Fast Bikes Sept 2016 preview

SOPHISTICATED STRIPPERS MOTOGP RGV250!

EURO NAKEDS STRUTTING THEIR STUFF ON THE STREET

OUTSTANDING TWO STROKE RACE REP

SEPTEMBER 2016 ISSUE 318

FAST BIKES

WORLD SUPERBIKES WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE TOOK ON A FORMER WSB CHAMP USING YAMAHA YZF-R1MS ON AN £18,749 TRACKDAY!

Fast Bikes Chump

USED TEST: DUCATI 848:

THE GOLDILOCKS SUPERBIKE

NOT TOO POWERFUL, NOT TOO EDGY, JUST RIGHT!

PLUS LOADS MORE:

GUNS, BIKES AND BEER: WELCOME TO COLIN EDWARDS’ BOOTCAMP! IT’S IN THE CAN: COMPREHENSIVE AFTERMARKET EXHAUST ROUND-UP EXCLUSIVE SCOTT REDDING CHAT: THE HONDA WAS A F***ING ANIMAL! THE REAL COST OF BREXIT: WHY IT’S BEST TO BUY A NEW BIKE NOW!

Ex-WSB Champ

CORE TEST

Continental manufacturers have made the very best naked bikes for years, and with the addition of Ducati’s new Monster 1200 R this is the best European crop yet…

WORDS: BENJAMIN J KUBAS CRONIN

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PIC: AS DESIGN, GAWLER

EURO NAKEDS

This is one Euro campaign worth following over Summer...

FEATURE

£18,749 THE

TRACKDAY The price tag may make you weak at the knees, but given the stars on show, the salubrious surroundings and you get a free Yamaha YZF-R1M thrown in for good measure it’s all starting to sound quite reasonable! Welcome to the R1M Racing Experience

GRID GIRL

You know you’ve made it when you get a grid girl...

WORDS: ROOTSY IMAGES: ADRIAN MYERS PHILIPPA GEDGE NEIL JONES JEFF TURNER

BYRON DRAPER

Öhlins suspension guru, worked in WSB for years with the best teams.

BRADLEY SMITH

Tech3 Yamaha rider, scored podiums in MotoGP. Knows his riding onions!

MATTHIEU CARETTE

Bridgestone’s top European rubber expert, lots of MotoGP knowledge.

PAUL DENNING

Yamaha’s WSB head honcho, after years running Suzuki’s MotoGP team.

SIMON ROOTS

Chancer who just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

LIN JARVIS

Yamaha Racing’s managing director.

In two words, Rossi’s boss.

T

he excitement of buying a new Yamaha YZF-R1M is naturally all encompassing – so perhaps it’s understandable that the little baubles that come with the bike are forgotten about when you’ve got a shiny new machine to play with.

For a start, the process of buying an R1 with the subtle suffix is a little out of the ordinary. To order one you had to go onto a special website to register your interest, before your local dealer rolled out the red carpet and invited you to come in and sign on the dotted line. That’s what 85 or so customers did in the UK last year, within hours of the website going live, easily fulfilling the UK’s quota of bikes – and leaving many of Yamaha’s more minted fans disappointed with no R1M to show for their efforts.

So for 2016 Yamaha changed the system, and all of Europe’s allocation was put in a pot with the bikes being dished out on a first come, first served basis. The results were staggering, with nearly two and a half times more bikes sold to Brits – a total of 175 – meeting the pent up demand for the bike and eschewing any notion that people won’t pay close to 20 grand for a Japanese sportsbike.

Over the course of spring, these bikes were delivered to some very happy and proud owners – a massively diverse group of people as it turned out. The usual procedure of riding, polishing and aftermarket part procurement then began in earnest, with little thought of an envelope from Yamaha dropping on the doormat. There was too much to take in trying to understand how to get the best from the sublime Öhlins Electronics Racing Suspension (ERS), the clever Communication Control Unit (CCU), the apps that accompany the bike and trying to engage the slide control system to worry about what might come in the post.

FEATURE AS CRONIN JAMIN J KUB WORDS: BEN

AN GARY CHAPM PICS: CLIVE,

a n o N MA

N O I S MIS build with one plan – to an m e n o f o s lt Behold the resu Suzuki RGV250… l fu ti au e b ly g in h an astonis

Clive dealt with what he was given (below) and turned it into something very special indeed!

MAN ON A MISSION a mission. Or live White is a man on ve is a man Cli t tha be t tha uld sho say ‘mission who could very happily his stunning to es com accomplished’ when it V250 replica?

RG uki Suz s ale Vin Maverick s the kind of bloke Not quite, because he’ is squared away, that when one project dy to be fiddled, rea up d line is another (if this machine is tely ima fettled and, ult ated over… nic anything to go by), for ges of this bike our ima saw t firs we When r. You get to see a floo the hit s collective jaw s job, two-stroke or thi in whole lot of specials lly hit home as being otherwise, but some rea Clive’s RGV is e. siv res imp stupendously ecially when you esp se, certainly one of tho al machine was in learn the state the origin nsformation. By tra s llou rve ma s prior to thi a dog, and by the s wa it ngs the sounds of thi ds han on it the RGV time Clive first got his various boxes! t hou oug thr was spread ’t Clive’s first isn s thi d, That being sai es to creating com it dance at the Ball when the other bikes of ne “O es. bik g ldin and bui R250SP,” said Clive, “I I’ve got is a Honda NS after importing it from r restored that last yea aha 350YPVS which Japan. I’ve got a 31K Yam tored. I actually res n the and I got in boxes Europe last year! I und aro went touring on it they’re all but es, have a lot of other bik interesting! as rly nea not so four-strokes, and do lots of ll Hu in p “I run a paint sho ers and used tor res , bits and pieces for racers good times. the in lers dea h wit to do a lot ned some of my work Gary Johnson once bin TT a few years ago! at the Waterworks at the ss now for 28 years.”

I’ve been in this busine best for the RGV... his ing sav Clive’s clearly ’re focussing on we The finished article s prowess with the ve’ Cli ws sho arly cle quite ation of the RGV tor res rall ove paint, but the with the dy han te also proves he’s qui too. So then, how ngs thi of e sid al nic mecha Suzuki? did he come across the ght it as I’d got “My mate originally bou ething to ride som d the YPVS, so he wante and he got , del mo 1 199 a It’s . with me it and couldn’t be about an inch through ght it off him. bou I arsed anymore, so it, which I was for 0 £50 ut abo d pai He already got had He of. s iou really env though as it ted coa the frame powder ! red d had come brush painte h it at wit ng wro s wa ng thi “Every and it n dow it d ppe stri first. He had m the fro it lt bui I was all in boxes, so thought was I t firs My s. ard upw bottom it all together! I needed a manual to put me and fra a reckoned once I had t a case of jus s wa it re, the sat s wheel looking for es box the all h going throug re though.” the all s wa the bits I needed. It mechanically? ing lac rep ded nee at So wh l for three years. I “It had been stood stil 50 so know what RS2 a used to race an Aprili uki engines, so stuck goes on inside those Suz know if there was n’t did I it. in a new crank so the first thing I re, the any fuel or water in es were good, bor e did was buy a crank. Th and every it for s ton pis new but I bought e new hav I ed. lac rep single bearing was the pins of them wear, as it, for ves val erpow either goes in the drop out and the valve aust port. The exh the o engine or falls int OK so I’ve used re we ones that came with it as a back-up. s one new the e hav those, but just toddled us ore bef it The guy who had

C

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MASTERCLASS

JHS RACING OWNER/BIG CHEESE James Holland runs JHS Racing in Keynsham, and he is our go to guy whenever we need a bike looking at.

JHS Racing was set up in the mid 1990s and has since expanded as its reputation has grown. The workshop deals with everything, from scooters to superbikes.

Having built and worked on race Suzuki SVs and Triumph 675s James has a wealth of knowledge with these bikes, but elsewhere James’ knowledge is as extensive as it gets. So from tyre fitting to MOTs, from dyno work to suspension, James really does do it all.

And here he is, passing on his years in the business to Fast Bikes readers!

ECU, WTF, LMAO, ETC

Flashing an ECU isn’t you showing your bits off to a bike’s brain.

It’s the cure for all biking’s ills. Or is it? James from JHS tells all…

W

hat’s today’s hot topic? We’ve touched on this in previous tech pages, but we’re now seeing ECU flashing reach a global epidemic. As its effectiveness spreads, playing with an ECU is now top of many mod lists for a whole host of riders of modern machinery. So should you be joining the flashing craze?

Where do you find more power? On the dyno, of course...

CONTACT JHS RACING:

The majority of ECU flashing is predominantly aimed at bikes with fly-by-wire – anything with a throttle cable is limited by the parameters of adjustability because they’re not going to spend time and effort developing software for a bike that’s not current and will become obsolete – and remapping effectively came about with the advent of Kawasaki’s ZX-10R in 2011; unsurprisingly it’s the bike that’s seen the most focus on development. The ’Blade came out in 2008 but they’ve only just released the software for it, just as it’s going out of date.

Again, we’ve emphasised this before, but there’s no instant fix for gaining power. There ain’t no magic unlock key that grants you unlimited power, instant throttle response, or the ability to have an erection for 48-hours straight. Manufacturers also don’t like the ECU to be flashed, either. If the bike breaks and they discover that a flash has happened then prepare to have a lengthy conversation with them

about who is going to cough up for what. Having said all that, for older bikes out of warranty and even those without fly-by-wire, there are numerous cool little ECU mods for bikes that normally wouldn’t necessarily benefit from such trickery. Budget naked commuters that cost under £5k still come with a smorgasbord of parameters to play with; things like engine braking set-up can be tweaked for personal tastes.

We had a Yamaha MT-07 in last week. We’re restricted with what we can and can’t do within the ECU, and we didn’t find any extra peak power, but we did manage to put 10bhp in the midrange by unifying the ignition timing maps – it’s not the sort of bike to be cashing peak power figures anyway. Cylinder number one on the left side has different ignition timing to cylinder number two, so the progression makes the bike smoother and not as harsh. After some dyno time, we built an identical ignition map for both cylinders.

QUIRIES@JHSRACING.CO.UK WEB WWW.JHSRACING.CO.UK TEL 0117 986 844 EMAIL ENQ

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LONGTERMERS Must clear that bird shit off the garage door...

Price from new: £13,649 Insurance group: 17

Modifications R&G crash protectors R&G Racing tail tidy R&G engine eases R&G lever guard R&G rearsets R&G tank sliders R&G exhaust hanger BSD Blip-Box-Pro Austin Racing GP1R Can Powerbronze screen RUNNING TOTAL

ROOTSY KAWASAKI ZR-10R TIME ON TEST: 6 MONTHS

0 2 0 3 2

ODOMETER MILES

BHP: 175 GAIN: NA

Price £67.99 £94.99 £138.99 £149.99 £375.00 £69.99 £81.99 £564.00 £838.80 £59.99 £2,441.73

NEXT AIM: FI MODULE

THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Pardon, you’ll have to ask that again...”

N

Super screen

ow I like a loud pipe,” said Beej after taking the ZX-10R home one night. I guessed that his sentence hadn’t finished though by the tone of his comment, “but that is just offensive.” As judgements go on the decibel levels of the new Austin Racing can that’s been fitted to the big Ten, you can either see it as fundamentally damning or sensationally great!

Yes, it’s a bit loud. In a totally unscientific test using a free app on my phone that’s about as accurate as friendly fire, it was reading 116dB from a metre away, so it ain’t going within a ten mile radius of Castle Combe. That means that I can’t even ride it into work for fear that the gentrified residents of the village of Castle Combe will assume that it’s buzzing round the track. In fact it’s so loud that even I have had to admit defeat early on and stuck the supplied baffle in (there’s also a really restrictive one to get it through trackdays). The curtains have been twitching like mad down my road, and what with the pops and bangs created

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by the Bikesport Development Blip Box, it sounds as if Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene is being re-enacted down by my right boot...

Austin Racing’s GP1R full titanium

Off!

On!

slip-on (with a ceramic coated billet tip, no less) is the first of a few zorsts I’ve got to try, but the mere act of taking off the stock can and collector box sheds over five kilos. The standard cat weighs in at 4.5kg, with the stock silencer at 2.2kg. The Austin Racing can? That hits the scales at just 1.5kg. The only issue in taking it off (for Chris at Austin Racing – thanks Chris!) is finding somewhere to store the Exup (or whatever Kawasaki call their exhaust valve) motor. Because it’s not a permanent thing and it has to go back to its rightful owner at the end of the year, the thought was just to tuck it away rather than disconnect it fully and then put up with dash lights or having to install a servo buddy or the like.

Rich at Austin Racing reckoned that the Zed then flies after some mapping, so there’s a Rapid Bikes module on its way from Performance Parts that should extract the full gamut of ponies that were otherwise in a Euro4 quarantine holding stable. But already the bike feels crisp and responsive, with no fluffiness to the bike’s drive, even from low in the range. Shifting that weight has helped, too. I was a bit

sceptical that I could feel the weight loss through my operated on hands, but thanks to the location of it (right under the motor), the initial first few degrees of lean are that bit easier to access.

I was also sent home with a set of über expensive headers to try. Rich reckons that they won’t add much in the way of power, nor lop much weight off from standard. In short, he reckons that the standard headers are good right up to racing level – but we exist to try things, so try things we will. That means taking them off though. Looks like I’m going to be busy sweating buckets underneath a ZX-10R during this forthcoming month…

This means that I’ve had to order up a OBD unit to cancel the errors that come up when you run a dyno on the ZX-10R. I’ve been told that this is a work-around to the problem, so we’ll have to see if it actually does the job.

I’ve also stuck on a Powerbronze screen, which is nothing short of superb. It’s a well made unit, fits like a glove and offers so much more wind protection than the stock unit. My shoulders are certainly thanking the meagre £59 investment…

LONGTERMERS

Price from new: Insurance group:

£9,999 17

Modifications

Price

SP Engineering can & de-cat £450.00 Yamaha quickshifter £199.99 RUNNING TOTAL £649.99

Contacts: www.spengineering.co.uk www.phoenixmotorcycles.co.uk

RIDER YAMAHA MT-10 TIME ON TEST: 2 MONTHS

0 1 0 0 7

ODOMETER MILES

BHP: 139 GAIN:

NEXT AIM: DYNO RUN

THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Waiting for THE letter to arrive...”

I

’m glad to report that I haven’t been locked up by the Fuzz. Yet. But the way it’s going on this Yamaha I’m not sure it’s going to be very long until I am. Yes, the throttle goes both ways, blah, blah, blah… But seriously, if you love thrapping bikes something like this MT-10 will eventually get you into a whole world of trouble – and that’s why I love it!

It’s just far too easy to ride fast and to stunt on. Wheelies are just a matter of course on it, they just keep getting longer and faster and I literally can’t help myself. It’s a drug one simply cannot get enough of, and I thank my lucky stars I have the F3 800 to fall back on when I need to return to sanity-land every other day.

POWER TORQUE

POWER AND TORQUE 200

Dyno data supplied by: 175

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And, of course, the first thing I’ve done is made it even harder to resist, by having a wonderfully rorty pipe fitted to it. Yes, I had promised I’d fit brake pads first, but I haven’t because I’m an idiot. Now, I had the bike on the dyno recently and it just fell shy of 140bhp.

For a Euro4 gagged machine, that’s pretty impressive. There have been those who have thought this figure is ‘weak’, but that really is typical ill-informed internet commentary. Go ride one of these and tell me it’s weak – it really bloody isn’t, it’s barking mad!

And now it does have a serious aural bark courtesy of local lads to us, SP Engineering. I rode down there one morning and they set to work on the MT, fitting a MotoGP2 round carbon can, and also a stainless-steel Y-piece de-cat pipe. All in all it took around half an hour to remove the standard unit (losing a good 5kgs at the same time), and fit the SP kit while also disconnecting the exhaust valve cables.

You just remove the cables and let the valve actuator still do its thing and then you don’t get a warning light.

I really like the GP2 can, the welds are proper race-bike cool and the overall build impressive, especially for the price.

They also have a bunch of other options you can choose from, too. The de-cat pipe is boss and also a lovely bit of metalwork. You have to do away with the plastic cover, but I think it’s worth it.

Cost wise, SP say the average price of a can is around £200, as some are cheaper or more expensive than others.

The can is also able to slip onto the standard cat box if needed. However,

the Y-piece can have the standard can fitted to it, meaning should you wish you can fit that, get most of the weight loss and power boost benefits, but all with the stock can still on.

The de-cat is £300, but if you buy the pair together (and why wouldn’t you, eh?) they’ll knock around £50 off the total. They’ve already sold a stack for the MT-10, and after hearing it I can see why!

It’s loud with the baffle out, but only edging on offensive while remaining just on the right side of acceptable – perfect. And it sounds so different too, menacing and purposeful. Next issue I’ll have had it up on the dyno to see what difference it made.

Speaking of which, when I did the stock run a warning light came up on the dash. With the front wheel static, the ABS electronics got confused so up popped a light. I zipped around to Phoenix Yamaha, who had also completed her first service for us, and they plugged her in and turned the light off. While there it would have been rude not to have a quickshifter fitted, so we did! It’s a Yamaha accessory costing £199.99, and it takes roughly an hour to install. Being official it works pretty well too, so big thanks to the Phoenix guys for taking such good care of the MT thus far. I'll yap about it more next month. That’s also one of the only holes in the MT’s armoury now filled. Next month I promise I’ll get some brake pads, get her on the dyno to see what the SP can has done, and also start looking into a down-shift blipper too.

That’s so long as I’m not picking up the soap for Mr Big by next month…

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