Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Performance Bikes

‘It’s a triple-header’ SUZUKI GSX-R750Y, SUZUKI GSX-R1000 K6, APRILIA RSV FACTORY COLIN SANDERSON I HAVE READ PB for years now and thought it was time I tried to get my bikes in your magazine. I have owned my Suzuki GSX-R750Y for 12 years. It has GSX-R1000 K1 titanium headers and an Arrow carbon can, K&N filter, Power Commander and Fireblade rear light. The silver Rizla fairings went on after a crash a few years ago. I bought my GSX-R1000 K6 because a friend bought an R1, and the Aprilia RSV Factory was a 40th birthday present to myself. The K6 is a US import – well, me and my dealer can only guess it was imported because of the candy red finish. It has a Yoshimura exhaust, K&N filter, Power…

I’VE BEEN HALFWAY around the world again to race in Australia. It’s a long way, but it’s worth it to feel the sun on your face every morning when the UK was snowed in. The annual International Festival of Speed held at Eastern Creek is a jewel of a meeting, and always brings along some big names. Troy Bayliss, Troy Corser, Frankie Chili, Chris Vermeulen, Kevin Magee and Steve Parrish all attended this year. I got to race Corser again on the big P5 air-cooled bikes; he’s a competitive bugger. We all do a parade event that usually turns into a free-for-all. First lap is half-sensible, then pride takes over and quickly it becomes a race. I was lucky enough to ride an ’08 factory XRF5 Suzuki GSX-R1000, Frankie rode…

IT’S BEEN A while since I’ve taken part in a group test with three bikes so completely different to each other, yet all technically in the same sector. If variety is the spice of life, then the middleweight naked class is alive and well. With the MT-09 SP, Yamaha are offering the best bang for buck by spending money in the areas that really matter, and holding back (not scrimping) in the areas that don’t directly add anything to the way the bike rides. It has a genuinely brilliant engine, with real innovation, refinement and superb fuel injection, in a chassis with very good geometry, held together with really high quality suspension. It is a class act that is virtually impossible to fault. The MV Agusta Brutale 800RR does feel…

THE DETAIL ENGINE Type Liquid-cooled, dohc, 16v inline four Capacity 998cc Bore x stroke 76mm x 55mm Fuelling Mitsubishi electronic fuel injection, ride-by-wire throttle bodies Power 207.05bhp @ 13,000rpm (claimed) Torque 83.71lb.ft @ 11,500rpm (claimed) CHASSIS Frame Cast aluminium twin-spar Front suspension 43mm upside-down Showa Balance Free forks, KECS-controlled rebound and compression damping, adjustable preload Rear suspension Showa Balance Free shock, KECS-controlled rebound and compression damping, adjustable preload Front brakes 2 x 330mm floating discs with Brembo M50 monoblock four-piston calipers Rear brakes 220mm disc with single-piston caliper DIMENSIONS Wheelbase 1440mm Rake/trail 27°/107mm Weight 208kg (wet, claimed) Seat height 835mm Fuel capacity 17 litres TECHNOLOGY Rider aids Bosch IMU, traction control, wheelie control, launch control, cornering ABS, engine braking control, quickshifter, electronic steering damper, power modes, CAN connection for datalogger,…

ANDY’S CONDENSED WORKSHOP WISDOM Measure twice before you cut Classics are always built from lots of expensive parts that aren’t necessarily designed to live together in the same bike and therefore need modifying. You can’t afford to cock it up! Keep records I have a record of every engine I have ever built; it’s invaluable when it comes to reconditioning them. I can go back to the 1980s and reference the valve-drop, squish, everything... Always keep records for reference. Keep the customer informed I always let them know how a build is going. You can’t just take a box of bits and give a quote; some jobs take much longer. By talking to them they know what the bill will be, so there’s no nasty surprise. Use ice cream containers…

THE CHASSIS DARREN WNUKOSKI MCT Suspension Darren set up MCT in 2003. He is one of the UK’s most respected suspension experts and more than 700 bikes pass through his workshop every year. If you want an ill-handling road bike transformed into a sweet chariot, Darren is your man. www.mctsuspension.co.uk THE ENGINE MARK BREWIN BSD Performance Mark Brewin is the man behind BSD Performance, one of the UK’s top dyno houses that's trusted by countless road riders and racers when it comes to getting their motors fuelling perfectly. There are usually three or four K5-K8 motors on his bench. www.bsd.uk.com THE BOLT-ONS GILES HARWOOD HPS Giles established Harwood Performance Source (HPS) in 1999 and it has grown to become one of the UK and Europe’s best technical mail order companies.…

‘With a total weight loss of 9.4kg, my bike must now be sub-200kg fully-fuelled’ 2014 KTM 1290 SUPER DUKE R JOHN BENNETT I’M GETTING THE hang of this journalism game: not only have I been enjoying a few press events and the finery they entail, I’ve also heard the sound of a deadline whizzing past, and subsequently fobbed the editor off... “I’ll have this instalment with you soon, nearly finished,” I lied (I saw right through your BS: that’s the crap I’ve been spouting for 15 years – CN). Truth was, the Duke was under a pile of boxes of shiny stuff to bolt to it, but it hadn’t seen a spanner in a month. Balls, I better get in the garage and pull my finger out of my arse!…

2017 YAMAHA YZF-R6 KAR LEE SO I FINALLY managed to get the R6 out for a post-winter run between snow flurries and managed all of 300 yards before it dawned on me there was a serious deterioration in the handling. I pulled over to give it a check. Deciding the flat rear tyre might just be the culprit, I trundled slowly back home and gave it 36 pounds of Peterborough’s finest air before continuing about my business. What a bike. I’d missed riding it over what seemed like the Longest Winter Ever. The induction growl, the new-found midrange (thanks, Arrow exhaust and ECU flash), the nimble handling, the choppy suspension... Hmmm. A week later I went to wheel the R6 out for another blat, except the rear Michelin Power RS…

CHRIS NEWBIGGING EDITOR chris@pbmag.co.uk Full-volume NWA singalong in the office AUSTIN SMITH ART EDITOR austin@pbmag.co.uk Missending fruity texts to the mother-in-law MICHAEL RUTTER TRACK TESTER editorial@pbmag.co.uk ‘Accidentally’ climbing into Alec’s bunk in the Bathams truck MARK WHITE TECHNICIAN editorial@pbmag.co.uk Leather underpants shipped to the office JOHN McAVOY ROAD TESTER editorial@pbmag.co.uk Disturbing Rutter shrine discovery JEREMY McWILLIAMS COLUMNIST editorial@pbmag.co.uk Betting on Northern Ireland to win the World Cup JOHN BENNETT VLOGGER www.youtube.com/lambchoprides ‘Size 10 kitten heels’ found in search history KAR LEE FORUM EDITOR editorial@pbmag.co.uk Yet another ‘I’d like to speak to Carly’ phone call CAROLINE BARRETT EDITORIAL ASSISTANT caz@pbmag.co.uk Stray Chicken McNugget found under car seat…

DO WE ALL really need 190bhp on the road, or is it time to seriously consider the very real attraction of a naked bike that packs enough power for back-roads dickheadedness, allied to handling and electronic aids more than adequate to prevent a trip to casualty? Each of our trio of triples packs the power of a 1998 Yamaha YZF-R1 – and that seemed like more than enough back in the day. The fairing-less Triumph Street Triple 765RS, MV Agusta Brutale 800RR and Yamaha MT-09 SP will all manage 150mph, 11-second standing-quarters and are bristling with tech that we couldn’t have imagined 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. In response to Yamaha sprucing up their MT-09 for 2018, and MV Agusta producing the Brutale 800RR in significant numbers…

EIGHTEEN MONTHS ago, at the end of the technical briefing at the Triumph Street Triple 765RS launch, the presenter asked the assembled journalists if anyone had any questions. Virtually every hand in the room went up, at which point he added: “Questions not about whether we are going to fit this engine into the Daytona...” whereupon 95% of the hands went back down. The idea that the then all-new, enviro-friendly, 765cc, 120bhp triple engine is an obvious way to revive the now discontinued Daytona, was obvious to everyone in the room, including the Triumph top brass. Then, eight months later, Triumph announced they are going to be supplying the same motor to the Moto2 world championship in 2019, and still the mention of ‘Daytona’ and ‘765’ in one sentence gets…

“YOU ABSOLUTELY must not crash in a race now – one small crash and you lose points and cannot work back to a podium position, because the racing is harder and closer. Preparation is important – we see other bikes with electrical issues, or simple issues like losing bolts. We prepare not to have that problem, as well as making it the fastest bike to ride and being fast in pit stops. But we’re racing some very good teams: FCC, YART, GMT and ourselves can all be making the same lap times. “Our first race on the new bike at the Bol d’Or didn’t go as well as we wanted: the bike arrived late and we hadn’t done enough prep. We had issues with the chain, wheel speed sensors, the…

The BSB star celebrated with a massive burnout after blitzing North West 200 specialist Alastair Seeley in the feature Superbike race on his Be Wiser/PBM Ducati at the Northern Irish meeting last May. Six months later, Irwin’s features were a mask of torment as he rode back to the pits after witnessing Dan Hegarty’s fatal crash at the Macau Grand Prix. Two defining photographs bookended the 2017 road racing season. Both featured Glenn Irwin, one in a moment of pure joy and the other an image of total despair. Depicting the pleasure and pain of road racing, they also highlight the contradictions in Glenn Irwin’s between-the-hedges ambitions. The son of top Irish road racer, Alan Irwin, the 28-year-old was a schoolboy motocrosser who chose the short circuit route into bike…

1 Whiteboard “I use this all the time, it is essential for keeping track of what I’ve been doing. When you are a small business you need to be able to accurately record the hours you put into each motor and show the customer the work that has gone into it. I work on so many projects at once so I continually update the whiteboard, then in the evenings transfer the data to a notebook, and then a spreadsheet. When you are working on a motor you get so involved in what you are doing it is easy to forget the precise measurements – so I use the whiteboard as my analogue computer in the garage! Once I have finished a motor I supply the customer with a copy of…

‘Once fitted, trackside parameter adjustment is simple. Or you can spend a bit of time on a quiet road...’ 2005 YAMAHA YZF-R1 CARL NEWBIGGING I SHOULD HAVE focused on the R1’s suspension next: brakes, engine and tasteless tat all addressed, the tired original forks and shock are the logical final piece in my overhaul of a decade-old litre bike. Instead, I’ve got sidetracked fulfilling a long time desire to own... a quickshifter. I remember the exact moment I wanted one – trackside at a Thundersport race meet, Phil Crowe’s S1000RR emitting huge pops and cracks made the sight of a bloke around the 20-stone mark laying waste to the field all the more impressive... In any case, it’s either not been possible to fit them to my bikes, I’ve been…

‘I’d kicked the cap off my brake fluid reservoir during the tankslapper’ 2017 YAMAHA YZF-R3 HARRIS BEECH BRITISH SUPERSPORT 300 WHAT A WEEKEND that was... Donington was the only track on the BSB calendar I’ve ridden before, at a test day a month or two ago. It’s actually the only proper track I’ve ever been on... By the time it came to race weekend, that little bit of track knowledge came in handy, but I’d only ridden the National configuration, not the GP. Donington is a lot wider and quicker than the tracks I’m used to from Minibike racing, which means there’s a lot more opportunity to overtake – and to be overtaken! The part of the track that I had learned, from Redgate to Coppice, I was confident on,…

‘Only the greasiest roads tighten the twit-winker; the rest of the time I’m tapping into potent performance’ 2018 KTM 1290 SUPER DUKE R CHRIS NEWBIGGING IT’S OBVIOUS that a grunt-riddled supernaked like the Super Duke is going to put a smile on your mug on a warm, sunny day. That’s what they’re for: getting out for a hoon. But the Super Duke has endeared itself to me beyond its B-road ability, or fondness for wheelies (I’ve only sampled the former once so far; the second... a lot) by being at least competent in most situations, and mostly engaging and entertaining. That’s not what I expected from a manufacturer and model built around an uncompromising, lairy image. The final bout of running-in miles was a trip to meet my wife and…

MASSIMO TAMBURINI’S last design is to be made a reality by his son. The T12 Massimo is going on sale in a run of 12, priced at a million dollars each. That’s just over £700,000: enough to buy 40 of the S1000RR it takes its engine from... The prototype was revealed last year; Andrea Tamburini announced the run of hand-built production bikes at a car event in Monaco, so they may already be allocated to customers whose wealth is comfortably greater than their level of common sense... You get a lot for the money (as you’d bloody well hope) with the track-only special, starting with a BMW Motorrad Motorsport Type 7.2 motor, which is knocking on the door of 240bhp and only used by the WSB outfit. Be prepared to…

ADVERTISING Phone 01733 468000 Group commercial director Gareth Ashman Group commercial manager Rhonda Janes Key accounts Shaun Collin Account Manager Phil Martin Senior Telesales Sarah Frisby Telesales Exec Jessie Hutchings MARKETING Phone 01733 468845 Marketing manager Sarah Norman Marketing executive Angela Humphrey Head of newstrade marketing Leon Benoiton Newstrade marketing Joe Deboo PRODUCTION Phone 01733 468341 Production controller Carl Lawrence Advertising production Kerry Beasley Printed by Wyndeham Peterborough Distributed by Frontline THE BOSSES Managing director motorcycling Rob Aherne Group managing director Rob Munro-Hall Editorial director June Smith-Sheppard Finance director Lisa Hayden Group finance & strategy director Sarah Vickery CEO Paul Keenan…

1 FIRSTS The K7 was the first GSX-R1000 to feature an electronically-controlled steering damper and also the first Japanese bike to come with variable power modes. Yep, in 2007 you could choose between three levels of power on the K7 – A, B or C. 2 IDLE CONTROL ISSUE Early K7 models suffered from idle control unit issues, resulting in a bike that refuses to tick over and runs really lumpily. Suzuki did swap ECU maps, but if your bike is playing up and has missed the update, an ECU re-flash will insert the later updated map. 3 CLUTCH The K7/8 runs a hydraulic clutch, which is easily converted back to a cable unit by using parts from a K5/6 model. It’s a fairly poor system which boils up within…

‘To gain 10-15bhp would require lots of Mrs Mack’s holiday money...’ 1997 YAMAHA TRX850 JOHN McAVOY LAST SUMMER I fell for the appeal of a humble TRX850, and bought a tidy one which had been sitting unused at the back of a garage for a few years, for £1200. It didn’t disappoint, and once it sailed through its MoT with precisely zero preparation by me, all my expectations were met. The TRX was a lot of fun to razz around on. Once I’d swapped the 20-year-old shock (which was probably shit even when it was brand new) for a posh new Nitron unit, and PDQ Developments overhauled the forks with some much heavier springs, new oil and a pair of Race Tech emulators, my TRX was transformed from baggy, bouncy…

2003 MV AGUSTA BRUTALE 750 CHRIS NEWBIGGING ETHANOL IS THE scourge of plastic tanks. Most of them swell, some of them bubble up, some even dissolve a bit. Thankfully the MV only swells: not an issue in itself as the mounts give a bit of breathing room and are adjustable anyway. But it has a knock-on effect... Bits falling off is a long-standing criticism for smug twats who like to take the moral high ground about the superlative reliability of their BMondazuki. ‘Call that character?’ Do fuck off... But I did wonder when I got smacked in the thigh twice by two seperate body panels disappearing last year. Until then the MV had proven a well-made, easy-to-care-for piece of exotica. But it’s not the MV’s fault, as such. As the…

Dainese Laguna Seca D1 HOW LONG 18 MONTHS COST £899.95 CONTACT WWW.DAINESE.COM THE LAGUNA Seca suit from Dainese sits just one up from their entry level ‘Assen’ suit. In terms of spec, it is fairly average, with the exception of features like replaceable elbow sliders and ventilated speed hump, which if they weren’t there, I wouldn’t miss. However, trinkets aside, Dainese do know a thing or two about suit design. The stretch panels, specifically the one that runs from the arm pits, down the sides of the torso and across the lower back, are perfectly positioned. Then there is the quality of the hide. That alone is probably a big factor in the hefty difference in price for other similar spec suits. It might be cowhide, rather than kangaroo, but…

‘The tank and intake graphics are bespoke adaptations of the TDR250’s signature decals’ 2017 YAMAHA MT-09 MARK WHITE WE BEAT YAMAHA to the punch with the idea of a sharper MT-09 – but the sneaky sods then made the MT-09 SP such an apparent bargain (only £800 more, for better suspension and lovely finishes) compared to the bouncing, plain-faced standard model my bike once was. But this homegrown version has to be MUCH better in all regards: matching the real SP pound-for-pound isn’t possible. After two months away at Dream Machine, I think you’ll agree our bike has come back very much head and shoulders above even Yamaha’s ‘Race Blu’ special: I wasn’t too sure when Commandant Newbigging dictated the TDR250 ‘Faraway Blue’ retro theme to mark the MT-09’s spiritual…