New Bike News

 New Bike News from http://www.net-motorcycles.com

Terrier Twins

Hunter S Thompson: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or
insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Completely
irrelevant but I just felt like throwing it into the ring... Or, HST
again, "Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the
context of professional journalism."
Those nice folks at Motorcycle Daily have a reasonably coherent report
on the new BMW F800's. Two interesting factoids emerge, the petrol tank
is under the seat rather than in the usual location whilst the pistons
move up and down together, like all those old Brit twins. The latter
more down to Teutonic rigidity in design than good engineering, needing
an extra balancer to quell the vibes compared to designs such as the
ER-6n where the pistons move out of phase and only have a torque
reaction along the crankshaft to balance out (a design idiom more or
less perfected by the GS400/425/450/500/650 twins). The nice thing
about the placement of the petrol tank on the F's, means it's a
relatively easy job to tear the cosmetic mess of plastic off the bike
and completely redesign it. Nice of MCN to confirm that both GS and R
versions of the F will be available next year, something already
announced in this column (BTW, we also beat them to the use of New Bike
News by a couple of aeons, inspired by Mark Williams' New Music
News)... the Motorcycle Daily test sort of confirms that BMW have taken
all the nice bits from their big Boxer twins - ride quality, comfort,
etc - and allied them with lots of power and torque in a relatively
lightweight package. It may even be so good it f..ks up the sales of
the big Beemers! The guys at Triumph must be kicking themselves that
they blew the chance of getting there first and poor old Yamaha deserve
to die a death if they don't do a naked 900 TDM weighing less than
350lbs pronto. Sorry and all that, but I predicted the emergence of new
era Big Vertical Twins years ago and these new Beemers are just the
starting point not the end of the game. I would even posit a direct
connection between the sixties Honda CB450 Black Bomber - the first
reliable Big Twin that could be caned mercilessly - and the F800! I
can feel my poor old wallet twitching, anyway... And, yet more outrage,
the power characteristics of a good vertical twin ARE superior to a
V-twin! And, apart from a couple of models aimed at the local market,
the Tokyo Motorcycle Show came and went without much noise; a sign of
the future?

Velvet Vespa

Whilst it is easy enough to take the piss out of scooters, even
compared to things like Honda step-thru's, it is a pity that neither
the Jap's nor Italians pay much attention to such fundamentals as power
to weight ratio and, churning out their cute new GTS250IE, Vespa
doesn't exactly inspire with a dry mass of 330lbs and just a late
sixties power output of 22hp from their new four stroke single cylinder
mill. Auto everything should make it easy enough to ride though the
claims of supreme handling will be tested when its twelve inch wheels
fight through UK diesel and ice infested winter roads. Pricing is also
likely to be highly amusing... but apart from the major fact that the
grey version is likely to blend perfectly with the tarmac it is most
likely a major leap forward over older Vespas. Meanwhile, those hard
working importers of Chinese motorcycles are going to unleash 250/350cc
thumper trail bikes at half the cost of the Vespa! Keep checking eBay!

Bavarian Basher

Kawasaki ZX14's marks another bit of evolution of the old style of
fours, wonderfully refined and powerful (200hp) but still burdened with
the across the frame four width and nigh on 500lbs of mass. Triumph's
675 triple indicates the future much more than this new bruiser, but as
an autobahn destroyer it will probably kill the big BMW's, topping out,
with a following gale and downhill canter, at 200mph! A damn sight less
dangerous than pocket-bikes - some wholly illegal, not even
numberplates - roaring through cities at knee height, I'd say! Another
minor variation on a Chinese theme can be found here, if you are into
odd styling allied to 200cc's.

Main Monster

Ducati's Monster gets a make-over for next year, engine increased in
size to 695cc whilst the mass is a mere 370lbs. Not a bad deal by
modern standards but weirdly they seem to have styling problems, these
days, the curve on the back half of the tank completely wrong! Still
time to fix it, any consulting fees gratefully received. Meanwhile,
Triumph's 675 Daytona triple is getting rave reviews in the press,
likely to be a big seller this year; may hit Ducati sales just as hard
as the Jap's! Will the company have the wit to use the engine in a
minimal backbone steel chassis to reintroduce the Trident to the range?
Something like 80hp, 350lbs, single front disc, rear drum, etc all
wrapped up in proper styling rather than the Speed Triple mess, would
go down well in die-hard Brit bike fanatic quarters (lots of lamenting
by the ancient mariners that they can't fit their ruined bodies on to
the 675!). May even make good sense to use the 675 engine as the basis
of a new Tiger variant; lightweight KTM's and BMW's redefining the
game. Not a bad report on the 675 in the newly revamped and expanded
Motorcycle Sport magazine; alas, the rest of the glossy rag held very
little of interest, so another old favourite dying a death (only been
reading it for thirty years, so what do I know?). Fans of old Brit's
should also note that 8th March there is a Triumph Night at the Ace
Cafe.

Weird Times

China Motorcycles typical of UK importers of Oriental bikes, and
managing to sell all the bikes they can get their hands on, having a
range of 125-250cc trailsters and the odd commuter replica. Do a search
on eBay.co.uk for more importers. A bit more on welding your own frame
can be found here. Could do with a little bit of fine-tuning but worth
a look if you're into older Brit's, Triumph-Motorcycles.Net. Lonely
fans of that other big twin, the TDM, can look here. Big vee-twin
manufacturers, Viper Motorcycles, rolling out new American motorcycles,
now built around their own engine design, from a larger, improved
production line coming on stream in April. Hope they do a Vincent
version in the future. If you want an example of the sheer dislocation
from reality of website designers then have a look at the new Vee-Max
site, assuming you have all the right plug-ins and a fast broadband
connection - and don't mind being deafened by gross rap music. Punters
are allowed to comment on the new design so feel free to get vicious!
At the other end of the motorcycle game, Derbi seem to be doing quite
well.

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