RiDE

September 201110

THIS MONTH’S WINNER...My BMW F800R on top of Le Beaufortain on my first bike trip in the French Alps – Herber Loureiro

Send your pictures to [email protected] and each month one reader will win a Bike Trac unit, plus a year’s subscription to Bike Trac, courtesy of Road Angel.As well as boosting bike security it also helps you log your journeys. See www.biketrac.co.uk for more.

SPONSORED BY BIKETRAC

WINA BIKE TRAC uNIT WORTH NEARLY £300!

Me and my mate Andrew on our BMW R1200GSs in France. One of us had to carry all the stuff – Corey Cook

Hilton and me in New Zealand with the Gixxer 1000, which we got to ride – Steve Trotman

Enjoying the sun in Hunstanton on our 100-mile trip on a pair of 125s – Bill Laud

RIDING

September 201116

Knowing how to brake well is the most essential skill any rider can possess.

So hold tight for our guide to better braking

Words Matt Hull Pictures Mark Manning

Stop! Stop NOW!

Going straightWe asked Mav and Dave to use just the rear brake, then just the front and finally both together – all from 60mph. This helps you get a feel for what you’re doing when you brake normally. The rear on its own was rubbish, as you’d expect, because momentum is not being harnessed. The front was much better, and both together was a little better still – and, crucially, it felt more comforting, because if you brake over an iffy surface you can ease off the front but stay on the rear.

At first, neither rider was using the brakes to full effect, but with practice both felt more confident, progressively feeding more pressure through the front brake and gaining a better command of what the rear was doing.

Initially Mav was over-using the rear brake, leading it to lock up on occasion. He felt much better using only the front. It helped him to concentrate on the feel of the powerful front; he could then reintroduce both together more confidently. Dave had more confidence generally, and until it rained was relying purely on the front brake. He also improved his stopping distances by using the rear and seeing how much extra power he could put through the front through practice.

Bikes, tyres, surfaces and brakes are all different, so find somewhere safe and practise braking to get a feel for what your bike can do. Feed the pressure in progressively and feel through the bars what the front end is doing. If the front locks, just ease off and then reapply.

If you think about it, the last thing you do on a bike before a crash is brake. Usually the accident will have roots going back to observation, speed or a third party, but you’ll be relying on your brakes at the end. A good understanding of how you brake will make you much safer, more confident with cornering and quicker on a trackday.

We took two RiDE readers, Mav Davis and David John, and national-level racer Bruce Dunn, along to a testing ground to see how we could improve our braking.

Whether it’s a Street Triple, an R6 or an R1200GS, heavy braking puts huge forces on to the front wheel

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BauerMagForm.indd 1 8/2/11 09:10:30

45 September 2011

When the ZZR600 was launched in 1990, 600s were expected to be all things to all men. So it had

to be fun in the bends, good solo or two-up, and the potential to be massaged into the role of race bike was always welcome. It was definitely pitched at the comfy end of the spectrum, next to the flighty but fast Yamaha FZR600 and the original jellymould Honda CBR600. It was bloody fast, though, hitting 150mph when the FZR and CBR barely topped 140 and Suzuki’s GSX was another 10mph slower. It was the most comfortable 600, offered the best weather protection, and in the talented hands of John Reynolds it even won the British Supersport 600 title in its first year. True, it was sometimes criticised for being a bit too soft and a lot too expensive, but all in all not a bad start to what turned out to be a surprisingly long career – 19 years from first launch to last registrations.

Over the years it changed, but not a hell of a lot. The biggest update was the first, in 1993, when it got a completely (but subtly) re-designed fairing, a new frame with slightly shorter wheelbase, and minor engine mods including a higher compression ratio and full Ram Air system for more power, and smaller carbs for more midrange.

In this form, the E model went for the next 15 years with few changes. Even the price was almost the same in 2007 as it had been in 1993. In 1995 it gained uprated and adjustable suspension and new logos, 1997 brought in a digital clock, and 1999 saw an alarm/immobiliser fitted as standard.

The ZZR makes a great first big bike, a practical commuter or a budget tourer, and this versatility makes it popular with bikers who want big-bike feel without big-bike bills.

Used prices£peanuts-£3475

Three reasons yoU wanT one

Reliable, comfortable, still pretty damn quick Long-running model means good spares availability Big-bike ability with

middleweight running costs

ZZR600s FOR SALE Download the free Digimarc Discover app and scan the main image using your iPhone

or Android smartphone to see the used ZZR600s for sale at www.mcnbikesforsale.com

Honda Crossrunner£9075 | 782cc V4 | 100bhp | 135mph | 240kg

YamaHa Fazer8£9098 | 779cc inline four | 105bhp | 140mph | 220kg

57 september 2011

The Crossrunner tips effortlessly into another direction change. We’re only eight miles into Wales

on the A44, but we’re a world away from the flatlands around Peterborough where the journey started. This fabulous complex of bends rises and falls along the edge of the hills, with a million-dollar view.

The new Honda makes effortless work of every bend – even the slightly off-camber hairpin. In fact it’s taken everything in its stride so far, from monotonous motorway to sweeping A-roads, from Worcester’s well-mannered urban snarl to freshly gravelled B-roads. It’s proving to be a very handy all-round motorcycle.

I remember when the Honda VFR

was the great all-rounder. Of course, that was the better part of 20 years ago, when Honda’s V4 race bikes dominated the Isle of Man and the roadgoing VFR750 was a big hit with all sorts of road riders.

But the world moves on. The Isle of Man is now the playground of tiny 200bhp inline fours and, somehow, sports tourers have slipped in our affections. They’re still popular but they’re no longer the default alternative to sportsbikes for blokes who want to avoid back ache and points on their licences. Big trailies are today’s great all-rounders.

Now there’s the Crossrunner: the frame and V4 engine from the current VFR800 but with more upright, vaguely trailie styling.

Despite the beaky plastics and Pirelli Scorpion Trail tyres, this is not an off-roader – it’s a pure road bike. So we’re here with our similarly priced middleweight road bike, art editor Steve Herbert’s Yamaha Fazer8. As a contrast we have my Ducati Multistrada 1200S – a far more exotic, expensive machine but it shows what a road-focused trailie can be. Bringing the traditional VFR perspective, we’re joined by emergency medical technician Kat Campbell-Ricketts, who’s done more than 100,000 miles on her VFR750.

“The Crossrunner is instantly easy to ride. It’s good at U-turns too,” notes Kat, who was a CBT and DAS instructor for eight years, before joining the London Ambulance Service.

See more of our Crossrunner test Download the free Digimarc Discover app and scan the main image

using your iPhone or Android smartphone or join us on Facebook

DIY

IN OTHER NEWS

September 2011106

I’ve always disliked the BMW’s headlight. With an uprated Osram bulb fitted it’s a lot better than

standard, but it’s still pretty lousy. If I get it set up right for main beam, then the cut-off on dip is so sharp I have to ride by Braille, and if I set it right for dip, I’m in danger of blinding airline pilots on main. HID kits are out – the RS uses a standard H4 type bulb, and HID replacements only have one filament, so if that one filament blows you’re stuck. The obvious choice is a pair of those natty little PIAA spots that are so beloved of GS riders.

Obvious, that is, until you see the price – it’s easy to blow £300 on a pair of lamps, wiring and fitting kit. I haven’t got that kind of cash, and even if I did, it’d be going on tyres and fuel, not fancy accessories. I don’t need crystal clear searchlights – all I need is to lob a little more light out beyond the limits of the standard dip beam pattern, so there must be something out there that’ll do the job without breaking the bank.

Ten minutes on the interweb and I’ve come up with a pair of tiny Ring

branded 55w car spotlights which look ideal – and they’re less than £20 a pair! I’ve seen a few RS spotlight installations, using a bar attached under the nose, with the spotlights themselves slightly outside the line of the fairing. It’s easy enough to make something similar, but first I want to know whether I’ve got enough clearance to just fit the lights directly under the nose, which I reckon would look neater.

position. A quick measure up shows I could just about get away with it, but on full compression the mudguard will be a bit too close for comfort.

So, time to make up a mounting bar. The local DIY shop has some 28mm x 3mm aluminium bar which looks like it should do the job perfectly – stiff enough but easy to work with. I’m going to need three pieces – the main bar, a shorter bar to space the main one down slightly to clear a lip at the side of the nose, and another short one to go the other side of the fairing plastic, adding a bit of stiffness.

The three bars and the fairing sandwich together with three stainless steel button head bolts screwed into captive RivNuts in the backing piece (too fiddly to use normal nuts), and the main bar has a slight twist at each end to keep the ends horizontal. Takes longer to describe than it did to make. Now I just need to splice into the dip beam wiring and add a waterproof switch from Vehicle Wiring Products and it’s all sorted – an afternoon’s work in all. It’s going to take me a few night-time rides to get the lights set up properly, but first impressions are good.

Let there be lIgHTAnd lo, there was light. In fact, there were two lights on our high-mile boxerWords and pictures Kev Raymond

ThanksABE www.allbike engineering.co.ukMotorworks www.motorworks.co.ukDP Brakes www.dp-brakes.comNippy Normans www.nippy normans.comVehicle Wiring Products www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu

PROJECT BMW R1100S

The mileage is slowly creeping up. A recent jaunt into Brittany saw it edging nearer to the 99,000 mark, and just before that it passed the significant anniversary of 10,000 trouble-free miles since the RS’s interlude of sparkless disgrace. Celebrations ensued.

The next day I went out to move the bike, hit the button and got a loud and expensive-sounding clunk and graunch from the starter motor, which then seized solid. Balls. Quickly removed it (two-minute job on these), stripped it and found the internal magnets had come unglued from the casing – a common problem. Motorworks could get one to me for lunchtime the following day, but I needed to be several hundred miles away by then. So I cleaned it all up, glued what was left of the magnets in place with Araldite and reassembled everything. It worked a treat – better than it had since I’ve

had the bike, in fact, so at least one of the magnets must have been floating around in there for ages. When the new starter arrived the next day I stuck it in the top box, intending to see how long my bodged original would hold up, but then I realised there was a £40 deposit on the re-con starter which I wouldn’t get back until I sent them my old one.

I’ve been impressed with the Dunlop

Roadsmarts that I fitted a while back – good grip, good feel, quick to warm up. They’ve done 4500 miles and they’re wearing very evenly despite doing a lot of motorway miles and having suffered a lot of dyno runs. There’s still 4mm of tread in the centres and there’s no trace of the strange wear patterns that are common on these bikes – I put that down partly to the tyres themselves, but mainly to the improved suspension.

Araldite worked wonders on the starter magnets Homemade mahogany sidestand extender

“£300 on spotlights – I haven’t got that kind of cash”

To find out, I wrapped a cable tie round one of the fork stanchions and pressed it down against the fork seal. Now as the suspension compresses, the cable tie will be pushed up the stanchion and show how much travel the forks are using. Everyone says these Telelever front ends don’t use much travel, but after a weekend’s two-up riding and some backroad hooning, the cable tie has been shoved just over 10cm up from its original

107 September 2011

The final installation. “I might give it a coat of paint one day. Who knows, I might clean the dead flies off the fairing too. On second thoughts nah, probably not…”

With the exception of a bit of wiring, this is all we needed to improve the BMW’s lights. Total cost under £40 – the waterproof switch cost nearly as much as the spotlights

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