Indice dei contenuti per October 2017 in Performance Bikes

959 CORSE, TOO? The Panigale isn’t completely dead: the 959 will continue as a cheaper, more accessible superbike, free from the need to satisfy the race teams. By the look of it, there will be another model in the offering next year, too: paperwork lodged with the California emissions bods ahead of full homologation includes files for a 959 Corse. What does that mean? Potentially just a posh exhaust and a few other fripperies. It’d be nice if it was a premium-spec model with Öhlins gear and maybe a set of Brembo M50 calipers, instead of the standard bike’s M4 efforts. We’ll see. IMPROVED 1299 PANIGALE TRACTION CONTROL... If you’re lucky enough to own a 2015/16 Panigale base or S model, Ducati can now punch a new set of 0s…

SPAIN’S FIRST Grand Prix champion, Angel Nieto, has died at the age of 70 from injuries sustained in a quad bike crash in Ibiza. Angel was Spain’s first world champion, eventually racking up 13 titles in the 50/125cc classes but referring to them as ‘12 + 1’, rather than the unlucky-for-some real figure. Although his wins came on the tiddlers, his success and post-riding career as a team manager (running his sons Angel Jnr, and Emilio Alzamora, who also became a 125 champ) paved the way for the legions of Spaniards filling Grand Prix grids and winning championships, with all the cash and organisation that followed to make the MotoGP world what it is today. His small but critical part in the history of top-flight racing earned him a spot…

1 Fork spring compressor ‘When you are stripping down a fork and you have the spacer tube exposed, you can see two holes. All this tool does is secure into these holes with locking pins and allow you to compress the spring so you can undo the nuts and get the spring out. It’s nothing flash, but basic can be brilliant. Without this you end up trying to do it without a compressing tool and that results in your fingertips getting bitten when it fights back!’ 2 Lock wire pliers ‘I just love a good bit of lock wiring and some of the disasters I see on customers’ bikes really upsets me. It’s an art form and I love the satisfaction of getting it right. And yes, I confess I…

2008 HONDA FIREBLADE CHRIS NEWBIGGING AMONG THE MEGABYTES of press releases and other dreary nonsense that pings in to my inbox every day was an email from PB reader Mick Loughlin that brightened a morning of the tedious admin shit that comes with steering the ship on Performance Bikes. Project Fireblade’s new goal of shaving kilograms in order to chase down the Panigale Superleggera’s figures (and lap time) was the subject up for discussion – and more precisely, how Mick could help. As well as a hard-used CBR600RR track bike of his own that he’s been on a similar mission of extricating max performance from a solid older sportsbike, Mick has also spannered for various race teams – most recently, Jackson Racing, who campaigned Hondas on the roads and world…

‘We were 0.6s off Shane Byrne. That’s bloody good for a 45-year-old who’d never sat on the bike before’ 2016 BMW S1000RR ALEC TAGUE A LOT HAS HAPPENED – and a lot of miles have been covered – since last month’s instalment. We had a solid weekend at Brands Hatch in Superstock, going into the two-leg 100-mile race on the Saturday afternoon. It was a mixed-up race with a red flag and a restart. We ended up with a second and a fourth in both parts, for an overall third place. Then, on Sunday we had the usual Superstock race – Michael was lapping under the lap record and finished second. No drama, and we extended third position in the championship. Going into Thruxton was always going to be a…

HOW LONG FIVE MONTHS COST £100 CONTACT WWW.MKSCUSTOMS.CO.UK THIS WAS SOMETHING of an experiment between PB and local vehicle vinyl expert Mike at MKS Customs. I idly asked if a helmet can be wrapped. “I can try,” he gamely volunteered. I chose Wil Hartog’s delightfully distinctive, Dutch-themed scheme for a white Shoei X-Spirit III, carefully prised the trim off, and left him to it. The result is great: it’s proving robust in daily use, knocking around vans, pitlanes and all the other potential scratch opportunities a helmet encounters in the life of a PB editor... One edge has suffered slight peel: Michael did warn that the single piece of vinyl required for the red ‘cap’ on top was at the absolute limit of how the material could be manipulated around…

HOW LONG TWO MONTHS COST £179.99 CONTACT WWW.BIKEIT.CO.UK LAST MONTH’S SLICK tyre test demanded warmers: each set needed an hour to thoroughly heat through to achieve optimum operating temperature and the ability to correctly set pressures. Tyre tests are conducted at relentless pace: in order to get all the tyres tested on the same day, in the same conditions, we use two sets of rims so there’s always a new set ready to go. Efficient and rugged warmers were a must, and they also needed to fit the 200-section rears some manufacturers offer. Two pairs of these Biketek efforts replaced PB’s dog-eared, too-small previous warmers, taking the abuse of the day in their stride, warming tyres quickly and evenly to the required 80°C. Nothing pulled apart, the fit around the…

CHRIS NEWBIGGING EDITOR  chris@pbmag.co.uk 916 Strada, because they’re flexible, free-revving gob-jobs on wheels. AUSTIN SMITH ART EDITOR  austin@pbmag.co.uk Ducati 888 Desmoquattro, one of the first and still unrivalled today. JOHN McAVOY ROAD TESTER  editorial@pbmag.co.uk Buying with my head: 1098S. Going with my heart: 998S Bostrom replica. MICHAEL RUTTER TRACK TESTER  editorial@pbmag.co.uk An 888: it’s still the best race bike package I’ve ever ridden. MARK WHITE TECHNICIAN  editorial@pbmag.co.uk 1098S. The looks, handling, power and the control. Decent value now, too. JOHN McGUINNESS COLUMNIST  editorial@pbmag.co.uk Paul Bird’s 999 F04. I rode it at Macau in 2004 – a proper factory superbike. KAR LEE FORUM EDITOR  editorial@pbmag.co.uk I’d happily lift the garage door to see a 999R parked in there. CAROLINE BARRETT EDITORIAL ASSISTANT  caz@pbmag.co.uk An original 916 or 748. I would happily…

DORNA IS courting Donington and Silverstone to solely run and host the British MotoGP round, after current promotors Circuit of Wales failed to gain anything like the backing required to even threaten to commence building the new circuit and infrastructure. The stillborn Ebbw Vale track lost its Welsh government funding last month, and three years into the 10-year contract it had with Dorna (running the race at Silverstone until the circuit was finished, in theory), MotoGP’s organisers are pulling the plug and returning to a venue offering actual tarmac.…

SOCIAL MEDIA, EH? Giving strangers the opportunity for fruitless arguments for 20 years. This month, BSB/roads battler Josh Brookes got involved in a 140 characters or fewer dispute with Aleix Espargaro during the Austrian GP round, which was threatened by a rider strike as scores of riders hit the deck in wet practice/ qualifying on a surface that proved perilous when wet. Race day was dry, so everyone raced. But Aprilia rider Espargaro’s vocal objection to racing in dicey conditions on a track with less than ideal run-off in places prompted Brookes to say, “Don’t want to ride? Stand aside and let those who would sacrifice anything to be there to have a go.” Espargaro’s frothing-mouthed response was, “In [the] wet I’m fastest than you in [the] dry! So shut…

It’s hard to believe you’d want more, but the new GSX-R is incredible, and the ZX-10R gives us a hard time in racing, so it’s a good time for a new bike before it falls behind. It excites me, though, in particular the smaller overall size. What strikes me about the GSX-R and R1 is their high-speed agility – just that little bit more inertia makes the BMW harder to ride in the high gears, especially on the roads. You only have to look at the special test we did on the Isle of Man with road bikes to see how an agility advantage increases exponentially with speed. BMWs have the best engine and electronics – if they can improve that a little, and update the chassis, it could be…

IN TERMS OF outright performance, the BMW and Aprilia are very close. There is no doubt that if we could have got into the BMW’s suspension settings and stiffened it up like we could with the S1000RR, it would have gone faster. Could it have gone a second faster and matched the Aprilia? It would be close. Both bikes have seemingly made a jump forward in performance this year. Both are quicker than the Fireblade, and the Aprilia is quicker than the R1. Neither of them got close to the superbikes at Mallory, so maybe it’s the nature of the track, maybe it’s the control tyres we’re using here – but I’m not sure it’s either. The slower layout of Mallory Park should suit them more than here, and the…

‘THE FRONT OF THE GRID IS PACKED WITH THE WORLD’S BEST RIDERS ON ONE-OFF, NEAR PROTOTYPE MACHINERY’ THE SUZUKA 8 HOURS is special. The Japanese round of the Endurance World Championship goes beyond the normal appeal of watching teams fighting for every second over hours: it’s seen as a chance for the manufacturers to show off their engineering superiority. It’s Honda’s own circuit, so you’re guaranteed a large contingent from the big H (the factory team is always supported by satellite and development teams), but every other manufacturer wants to spoil the party, too. Then there are the riders: hotshot homegrown teams and EWC regulars make up the bulk of the grid, but the front is packed out with the best from world and national championships riding one-off, near-prototype machinery…

 There’s a squeal of tortured rubber as the brakes lock, and a bright red Ducati Panigale leaves the tarmac and smashes into an earth bank, launching into the air in a huge cloud of dust and then landing with a sickening crunch - there’s surely no way this is going to end well. ‘They’ve all got one thing in common: they’re here for a laugh, and most of them are getting what they came for’ The Evil Angel smiles, the nuns shake their rosaries and a hairy man in a dress takes another slug of beer. Meanwhile the Panigale bounces back on its springs, flicks back on to the tarmac and spins the rear up and off down the straight, as a pair of R1s, an old Fazer 600 with…

BEST CRASH TOM MACINTOSH Tall Tom sent his TZR250 2MA for a little lie-down at hand, mine’s a bit sore!” BEST BIKE SIMON BELTON Simon had a YZF750 track bike with an EXUP engine, fitted with modern Yamaha running gear, turned out in a very attractive retro track bike style. “It’s making me sweat around here,” he said. “God knows how you ride a new litre bike around Rockingham!” SPIRIT OF PB PETE SHURMER Forum editor/troll police Kar Lee picked Pete and his battle-scarred R6 5EB for the award with the vaguest judging criteria... This time, we thought his multi-crashed but still-thrashed blue Yamaha warranted a tiny plastic pot for his commitment. Gracelands to win crasher of the day. Although PB’s Mark White was a close second, dropping Caz’s Monster…

Work tidy Try to avoid making a mess while you are working and also put things away while you are going along. If you replace tools in their correct place after you have used them, you won’t waste hours searching the garage for them. Storage is key You can never have too much storage. I’m a big fan of shelves and I’ve just bought a cabinet to house all my lathe tools. They were all over the bench before and I wasted so much time sifting through looking for the right cutter. Double check On my Isle of Man TT bikes I double-check everything, but only gently. Don’t double-check with a spanner and try to over-tighten something, just give it a gentle check so you don’t disturb the torque setting.…

‘The chassis is leagues ahead of my 955i, but the suspension feels its age. I’m looking at a rebuild’ 2005 YAMAHA YZF-R1 CARL NEWBIGGING BEING RELATED TO the editor has its perks: I’ve been had a spin on a few new sportsbikes in the last few years. But that’s come at the expense of my relationship with my Daytona 955i – my lovely old triple lost its shine next to R1s, Panigales, S1000RRs... So it’s got to go, to make room for something that’ll give me the sort of thrills I now crave. Chris has always been a bad influence on me... I had £4000 to spend: I trawled dozens of ads for ZX-10Rs (either crashed or butchered at this money), GSX-R1000s (not really my bag) and Ducatis (out of…

‘The new one steers like a much smaller bike, and the suspension keep it all under control over the bumps’ 2006 SUZUKI GSX-R1000 K6 KAR LEE THE LAST TIME I rode a modern-day 1000cc sportsbike in a direct comparison to my decade-old GSX-R around Rockingham was on ex-editor Matt Wildee’s BMW S1000RR. It was stunningly capable, stupidly rapid but surprisingly unexciting. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, anyone who labels a 190+bhp motorcycle borderline bland clearly has issues, but hear me out. The Beemer ticked all the boxes: traction control, ABS, precision steering and 600cc-levels of flickability. It boasted a shitload of power, the ability to put it all down and I felt as invincible as Krypton’s favourite son – and that frightened the life out of me. I returned…

HOW LONG FOUR YEARS COST AROUND £130 CONTACT WWW.LASERTOOLS.CO.UK THIS TOOL, ‘borrowed’ from a mate and now claiming squatter’s rights under my bench, has made periodic brake maintenance ore tolerable. The selection of expanding collets fit the internal bore of most pistons (but not the tiny trailing pistons on my MV’s six-pots), and give solid purchase without damaging working faces. A slide hammer and handle attachment is there to bring some brutality if required, but I find using the handle to twist and pull usually breaks the grip of moderately seized pistons: the slide hammer has only ever been required on seriously rank calipers. Worth having if you get through a few project bikes or do lots of miles and your own maintenance – even if they aren’t seized, pistons…

‘Is it possible to have sporting excitement as well as big-ride capability?’ 2017 KTM 1290 SUPER DUKE GT AUSTIN SMITH SPORTS TOURER used to mean bikes like the Honda VFR750F-V in my garage. Capable, worthy, flexible... But let’s face it, a bit bland and not that exciting. KTM’s take on the sports tourer concept is to add a fairing and big tank to the mental Super Duke: suddenly the idea of having a sports tourer in the shed sounds a lot more appealing. When I first got my grubby mitts on the bike, the adjustable footpegs were at their furthest extension, so riding home I realised the brake lever wasn’t under the ball of my foot, as I usually like – it was closer to the toes (same with the…

2017 YAMAHA YZF-R6 KAR LEE I’LL BE BRUTALLY honest here: I love my big, fast motorbikes. Big V-twins, big V4s, big in-line fours, if it’s big and powerful and goes around a corner, I’m in. Anything sub-750 is classed (in my head) as a little bike nowadays. I’ve owned a couple of sports 600s and ridden dozens of the things over the years but nowadays my money lands on the 1000cc square. Sports 600s can be fun on track but they force you to work them – and yourself – hard if you want to keep up with the fast boys. It’s a mindset that takes time to get into and flitting between the wife’s capable (and modified) CBR doesn’t take long as it’s blessed with a semi-decent midrange and…

“ONE MONTH after Chris had ridden his GSX-R with the fork mod at PB’s Rockingham tyre test, I finally got my hands on it when we returned to the outskirts of Corby for this year’s Dunlop PB trackday. “He definitely not buggered it up. Running the fork tops flush with the yokes certainly doesn’t have any adverse effect – which is what I’d feared. It lets you get on with enjoying what’s an incredibly litre bike. As it was the first time I’d ridden the new GSX-R1000 on track, a few things were immediately noteworthy. “Basically, it’s so easy to ride – really easy. Not only does the motor have much to be thanked for in this department, but the way in which the quickshifter does its thing also makes…

CARBS/INJECTION The 1996 model was carbed. To fit a pipe, it’s a jet kit and spanners job. 1997-on were injected, so a Power Commander comes into play. The injected bikes made a bit more power. CHASSIS Stock shock will be goosed. Showa forks respond well to refreshment, but it’ll all be for nowt if you don’t check the suspension/head bearings: they were poorly greased to start with – sort them first. BUILD QUALITY Mechanically tough, but finish is poor. It doesn’t take much for steel to rot, alloy to corrode, fasteners to seize and round. Even if you’re building a cheap track tool, it pays to find one that has been cared for, regardless of bodywork condition. WHAT TO PAY MINT: £2500 ROUGH: £800 BEST MODIFICATION A complete radial-braked front…

THE WORLD WHEELIE championships has a new champion and record holder: Irish loon Ted Brady stepped forward, hoiked it up and carried it for a flying kilometre, with a terminal speed of 217.850mph. Out-bloody-rageous. The previous record was 213mph, set by fantastically-named Dutchman Egbert van Popta. What makes the feat more astounding is that the flying-kilo is just the area required to record the record: in order to reach that speed, much more of Elvington’s two-mile straight has to be covered on one wheel. We are not worthy, and neither are you, probably. You know what to do if you are, though...…

TWO AND A HALF INCHES ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE RACING ONCE-PB EDITOR and long-time contributor Mat Oxley has another book out. We’ve yet to delve into this especially thick release, but essentially it’s a compilation of his online column from the last decade (131 stories in total!), covering the bikes, people, history, scandal and opinion of bike racing, in the authoritative, accurate and enthusiastic way only Mat can. Alone, the columns are a good read: bundled together, they’re a broad and fantastic insight to the fabric of MotoGP and world-level racing. The price given here is for the first batch, which are all signed, too. Price: £23 Contact: www.matoxley.bigcartel.com WORK YOUR WRIST ROBBY MOTO QUICK ACTION THROTTLES FOR 2017 YZF-R6 AND GSX-R1000 RIDE-BY-WIRE is here to stay, but…

‘MAYBE I’D LIKE TO YELL OR SMASH UP THE GARAGE AFTER A BAD RACE, BUT I UNDERSTOOD PRETTY EARLY IN MY CAREER THAT THIS ISN’T THE RIGHT WAY TO GO...’ FRANCO MORBIDELLI is not your usual young motorcycling maniac. Chatting with the 22-year-old Roman is more like hanging out with a musician than a racer. His demeanour is different to most average young racetrack assassins: he moves slowly, talks thoughtfully, always with a knowing smile that tells you there’s more going on inside his head than he’s letting on. He seems so relaxed and exudes so much cool that he doesn’t seem in a hurry to get up from the table, let along lap a race track at 170mph. This is not normal for a youngster scrambling up the Grand…

‘I bought it as a bare frame. Everything else I had to find, buy or make myself’ Paul de Clercq Bike Moto Martin CB1100 Bol d’Or Class: Classic Dream What’s the story then? “I bought this as a bare frame, for restoration – everything else I had to either find, buy or make myself. The frame is for road racing – it’s the stronger, closed loop version, not the pure road one which uses the engine as a stressed member – but I have all the papers to use it on the road if I want. It’s a CB1100 motor with a Wiseco 1172cc big-bore kit, higher compression, big oil cooler, Dyna ignition, and Keihin CR32 carbs. The forks and wheels are modified early GSX-R750 – just because they’re very…

2003 MV AGUSTA BRUTALE 750 CHRIS NEWBIGGING NO, YOU HAVEN’T stepped into an issue of Practical Sportsbikes, as much as the following might seem more of a restoration than an improvement. The Brutale is solid enough to run around on, but a few things aren’t right, and they niggle me enough to take action. I tackled the brakes last month – cleaning out filth, and fitting the master cylinder with some new seals to make sure the mechanical parts were fit. That left the hoses, which were off in the post to British hydraulic hose masters HEL to be matched up the last time we were here. And they’re back: the £89.99 bespoke hoses are well worth the extra to me over a twin-hose conversion. Two hoses would be a…

1997 YAMAHA TRX850 JOHN McAVOY THE RECENT ADDITION of a Nitron shock to the rear-end of my TRX in place of the knackerd, baggy, 45,000-mile old unit unsurprisingly brought a new lease of life to the handling. It also shone a light on the front-end’s now stark difference in quality and range of adjustment. Soft, under-damped and relatively uncommunicative is how the forks now feel. I pledged to get them up to the same standard as the rear shock – and replace the brake pads for some that actually bite – in time for the PB Trackday at Rockingham. Then the McAvoy summer family holiday happened, and for two weeks, all the TRX did was collect dust in my garage. The trackday was just a couple of days after we…

HOW LONG 18 MONTHS COST £50 CONTACT WWW.SALTERHOUSEWARES.CO.UK IF YOU DEVELOP an obsession with trimming grams from every part of your bike, you’ll need a set of these to monitor progress. These have been called upon for PB’s TL-R build, tyre tests and now our Fireblade, plus scrutinising weight claims of parts and helmets. They aren’t cheap, but the stainless construction is tough and easy to clean when laden with dirty parts. There’s a function for zeroing the readout, so you can use something to support larger items up to the maximum of 10kg. They’re consistent, too – we’ve weighed the same components a couple of times with no variance. A pricey, niche requirement, but if you’re serious about honing your bike, it’s pointless starting without the gear to verify…

2017 HONDA FIREBLADE JOHN McAVOY LAST MONTH, I had a Rapid Racing fuel and ignition module fitted to my Fireblade in order to rule out Euro 4 friendly, ultra-lean fuelling that most bikes have to have these days as new. The module ‘self learns’ via the bikes Lambda sensor, and adjusts the bikes fuelling to achieve a fuel/air ratio less friendly to kittens, but more conducive to better behaviour at the twist grip. It comes with a pre-set base map with plenty of fuel added at the low- to mid-range, from where it begins to autotune. The autotuning takes place as you ride the bike, and Rapid Racing recommend 300 miles minimum for it to get a handle on what is required. With that in mind, I dispatched a couple…

2017 SUZUKI GSX-R1000R CHRIS NEWBIGGING WHEN ANYONE POKES around my GSX-R-R, the 15mm of fork protrusion above the top yoke always invokes a comment. ‘Bloody hell, pulled those through, haven’t you,’ is the general assumption made. Understandable: most bikes have no more than 5mm above the top yoke. In comparison, the GSX-R looks like it’s been dumped on its nose in a ’90s-style effort to improve steering. But it hasn’t. The premium-spec R model comes like this. Actual ride height is the same as the base model, but with the scope to raise the front as well as lower it. Raising the front might sound daft, but it’s very much the thinking of the moment when it comes to making a bike faster over a whole lap. I found this…