Performance Bikes -julkaisun December 2015 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

IT’S A GREAT TIME to be involved in sports motorcycling – the amount of amazing, interesting new metal coming through is astounding, there’s a market overflowing with great used bikes plus great kit and grippy rubber. But biking would be poorer without its great characters, and we have two of the biggest involved with PB. John McGuinness is PB’s columnist and the greatest TT rider of the modern era. Every day he lives the dream – outright lap-record holder at the TT, with a shed full of amazing bikes, racing here, there and everywhere and getting up to no good. The other is Guy Martin. Guy’s been a friend of the mag for a decade now. Over this time he’s gone from a super-fast but unknown racer to perhaps Britain’s…

HONDA CBR1000RR FIREBLADE FRANK MATTHEW “THIS BLADE came to me as a road/ track bike. I altered the ram-air flap valve system to allow the fitting of glass-fibre ram-air tubes. Also, the sidestand and sensor were removed. I bought new fairings, and after alignment they were fitted with catch tanks, etc. All paint and vinyls were made by myself. “My company, Voodoo Road and Race re-manufactured all the BSB/ sponsor decals to match Dan Linfoot’s bike. The wheels will be done in winter. I work from home and have converted my garage into a workshop and paint booth, much to my wife’s dismay.”…

NEW ZEALANDER JOHN Britten was an engineer who designed his own fully-enclosed fairings to improve the performance of his archaic Ducati bevel-cam racer in 1985, before designing and building his own engine and chassis to get the performance he wanted. He founded the Britten Motorcycle Company in the garage of his home in 1992, developing and building bikes from the ground up. Just as racing success raised his profile in the first half of the 1990s, he was killed by a malignant melanoma, aged just 45. His bikes continued racing for another four years, but without John to drive development and continue production, the bikes became obsolete and impractical to continue in competition. The Britten Motorcycle Company survives to this day, to preserve the bikes built by John that still…

ENGINE The R1’s ECU has been re-flashed to remove the power restrictions in the lower gears and a Power Commander fitted to alter the fuelling, while an MWR air filter helps it breathe a bit better. It makes a healthy 168bhp at the rear wheel TANK The ‘fake’ carbon tank is a stock metal R1 tank that has been covered in carbon-fibre by VSK Corrinaldi and matches the weave of the Akrapovic carbon airbox cover that forms the rest of the tank FAIRING A Zero Limits top fairing meets a varied collection of carbon panels located on eBay. Damian still hasn’t managed to find the small fairing infill panel in carbon, so it is a plastic one painted black. The rest of the carbon parts are from Akrapovic BRAKES Six-piston…

POWER 195Nm of torque means it’s good for a claimed 150mph, reached in a swift, linear fashion OHLINS Proper suspension proves Energica is serious about all-round performance, not just the motor RACING Energica went racing first to get an understanding of how to make electric bikes handle MULTI-MODES Sport mode is most powerful, giving a peak of 195Nm of torque. Standard is 185Nm. Eco gives 160Nm, and Rain mode cuts output to 120Nm. Engine braking ranges from Off through Low, Medium and High. The system allows a window of neutral throttle behaviour for coasting, and the more the throttle is closed, the greater the engine braking is, within the parameters of the selected mode. SERVICING/ COMPONENT LIFE In theory, the battery has a 1200-cycle life. In practice, all this means…

APRILIA’S V4 1100 Tuono is a naked bike that can lap Mallory Park – with its high-speed corners, heavy braking zones, tricky, low-speed traction zones, slow and fast direction changes – as quickly as the brilliant Honda Fireblade SP. Not only that; it’s also faster than last year’s RSV4R sportsbike, a Kawasaki ZX-10R, and nearly TWO seconds faster than the KTM RC8R... Basically, there’s only one way to describe this motorcycle, and that’s by telling it like it is: it’s a bloody freak of nature. So what on earth do we compare it to? All of the bikes occupying spaces in front of it on the leaderboard have at least a 30bhp advantage over the Tuono, and whilst it is clearly an astonishing bike, power does play a part in…

Objectively, the BMW is the best road bike, even if you ditch some of the add-ons our test subject was presented with. It’s fast, good handling and versatile. But on track, the Aprilia was fastest. I’m going to let opinion prioritise cold hard data in this verdict. The KTM comes in third – primarily because of the price. It’s just not a £14,000 motorcycle. Knock £2000 off and it would be a harder decision against an S1000R, but you would have to really want to go orange to pick the most expensive bike here. It’s the most road-oriented, and feels more like a dedicated naked than a rehashed sportsbike – not surprising, really. In a way, it should win a test of naked road bikes, but all three riders still…

MINIMOTO “A customer dropped this off for me to sign it for his kid as it is in the Be Wiser colours and he is a Walker fan.” SEGA MANX TT SUPERBIKE “This was an eBay buy. The plan was to get John McGuinness and James Hillier to race on our open day, hence the colours, but McGuinness couldn’t make it. A load of racers did come and Luke Stapleford was the quickest. It’s free to play and is just a bit of fun. I think it cost £900 and is worth every penny, especially if you can distract a kid while you are selling a bike to their dad.” USED BIKES “We spent the winter sourcing really good quality used bikes and uncovered some gems. We didn’t want to…

CRACKED PIPE OE exhaust will be binned. There are some budget race systems on the market that save loads of weight and boost power by 10% SHOCKING Any damping that came as standard is long gone. A suitable, revalved GSX-R rear shock should slot in nicely BRAKES Stock calipers and disc sizes must be kept. Ours need a full rebuild, new pads, braided lines and discs. The rear is non-functional FORKED Six feet of sag, no damping to speak of. Replacement springs, different oil and redrilled stock dampers are all that’s permitted STORY SO FAR PB hears of new race series. 18 hours later, we bought this SPENT THIS MONTH £705 Bike and a full tin of penetrating fluid ‘In theory, it’s a simple project requiring time more than money…

CHEST PROTECTOR Not everyone wears one, but if you wear a back protector, why should you leave your front undefended? MULTIPLE CRASHES The back protector was an accomplice in my early club racing days, and took numerous impacts STRAP UP Velcro waist strap doesn’t cut me, and is adjustable. Shoulder elastic is starting to sag now but is still doing the job THIS BACK/CHEST PROTECTOR combo is in the top-three best motorcycling products I’ve ever used. The back protector has done the job protection-wise in a number of racing crashes and the odd road tumble, too. Thankfully, I’ve not had to trial the chest protector since I got it in response to having the imprint of Fireblade screen bead across my chest. Both are comfortable, becoming supple with body heat,…

SPECIFICATION £20,750 182BHP | 194KG MILEAGE THIS MONTH 641 TOTAL MILES COSTS THIS MONTH £3690 Ducati Performance Akrapovic full system BEST MOMENT Each flame-spitting midrange quickshift 2015 DUCATI 1299 PANIGALE MATT WILDEE WHEN YOU’RE THE custodian of the fastest, most-powerful production V-twin in the world, what the best thing you can do? Make it faster, of course. The Panigale’s stock exhaust is pretty fruity as standard, and an efficient design. It packs a lot of emissions kit and silencing material into the small area below the Panigale’s sump. But it ain’t pretty – the stainless steel unit gets marked and stained quite easily, making it look rusty when it isn’t. The finish comes back with half an hour of Autosol, though. The new Akrapovic system is a thing of beauty…

NOT SO BLAND Gone are the metallic and flat, bland paintschemes. At least they’re trying NEW ENGINE Gone is the Boxer of old, replaced instead with a substantially gruntier 125bhp air/water-cooled motor CLEARANCE Riding an R1200R on track is a great way of shaving off some of its 223kg bulk CHRIS NEWBIGGING FEATURES EDITOR THE NAKED VERSION of BMW’s Boxer was once the least interesting option. Less speed than the ‘S’ sportsbike variant, no touring ability like an RT, and lacking in the rufty-tufty appeal of a GS. They were probably only a viable production proposition because so many parts are used across the Boxer range. The new one is sort of the same – but different enough. For a start, it has the much peppier water-cooled flat twin engine.…

ANDREW STROUD GAVE a 20-year-old Britten V1000 a final win last month at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, USA. The bike was in attendance for a 10-strong gathering of Brittens that would have been unforgettable alone, but a last-minute decision by owner Jim Hunter saw Stroud on bike P002. And Bob Robbins, owner of P001 CR, had already secretly planned to enter his bike, so Stephen Briggs made it a two-pronged Britten attack. Robbins told PB: “When Jim Hunter, owner of P002 saw us preparing for Stephen to go out, he sent Andrew out as well. The plan was to surprise the crowd and to start from the pitlane to avoid turn two congestion. They worked through the pack to put on a good show. It was an historic moment.”…

HONDA FIREBLADE MILTON EVANS “A COUPLE OF years ago my son’s bike was off the road so he borrowed my Blade to use as a winter hack. So I decided to do a full rebuild and paintjob. After months of deliberating over seat units I opted for an early R1 as the OE Blade is very bulky. I got myself a WP shock and a 17in front wheel off an early VFR800 to keep stock brakes, though the hub needed modding. I do a few trackdays and still see the new stuff off. I love the one-off look and that it’s still great fun to ride.”…

BORN OUT OF frustration with the limitations of Ducati engines at the time, John Britten’s self-designed, self-built V1000 would better Bologna’s factory racers, and proved to be a visionary machine far ahead of its time. The 999cc (also 1100cc for certain races) 60-degree twin preempted the Panigale in being used as the core of the bike. A carbon-kevlar bracket bolted to the front provided support for the headstock, fairing and airbox much like Ducati’s cast aluminium box multi-tasks on the Pani, and the carbon swingarm pivots on the rear of the crankcase. The Öhlins shock mounted vertically on the front of the engine is operated by a three-bar linkage, centralising mass before Erik Buell and Honda got on the case in the early 2000s. The front end is a double-wishbone…

I WAS REALLY LOOKING forward to riding Damian’s bike. Although it is easy to dismiss the bike as a cosmetic modification, there has been lots done to make the R1 accelerate, stop and turn much better than stock. The 2007-2008 Yamaha 4C8 was a welcome return to form when it came Yamaha’s sporting credentials for the R1. With lairier styling and loads of power it was stupendously fast, but it could be improved in a number of key areas – specifically midrange power, rate of turn and suspension quality. And in all these areas this Yamaha is much improved. The wheels alone make a huge difference. The effect is instant, sharpening up the handling and making the bike fall into bends where (from memory) this model of R1 was always…

TO SAY THE 2003 Kawasaki Z1000 caused a stir is an understatement. Part Manga comic book hero, part sportsbike, the Zed was designed to demonstrate that after a few years in the doldrums, Kawasaki was back with a bit of fire in its belly. The outlandish and brash Zed managed to make every naked Japanese bike look dull and mundane. It was responsible for the rush of bold and exciting naked bikes that followed, such as the Honda CB1000R, Yamaha FZ1 and Suzuki GSR750. The heart of the Z1000 is a bored out and modified ZX-9R lump, which Kawasaki claimed made 125bhp. But hang on, doesn’t the ZX-9R make 142bhp? What was going on there? As well as increasing the capacity from 899cc to 953cc thanks to 2.2mm bigger bores,…

THE HEART OF everything that is impressive about the Tuono is the V4 motor. As a 999cc unit in the RSV, it’s already impressive, but it seems that the extra 78cc has made a huge difference, specifically to the smoothness of the power delivery and sheer spread of power available. Couple that to the fact that it seems to have the exact amount of power at the exact revs that I’m using at a given time and everything else is just easy after that. I do believe with some good quality time to focus on suspension set-up, that I could go a little bit faster, but it would take a while to get that set-up as the base settings are so close to perfect, too. Looking for very fine adjustments…

ANDREA IANNONE Self-styled ‘maniac’, winner of eight Moto2 races, now in his third year of MotoGP ANDREA DOVIZIOSO Ex-125GP world champion, winner of four 250 GPs, famed for his fluid riding style HOW TO COMPREHEND Ducati’s sporadic fortunes since the GP15’s stellar debut: five podiums in the first six races and, until Phillip Island last month, pretty much bugger all since? Only one way: talk to the man who made the bike and the men who ride it. Interviewing Ducati’s Italian factory riders Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone is a funny business, a bit like interviewing dry, laconic Eddie Lawson and high-revving, big-talking Wayne Gardner when they rode for Rothmans Honda in the late 1980s. There’s Dovizioso, with his quiet, intelligent comments, then there’s Iannone, with his wide-staring eyes preparing…

STORY SO FAR Bought two years ago on a nostalgic whim, Si’s Blade has survived the summer fed only on a trickle charger SPENT THIS MONTH £25 Clear screen and inner fairing panel 1996 HONDA FIREBLADE SIMON HARGREAVES EDITOR MATT HAS been on my case all summer about sorting my Blade. “We need to talk about the ‘L’ word.” “Lesbian?” “No, love. You’ve fallen out of love with it, haven’t you?” he’d say, with an ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ look. I’d feel guilty, then he’d wheel out his 2000 R1 and remind me how fantastic it is. Well, I haven’t fallen out of love with the Blade. The truth is more complicated. Love always is. And, indeed, lesbians probably are, too. When I bought this clean, low-mileage example I…

SPECIFICATION £14,760 193BHP | 204KG POLICE CHASES 1 TOTAL MILES BEST MOMENT 50¡ L/52¡ R, 50% DTC torque reduction. 0.95g braking. Er, constable... 2015 BMW S1000RR SIMON HARGREAVES EVERY YEAR, PB’S bosses ‘encourage’ us to get assessed by a riding school to make sure we’ve not picked up any dangerous habits in the preceding 12 months of going at it like lunatics. Which is why, one fine autumnal morning, I sit in a cafe opposite Graham from Rapid Training. He’s a genial chap, on a BMW K1300S – so even though he’s an ex-copper, his taste in bikes is beyond reproach. He goes through the nuts and bolts; basically, a 20-minute ride down some nice roads with him tailing me. “Ride as you would normally. We’re not fanatical about sticking…

SPECIFICATION £9899 126BHP | 220KG MILEAGE THIS MONTH 241 TOTAL MILES BEST MOMENT Dry corner, new tyres, knee down in October. Perfect 2015 KAWASAKI Z1000 CHRIS NEWBIGGING THE Z1000 IS a refreshingly simple motorcycle by 2015’s standards. No traction control, a cable still opens the throttle bodies, and you can’t even view the clock and trip-meter at the same time. It’s a simple, brutish machine that I’ve really enjoyed the last 3000 miles on. It also came in handy when this Akrapovic stainless steel 4-into-1 arrived from Performance Parts. Matt’s Panigale spent days at a dealer having its own Akra system fitted: you basically need a trained technician, special tools and a lot of time to dismantle the bike, fit the pipe to the motor and bolt it all back…

‘For a standard road bike it feels so light; it’ll be a step forward on road and track’2015 WSB CHAMPION, JOHNNY REA CUTTING-EDGE RIDER AIDS Bosch’s latest lightweight IMU giving five levels of TC, plus cornering ABS, engine braking and launch control WSB-SPEC FORKS 43mm Showa gas forks keep damping control consistent, by keeping damping force generation away from the piston. Nitrogen charge manages pressure increases in the fork MORE GRUNT AND RESPONSE Revised, lower gear ratios, 20% lighter crank, bigger airbox, revised exhaust system (now made of titanium) means claims of more midrange power and a motor that spins up better COSMETICS New bodywork with more wind protection, wider tail unit, updated dash to show new functions. We quite like the bike in Winter Testing Black, too WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION…

Ian Hutchinson will ride for Tyco BMW in the 2016 road racing season as well as in British Superstock. Hutchy stunned the world in the 2015 TT when he took three wins to finally reward four years of pain and hard work recovering from an horrific leg injury. The five-in-a-week record holder was all but written off – many suspected the slow recovery and being forced to such measures as a right-foot shift would override his talent, but a switch from uncompetitive Milwaukee Yamahas to PBM Kawasakis and Keith Flint’s Yamaha R6 saw him pushing hard at the front of every international road race. His persistence and performance has now paid off – he’ll race Tyco’s factory-backed S1000RRs next season in place of William Dunlop. He’ll partner Guy Martin –…

KAWASAKI ZXR400/600 ADAM LAVIN “THE BIKE STARTED life as a ZXR400 rolling frame I found on eBay and thought I could do something a little different with it. I had a ZX-6R engine in the corner of the workshop... one thing led to another and I started to wonder if I could fit it and make it look as standard as possible. So, I cut the engine mounts from the ZXR frame, took some measurements and set about fabricating some new engine mounts to take the 600 lump. A few months later and the engine was in and chain alignment spot-on so I set about the rest of the bike. “The hardest part of the build was the carbs as the ZX-6R carbs sit slightly to the left so the…

TALOS-YAMAHA ALEXANDROS MAIDIS “I AM AN ENGINEERING student and have always been attracted by alternative front ends. So when it was time for me to find a subject for my dissertation I created one. It was built around a Yamaha TZR250 3MA engine as this was the most affordable. “A Hossack-type front system was designed and built, then attached to a subframe which was then connected to the oil pan and engine. The fact that there is no connection between the system and the swingarm axle makes it a frameless construction since the engine takes on the role of the chassis. “The fork, the swingarm and the ‘chassis’ were built with a steel tube while the subframe is ally. There are also billet pieces in various places. The bike, despite…

BRIAN THE CHIMP Brian the Chimp is the primal part of Guy’s brain that makes rash decisions – less so since Guy read ‘The Chimp Paradox’, and got a handle on Brian’s rash outbursts I ACCELERATED OUT OF Quarterlands in second, just getting the light on the dash to change gear. I was driving hard, going from 20% to 100% throttle without even thinking about it. Exiting the next corner, Ireland’s, I felt the back tyre slide a little bit, at about 130mph. It was nothing I would normally panic about, not even something I would’ve corrected, I’d have just let it slide – then the next thing is I’m looking at the tarmac, thinking, ‘Oof!’ I’ve always been good at crashing and not hurting myself as badly as other…

BODYWORK Made out of carbon fibre, the tail-unit and subframe that support it are new, to accommodate pillion seat and footrests REAR SUSPENSION Cantilever system uses a Wilbers shock and is mercifully now free of the radiation from the exhaust ENGINE Hypermotard 1100 unit with Bimota airbox, exhaust and fuelling settings. Doesn’t fuel as well as the donor bike, but is acceptable FRONT END Hub-centre-steered front end operates on a direct 1:1 ratio with the bars. Slope of cantilever shock allows a degree of rising rate BRAKES Two 320mm discs with Brembo M40 calipers do a decent job of stopping the super-light Bimota AS TERRIFYING MOMENT S go, it’s up there with the best. It’s a balmy evening in the summer of 2010 and I’m riding the only Bimota Tesi…

APRILIATUONO 1100£14,499 Power: 164.35bhpTorque: 85lb.ftWet weight: 213kgMichael Rutter’s bestMallory laptime:55.80s KTMSUPERDUKE 1290 R£13,999 Power: 160bhpTorque: 100lb.ftWet weight: 214kgMichael Rutter’s best Mallory laptime:59.03s BMWS1000RSPORTFROM £11,750 Power: 159.2bhp Torque: 82lb.ft Wet weight: 206.15kg Michael Rutter’s best Mallory laptime:58.44s RUTTER AND JOHNNY were impressed by the Aprilia Tuono’s track ability (p65). You can’t argue with an upright naked capable of smoking some serious sportsbikes. But it’s not the sort of bike for 10 trackdays a year – you’d buy the RSV4 if you wanted a circuit slayer. Track speed is of secondary importance for super nakeds, so we binned the Aprilia’s roasted tyres, stuck a fresh set on and assembled its main rivals to take advantage of the last of 2015’s decent weather, and find out if it’s as impressive away from a…

GIGI DALL’IGNA Moved from Aprilia in 2013 to head up the Desmosedici’s development ENGINE More compact but heavier (that’s right) engine now rotates backwards for better turning. Ducati won’t talk horsepower specifics but it’s got to be knocking on 260bhp FRAME The GP15 frame isn’t night-and-day different from the GP14 unit, but it is stiffer at the rear, shorter and narrower all over, which is better for riding position and during changes of direction ECU Like everyone else, Ducati will switch to unified Magneti Marelli software from next season. Some people believe the change will upset the MotoGP status quo, others say it will change nothing SWINGARM Ducati junked their carbon-fibre frame during 2011 but retain a carbon swingarm, unlike their rivals. Their engineers believe carbon-fibre allows them to tune…

CHEAPLY CAST CHINESE vices aren’t worth the hassle. Ask it to clamp down a bit too hard and it’ll shatter. This sort of thing is much better. Scan the classifieds, search eBay and keep an eye out at car boots for a proper British-made engineer’s vice like this. This unbranded, ancient four-inch jaw item is plenty good enough for the sporadic use it gets. It’s been shown some serious force, but hasn’t failed on me, and has made various workshop tasks much easier. The sliding portion has a large flat portion that doubles up as a useful anvil for supporting items you need to teach some English to with a hammer. A new equivalent Record vice costs £90 – but this is way better value for the amateur mechanic. It’s…

SPECIFICATION £5479 74BHP | 182KG MILEAGE THIS MONTH 211 TOTAL MILES 2015 YAMAHA MT-07 MARK WHITE I’VE JUST GOT home from this month’s supernakeds test, which left me wondering what the definition means, and if it could even apply to the MT-07. If you’re talking about bikes with high bars and chassis that could near live with their superbike brethren then no, the MT-07 is obviously no R1 (or R6) rival. But the engine still makes me grin 30 feet after leaving my driveway and knowing that much fun comes with a price tag that’s nearly a third of a new Super Duke keeps the smile wide across my face. Having owned a TRX850, which this engine shares loose brochure specs with, I expected the MT to feel wanting. But…

SPECIFICATION £13,999 158BHP | 214KG MILES THIS MONTH 359 TOTAL MILES 2015 KTM SUPER DUKE R JOHN McAVOY MY SUPER DUKE R has had a busy month hobnobbing with celebrities. First up was Carl Fogarty. As part of a promotional thing KTM were doing with him at the Isle of Man Classic TT, they gave him my bike to use. Word is he really enjoyed it, but noted that while the traction control and ABS can be switched off, they always default back to ‘on’ once the ignition is switched off. It’s not been a huge issue for me, as I generally leave the traction control on. But when the bike came back to me, it had KTM’s ‘Off Road Dongle’ fitted, which remembers the TC and ABS settings when…