Table of contents for July 2016 in Performance Bikes

WELCOME TO THE July issue of Performance Bikes magazine. In this issue we’ve all gone a little bit crazy for Yamaha’s MT-10. Quite simply, we reckon it is the best-value new bike on sale today. At a quid under 10 grand, there is very little out there that can live with it when it comes to performance or presence. It’s far more than just a fettled R1, and a million miles from a sportsbike lash-up without a fairing. You can read Chris’s breathless report on page 43. As I write this, I’ve just come back from an amazing weekend at the Le Mans MotoGP. It has been an embarrassingly long time since I was at a GP and the noise and amazing riding (especially Lorenzo’s) blew me away, as did…

SEELEY TOPS ROBERT DUNLOP’S RECORD Alastair Seeley is the most successful rider ever at the North West 200, taking two Supersport wins to bring his tally to 17. The previous record was 15 wins, held by the late Robert Dunlop. “To be mentioned in the same sentence as Robert Dunlop is just unbelievable and I’m a bit overwhelmed,” said Seeley, after making road racing history. FARQUHAR ON THE MEND BUT OUT OF THE TT Ryan Farquhar is recovering well from serious injuries sustained in a crash with Dan Cooper in the first Supertwins race, but will not be racing at the TT. Cooper escaped from the two-bike tangle at Black Hill with minor injuries, but Farquhar suffered chest and pelvic injuries and was initially placed in intensive care. DUNLOP WINS…

IS A 2009 BRUTALE ACTUALLY 2016 BIKE OF THE YEAR? I’ve just read your piece on the Triumph Speed Triple and Ducati Monster 1200R and couldn t help thinking my very own, drop dead gorgeous MV Agusta Brutale 990R is just as good, if not better, and could be had by your loyal readers for a mere fraction of the price. It puts a smile on my face every time I ride it, the glorious soundtrack has me looking for tunnels and underpasses, and it looks fab parked in my front lounge instead of the telly. It’s also nicely different from run of the mill, ‘everyone else has one of those’ bikes. It doesn’t require any aftermarket bits bolted on to make it better and it also has decent build…

THE RUN UP to my sidecar debut at Oulton wasn’t without excitement – it’s almost like no-one wanted to ride with me! I did some testing in France with Jed ‘Peabody’ Pilmoor-Brady as a passenger, but the team decided he didn’t have the experience to give the feedback I needed to improve. They found a world championship rider but he had family problems, and wasn’t in the best frame of mind. I don’t want someone next to me who needs their belt and laces removed... So we were on the third man, three weeks to go before Oulton – Justin Sharp, known locally as the Lincolnshire Hard-On, because he’s always shagging... We tested at Donington, and the problems I had in France with understeer were so much less with Sharpie.…

Sticking the engine of a CBR600F into a naked chassis was hardly the work of a visionary, but the way it was executed was genius. A steel backbone chassis mated the motor and styling funk, while the use of Fireblade wheels (the first bikes had a 16-inch front) gave the Whore-net big-bike cred. The amount of tuning parts started a cult, while the race series melted sliders and tyres in equal measure. Nice one.…

More powerful, better looking, but more expensive, the Z1000R-inspired super retro packed a ZZ-R motor fettled for purpose, six-pot brakes from a ZX-7R and one of the best looking swingarms ever. The retro appeal came a bit too early, and it lacked the everyman appeal of the Bandit. Sold OK, but the Bandit sold better. Later 1200 is the same but better if you can afford it.…

While Honda’s CB1000R was slightly disappointing from the crate, the FZ1 was bang-on with its five-valve, R1-derived engine and a wheelie-tastic attitude that made it addictive. They’ve huge potential for modification, too – just Öhlins suspension, a full system and cosmetic mods made our 2011 project bike an Aprilia V4 Tuono-beater. Google ‘Abarth FZ1’ for inspiration...…

IF YOU’VE BOUGHT A new naked bike in recent months, you’ve probably done the wrong thing. As much as you like whatever knees-to-the-breeze machine you stumped up for, Yamaha’s wacky MT-10 brings a new depth of ability to a class traditionally compromised by its very nature. Calling it a naked R1 is a simplistic view – it shares some key components, but in reality it isn’t a development of the superbike. Instead, consider it a non-identical twin – conceived at the same time from the same basic ingredients, it has since developed independently into something with unique style and character. The design teams for the R1 and MT-10 benefitted from the extensive, expensive development process that goes into creating an all-new engine platform, but once a basic architecture was established,…

MICHAEL RUTTER PB TESTER AND TT WINNER Britain’s fastest magazine road tester is a human datalogger with borderline-carnal knowledge of Mallory Park. DUCATI 959 PANIGALE 144.3bhp, 207kg, £13,095 With a hike in power and torque over the 899, can Ducati’s latest middleweight sportsbike tear Mallory a new one? ‘I want it to surge a bit harder from the apex to the exit kerb, I want to fight a bit harder for my grip’ IT WAS ALWAYS going to be interesting to see how fast the 959 Panigale would be in the hands or our esteemed colleague, Michael Rutter Esq. New for this year, it’s the biggest ‘middleweight’ Ducati we’ve ever seen, kicks out more power at the back wheel than a 999R (or a GSX-R1000 K3) and has the potential…

‘We’ve built a solid racebike for a modest sum... but no racing is cheap’ 1997 SUZUKI BANDIT CHRIS NEWBIGGING No more fettling: time to try it. After a five-month build and times when editor Matt doubted whether the bike would ever run, we finally got our Bandit racer on track – and we were really impressed. It goes and feels like a proper bike. To recap, we’re racing this Bandit 600 in the Formula Prostocks Bandit Challenge, a new one-make series which we hope will catch on. With limited tweaks, but enough mods to make it interesting, it should be a great championship. The plan was to build a bike for less than the price of a Superstock 1000 titanium exhaust, which we’ve more or less done. The first few…

GRIPPING Clamps machined from 7075 aluminium. Available in five sizes. THE SHAFT Tubes machined from 7010 aluminium and hard-anodised HOW LONG THREE YEARS COST £127 CONTACT BANDCEXPRESS.CO.UK WE USED THESE bars on PB’s project TL1000R. They saved weight, but their adjustability meant they also had the potential to be wider, with a 280mm tube, and be re-positioned for more leverage. Designed for racing more than the road, they’re well-used in BSB and have laser-etched markings on the clamps and bars as well, helping to achieve a symmetrical set-up. The build quality is very impressive – the clamps are CNC-machined and anodised, while the bars are made from the same alloy that’s used for Renthal’s motocross bars. At the end of each bar is a nylon slider that’s replaceable in the…

HOW LONG SEVEN YEARS COST £64.99 CONTACT WWW.DEMON-TWEEKS.CO.UK I GOT THIS stand for my TZR250 racebike. As befits the nature of the sport it was lugged around the country in vans, and chucked about a lot. The bike lived on it, and since I sold the TZR I’ve used it on my RGV. It’s been great – it’s very light, so it’s nice to use and helps reduce the load on the race van. The leverage ratio means it needs a fair push on anything big and four-stroke, but once it’s up, it holds the bike rock-solid for working on it, transporting it or sitting on it. Nothing has ever worked loose, sagged, or broken – if it was a little easier to lift heavier bikes, it’d be perfect.…

‘It’s ideal for picking a cautious line in and lighting up the exit’ 2016 DUCATI 959 PANIGALE JOHNNY McAVOY I HAVE A confession to make. Before the 959, I’d never understood the hype surrounding smaller capacity Ducati sportsbikes. The 748, 749, and to a lesser degree the 848, all passed me by without so much as a twitch in my trousers. Sure, their narrower rear tyres and less overwhelming power delivery brings a different dynamic to the ride and requires a fresh approach from the rider. But when you get down to it, they look the same, they weigh the same and they cost the same to run as their bigger capacity variants, but are a lot slower. At least a Japanese 600cc variant of its similarly named litre bike…

‘There’s plenty to recommend the Speed Triple S; it’s a great roadbike with very few niggles’ 2016 TRIUMPH SPEED TRIPLE R MATT WILDEE I’ve had a 2500-mile month, consisting of a road trip to France on a ZZR1400, a lot of how’s your father on my ZX-10R and a few tankfuls on my faithful carbed R1. But the 317 miles I’ve done on this Speed Triple S have been among the best. A last-minute change of plan has seen me take possession of the Speed Triple and the plan is to share it out with various members of the PB team. Maybe. Big-bore Triumph triples are in my blood – in a box somewhere are a bunch of plastic trophies I accrued when racing PB’s Daytona 955i project, and in…

MATT WILDEE EDITOR matt.wildee@pbmag.co.uk Triumph Speed Triple R: it’s simply the best B-road bike I’ve ever ridden. SIMON RUSSELL ART EDITOR simon.russell@bauermedia.co.uk Thruxton R. Looks stunning and the attention to detail is utterly exquisite. CHRIS NEWBIGGING FEATURES EDITOR chris@pbmag.co.uk MT-10. Brilliant at most things, but especially wheelies. Lots of them. JOHN McAVOY ROAD TESTER editorial@pbmag.co.uk The 959, for growing a set of balls and shaking off the ‘Baby Ducati’ tag. MICHAEL RUTTER TRACK TESTER editorial@pbmag.co.uk Hypermotard 939SP. I’ve already got an 1100 at home, and it needs a playmate... MARK WHITE TECHNICIAN editorial@pbmag.co.uk MT-10. The engine, the nakedness, the potential. Oh, and it’s grey and flouro! KAR LEE FORUM EDITOR editorial@pbmag.co.uk That MT-10 is ugly, but a crossplane R1 motor in a naked for £10k? Hell yes. JOHN McGUINNESS COLUMNIST…

It not hugely powerful, but that’s OK. The mutant Harley engine lobs out a rear-wheel 85bhp and torque everywhere. More than entertaining enough, with a chassis shorter than Verne Troyer and the structural integrity of the Forth Bridge. It’s Buell at its best: sharp, air-cooled and naked. Fairings and radiators muddied the waters, and lost the unique appeal. Trawl eBay now.…

YAMAHA AREN’T MESSING around. They’ve clearly spent a lot of time getting their range right – the MT-07 and MT-09 stand as testament, selling over 65,000 in their various derivatives. A far cry from a few years ago, when they had a stagnant range of old platforms struggling to sell in the face of buoyant Euro rivals. Now, they’ve a range as good as anyone’s – and the MT-10 is the final stage in the plan as far as we’re concerned. As good as the middleweight MTs are, they’re a bit ‘cut-price’ in areas, and while they’re fun, they can come undone on a hard ride. The big one doesn’t. It has the performance and sophistication to run with any of the premium supernakeds, even though it costs the same…

JORGE LORENZO MOVISTAR YAMAHA “I feel some benefits but you have to analyse every situation. They don’t really make such a big difference at every track. Yes, you have a little less wheelie, but the negative is that you can lose some top speed and if it’s windy the bike becomes a little nervous and unstable in the corners.” ANDREA DOVIZIOSO DUCATI “It is true that the wings give us some advantage, especially when it comes to the anti-wheelie, and I think this is the reason everybody is complaining about them. Ducati have just worked within the rules as they are and developed something that nobody else had really thought about before.” MARC MARQUEZ REPSOL HONDA “The front end is more stable with the big wings we’ve tried, but sometimes…

‘It thunders out of corners and handles bumps well, shaking its head slightly’ 2015 APRILIA TUONO V4 FACTORY KAR LEE THANKS TO LIFE-TYPE stuff getting in the way, the Tuono and I haven’t spent much time getting to know each other this year, but we’ve been making up for lost time this month. Here’s a small list of things I’ve noticed recently: 1) The mirrors are terrible. I’m forever thinking there’s someone in my blind spot. I’ll live with it. 2) The noise this bike makes at any revs is magnificent. A soft purr at low revs, a glorious growl at high rpm. It’s probably the reason tunnels were invented. 3) The onboard management system is more simple to use than the 230-page owners manual suggests. 4) The fit and…

HOW LONG FIVE YEARS/9000 MILES COST APPROX £40 FOR TWO CALIPERS CONTACT WWW.DIRECTDISTRIBUTION.CO.UK THESE DO-IT ALL pads for sporty road and trackday riding aren’t overly grabby, but they do have a reassuring initial take-up, followed with strong, progressive stopping when you really give them a tug. I’ve used them on my RGV in the two sets of calipers I’ve so far fitted, and also put a lot of miles on the same pad compound on my old GPZ750R, of all things. They’re fab on the RGV, and helped the GPZ’s single-pot brakes work much better than you would expect of such low-tech components. The Brembo-equipped NC30 owner I once nailed on the approach to Park at Cadwell will grudgingly testify to this... Wear rate is good, too, and they don’t…

HOW LONG ONE YEAR/400 MILES COST £175 CONTACT WWW.PIRELLI.COM YOU MAY NOTICE the number of miles covered on these tyres is pitiful. There’s a good reason for that: I’m just not confident in them. My RGV 250’s standard 18in rear wheel is hard to find sports tyres for, so I switched to a 17in rim in search of something more modern than the grippy, but fast-wearing BT-090s that were previously the only option. These Pirellis looked a good bet – they were the control tyre for the Ninja Cup, where talented little snots achieve respectable laptimes on race-spec shopping bikes. But the RGV is much lighter than the steel-framed four-stroke 250/300s, with much sharper geometry. It doesn’t need a rounded, progressive profile – it rolls around too easily and never…

2016 YAMAHA XSR900 MATT WILDEE YAMAHA’S NEW XSR900 melds hipster-pleasing looks with a level of nimbleness, performance and sheer stunt-ability the beard wax brigade just wouldn’t know what to do with. Derived from the Yamaha MT-09, the XSR has all the hallmarks of a classic budget performance bike. There’s a great engine, sweet steering and the ability and appetite to get up to no good at every opportunity. It’s the same recipe that made Suzuki’s Bandit an icon in the 90s, but with a level of performance a 90s rider could only dream of. That 885cc three-cylinder motor is a sonorous, orgasmatron of a lump, meting out a claimed 114bhp (a real 105bhp at the wheel) with consistency and beautiful fuelling. The CP3 motor is one of Yamaha’s most versatile…

PEOPLE OFTEN ASK me what it feels like to race a TT. I’m writing this just before I travel out to the Island, so I thought I’d finally try to put the experience into words... When I’m on the startline, I’m absolutely shitting my pants. You know it could all go wrong and you might not come back, but there is a fair degree of pressure to perform, especially if someone else is having a good TT and taken a few wins when you haven’t. I kiss the wife as well as the voodoo doll on my helmet, pop a penny down my leathers for luck and the lid goes on. When you roll through the archway, it all goes quiet and you are on your own at the top…

IN THE 1990S, the closest most of us ever got to a Bimota was seeing one featured in the pages of a magazine. Rare, exotic and things of great beauty, the Italian company was still riding high on its reputation for taming powerful Japanese engines through beautifully crafted chassis. Should you actually see one in the flesh, which was incredibly rare, the blend of carbon, aluminium and names such as …hlins, Paioli and Brembo was enough to guarantee a crowd of admirers. Bimotas were mythical beasts that occupied a position on the unobtanium scale even higher than Ducatis. And that’s what made them so special, they were dream bikes in every sense of the word. And one man who dreamed of owning one was Daz Morris. “In 1998 I had…

THE SMOKE FROM the campfires and 100,000 burnt saucissons drifts onto the Autoroute. I can smell the Le Mans campsite long before I can even see signs for it, so getting to the circuit is just a case of following the ZZR’s sculpted nose. I’ve completed the last 450 miles, including a trip on the Euro Tunnel, in just under five and a half hours and it was as easy as it was enjoyable. The ZZR will cruise at any speed between 80 and 180 without complaint, snorting the miles though its distended ram-air snout, farting them out of those quad titanium exhaust exits. For most of that time I’ve been alone, chasing lengthening shadows and testing the strength of my self control on the deserted Autoroutes. Needless to say,…

I DIDN’T REALLY like the 959 to start with, but I know now that was largely down to the bizarre fork settings. However, it’s a testament to the quality of the forks that after a common sense approach and a bit of an educated guess, we were able to improve the Panigale’s laptime by over two seconds by making a few adjustments. The standard of components and finish through the whole bike is really high and there’s no getting away from the fact that it is also a seriously good-looking mtorcycle. I found that, to get the best from it, I had the really take the piss when riding. I guess I’ve become a bit conditioned to being able to find the limits of grip really easily on my racebike…

THE PROCESS EXPLAINED 1 DESIGN ‘We use Computer-Aided Design (CAD) programs to model a new wheel and run finite element analysis on it to ensure it has been pre-designed to keep its weight as low as possible. CAD can calculate stresses and apply virtual loads to the design and that allows us to effectively work out how and where the forces affect a wheel. Areas such as the spokes and around the bolt holes tend to be highly stressed, so they need extra strength. The computer can also tell us how a wheel will fail under extreme loads, which is helpful as we would rather a wheel cracks slightly than fails catastrophically. We design a wheel to fail safely.’ 2 FABRICATION ‘For a magnesium wheel we will have the tools…

‘I should have won the Superstock – I was under my lap record and led the race’ 2016 BMW S1000RR MICHAEL RUTTER THE NORTH WEST 200 was a huge buzz for me – I fought for a win in the Superstock race and got a podium in the Superbike race. It’s been a couple of years since I’d been fighting for a victory on the roads; it was a great feeling and really good at banishing some self-doubt. The month started with a round of National Superstock at Oulton Park BSB. I’d done reasonably well in qualifying, with a sixth in the dry, but raceday was wet. By the time of the Superstock race it was part-wet, part-dry and I ended up getting into a bit of a discussion with…

HOW LONG 8000 MILES COST £379 CONTACT WWW.DAINESE.COM I FELL IN love with this jacket because of its 70s/80s vibe, and it is truly retro, right down to the lack of stretch panels, thermal lining or venting. But is it any worse for it? Not really. This is just a simple, cool jacket that incorporates CE-approved armour at the elbows and shoulders and a pocket for back protector. I’ve used both a Forcefield and a Dianese item and both locate well. It’s lightweight and easy to wear when off the bike, but decent and well-fitting on it. Although I have some leather trousers with kneesliders to zip to it, it’s not the kind of jacket I’d want to do a trackday in – its more relaxed fit means armour could…

WEIGHT SAVER Yoshi downpipes and silencer save 3kg and liberate those dBs... PROPER RUDE Imagine being in a pit garage when a mechanic is warming up a GSX-R1000 racebike. That’s what every ride to the shops sounds like. ‘Even with the removeable baffle in it probably won’t get through noise testing’ 2015 SUZUKI GSX-S1000F CHRIS NEWBIGGING The GSX-S1000F is a confused beast. Maybe the overt association with the GSX-R1000 K5 wasn’t the right thing for Suzuki – some anticipated a comfy version of the finest incarnation of their superbike. That it ain’t. It’s softer than that. But it’s also not a sports tourer – wind protection is average, the pillion seat sucks, and Suzuki doesn’t offer any luggage. But the droopy, bland shape makes it look like one. It’s neither…

‘The Kawasaki is a useful roadbike, if you use it for it’s designed for... going batshit’ 2016 KAWASAKI ZX-10R MATT WILDEE NOW INTO THE second month of custodianship, the novelty of running PB’s long-term ZX-10R hasn’t worn off. Every ride is a frenetic event, with my admiration for its chassis combined with disbelief every time the bike hits 10,000rpm. The only bike that can compete with it for top-end power is BMW’s S1000RR, but the Kawasaki is more raw and to my addled mind feels even faster. But at the same time the Kawasaki has proved itself to be a useful roadbike, provided you use it for what it’s designed for – going batshit. This month I’ve had both the worst and the best rides of my life on it.…

‘The engine’s response is so quick it’s like commuting on a surface-to-air missile’ 2016 YAMAHA YZF-R1 CHRIS NEWBIGGING THE R1’S OBSCENE road performance was underlined this month by a fortnight split between running around on PB’s GSX-S1000F, and then an MT-10. Neither of which are slow; both of which are commendably light. But they’re three-legged, malnourished donkeys next to the R1. I retrieved the Race Blu (I’ll have an E please, Bob...) wonder from the PB shed, and it felt like another world after a flat-barred all-rounder. It’s tall and roomy for a superbike, but next to anything truly comfortable, it’s a tiny thing of intense focus. Where the GSX-S and MT-10 offer a nice compromise of ride quality and road handling, the R1 demands you man-up and ride the…