of 24 rounds at the time of writing – Jonathan Rea with at least three fingers on the title, and Tom Sykes and Chaz Davies contesting second and third. But 2017 will see stiffer foreign competition. Marco Melandri returns to ride for Ducati with on-form Davies, having pissed off Aprilia’s GP team by effectively going on strike in 2015. MotoGP refugee German Stefan Bradl pitches up at Honda with Nicky Hayden on the new Fireblade. As 2011 Moto2 champ, he knows a thing or two about winning on production-based bikes. Cloggie Michael van der Mark must have seen the new Blade’s specs and decided it wasn’t for him, so hooks up with Alex Lowes at Crescent Yamaha on the…

BIKE OF THE MONTH ‘It’s the last of the big screamer R1s, and it flies!’ PETER TRACEY 2007 YAMAHA R1 “I’VE SUBSCRIBED TO PB for years, and the endless builds I’ve seen have inspired me to transform my ’07 R1 into a bit of a beast whilst trying to keep it looking as original as possible. “It’s the last of the big screamer R1s and it flies now! It has a full Akrapovic race system, a K&N air filter, and the emissions pipework has been blanked off. I’ve Flashtuned the ECU, and a mapped Power Commander 5 also gives me launch control, an Autotune with a handlebar switch to change maps, and a quickshifter. I’ve gone down a tooth on the front sprocket and up two on the rear, and…

“All 1000cc sportsbikes are extraordinary examples of high-performance engineering, but we wanted our bike to be extraordinary in the pleasure you get from handling and control of the bike. We wanted it to be a bike that lets you enjoy things that aren’t normally experienced in life. The first Fireblade was an inspiration that we drew on to reduce weight and increase power, and we’ve also added an electronic system that is there to support the rider, totally. “From the start we wanted to reduce the weight of the bike more than anything. Half of the weight loss has come in four key steps. We’ve reduced the weight by 2.8kg with the muffler, and the tank saves about 1kg. Then there is the Bosch ABS, which saves about 5kg, and…

‘When I joined the project I brought the MotoGP secrets with me’ SHINICHI SAHARA MOTOGP-SPEC VARIABLE VALVE TIMING Uses ball bearings to rotate the inlet cam profile when they’re thrown outwards by centrifugal force at a set rpm. In theory, this allows a motor to be tuned for bottom AND top-end power. RADICAL CHASSIS 20mm narrower, the smaller motor means a shorter wheelbase while maintaining the same swingarm length. R model offers Showa’s BFF forks, as fitted to this year’s ZX-10R. PROPER ELECTRONICS IMU-based TC has 10 levels and takes in data every four milliseconds. It also allows cornering ABS and monitors the lift of the rear wheel under braking. R model has up/down quickshifter. FINGER FOLLOWERS Each finger follower weighs 10g, with a moving mass of 3g (the old…

CAN IT, YOU Posh titanium silencer looks like an accessory, but is now standard fit. It’s fed spent gases by a new exhaust system with exits from the catalyser, so pipes for older S1000s won’t fit. REARRANGED FACE It’s familiar, but different. Each panel gets a tweak and a facelift to slim the bike down and make it look a bit different from last year. MORE POWER, LESS STINK The 2017 bike is 5bhp fitter, while reducing noise and emissions to Euro 4-acceptable levels. BMW reckon intake/exhaust noise is optimised. Or nicer, in plain English. THE S1000R IS coming back at Yamaha’s big-selling MT-10 with chassis, engine and electronic improvements filtered down from the 2015 S1000RR. It makes an extra 5bhp, sheds two kilos and gains a host of detail…

BIG IN THE MIDDLE 939 motor has found the perfect home. There’s plenty in the midrange, but it hangs on to its revs, too. MONSTER MASH-UP Chassis is borrowed from the Monster 821, but with a taller seat and sharper geometry. Hopefully ground clearance is better... DUCATI HAVE REVIVED the Supersport to create a more practical, less hardcore and cheaper alternative to the Panigale. It puts out a claimed 111bhp and mixes traditional Ducati design with a touch of usefulness. The original Supersport mixed a flexible, midrange-oriented engine with chassis related to the flagship sportsbike (the 851) but was built to a cheaper price and skewed towards the needs of the road rider. The new one is the same: the engine is lifted from the 939 Hypermotard, in a semi-frameless…

ADD INCHES TO YOUR PIPE That cute little belly exhaust from 2006 has grown into a monster tube. Slip-on cans for the old one should still fit. I WAS FORKING ROBBED Litre-bike parts grace the front end. The 2mm-larger KYB AOS forks and brakes are from the base R1. No magnesium wheel or posh yokes, though. SLIPPERY CUSTOMER It’s apparently Yamaha’s most aerodynamic road bike thanks to the M1 shape. Should offer more protection as a bonus. DASH, AAAAHHH No TFT, but the analogue tacho and LCD dash panel is new and redesigned. TRACTION, CONTROLLED Not a full IMU system, but six-level system should give trackdayers a bit of help when ambition outweighs talent. YAMAHA ISN’T GIVING UP on the supersport class – the R6 has faced up to the…

‘The LS-128 was the outright winner at the 2013 Peaks Peak hill-climb, 20s quicker than a factory-backed Multistrada’ THIS IS THE first electric bike that can compete directly with the latest versions of today' 1000cc sportsbikes .The figures this bike boasts are simply stunning – there’s more than 200bhp of peak power and 168lb.ft of torque on tap every time you open the throttle. That’s the same power as an S1000RR, but twice the torque and only a little more weight... Lightning Motorcycles owner Richard Hatfield has been building electric sportsbikes using lithium pouch cell batteries for longer than anyone else, and he’s achieved more with them in the white heat of competition than any of his rivals. His company, based in San Carlos, California, now incorporates a production line…

EXHAUST Back in 1985 titanium was a rare commodity, so the GSX-R750 used steel instead, painted black, and made do with a stainless heat shield to add a bit of bling. The 2016 GSX-R combines stainless steel headers with a titanium end can. In 1985 there was no need for heavy catalytic converters, so it is a straight-through pipe design where the ’16 model has to hide a big box of gubbins under the motor to make it Euro 3 compliant. FRAME Suzuki pioneered alloy frames on the RG250 and then the superbike GSX-R. The material was cutting edg ,but the layout is very close to the steel cradles used on the GS/GSX – less weight and better components made the difference, not design. The 2016 GSX-R750 also uses an…

GUY COULON IS PRETTY MUCH ONE OF A KIND IN PROFESSIONAL RACING While at the top of his game in MotoGP he’s still immersed in working on bikes, rather than just talking to them with a laptop. His fingernails have oil under them, his workshop has more machinery than servers. But he has plenty to teach the world of racing, with four decades of experience under that Dr Emmett Brown-style hairdo. Not that he sees it that way... “There’s not much to say. First, I was a mechanic, then I ran an endurance team from 1979 to 1985. That’s when Honda asked me to work on their endurance team for half the year, then the Paris-Dakar project for six months. I worked for HRC for four years, then we set…

IT IS NO surprise Tech 3 have branched out into classic racing, parade and roadbikes. The team’s own lengthy heritage is backed by a team with a personal interest in the old, the fast and the cool. Guy plays a part, but Laurent Ducloyer is the man in charge of the newish side-venture. “I saw a big interest in 500GP and MotoGP bikes at classic events in recent years,” he says. “But these racebikes need proper maintenance. “The idea is to help these owners maintain their bikes so they can be used fully. Some guys own Honda RCVs, and Desmosedici GP bikes. You can’t just run them like a roadbike, you can’t go to a normal workshop.” Tech 3 Classic is always busy. When racing isn’t taking up their time,…

CUTTERS ‘I have hundreds of cutters as I go through so many, hence the reason I have a cutter grinder to sharpen them! They are very expensive, so when they blunt I put them in a tub and once that is full I spend a few hours sharpening them all in one hit. It’s dull but I think “that’s anther £10 saved” each time...’ COMPRESSOR ‘I never really use this and the tubs are only there to stop swarf going inside it!’ ULTRASONIC CLEANER ‘These are brilliant for cleaning carbs and injectors. This is an expensive one that I got for cheap as it was broken, and I fixed it. I’d recommend everyone has an ultrasonic cleaner.’ WADPOL AIRCRAFT POLISH ‘I found this tub of polish when I moved into…

WITH SHAKEY BYRNE wrapping up a fifth title, pipping returnee Leon Haslam, the 2017 BSB roster is, at this stage, speculative. Champ Shane Byrne will stick with Be Wiser PBM Ducati with team-mate Glen Irwin. Runner-up Leon Haslam has been testing a ZX-10R, probably for Quattro Plant Kawasaki. James Ellison could join Team Traction Control on a Yamaha R1. Possible team-mates are James Rispoli, Michael Laverty or Sylvain Guintoli. Guintoli has also been linked with a new Suzuki team, run by Hawk Racing – as has Josh Brookes, returning from WSB. He has also been linked to a new Yamaha team. Tyco BMW rider Laverty may stay with the team, alongside teammate Christian Iddon. John Hopkins is set to return on a Ducati, with Tommy Hill’s ePayMe Yamaha squad struggling…

MOTOGP BOSSES DORNA have officially invited companies to tender for the supply of ECUs to Moto2 from 2019-2021. The technical requirements include the facility to manage, ‘Engine/chassis control strategies: gearshift management, traction control, anti-wheeling, launch control, engine braking, and torque maps,’ which means in a few years’ time, TC and other electronics will debut in the class. Honda currently supply the ECU, with Dell ’Orto supplying Moto3 and Magneti-Marelli supplying MotoGP. But with Honda’s contract to supply CBR600RR engines to Moto2 running out in 2018 because they can’t guarantee continued supply of spares, Dorna has already put engine supply beyond that date out to tender. Only Honda and Yamaha submitted bids for engine supply to the class back in 2010 when it took over from 250s. This time round, it…

READY TO RACE? Despite tweaked internals, you’ll need the race kit to get the best out of an SP2 on track. CONFUSINGLY, THE SP2 is nothing to do with the old WSB-rep V-twin. It’s an ultra-premium Blade, with all the SP gear, plus Marchesini wheels that provide a claimed inertia reduction of 18% at the front, 8% at the rear. The whole bike is only 1kg lighter than the SP, though. The main changes are internal, and don’t add anything as a standard roadbike – they’re intended as a starting point for a race engine. The motor has a different, stronger piston crown design with 2.5mm shorter piston pins to save a tediously tiny amount of weight. It also has 1mm larger inlet valves, and exhaust valves 1.5mm girthier, both…

SUZUKI’S NAKED MIDDLEWEIGHT gets a power increase, a higher spec chassis and new styling, plus a name change from GSR to GSX-S to match its 1000cc range-mate. There’s not much in the way of all-new mechanicals: it’s the same motor as before, in turn robbed from a GSX-R750 K4 and re(de) tuned. To regain power without reverting to spikier cams, bigger valves and so forth, the engineers spent five minutes with a Black and Decker adding new internal breather holes to reduce pumping losses. Essentially, a falling piston can displace air internally to the space opening up underneath another piston on the way up – meaning one isn’t fighting against air pressure, and the other isn’t creating a slight vacuum effect behind it. It’s claimed to have cut fuel consumption…

“Sometimes it’s good to have a crisis. Back in 2007/2008 the bike market halved and my predecessors did a good job and continued to invest in the bikes and new markets – and they decided to start the RR. We knew that with the technology and know-how BMW had we could be good in the sportsbike sector. “The S1000RR was something completely new and brought lots of new technology to the litre class. Some of the thoughts and the technology came from the F1 team we had at the time, but it was mainly from our own engineers. They had the know-how, but just needed to be pointed in a different direction. “Of course if you do something new, there is always some resistance, but we had a highly-motivated core…

THE PANI 1299 is quietly ducking under the Euro 4 barrier, and will take advantage of ‘derogation’ exemptions, allowing manufacturers to sell pre-2017 specification bikes in small numbers until the old stock has run out. For 2017, the only advertised changes are the more sophisticated traction control and wheelie control from the Anniversario special edition. That means the minimum settings have finer control to balance on, and beyond, the edge – it’ll theoretically hold a drift, so trackday legends can use the oversteer to corner like Stoner never retired.…

BATTERY PACK AS FRAME Lightning have developed their own liquid-cooled controller which uses Korean-made cells in their different packs sourced from Indianapolis-based EnerDel. Rather than the nowadays more commonplace lithium iron phosphate cells, these are actually the LMNC/lithium manganese nickel cobalt variety, which according to Hatfield boast a much higher energy density. These are flat pouch-type cells, each about the size of a small A5 magazine, and the LS-218’s stock 12kWh battery pack contains 180 of them encased in an aluminium battery box, which essentially acts as the fully-stressed chassis of the bike, connecting the motor to the forks. It’s a broadly similar format to that of the Ducati Panigale, although in the LS-218’s case the motor is located in the middle of the swingarm, which pivots in the battery…

TRACK CONDITIONS WERE ideal for datalogging when we took the pair of GSX-R750s to Mallory Park. And so was the 1985 GSX-R. If you went to the NEC motorcycle show last year, you would have seen Team Classic Suzuki performing a nut and bolt restoration on a 1985 GSX-R on their stand. This is that very bike and it is as boxfresh and crisp as it was the day it rolled off the production line a staggering 31 years ago. It’s an extremely rare opportunity to be able to compare old against new without the old being compromised in some way by the ravages of time. It’s hard not to be impressed and even allow yourself a modest snigger when you notice that, while the earlier bike isn’t on the…

‘One rider holed an engine, filled the cases with diesel and rode for another 175km’ WILD-HAIRED GUY’S FACE is a familiar sight in the MotoGP world, but there was a time when the curly barnet was seen buried in HRC’s NXR750 rally bikes in the bivouac on the traditional Paris-Dakar route. From 1986 to 1989, Coulon divided his time between the rally bikes as well as the factory endurance team – the opposing race seasons meant he could work for both teams as necessary. “HRC put everything into winning the Paris-Dakar race. They considered many engines – a single, an air-cooled V-twin, a liquid-cooled V-twin (as they eventually chose), and because BMW were winning, even a Boxer twin, but with the crank running vertically so it wouldn’t have a torque…

‘Once we know our tyre allocation, I talk to Bradley to come up with a plan’ PREVIOUS RACE SUNDAY EVENING Coulon: “Each race begins after the race before, when I have a meeting with the Japanese engineers. We prepare the starting spec for the next GP: geometry, swingarm length and so on. Also, this year we have new tyres, so race by race we are still working on wheelbase and centre of gravity position. “Gearbox ratios are easy because we’ve known the M1 for a long time. We change ratios much less than we did on the 500s because the four-stroke’s power is much more stable. We spend more time maintaining the seamless gearbox than thinking about ratios. “Also, the unified software is new, so the electronics change race…

WITH THE MAJORITY of MotoGP seats filled before this season’s halfway point, thanks to Rossi opting again for Yamaha and Lorenzo huffily signing for Ducati as long ago as April, we missed out on the traditional silly season of speculation. Some paddock wags even suggested re-starting the season in July with 2017 teams and riders. Marquez’s decision to stay at Honda and keep countryman Pedrosa alongside him suits everyone. For most of the season the Honda, with a backwards-spinning crank limiting top speed, new Michelin tyres unsuited to Marquez’s riding style and with the team apparently slow to optimise new, limited, engine management software, was supposed to be a nail no-one could win on. Three quarters of the way through the season, Marquez, Pedrosa, Miller and Crutchlow had all won…

CARBON WHEELS First use of carbon wheels by a major manufacturer – only a few niche builders have put them on the road before. CHAZ’S BIG PIPE WSB high-level Akrapovic isn’t available for any other Pani – but the ‘1408’ gets it. CARBON CHASSIS The Superleggera 1199 had a magnesium frame; the successor goes further with a carbon frame/swingarm. A NEW CARBON-CHASSIS, ultra-exclusive version of the 1299 Panigale will be revealed at Milan’s EICMA show this month. Project 1408, as it is (but won’t be) called takes the idea of the 2014 1199 Superleggera a stage further. The 1199SL made widespread use of titanium and magnesium to make it lighter than even a WSB bike. Now, leaked shots from an invitation-only website for potential buyers show a new version based…

RACY | PROTECTIVE | ITALIAN ASTARS SUPERTECH CE-approved kangaroo/goat leather gloves with hard knuckle armour and the trademark Alpinestars little finger bridge. Available in sizes S-XXXL. Price: £329.99 Contact: www.alpinestars.com FREER-BREATHING | COTTON | QUICK K&N FILTER Now available for the 2016 Kawasaki ZX-10R, plus smaller bikes like Suzuki’s SV650 and Yamaha’s MT-03. Price: From £52.80 Contact: www.knfilters.co.uk TRICK | WSB-BRED| CARBON JETPRIME SUMP FOR S1000RR This carbon-fibre oil sump is the first fruit of Jetprime’s involvement with the Althea BMW WSB team. It’s claimed to maintain its strength beyond 250°C, and to save 150g over the standard BMW component, thanks to its carbon construction, CNC-machined plug and titanium insert on to which it’s srewed. Jetprime also recently launched a machined alloy sump. Price: £TBA Contact: www.jetprime.it FORGED | LIGHTWEIGHT…

THINNER THAN EVER Fairing is 24mm narrower at the top; extensive work has been done to protect rider. It’s also 18mm narrower in the middle, tank is 15mm narrower at knees. 14% BETTER POWER TO WEIGHT RATIO 11bhp more and 15kg less is the biggest single improvement in a bike since Suzuki launched the GSX-R750 W-T back in 1996. Good work. WHEELS Such is the attention to detail that new ally wheels were cast, saving 100g... IPOD-STYLE DASH Alters display according to riding mode selected, and brightness according to lighting conditions. Anything else is, like, sooo 2011... LOADS OF TITANIUM The first production bike with a titanium fuel tank! There’s also a titanium silencer which saves 2.8kg. ELECTRONIC BRAIN A Bosch MM5.10 gyro mounted close to the bike’s centre of…

THE BIG H have given the gentlemanly CB1100 a bit more attitude to create the RS model. Sadly, there’s no half-faired version like the Tokyo show concept of a few years back – this ‘Road Styling’ model is as hard-edged as it gets for now. The chassis has a shorter wheelbase, less rake/trail, and is a few kilos lighter than the regular CB1100, though it still creaks the scales with a 252kg claimed wet weight. The handlebars are clamped further forward for a sportier riding position. It rolls on 17in rims rather than 18s, and takes 120 front, 180 rear sports tyres. Showa ‘Dual Bending Valve’ forks have a pair of valves for both comp/ rebound. New rear shocks are firmer, too, and it gets radial four-pot Tokicos up front.…

NEARLY 17? IS your life devoted to owning a GSX-R one day? Well, Suzuki now offer a sporty 125 in the image of the new 1000. It’s the usual learner package: dohc, 4v four-stroke single, posh-looking but bum-basic chassis made in the Far East. It’s claimed to have the best power-to-weight in class, but with a 15bhp L-plate limit the difference can only be fractional... But it’s styled properly: it looks every bit the small sibling to the 1000 – even down to the LCD dash. And, just like the 1000, they’re dragging their heels with a release date: ‘Late summer’ is the vague, too far away, official estimate.…

NOT MUCH HAS changed, but then it didn’t need to. BMW’s big-selling S1000RR remains pretty much as was, with just a few minor improvements, plus Euro 4 compliance, to differentiate it from the old one. Power remains at 199bhp, and torque is still a claimed 83lbft, with a plateau around that peak figure from 9500-12,000rpm, say BMW. The electronics are the same, but seven-stage adjustable Dynamic Traction Control is standard instead of optional. ABS Pro is added to the still the best all-round package, all-new rivals were obviously on the way and we anticipated BMW would carry the goalposts a little further away before the opposition showed up. PB understands there won’t even be a launch – the bikes will just quietly reach dealers early next year. Something to bear…

APRILIA HAVE UPDATED the RSV4 and Tuono’s electronics, and made mechanical changes to offset the quieter, more restrictive exhaust to maintain power and torque. The new exhaust vies for ‘Biggest Euro 4 Silencer’ with the GSX-R1000. The quieter, cleaner emissions come at a cost to power if used alone, so they’ve raised the rev limit on the RSV4 by 300rpm (500rpm on the Tuono) and changed the valve springs to cope, lightened the pistons and done away with the variable inlet tracts to save 300g. Internal friction has been reduced, too. The whole APRC electronics package is refined, and the IMU unit is repositioned to allow it to function better. The quickshifter also now functions as an auto-blipper for downchanges. A pitlane speed limiter and launch control is included, but…

ZX-10RR Semi-special 10R to fix racing woes THE ZX-10R GETS an extra R, not only to make it sound more piratey, but also to help race teams get more out it. Forged aluminium Marchesinis, clutchless downshifts enabled on the quickshifter and a single seat are the only outwardly obvious changes – the rest of the changes are only of use to race teams, dedicated trackdayers and cock-swinging collectors. The Kawasaki kit adjustable swingarm and headstock components are standard. Superstock racers had been lumbered with standard chassis components and only able to make ride height adjustments to make the best of the slidey Kwak. With adjustment fore and aft as standard (and therefore legal in limited-mods classes), they should be able to get the double-R on terms with BMWs. The cylinder…

BOING, BZZZT Öhlins ERS adjusts damping in response to road conditions so you don’t have to. Lazy sod. SHINY-SHINY It’s a simple change, but we love the clear lacquer over the swingarm. Much nicer than black paint. NICE DASH TFT matches the 2017 Tuono Factory and Monster 1200R in the fancy-features stakes. YAMAHA’S BIG-SELLING NAKED is getting the SP treatment to make it a much more serious proposition for owners using their machines on track. It’s not a big change, but the standard MT-10 isn’t poorly-equipped to begin with. The major addition is Öhlins Electronic Racing Suspension – the semi-active system fitted to the R1. Rather than manual adjusters, compression and rebound is controlled by electronic stepper motors and adjusted instantly based on feedback to the matching Suspension Control Unit…

‘On the 1985 bike, you have to be smooth and tease the speed out of it’   OBVIOUSLY THE 1985 bike has a lot less power and much skinnier tyres, so there is a limit to how much you could do with it. However, if you could beef up the brakes and stiffen up the rear shock, I reckon it’d go a good chunk faster, but it would never go as fast as the 2016 bike. It’s just simple physics. I have waited for so long to have the chance to ride one of these properly, and to do it at Mallory has been a dream come true for me. I’ll never forget it. In fact, I would so love to ride it at the Classic TT this year like…

1 1992 SUZUKI RGV250 WILCO ZEELENBERG ONE OF MANY RGVs from the team’s time running the factory Lucky Strike Suzuki squad. Zeelenberg got a best of fourth on this bike – shown here in censorship-spec for countries that banned fag advertising. 2 2000 YAMAHA YZR250 OLIVIER JACQUES TECH3’S 250GP TITLE winner – the partnering Nakano bike is also in the collection. Years of frontrunning in the series finally netted the French boys a world title – one that went down to the final race at Phillip Island, with the final showdown between the two team-mates. In the end, victory went to Jacques. The bike remains as was – only the transport wheels with unused Dunlop KR108s have changed since crossing the line in Australia 16 years ago. 3 2002 YAMAHA…

BLACKBIRDS ARE MOSTLY of interest to middle-aged men who keep a Givi luggage catalogue on their table, and renew their Swiss Vignette every year. And that’s fine – the B-Bird’s comfort, smooth motor and reliability make it a first-class way to get across Europe. But the Hayabusa and R1 that came in the years after the CBR-XX made us forget it’s also a missile, well capable of getting up to some seriously naughty riding. This overlooked status makes them a real bargain now – £2500 buys a minter, but you’ll still get a solid one for less than £2k. True, they are heffalumps. And true, the Dual-Combined Brakes are a bit knob. But don’t let that put you off. Throw a decent shock at it, some extra rear ride height,…