Table of contents for May 2016 in Performance Bikes

ONE FOR ALL The seat height stays the same, but it’s narrower at the front so shorties can reach the floor easier. Low-RPM assist is waiting in the wings to prevent stalling and make town riding smoother. NOT (JUST) FOR GIRLS The Gladius gunned for the female vote with nail-polish colour options and targeted marketing. The new SV has more neutral appeal. SAME OLD, MOSTLY Some new injectors here, a bit of piston coating there, but the changes are just small efficiency improvements enhancing the existing motor. M.I.A. ADJUSTERS Preload adjusters are omitted from the forks, yet the Gladius had them. Not the end of the world, but we’d still rather it had them. 2016 SUZUKI SV650 CHRIS NEWBIGGING BASTARD FAST, TECHNOLOGY-LADEN superbikes have been the cornerstone of PB for…

MARTEK SUZUKI GSX-R1100 TURBO RICHARD EASTOP “IN 1996/1997 MARTEK built the first of two hybrid frames based on a GSXR-750W bike to take an oil-cooled Suzuki 1100 engine. I bought this bike knowing one of its previous owners was Keith Flint, frontman with The Prodigy. Guy Martin has the other. “I bought it in June 2015, and the first thing that struck me was that it is so difficult to ride due to the turbo lag. It’s the first turbo bike I’ve owned and it takes some getting used to, you just lean forward and hit warp drive and it will wheelie, wheelspin or normally both... “I started to consider improvements and in addition there were certain modifications necessary due to high crankcase pressure and the need for a complete…

THE PROMISE OF better weather in Spain is unnervingly accurate. Filling up at one of the last French service stations, a bright blue band of sky is visible beyond the rain still pissing down the back of my neck when I turn my head. As we splash on, it gets bigger, and the rain eases. The final French toll booth marks the end of the cloud, and the roads are already drying – so much so, now BMWmounted, I tap the button to disengage the traction control, and wheelie away. It’s not like they have police or CCTV here, is it? Chimp impulse satiated, I put the front wheel down, and realise the first-second-third-fourth-gear minger I’ve hoisted was conducted in Rain mode. Later, erm, research reveals it’s actually the nicest…

THE KAWASAKI IS all about aggression. It feels like a two-stroke in some ways – it might be because the tyres aren’t as good as the BMW’s, or the power delivery, but it’s always trying to spin, slide and wheelie. I don’t have a problem with having to four-finger brake – that’s what I do anyway. The problem with the brakes for me is the aggression of the ABS – it is really noticeable, whereas on the BMW I am able to brake much harder. Initially it feels soft, too – the BMW’s electronic suspension means you don’t have to think about it, but a small amount of extra rear compression makes a big difference on the Kawasaki. Once I’d done that, I was impressed with the new Showa suspension,…

FOR THE LAST 13 years, Sam Matthewman has dedicated himself to creating the ultimate Suzuki TL1000S racer. He has big-bored, stroked and even supercharged Suzuki’s legendary bad boy as well as ripped its chassis to pieces and grafted on the best bit from modern sportsbikes. His search for speed has been relentless, and at times fraught with disaster, but above all backed up by a solid engineering background. And it has all been done from his home garage. When Sam replied to PB’s shout-out on Facebook for interesting bikes with a picture of his TL-S, we had to investigate further. What we discovered in a garage outside York was not only one of the UK’s foremost TL experts, but also probably the most sorted TL-S in the country. Well, sorted…

FORKS “We don’t sell them in the UK at the moment as Japan takes every single one we can build and a lot of the high-end manufacturing processes such as the coatings are based in Japan. The level of quality they demand is so high they are very expensive to make.” PRESSES “The sub-assembly work involves pressing items such as bearings into place, which is all done by hand using special tools and spacers. It is much better to press bearings in by hand because it’s all about feel and getting it seated perfectly.” STOCK “We have 5000 different components kept in stock, – racks of tubes, boxes of shims, it’s simply too much to count. I think of it as the number of Lamborghinis instead, and it’s quite a…

1999 SUZUKI TL1000R MARK WHITE THIS MONTH HAS been all about cosmetic tweaks. It’s been a bit of a journey over the last few years, from picking the bike up as a slighty tatty stock bike, to shedding weight, to making it handle, to gaining power, to putting it in its current, crazy, hyper-tuned state. But between all the fettling, there has always been the need for some tidying-up – and this was made all the more apparent after the new carbon bodywork and amazing stock-looking wrap were fitted. First on the list was the screen. We’d got used to the huge, clear touring screen that’s sat on the nose fairing since day one. It had two saving graces – the first is it’s clear, and the second is that…

HOW LONG TWO MONTHS FOR THIS PARTICULAR ONE COST £26.40 CONTACT WWW.LASERTOOLS.CO.UK PUT THAT CHISEL, punch or knackered screwdriver down, walk away and have a word with yourself! If I had a pound for every bike I’ve worked on that someone else had butchered the castellated locking ring on using those ‘tools’ to remove a swingarm pivot shaft, I’d have paid for each size of the correct tool I own and then some. You only have to use a socket like this once to never turn back, and be satisfied that not only will you get the locking ring undone without turning it into something looking like a bored labrador’s had a good go at, but that you’ll also be able to re-torque it back up to spec and it…

A BOOMING, BOMBASTIC CELEBRATION of British beef, Triumph’s second-generation Daytona is still the most powerful British bike there’s ever been. Introduced in 2001, it offers grunt like Ron Jeremy and has the ability to spring more than a few surprises. Go fast on one of these and you’ll be treated like a hero by the unknowing – they’ll assume a 955i is rubbish, but the truth is anything but. Released in late 2001 after four years of the old, T595-style Daytona, it boasted stronger rods and pistons, a gas-flowed head, sand-cast throttle bodies to save weight and a larger airbox. It made a claimed 147bhp and had more shunt than ever. Likewise, a double-sided swingarm and chassis detail changes were enough to save 10kg and run a 5JJ R1 hard…

MY ROB NORTH TRIBUTE Having owned a Triumph T509 and several Street Triples since 1977, I couldn’t resist picking up the latest PB. I think it’s brilliant what the new breed of engineers have done for the British bikes. I loved your enthusiasm for the latest Speed Triple, and Tony Scott’s devotion to improving the 675 is infectious. But what prompted me to write was the fact that Tony Scott’s bike has been styled by Spirit of the Seventies. As I child I watched the iconic Rob North racing Triumphs and I call the bike I made in his honour ‘North Street’. The tank and seat are in aluminium and fortunately the style didn’t need any fancy sheet metal forming, although getting the tank to form over the airbox was…

‘Near the bridge, the ZX-10R pops a fifth-gear wheelie on a bump we didn’t realise existed’ YOU COULDN’T ASK for worse luck for the first Rutter test of the year after our warm winter holiday in Almeria. Back at Leicestershire’s Mallory Park not only is the temperature in single figures, but there’s also a drizzly mist moistening everything. And worse still, there’s a problem with the track. Keen to ready the track for us, Mallory had sent a sweeping truck out. As it tracked along Gerard’s, an oil hose sprung a leak. The crew didn’t realise. Two thirds of the way round, they did a U-turn and swept the other side before noticing the trail they’d left… One of those things, but it meant a large amount of cement dust…

BESPOKE John Reynolds’ patriotic flag still adorns the top yoke; the MoTeC dash bears his name SUSPENSION 2004 brought a new Öhlins rear shock for the team’s GSX-R1000, as well as gas-charged Öhlins forks BOX OF TRICKS MoTeC system cut power to two cylinders in corners, for primitive traction control “AT CRESCENT WE were sponsored by Suzuki GB, but we developed the bike in BSB. While parts started to arrive from Japan by 2004, ultimately the project was new to Suzuki and so we basically did our own thing. The engine was developed in-house and the chassis parts off the shelf. “Everything we learnt on the K2 translated to the K3 and by 2004 we had a few new technical bits, a lot of knowledge and Yukio Kagayama as well…

FANCY A GO AT HILLCLIMB RACING? THE NATIONAL HILL Climb Association (NHCA) runs a road-legal class, which only requires an MoT, the sump to be lock-wired and the lights, etc taped over. You can get a GIAG (give it a go) entry for £30 to certain events, which includes a day ACU licence, event entry and a day’s club membership. You will need one or two-piece zip together leathers, good boots, gloves and a lid with an ACU gold sticker. You will get two practice and two timed runs, with additional runs if time allows. www.nhca.co.uk 1 WHEELS The front wheel is an alloy Marchesini unit as a magnesium one was too light and caused the bike to wheelie. The front tyre is a ‘herring bone’ style wet as the…

TURQUOISE SPRINGS “Coming up with a company colour for our spring was a nightmare. Yellow, white, red, they are all gone, and you can’t have anything that clashes with Kawasaki green or KTM orange. We settled on turquoise, but we have to call it Nitron Blue as bikers don’t like the sound of turquoise! We also offer titanium...” 2016 KAWASAKI ZX-10R SHOCK “We try to get every new bike in to test their stock suspension before we build our own units. We dyno the OE kit and then use our experience to make a better alternative with improved damping. You also need to look beyond the shock at the suspension linkage ratios to see how it is working on the bike. Manufacturers don’t give us bikes, so we generally use…

RUTTER’S 2016 ROAD RACING SUPERBIKE Michael is racing this at the North West 200, the Isle of Man TT and Macau. A BMW Motorrad Superbike engine is on order; the rest will be built and developed by SMT. LUKE QUIGLEY’S 2015 SUPERSTOCK BIKE SMT’s 2015 bike finished fourth in National Superstock. Development of Michael’s bikes is based on this. He’s used it for testing basics, but he’ll be on the grid on a ground-up 2016 race build. MICHAEL’S 2016 ROADS/ NATIONAL SUPERSTOCK BIKE Days later, this bike was fully run-in and stripped ready to become Michael’s Superstock bike. It’ll initially race in National Superstock, helping with development and getting Rutter on the pace for the international road races. 2016 BMW S1000RR MICHAEL RUTTER MY 2016 SEASON should be a good…

‘When I rode the bike on the settings Nitron had provided I was astounded’ 2000 YAMAHA YZF-R1 MATT WILDEE MARCH IS ALWAYS one of the most exciting months for a performance-minded biker. Racing’s back on the telly, the weather is warming up, the salt on the road’s receding, and on a good day there’s enough grip to justify riding a sportsbike again. And for me, it’s also time to awaken my bike from its Optimate-assisted slumber. It had been a short lay-up for the R1; because of how mild last autumn was I was using the Yamaha regularly until late November. But it was still with a great sense of anticipation that I readied the R1 for an MoT after a few months laying up. There wasn’t a lot to…

2016 YAMAHA YZF-R1 CHRIS NEWBIGGING MOTORCYCLING STILL BOILS down to the same, simple joy it was when I first circulated a disused Peterborough brickworks on a DT50MX, aged 12. Very much controlling the destiny of a self-propelled machine whilst exploiting it for my own enjoyment. There’s no other mode of transport that so intricately engages you with its mechanical parts. So when digital technology really took hold on bikes, I raised a single eyebrow, Roger Moore-style, with suspicion. I remember learning the 2006 R6’s ride-by-wire injection wouldn’t give you full throttle butterfly opening until 10,000rpm. Why would anyone want that? Because it’s better. The fine control, management and assistance that electronics enable has given what was steady development a rocket up the arse. Now you don’t have to rely so…

CONSTRUCTION Reducing the weight of material in the spokes and rims concentrates the weight in the hub, therefore reducing rotational inertia LIGHTNESS This carbon-fibre front wheel weighs just 2.52kg – almost half the weight of a standard TL wheel HOW LONG 2 YEARS COST £2287 CONTACT WWW.BIKEHPS.COM WE’VE USED THESE BST carbon wheels for the last two years on Project TL1000R. We’ve found them to be a quality product that gives a huge weight saving, and corresponding increase in performance. By moving from TL1000R to standard GSX-R1000 L2 wheels and then carbon BST wheels, we’ve managed to save a huge amount of rotational inertia, allowing the bike to turn harder and faster, accelerate more quickly and stop in shorter distances. A monocoque carbon construction, and autoclave-cured under high pressure, they…

TERMI Termignoni and Ducati continue their decades-long love affair with an optional high-level exhaust that takes power up to 115bhp. 2016 DUCATI HYPERMOTARD 939 SP MATT WILDEE DUCATI’S HYPERMOTARD HAS always confused UK riders. Despite being around in various forms for the last eight years, it’s largely passed most of us by. And that’s a shame because a grunty, agile, long-suspended sports-naked-cumsupermoto is perfectly suited to British B-roads. But the Hypermotard’s popularity in mountainous central Europe has led Ducati to keep developing it, and judging by a day of riding two of the latest versions in the mountains north of Barcelona and around the stupendous Parcmotor racetrack, that’s a good thing – it’s brilliant. There are three bikes in the range – the standard do-anything bike, the pannier-laden Hyperstrada and…

RACE-READY | LIGHT SIMPLE TO FIT RACE/TRACK FAIRING BRACKET FOR MV F3 675 On track you’ve no need for headlights or mirrors, so why not go the whole hog, shave some weight off and fit a dedicated track fairing bracket to support your clocks and top fairing? DB Holders’ latest race fairing offering, fabricated from lightweight aluminium alloy ‘duralumin’, is for the 2012-on MV Agusta F3. It’s designed to bolt straight on to existing mounting points with no modifications. Brackets are also available for other modern sportsbikes. Price: £96 Contact: www.moto46.co.uk CARBON-FIBRE VENTED | TRACK-BRED X-LITE X-802RR ULTRA CARBON X-Lite have used feedback from their WSB and MotoGP pilots to create a new race lid. Its removable and washable lining made from ‘activated carbon fibres’ is said to encourage sweat…

GERMAN CARBON OBSESSION I’m 22 years old and studying composites in Germany. I started to ride bikes quite early and also build things for my bike around the same time. When I was 15 I started to play around with carbon and made small parts for my 125. When I graduated from high school, I bought an old, crashed Aprilia RSV and wanted see what I could do with carbon-fibre to make a full-on race bike. After half a year of work, I got to the point where I could test the main components like the carbon tank/ seat monocoque, the airbox, the new wiring, cooling and other bits and bobs like the injector set-up. When I started off, I thought I would be lucky if I could take the…

THE LAST TIME Germany spent six years trampling over the world, it didn’t end so well. But in the case of the S1000RR, six years of a phenomenally powerful German overlord has revolutionised our world for the better. BMW’s first mainstream superbike took everything we loved in a sportsbike, made it 10% better, and convinced us that electronics truly are the way forward, with a fabulous rider aids package. In 2015, Yamaha’s new R1 and Ducati’s 1299 Panigale got right on the BMW’s case, trying to match the compelling mix of speed, rideability and character. If the 2012 incarnation had remained on sale, they’d have nailed the Beemer’s hat on. But once again, the Germans were one step ahead. The 2015 model brought electronic suspension, an Inertial Measurement Unit to…

WITH THE WEATHER forecast miserable for this day of reckoning, we decided to bring the bike Kawasaki are aiming at, too, in case we needed a wet reference time. It only seemed reasonable that, since the new Kawasaki ZX-10R is a genuine contender for the top spot on our leaderboard, we should have an S1000RR at our disposal just in case. For the last two years we’ve managed, more or less, to test all our bikes around Mallory in identical, dry conditions. Regardless, the Leicestershire circuit provides close to a perfect combination of corners for Michael Rutter to get the best out of them. Two chicanes, curving traction zones, a tight hairpin, a brace of straights and Gerard’s – the longest right-hander in the country – provide a stern test…

WHEN BSB AS we know it first saw light of day in 1996, the top level of British racing had been in a mess for about a decade. A weird amalgamation of TT and F1 rules had allowed 500cc two-strokes to compete against 750cc four-strokes, and later modified production bikes went head-to-head with rotary Norton prototypes. The lack of clarity wasn’t good, especially as there was a booming domestic sportsbike market. 1995 saw the adoption of WSB-style rules that allowed 750cc inline fours and 1000cc V-twin four-strokes to compete. In 1996, what we now know as British Superbikes was born. Re-branded, and with BBC TV coverage, it needed a headline act to add credibility. The first name on the list was GP star Niall Mackenzie. “In 1995 I had a…

EVERYONE LOVES A statistic. Which is why we’ve condensed 20 years of British Superbike history into two pages of facts and figures for you to regurgitate down the boozer this weekend. So, which rider tops the all-time race winners table? Which manufacturer has the most wins, yet hasn’t been on the top step of the podium for the last five years? And, just as interestingly, why haven’t BSB laptimes plummeted as quickly as you might expect? All the answers, and other essential info on the world’s premier domestic race series is here; they’re not called vital statistics for nothing... How much faster has BSB become? WE CHOSE THRUXTON as the indicator for BSB as, along with Knockhill, it’s featured in every year of the championship and has an unchanged track…

N 2004, BRITISH Superbikes was the world’s premier domestic superbike series and arguably more important to manufacturers than the ‘Ducati Cup’ the World Superbike championship had become. A fact that was demonstrated by the arrival of an officially backed HRC team – something even WSB lacked – in the shape of HM Plant Honda. While the Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Ducati squads all retained close contact with their relevant factories, the Honda team was supplied with race bikes direct from Japan that arrived dripping with the HRC parts, surrounded by Japanese technicians and with a Honda golden boy rider in the shape of Ryuichi Kiyonari, as well as Rutter. And it wasn’t only the bikes that were receiving this kind of attention – as an enticing subplot, a tyre war…

‘The exhaust was shagged, so the Bandit’s being reborn with a Black Widow system’ ‘Three cylinders came to life, and eventually dragged the fourth one along, too’ SWITCH AROUND We’ve ditched the clutch and sidestand switches. The wiring needed bridging in order to run without them. CLOCKING OFF We’re making a dash plate to hold a GSX-R tacho to the fairing bracket – stock yoke-mount clocks are heavy. A LEG UP Race Supplies Direct rearsets needed a bit of filing to fit, but they’re cheap, light and robust in our experience. Good value at £105. 1997 SUZUKI BANDIT CHRIS NEWBIGGING MOST OF THE work up to now had been finicky cleaning, inspection, painting and fettling. Now, it’s just flat-out gathering parts and bolting them on. Last month, we had most…

2015 SUZUKI GSX-S1000F MATT WILDEE ‘NICE WHEELIE MATE, but that GSX-S1000F has got to be the ugliest bike I’ve ever seen.’ This text from Johnny Mac was waiting for me when I got home. I’d passed Johnny in his car laden down with leathers and datalogging gear on the way back from Mallory Park, overtaken him, clutched it in second and floated up the road. I couldn’t help it. The truth is, because the GSX-S looks a little ‘sensible’ you feel compelled to do this everywhere just to let the world know it isn’t. And despite Johnny’s comments, I think it looks way better than his Mazda 6. You’re never going to feel like a hero when you turn up to watch a TT winner testing the latest sports 1000…