Bike news

Year: ALL

Ugly bikes – an anthology

29 July 2001

A wise man, quite possibly Jesus, once said: ” One man’s meat is another man’s poison. ” And he wasn’t just talking about lunch. He was talking about differences in taste. Most of us have a rough...

What the fans thought of Brands post Foggy

29 July 2001

MANY people thought it couldn’t possibly happen, but the crowd at Brands today was announced as being greater than the 120,900 who trooped like an army in 1999 to watch Carl Fogarty on his way to this...

BMW reinvents the F650 and brings in bigger-bore RS

29 July 2001

BMW is launching two new models, the F650CS and the R1150RS, as our scoop pictures show. The F650 CS is the most road-focused of the F650s yet and will be sold alongside the slightly more trail-biased...

QUASAR

29 July 2001

IF you are not familiar with the term known as Feet Forward motorcycling, allow us to enlarge on it. Take a group of highly intelligent, fiercely independent engineers and inventors and leave them to...

MUNCH MAMMOTH

29 July 2001

One Munch Mammoth is probably enough for this world, and we got it in 1966 in the form of an NSU-engined behemoth known as the 1200 TTS. The air-cooled car engine was good for 88bhp and then 100bhp...

BMW R1200C

29 July 2001

James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) rode one of these so they must be cool – right? But then James Bond (Roger Moore) also had a mini-sub with a plastic crocodile’s head on it and it didn’t exactly open up the market for reptilian-lamped off-roaders. This bauble of a bike is some sort of tribute to the great American cars of the 1950s and ’60s, which is where its inherent problems lie. The thing looks...

Why you shouldn’t ignore your clutch

29 July 2001

The clutch, bless it, is a bit like an old aunt who comes round for a family gathering. You know it’s there, but after a while you just ignore it. Often it’s not mentioned at all in the specification...

Suzuki GSX1400

29 July 2001

1 Big motor, big bike. The GSX is unlikely to suffer from an inferiority complex 2 Who needs a headlight? They’ll see all that gleaming chrome from miles away 3 The twin shocks may be retro, but the...

BMW K1

29 July 2001

Launched at the 1988 Cologne Show, there were feelings from some quarters that it would have been better off launched off the nearest cliff. Remembering the success it enjoyed after introducing the...

Biggest dealer makes new customer service promise

29 July 2001

Europe’s biggest bike dealer network, Carnell-City, is responding to customer complaints by setting up a system that means none of the staff get to go home until all that days calls have been...

Professional thieves target Brands

29 July 2001

THE sneak thieves warned of by police yesterday struck again last night in the Brands Hatch campsites – and they are so good at their work that even the police are forced to admit how expert they...

British fans give thumbs up to Benelli Tornado

29 July 2001

PETER GODDARD may have picked up just three points at Brands today, but as he raced a bike only three events into its World Superbike career, British fans were lapping up their first real glimpse –...

Guess the average cost of bike insurance

29 July 2001

What do you think the average cost of a bike insurance policy with Norwich Union is these days? You might be surprised. An MCN investigation has revealed it’s actually close to £250, considerably...

Honda CX500 Custom

29 July 2001

WHEN a bike, within minutes of its 1978 launch, acquires the tag ” Plastic Maggot ” , it’s safe to assume the machine has been less than well received by the masses. But the original CX overcame this...

We road test the Suzuki GSX1400, Kawasaki ZRX1200R and Yamaha XJR1300

22 July 2001

ARNIE might well stand out in people’s minds as the most famous and successful bodybuilder ever, but things were almost very different. Over the core of his competitive years, throughout the 1970s and...

No end yet to our Saturday Brands scenes

22 July 2001

NO words are needed to explain the build up throughout today of the fans and atmosphere at Brands Hatch. But to remind you why the event is so special on the British biking calendar, here are some...

Keeping the R1 legend afloat

22 July 2001

YAMAHA’S R1 may be struggling to compete with Suzuki’s GSX-R1000 on the road, but there is somewhere it will give the new class leader a sound thrashing – on water. The new Yamaha WaveRunner FX140...

Sensational TT FireBlade tested

22 July 2001

This is the bike Honda hoped would reclaim their TT glory this year. Featuring internals engineered by the FireBlade’s progenitor Tadao Baba himself, this is a very, very special machine indeed. We...

Police warn Brands campers to be on their guard

22 July 2001

POLICE patrolling the Brands Hatch campsites have warned anyone who plans to camp there tonight to be on the look out for so-called “slash and grab” thieves. There have been four or five cases of...

Myth of speeding motorcyclists exposed

22 July 2001

WITH an apparently increasing number of residents in rural areas complaining about bikes speeding through their quiet villages, here’s some figures that should shut them up. After the Parish councils...

Insurance grief for 1900 Devitt customers

22 July 2001

HUNDREDS of riders insured through the brokerage firm Devitt DA have been asked to cough up for new insurance policies following the demise of underwriters Independent Insurance Company Limited. While...

Mighty Dot security markings to arrive in the UK

22 July 2001

PEOPLE have been marking their territory for millions of years. Fortunately, things have moved on a bit since the days of dried dung piles, and the latest marking techniques are much more advanced. Security systems such as Datatag, Alphadot and Smartwater have cut thefts and reduced the cost of insurance. And now there’s a new name entering the fray – that of Mighty Dot. It uses a spray to apply...