TEAM BRITI RITISH TALENT TRACKESSENTIAL DAY TIPS GUIDE FOR A TOP RIDE YOUR GATEW EWAY TO GP STARDOM
RULING THE ROAD ROADS
JULY 2017 ISSUE 328
B-ROAD BULLETS SCRAP IT OUT BMW S1000RR SUZUKI GSX-R1000R R APRILIA RSV4 RF KAWASAK KI ZX-10RR
PLUS:
BAHRAIN SUPERBIKE RACE USED HONDA SP2 BUYER’S GUIDE DO QUICKSHIFTERS DAMAGE GEARS? SPORTS-TOURER SHOOTOUT
TT SPECIAL: McPINT: WHAT NOW?
DEAN HARRISON
DIY TT SUPERBIKE
TT legend horror crash aftermath
“Guy’s gone beyond racing…”
Building Gary Johnson’s racer
ISSUE 328 JULY 2017
IT’S THE NEWS
Upfront............................................ 10 New bikes, new books, new news!
GEARED UP
Products.......................................... 14 All the best gear if you’ve no idea!
GET IT FIRST
Subscribe ..........................................8 Do you enjoy spending more than you need to, or searching high and low for a copy of Fast Bikes? Thought not. Save yourself the grief and subscribe today!
THE KNOWLEDGE
Bull Busters ..................................... 78 Bustin the bull about gearboxes this month!
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Tech Talk ....................................... 112 Know your exhausts folks – all about ’em!
MASTERCLASS
Riding ..............................................86 Got back ache? Find out why here!
Oils ..................................................88 Oil’s not boring, not when we’re talking GPs!
Legal ................................................ 91 What happens if the cops catch you hoisting a minger?
YOUR LIFE ON BIKES
FOUR OF THE BEST SCRAP IT OUT ON THE STREETS LAUNCHES Avon Spirit ST ................................32
TESTS Ruling The Roads ............................ 18
The best readers in the world speak!
BMW S 1000 RR, Aprilia RSV4 RF, Suzuki GSX-R1000 R & Kawasaki ZX-10RR fight it out for supremacy on ‘er Maj’s highways!
OUR LIFE ON BIKES
Toured Stupid .................................34
Staff Bikes..................................... 101 The fleet, it grows! •
BMW S 1000 R • KTM Super Duke R • Triumph STR RS
BAHRAIN SBK – WE SEND CARL OFF TO DO BATTLE IN THE EAST!
Beej heads out to Portugal to try Avon’s latest mid-range, do-it-all hoop!
Chatter ............................................92
Project Bikes ...................................95 Charles’ TZR and Bruce’s Moto3 latest!
70
Ducati SuperSport S, KTM Super Duke GT and Kawasaki’s Z1000 SX make their cases for your dollar!
FEATURES
McPint Magic ..................................52
•
Honda Fireblade SP • Aprilia RSV4 RF • Kawasaki ZX-10R
Who better to learn the TT from than JMG?!
Chez TT Racer ................................ 58 Gaz Johnson builds his TT bikes at home!
RACE SECTION
Pit Pass.......................................... 114 All the news and views from racing! Race Feature ................................. 118 John McPhee & his British Talent Team!
COLUMNISTS
Gary Johnson ................................ 128 Is Gaz ready for the TT yet?
Chaz Davies .................................. 129 Steve Parrish................................. 130 Old Stavros goes back racing... briefly.
BUY
GEAR
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A STUNNING TWO-STROKE PRODDY RACING HONDA RS250 IN ADDICTION THIS MONTH!
SUBS
Chaz raps Rea – naughty Jonny!
IBE R C
See page 8 for the best dea als s
WELCOME
It’s TT time!
A
nstey? Dunlop? Hutchinson? Who’s your TT money on? What about our very own Gary Johnson? I’m not a betting man, but I’d say the bookies will have their work cut out trying to figure who’s going to be favourite for this year’s road racing extravaganza… where’s that Mystic Meg when you need her? By the time you’re reading this, practice week will just be kicking off. Hopefully you’ll be over there and having the time of your life, watching the most adrenaline fuelled racing known to motorsport. If you’ve never been, you need to get this on your bucket list, pronto, before some bloody do-gooder sees it stopped. It’s bonkers, yet brilliant, which is why we’ve gone all out to get a decent amount of TT content into this issue. As well as popping over to Gary Johnson’s to watch him slave away building his GSX-R1000R superbike, we’ve also been nattering to fellow TT winner Dean Harrison, who’s proven to be on top form pre-season. And then there’s McGuinness. The legend took our road tester, and last year’s fastest TT Newcomer, Boothy for a lap of the Island to help him find even more pace. That was before John’s horror smash at the NW200, which has ruled him out of this year’s main event. Fix up soon, big lad. It’s fair to say that the TT influences a lot of motorcyclists, including us at Fast Bikes. In homage, we hit the roads a few days back to pitch some of the greatest new litre bikes against some of Britain’s fastest B-roads. What a laugh that was, even if I did end up catching crabs in the process; the things we do for work, eh! It was particularly interesting to get a spin around on Suzuki’s new GSX-R1000R, and you can see what Fagan made of it when you flick through these pages. And the tests don’t stop there. Some of the boys have been out putting sports-tourers through their paces. They had a right good craic on road and track, even if they ended up wetter than a duck’s backside. Yep, we’ve been smashing the miles this month, and we hope you have too. I did a 500-miler on my Blade SP last week. What an epic ride that was. It’s one of the new arrivals in our termer section, which is now in full-swing, just like the season. There’s some serious metal to mull-over, so if you’re still undecided about what bike to invest in, have a gander. Just don’t blame us when it makes you get your credit card out.
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, NEW S & REV IEW S PLA NET FAST BIKES – NEW ME TAL Get set, read dy, driibble!!
STUNNING CARBON CREATION REVEALED BY BMW AT LAST! We just missed the release of BMW’s insane HP4 Race in the last issue by mere hours. Off went the mag, then in came the news – that the carbon-framed bike BMW teased us with at shows towards the back end of 2016, is now a limited edition reality. The numbers attributed to the 750 HP4 Rs that will be built are amazing, nigh on Ducati Superleggera rivalling, in actual fact. The fully carbon-fibre chassis helps the bike hit an impressive fully wet weight figure of 171kg, while the wheels alone are 30 per cent lighter than the forged alloy wheels the vanilla S 1000 RR rolls upon. The entire package is lighter than the bikes raced in WSB by Jordi Torres et al. The rest of the chassis hasn’t been skimped on either, with top notch Öhlins FGR300 forks up front with a TTX36 Öhlins monoshock suspending the rear end. Brakes are Brembo’s bonkers GP4 RR calipers biting 320mm discs. The engine appears to be some kind of hybrid between a World Endurance and WSB specification, claiming a peak output of 215bhp and 120Nm of torque. Whether this is at the wheel, or the crank, we don’t know, but we’d guess a crank figure meaning a genuine true 200bhp or more at the wheel. An extra 300rpm over stock helps achieve this, but it also features an optimised primary and secondary gearbox ratio too. It has a 2D dash with a huge amount of adjustability for both it and the upgraded electronics suite, including Dynamic Traction-Control, wheelie-control and launch-control, plus a pit-lane limiter.
10 JULY 2017 WWW.FASTBIKESMAG.COM
Hello, dear...
The remainder of the bike features lashings of additional carbon fibre, and looks wonderfully sweet in those familiar BMW Racing colours, don’t you think? The only bugbear? Well, one that depends very much on the interested individual concerned – the price. One will set you back a whopping £68,000, which is either ridiculous or a bargain depending on your point of view! Given the technology in the frame, and much like the Superleggera, this is simply how much these kinds of ultra exotic bikes cost. However, the more they make them, the cheaper and faster they’ll be able to produce them so it may not be long before ‘stock’ bikes come with some of the benefits these beauties offer. And anyway, even if we can’t afford one ourselves, it’s still nice to have aspirations, to dream, nay?
JULY 2017 WWW.FASTBIKESMAG.COM 11
, NEW S & REV IEW S PLA NET FAST BIKES – NEW ME TAL
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To celebrate the launch of Spidi’s brand new UK-based website, they are offering you the chance to win a superb prize worth over £2,500, and included within this is a £1,000 voucher to spend on Spidii gear. They are offering a trip for two to their headquarters in Vicenza, where you’ll get to see just how they put some of their amazing gear together during your VIP tour of the factory. They’ll throw in a slap up lunch, to boot. But that’s not all! Following your tour you’ll be whisked away to Venice, to the four-star Rialto Hotel overlooking the Grand Canal, situated next to the Rialto Bridge. ridge You’ll have plenty of time to explore Venice, or do whatever you choose, and when you return to the UK you’ll receive that aforementioned £1,000 voucher to spend on Spidi goodies. Now, c’mon, that’s a pretty sweet prize! To be in with a chance to win, simply head over to their new website at www.spidiuk.com, click the competition page, fill in your details and Bob’s your uncle, you’re in. Good luck to all!
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MCGUINNESS OUT OF THE TT Just before going to press, Isle Of Man TT legend John McGuinness had something of a horror smash at the North West 200, which now means he’ll miss this year’s Tourist Trophy. This sadly casts doubt on his racing future in its entirety, too. The NW200 was the first competitive outing for the official Honda squad, as they tried to get the new Fireblade sorted in time for the TT. Testing prior to the NW200 had been difficult for both John and his team-mate Guy Martin, as they’ve struggled to get the new bike up to speed. They’re not alone, with bikes arriving late it’s been a rush against time but they were hoping that some NW200 action would see them fit to compete at the world’s most famous road race to their usual high standard. During the qualifying session for the Superbike race, McGuinness crashed at Primrose Hill. After being taken to Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast he was diagnosed with a compound leg fracture, four broken vertebrae and some broken ribs. 12 JULY 2017 WWW.FASTBIKESMAG.COM
That’s a nasty list all in. Up until the qualifying session things hadn’t been going swimmingly, with Martin especially off the pace. Following John’s accident Honda withdrew from the races entirely, preferring to analyse the incident at their HQ before letting the bikes back on track. Whether or not the woes many other teams are experiencing with the new Honda in various racing series has anything to do with John’s accident, or not, remains to be seen. As for John, and given his age and the fact of what he’s achieved within the sport up until now, could this mean the end? He’s in his mid-forties, he’s won pretty much everything you’d want to in the road racing sphere, he could probably be a Honda ambassador for life when retired, and he’s also suffered from injury in the past. A wrist injury held him back for quite a while a few years back, but the litany of injuries sustained at the NW200 will take rather longer to recuperate from, although when fixed may not be
as limiting as wrist injuries when it comes to riding a bike, as nasty as they sound. This would be the only bright light for McPint fans who want to see him return, and for John himself if he doesn’t believe he’s done just yet. McGuinness’s legendary status is already assured. He has won 23 TT races, only three short of Joey Dunlop’s all-time highest tally of 26 victories, and whatever happens next his place in history is secure.