Motorcycle Sport & Leisure August 2014

Issue 647

SCOOP! YAMAHA

MSL August 2014

MT-09 RALLY

BUYING USED URBAN TRIPLE MASTERING UNLEASHED 400 MILE DAYS BIKES IN 2014 Yamaha’s new street bike gets rated on UK roads

Expert advice on going the distance and staying safe

What to check, what to ask, and where to buy from

MOTORCYCLE RIDDEN

FOR THE FUN OF RIDING

*Almost

SPORT & LEISURE

◆ BMW S1000R ◆ Yamaha MT-09 Rally ◆ Honley 250 RX3

BMW S1000R VS MIDLIFE CRISIS The super naked that ticks every box.

+

THE RISE OF THE NAKEDS

The truth behind the statistics

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PAGES OF TOURING

PLUS BORDERING ON FUN How to make light work of border crossings

WIN*

£1000

of Avon’s 3D-XM Hyper Touring tyres

4 PAIRS UP FOR GRABS

BMW CONCEPT ROADSTER

“As far as BMW is concerned, motorcycling is much more than just function” www.mslmagazine.co.uk

PLUS: BMW GS Trophy qualifier action ◆ How to clean your bike like a pro ◆ Australian Goldfields explored ◆ Inside CFMoto’s Chinese factory ◆ Honley 250 – small capacity adventure bike

No. 08 August 2014

£4.10

MSL August EDITOR: Tony Carter: tcarter@mortons.co.uk PUBLISHER: Steve Rose: srose@mortons.co.uk DEPUTY EDITOR: Bruce Wilson DESIGNER: Sarah Scrimshaw REPROGRAPHICS: Simon Duncan GROUP PRODUCTION EDITOR: Tim Hartley DIVISIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER: Sandra Fisher: sfisher@mortons.co.uk GROUP KEY ACCOUNTS MANAGER: Steff Woodhouse: swoodhouse@mortons.co.uk 01507 529452 / 07786334330 ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE: Sandra Fisher: sfisher@mortons.co.uk 01507 524004 SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER: Paul Deacon: pdeacon@mortons.co.uk CIRCULATION MANAGER: Steve O’Hara: sohara@mortons.co.uk MARKETING MANAGER: Charlotte Park: cpark@mortons.co.uk PRODUCTION MANAGER: Craig Lamb: clamb@mortons.co.uk PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Dan Savage: asavage@mortons.co.uk COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR: Nigel Hole ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR: Malc Wheeler MANAGING DIRECTOR: Brian Hill EDITORIAL ADDRESS: MSL Magazine, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR WEBSITE: www.mslmagazine.co.uk GENERAL QUERIES AND BACK ISSUES: 01507 529529 24 hr answerphone help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk ARCHIVE ENQUIRIES: Jane Skayman jskayman@mortons.co.uk 01507 529423 SUBSCRIPTION: Full subscription rates (but see page 30 for offer): (12 months 12 issues, inc post and packing) – UK £47.88. Export rates are also available – see page 30 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value Added Tax. SUBSCRIPTION AGENTS: Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR

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CONTENTS NEW 006

ONE TO RIDE

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NEWS

014

WIN WIN WIN!

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030

037

Another cracking route to make sure you’ve ticked off your ‘Must Do’ list this summer.

A new Ducati Monster is unveiled, there’s the first look at Yamaha’s R25 250cc sportbike and a Honda patent has us interested, too.

We’ve four pairs of the excellent Avon 3D-XM high-mileage sticky tyres to give away to four lucky MSL readers. You lucky, lucky people.

BMW S1000R

It’s big and naked, a bit of a brute and in reality quite un-BMW-like to go and ride but how does the S1000R fare on British roads?

050

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It’s for those MSL readers who want their magazine before it’s in the shops, for less money and with some cool subscription offers on err… offer from time to time? Then this is all you need to know, good people.

062

400 MILES A DAY – THE EASY WAY

There’s certain tips and tricks you can use to get big miles under your belt... here’s where we lift the lid on a lot of them.

040

10

044

MAILBAG

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THE GS TROPHY

Smaller bikes for more fun? Somebody agrees with that point of view.

Initial impressions are that this year’s event is likely to be one of the toughest and closest ever between competitors. Bruce headed along to the start of the competition to suss them out.

BE CLEVER WHEN BUYING

Buying second-hand bikes is a potential minefield of worry and duff machines.

Knowing what to look for and what questions to ask can really save you some hassle. This guide points you in the right direction.

TOURING 076

PRODUCT NEWS

Avon tyres has upped the stakes in the hyper-bike, mega-mileage rubber stakes and the editor has been out to see what’s what with them.

THE CHINESE ARE COMING

CF Moto is a company we’ve featured before in MSL and we’ve gone back to see how quickly it is still growing (very, actually) and what’s next on the plan for global domination.

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082

086

OUT THERE

Another great ride from a great bunch of bikers like you. Things to do that are on and off the bike, plus all the decent diary dates for the coming four weeks.

MSL TOURING: DAY RIDE

Now this is a corker of a day out, along the Yorkshire roads destined to be used in the Tour de France event.

THE WEEKEND-LONG RIDE

A honeymoon in Germany tale from back in the day when bikes were bikes and pictures were in black and white.

THE MASSIVE, LIFE-CHANGING RIDE

Part two of riding across Canada. 10,000 miles from coast to coast and there’s lots of Harleys en route.

KNOWLEDGE 097

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LONG TERM LIFE

Travels with mum by one, tour of the Lakes by another. Been a busy few weeks on two wheels.

REFLECTIONS: BIMOTA HB2

Rounded half-fairing, one-piece tank-seat unit, aluminium frame sections and rising-rate rear suspension unit. Cool with a capital C. From 1982. mslmagazine.co.uk 5

CFMOTO

THE GAMECHANGER Chinese bikes aren’t what they used to be. They’re much better. Especially in the context of CFMoto, as was discovered on a recent factory visit.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY: Alan Cathcart

W

e’ve all known it would take place sooner or later, but now it’s finally happening. A Chinese manufacturer has stepped on to the world stage with a growing range of affordably priced mid-sized motorcycles. ey’re targeted at export sales, rather than smaller capacity models aimed at customers closer to home in the world’s largest motorcycle market – almost 14 million motorcycles were sold in the People’s Republic in 2013, against 10 million in the next largest, India.

CFMoto Power Co Ltd is a subsidiary of the Chunfeng – meaning ‘gentle breeze’, as in a following wind?! – Holding Group (hence CF), an engineering company founded in 1989 by 24-year-old Lai Guogui to make components for the growing powered two-wheeler industry. It only began manufacturing complete motorcycles in 2000, when it obtained the necessary government licence to do so, but since 1996 the company had built 125cc motors for sale to other companies, and the following year developed the first complete liquid-cooled motorcycle engine made in China, again for supply to other brands.

In 2007 CFMoto moved into its present purpose built 150,000m² plant in Hangzhou with a 1520-strong workforce – 200 of which are qualified engineers directly involved with R&D of new products – that is steadily ramping up production not only of bikes and scooters, but especially ATVs, in which CFMoto is a market leader.

As a company much smaller than industry giants like Lifan, Loncin, Zongshen and Qianjiang (owners of Benelli), CFMoto is almost unique among Chinese PTW/powered two-wheeler manufacturers in exclusively marketing its own brand – it doesn’t build complete bikes and scooters to sell to other companies for rebadging. It’s also more export focused than most of the larger companies there.

For the past five years it’s been the biggest exporter of ATVs from China in dollar volume, and it only builds larger capacity models, 500cc and up – indeed, its rangetopping model of which 10,000 units were built in 2013 has an 800cc V-twin engine that might make an ideal basis for a cruiser motorcycle.

With all its products, CFMoto emphasises quality of manufacture, rather than low cost, so while its bikes are well priced, they’re also well made and durable.

“CFMoto gets the whole quality issue, in a way that most other Chinese manufacturers which are primarily priceoriented, still don’t yet,” says Michael Poynton, CEO of the company’s Australian importer, Mojo Motorcycles. “ey strictly enforce a zero defect manufacturing policy, and they’ve adopted innovative production methods to ensure every product is finished to the highest level of detail. Our core customers for their ATV models are Australian farmers, who are ultra demanding, but it’s a mark of how good CFMoto’s reliability is that we’ve now overtaken Kawasaki and Can-Am in terms of numbers in ATV sales, as word spreads how good they are. We’ve had excellent results with the 650NK and 650TK motorcycles, too – our bike sales increased a whopping 42.2% in 2013.

“In volume terms, CFMoto sold more units than Ducati and BMW in 2013 and was ranked the ninth largest manufacturer in Australia – an impressive feat considering the brand has only been in Australia for three years, and we’re focused on selling mid-sized models, not cheap 50cc runarounds.”

As part of its policy of moving upstream in terms of engine capacity, in 2009 CFMoto began development entirely in-house of its own purpose-built 650cc paralleltwin motor as a platform for a range of middleweight models of different types, of which the 650NK Naked roadster was the first. It’s a mark of how quickly its R&D engineers work that this model was launched on the home market early in 2011, with over 60,000km of test mileage already under its wheels, reaching export markets one year later. e 650TK hard-luggage tourer came next, with export sales commencing one year ago, and there’s a 650MT adventure tourer in the works, too – expect it to debut on the home market later this year, and to be available to export customers in 2015.

“When at CFMoto we began developing 650cc parallel-twin and 800cc V-twin engines in 2009, it was aer other companies 20 times bigger, even 50 times bigger than ours had tried and failed to do something similar,” says the firm’s chief engineer, Zhao Yongzhou.

“But we invested much time in development, and

ABOVE: CFMoto’s purpose-built facture is expecting to produce 10,000 650cc bikes in 2014.

BELOW RIGHT: Over 1500 people work on the plant’s production lines.

BELOW LEFT: From the moment you enter the factory you witness views of professionalism everywhere.

The European market is CFMoto’s major sales outlet, accounting for 95% of our total export volume.

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carefully chose suppliers that would meet our high standards of quality control, and so we were successful in the end.”

CFMoto is projecting manufacture of 10,000 650cc parallel-twin models for 2014, with 4000 of these headed for the Chinese home market, and the balance for export around the world. But demand for motorcycles with 400cc or larger is still very small in China, occupying less than 1% of the total market with sales of just 9500 units in total in 2013, albeit representing a sales increase of 56% year on year. It’s expected this will be ramped up still further in 2014 aer products like the Kawasaki Ninja and the Honda CB300 were introduced to the Chinese market this year – but this increased competition means a greater focus on export sales for CFMoto. And indeed it’s these that have fuelled the company’s recent expansion, with turnover registering a 40% growth year-on-year in 2011, 55% in 2012 and 70% in 2013. “e European market is CFMoto’s major sales outlet, accounting for 95% of our total export volume,” says the company’s general manager, Zhu Xiangyang. “CFMoto’s sales increased by 30% in Europe in 2013, including Russia, so that although CFMoto is just a medium-sized motorcycle enterprise in China, it boasts high popularity and strong market share in Europe. We are also very strong in Australia, and in 2015 will make a determined attempt to increase our sales in North America with the arrival of new models.” mslmagazine.co.uk 51

TOURING AUSTRALIA

VISITING VICTORIA Riding a 400-mile loop from Melbourne, Alan Cathcart discovered the many pleasures of Australia’s Victorian Goldfields region.

T

he first discovery of gold in Victoria was reported on July 1, 1851, when as recorded by a memorial you can see today in Clunes, one James William Esmond made the lucky strike. e following year 370,000 voluntary immigrants descended on the area, each hoping to cash in on the rush. Lots did and by 1871 the population had trebled from 430,000 to 1.7 million. e Victorian Goldfield towns that sprung up also drove the construction of railways and roads, and visiting them today saw me following the four-lane Western Highway from Melbourne to Ballarat, nowadays a town of 80,000 people so named as the indigenous Koori people’s word for resting place. Twenty-eight per cent of the gold struck in Victoria came from Ballarat, leading the original shanty town of tents and hovels to be replaced with the gracious Victorian architecture which today lines its streets.

I arrived at the quaint city, having headed over from Melbourne on a loaned CFMoto 650TK, and immediately bore witness to the potent reminders of the location’s past.

Ballarat’s Sovereign Hill

PHOTOS: Stephen Piper

(www.sovereignhill.com.au) provides a working illustration of life in a typical 19thcentury gold-mining township that has rightly won innumerable awards. Try not to visit it at weekends or during school holidays, though.

Its site was actually mined back in the days of the gold rush, with both alluvial and underground diggings, so much of the equipment is original, including its mine sha.

You can pan for gold yourself as an insight into how gruelling and backbreaking a task this was, and specks of the precious metal are still allegedly found there – though not by me. For encouragement – or maybe despair – there’s a replica on show of the largest nugget ever found in the Victorian Goldfields, the aptly named ‘Welcome Stranger’ unearthed at Dunolly in 1869 by two British miners, who found it just 3cm beneath the surface as they were working around the roots of a tree. It was valued at £10,000 back then – around £6.5 million today.

Sovereign Hill is a living museum, with redcoat soldiers, miners, publicans and others doing their duties dressed in period costume, and the main street has a bakery, blacksmith’s forge, printing shop, hotel, theatre, post office etc as well as a Chinese joss house; a place of

Sovereign Hill is a living museum, with redcoat soldiers, miners, publicans and others doing their duties dressed in period costume.

worship recalling the many Chinese miners who flocked to Australia in search of gold. By 1861, Chinese immigrants made up 3.3% of the Australian population, 38,337 of them men – and only 11 women.

Ballarat has loads of good biker-friendly motels, and the brick-built Bakery Hill Best Western www.bakeryhill.bestwestern.com.au was welcoming and convenient, just 2km from Sovereign Hill on the edge of the Central Business District, amid many old shopfronts. e Boatshed Restaurant www.boatshedrestaurant.com was a short ride away for dinner, and was hard to beat for location on the banks of Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree – sitting out on the deck overlooking the lake with a glass of local wine was a great way to end the day. Good food, great scenery, and I almost returned for breakfast, dinner was so tasty.

Instead, I opted to try Cafe Bibo on Sturt St, just along from the motel, lined with 1960s copies of Women’s Weekly magazine, vintage couches and lots of retro-themed paraphernalia. Very strong coffee, and a good Aussie breakfast sent me on the road aer clearing up any confusion with someone else of the same name being fined £10 for Furious Riding and £50 for Horse Stealing. Not me, guv – honest!

Leaving Ballarat through the massive Arch of Victory led me westwards along the Avenue of Honour, lined either side by 22km of trees and dedicated to the Australian soldiers who

TOURING AUSTRALIA fought in the First World War, through the foothills of the Great Dividing Range to the pretty town of Ararat 100km away, founded in 1857 by 700 Chinese miners who found gold there en route to Ballarat aer docking at Adelaide from Shanghai, ensuring the town’s prosperity. eir story is told in the two-storey pagoda housing the Gum San Heritage Centre www.gumsan.com.au which brings the story of the immigrant miners in the Victorian Goldfields to life very effectively. You can also try your hand at Chinese calligraphy, but I suspect my takeaway meal order would come out all wrong if I tried putting what I learned there into practice. Ararat is the gateway to the Wimmera region, whose largest town of Horsham is where GP rider Kevin Magee grew up, and learned to perfect 25km-long continuous wheelies on his Kawasaki H1 two-stroke triple.

Its highlight is the spectacular Grampians National Park – well named, since its rugged granite mountains full of fine biking roads do indeed recall the Scottish ranges they’re named for, just they’re a lot warmer. You’ll occasionally spot wild koalas in the trees, according to the chap I paid for a fill-up in Halls Gap, the only settlement actually in the National Park, in a gloriously scenic setting. I looked for these closest things to a live teddy bear, but they must have been hiding. is warm climate means Ararat is home to a growing part of the 21st-century success story that is the Australian wine industry – the gold miners obligingly dug underground cellars that stretch for miles – making it inevitable I had to visit the Cathcart Ridge winery www.cathcartwines.com.au just out of town to sample its cheeky young reds. Its Shiraz is a past winner of Winestate magazine’s Wine of the Year award, but sadly I could only taste, not consume, thanks to Victoria’s 0.05% blood alcohol riding limit. But the CFMoto 650’s spacious panniers allowed me to find room for a pair of takeaway Cathcart Ridge vintages that have since slipped down very nicely, thanks.

It was time to head off north-eastwards into the bush along the well-surfaced but bumpy Victorian country roads, following the so-called Pyrenees Highway. e hills it runs through aren’t, however, nearly as big as the mountains separating France and Spain – Mount Avoca,

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ABOVE: This plaque notes the place where gold was first discovered in 1851.

BELOW: If you head to Sovereign Hill you can expect to see plenty of scenes like this.

the tallest, is just 760m high – but they’re distinctly Australian, with a smoky bluish tinge thanks to their eucalyptus covering that recalls NSW’s Blue Mountains 900km further north.

As dusk gathered, I’d been well warned by locals, as well as by copious signs, to get off the road early to avoid encountering kangaroos and wallabies straying on to the road as they came out for an evening feed, and slowing to avoid a couple of specimens of road kill reminded me that I didn’t have ‘roo bars on the CFMoto – not that they’d do me a lot of good on two wheels. One of those stops was a panic one, aer finding a wallaby lying in the road around a blind turn, and that’s when I realised the CFMoto’s brakes worked pretty well for a budget bike’s.

Stopping for a refreshing pot of tea in Avoca, a little town full of charming rustic buildings including the bakehouse located in an old bank where I had my cuppa and a delicious scone, led me to Maryborough to overnight in the heart of the Goldfields. is boasts a huge array of impressive Victorian-era buildings, headed by the imposing, recently restored, railway station built in 1892, whose inordinate size prompted American writer Mark Twain to remark when he visited in 1895, that Maryborough was: “A train station with a town attached”.