Norton Manx R and Manx Norton faced next to each other on a race track

Norton Manx R - How far have we come

How far have we come?

R1300RS enjoys trackday frolics one day, before setting off for an 800-mile tour the next

Hauling RS

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Banging elbows with Tommy Bridewell in that battle at Brands Hatch, 2024. Ryde won to take his first BSB crown

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WHEN A BIRTHDAY PRESENT TURNS INTO THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME…

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SAM SUNDERLAND

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BRADLEY RAY

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THE VINTAGE MOTORCYCLE CLUB

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DAN LINFOOT & HIS DAD

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THE KTM DESIGN TEAM

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A RIDE WITH MICK GRANT

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A RIDE WITH RANDY MAMOLA

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Glorious ride: A land lost in time…

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GOING THE EXTRA MILES

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26 events 1600x900

26 events you can't miss in 2026

As I gaze dreamily on the two Nortons in the Goodwood Circuit pit lane, both machines look full of intent. One is an air-cooled single from 1953; the other a 72° V4 from 2026 – but they sit equally sweetly on their wheels, connected by a gorgeous silver finish. So too the Norton logo, which may have evolved but is essentially the same, on both tanks. And despite being separated by more than 70 years, the two bikes were built just 10 miles apart.

But come on. No matter how hard I try to see a direct development timeline from the old Manx to the new, or romantically frame the 206bhp superbike as heir apparent to the 50bhp classic, I can’t make it stick.

With its 499cc single, Featherbed frame and focused form, the original Manx is the post-war pinnacle of British motorcycle engineering and racing success. And while the new 1200cc V4 Manx R might share several traditional Norton values, like exclusivity and performance, it’s still a state-of-the-art, high-tech superbike, its development paid for by Indian manufacturing monolith TVS Motor Company.

They don’t really have anything in common. Do they?

This classic Manx has been developed by Russell Racing for competition at the Goodwood Revival, but it is an exact replica of Norton’s 1953 factory racer. That means a trolley start and a thorough warm-up procedure. There’s a right-foot, race-pattern gearbox, with the rear brake under my left boot. As far as rider aids go, there’s a throttle grip you can open or close.

Climbing aboard is a sobering experience. A long metal fuel tank complete with leather retaining strap digs into my inner thighs. The seat is wafer-thin, like I’m sitting directly on the frame rails, and even in the pit lane I can feel the heat radiating from the engine. The rider, it seems, has barely been considered, and the single’s infamous primary vibrations are making themselves known.

I enter the circuit, glance over my left shoulder and accelerate gently through first gear. Clutch in, press down for second, clutch out, back on the throttle. Then repeat the process for third. Every action is deliberate and methodical. There are no rev limiters or warning lights; you ride with deep mechanical sympathy, just as racers did back in the day.

Goodwood is fast and flowing, and a clean lap is all about keeping the throttle cable tight, staying tucked in and carrying as much corner speed and momentum as possible. The bike’s tiny proportions encourage you to adopt that classic Geoff Duke riding position: chin on the tank, elbows in, make yourself as tiny as possible.

Down the back straight, those vibrations become unbearable by modern standards, while the rev counter needle bounces around without a clue. The speed itself isn’t exactly overwhelming, but the experience is as visceral as it is physical. As the engine approaches its 6500rpm redline and my fillings head for the exit, I feel directly connected to every spring and bearing in the engine.

At 130kg it’s a featherweight in the paddock, but heavy 19in laced wheels create considerable unsprung and rotational mass, making the bike harder to wrestle into turns than you might expect. Twin leading-shoe drum brakes are reasonably strong for the first couple of laps, but soon begin to overheat as the lever gradually comes closer to the handlebar.

Along the main straight I remember to glance down to ensure the oil spraying onto my boot isn’t finding its way to the rear tyre. We’re approaching 115mph in top gear before braking heavily and shifting back through several ratios for two right-handers. Clutch in, blip the throttle, select the gear, release the clutch – then back on the gas for another lap of unfiltered joy.

Skipping seven decades of development in seconds, I swap from Manx Norton to Norton Manx R. My pre-ride set-up now consists of peering at a vast touchscreen TFT, adjusting semi-active suspension settings, and optimising engine mapping and rider aids to the circuit and conditions. On the air-cooled Manx single, it’s a plug chop.

I leave the pit lane and, thanks to the quickshifter and autoblipper, shift from first to third without thought or touching the clutch. Every action is slick and effortless. The ride-by-wire throttle is fingertip light. As I wind it open, I’m unsure how much of what I’m getting is controlled by electronics, but even on the warm-up lap, the bike nonchalantly reaches 150mph along the back straight. The 320mm discs and Brembo calipers are immense and consistent. Cornering ABS means I can also brake deep towards the apex. The grip, feedback and freedom for me to move around are on another level. It hardly matters if I’m in third, fourth or fifth exiting some corners – the V4’s torque and electronics simply drive the bike forward.

By lap two the Manx R superbike is flying, leaving black lines on the exits. I’m sharing the circuit with 20 or so classic racers, several of them on Manx singles, which I approach at double their speed, sometimes more. These boys are riding as hard as they can, while I’m barely breaking sweat. That’s 70 years of progress, right there.

Both Manx are wonderful to ride, in their own way. The V4 has so much flexibility it pulls hard in any gear. Everything happens so much faster and requires enormous concentration, yet it’s also exponentially more forgiving, supportive and reassuring in a way 1950s riders simply couldn’t comprehend.

The original Manx requires far more carefully choreographed rider actions, and punishes you physically with its relentless vibration. But when everything comes together, the sense of achievement is greater than lapping quickly on the V4. What racers of the 1950s were able to achieve on horrible tyres in the face of sketchy track safety simply blows me away.

Racing at the Goodwood Revival is an unbelievable privilege. Where else can you be whisked back to the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s and feel so immersed in the racing of that era? It’s a pinch-me moment every time I walk through the gates.

It’s not just about the bikes. The cars and the period dress are always superb, so too the attention to detail that makes the event feel so authentic.

The main race, the Barry Sheene Memorial, is a highlight of my year. This year I rode a 1953 Matchless, immaculately prepared by Stuart Tong, against the likes of John McGuinness, Troy Bayliss and Tom Sykes, to name a few.

I finished sixth in race one, after banging elbows and swapping positions every lap with Bayliss and Sykes. In race two I grabbed third on the final lap. To see Stuart so ecstatic was a true highlight – not just of Goodwood but of all the racing I’ve managed. It doesn’t get any better than stepping on to the podium alongside McGuinness with a laurel around your neck and a cigar in your mouth.

The only downside is that shortly afterwards you have to walk back out of the gates and return to everyday life.

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Throttle tube twisted to the stop, hold on tight and here we go. The burbling boxer barely needs a breath before unleashing a thunderstorm of thrust, slingshotting us out towards a red-and-white blur of kerb, traction control warning flashing away excitedly on the dash. Donington’s start/finish straight is dispatched with several stabs of staccato quickshifter, before the pit exit streaks past marking where I should grab the brake lever as hard as my feeble, floppy form can stomach.

Roll into the right at Redgate, short-shift on the exit, then get set for one of the greatest corner sequences in British motorsport. Craner Curves is a dizzying, daunting and disorientating downhill plunge that switches from full-commitment right to big-lean left, all while the track drops 100ft in a few seconds. It’s total sensory overload, like playing 3D chess at three-figure speeds.

BMW’s R1300RS is far less flustered than me. Longer than an unwelcome anecdote and stable as a granite doorstop, it’s untroubled by the snowballing speed, precipitous plummet or giddy fool at the controls. It’s been way too long since I’ve enjoyed any of this malarkey. I’ve been on track once in the past two years, and haven’t ridden Donington in nearly a decade.

So that’s a rusty rider, an unlikely track bike and, due to what I can only assume is an admin error, a place in the Advanced group. On a regular trackday I’d be bricking it, but today’s different. This is a special (if slightly cheesily named) BMW ‘Make Life a Ride’ day, a one-off festival offering both on-road test rides and accessible track time. Some folk are here for the more serious Performance Academy, involving track-ready S1000RRs, big-name BSB instructors and high-tech analysis; but there are also plenty of bozos like me, happy just to romp around Donington’s glorious GP layout, enjoying the small group sizes, friendly atmosphere and optional one-to-one coaching.

I’m also here to try and get my head round the R1300RS. Fifty years since BMW created the sports‑touring motorcycle with the R100RS, its modern-day descendent feels a lot more sports than touring. Not only is it significantly peppier than the R1250RS that came before, its ergonomics are now more front-end focused and its fuel tank has shrunk. That surprising shift along the sporty spectrum is only enhanced and underlined by this Performance edition model variant, which not only gets the superficially spectacular Motorsports colours, but also substantial dynamic differences: taller and stiffer sports suspension; beefier brakes; stickier Dunlop SportSmart Mk3 tyres. On top of all that I’ve also got machined adjustable rearsets and a booming Akrapovič twin-exit silencer – but no centrestand, hard luggage or radar-cruise cleverness. It feels like an RS that’s here for a good ride, not a long ride.

After a two-hour early morning trundle to the circuit, track prep involves fitting a GBRacing brake lever guard, removing the BMW’s satnav and selecting ‘Dynamic’ riding mode. No van, no paddock stands, no tyre warmers, no faffing with pressures. But it only takes a handful of warm-up laps in the first session to realise Dynamic is way too cautious for track riding, with the lean-sensitive rider aids refusing to dole out any drive until the bike’s pretty much upright, thank you very much indeed.

Switching to ‘Dynamic Pro’ lets me tweak traction control levels on the go with an up/down rocker switch. Back on track I start with DTC in default setting 3, then over the course of a session back it down to 1. It still feels more intrusive than I’m expecting, but I’m not brave enough to turn it off altogether. Instead I start toying with the lean-angle gauge, seeing how far I can crank the RS on its ear. Having successfully scuffed the hero blobs on both footpegs, the dash declares I’m better at lefts (52°) than rights (47°). I’m flattered, but suspicious.

The RS isn’t the most natural track bike, which perhaps explains why there’s just me and one other boxer in the group, drowned out by a sea of screaming four-cylinder M1000s and S1000s. But it’s still impressively handy, the composed chassis more at home through the fast, flowing curves in the first half of the lap than the stop-start hairpins and chicane at the end. And despite the motor’s mountainously tall gearing and lowly 9000rpm redline, its prodigious punch means the 2.5-mile lap can be comfortably covered between second and fifth gears, with the flick-flack Foggy Esses taken in third.

Good thing it doesn’t need a lot of cog-swapping, because the gearbox and two-way quickshifter are, frankly, a mess. Gear changes feel clunky, stiff and clumsy both up and down, and on more than one occasion a shift fails to complete cleanly. The only solution is to slow it all down, make each change more deliberate, pause briefly between multiple shifts and even (shock horror) use the clutch lever at times.

Brakes are fantastic though, with way more stopping power than I can use, plenty of feel, no ABS intrusion, and so little front-end dive that I start remarking to myself on just how good BMW’s modern Telelever is. Then I remember the RS dropped Telelever a decade ago, and what I have is a very clever set of semiactive forks with a variable spring rate. Blimey.

Later in the day I’m chatting with an S1000RR rider when he mentions his traction control settings go down below zero – all the way to minus 7. I’ve never heard of such a ludicrous scale, but I check and, sure enough, mine’s the same. Next time out I carry on dialling the electronic assistance down step by step, the RS feeling increasingly eager. I get down as far as -3 before my final session is cut short by a red flag. Not on my account, thankfully.

I come in from the track, ride through the pits, pick up my backpack, refit my nav and head home via a fuel station – today it’s been slurping super unleaded at just 25mpg. This may be the sportiest model in the RS’s 50-year life, but it still has several strings to its bow. This evening I’ll strap on a Givi tankbag and tailpack, then tomorrow I set off on a four day, 800-mile romp round Yorkshire and the Pennines. From sports to touring, just like that.

Want to travel at pace, explore the smallest of back roads, then pick down paths that aren’t even roads? You’ll be needing the oomph, presence and easy speed of a decent-sized engine, combined with the 21in front wheel and big-clearance suspension of a legit off-roader. But which is best? Four fantastic adventure bikes, three glorious days of highways and byways, two tempting newcomers – and one clear winner. The establishment won’t be happy…

This month we’ve also headed to the West Midlands with a Triumph Bonneville and a Royal Enfield Bullet to discover how much of the British bike industry’s legacy still remains, ridden Norton’s new Manx R with a 1953 Manx Norton at one of England’s most historic circuits, poked round every inch of Moto Guzzi’s futuristic new factory, joined a couple on a 15,000-mile ride through North America, taken BMW’s R1300RS on track – oh, and we’ve even tempted BSB champ Kyle Ryde back on Team Bike’s Honda RC30 to battle hordes of modern superbikes at Spa once again.

All this and plenty more, only in Britain’s best-selling motorcycle magazine – out now.

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If you threw a knee slider into a bike park in 1995, chances are it’d have hit a CBR600F. It was Britain’s biking bullseye for the first half of the 1990s, winning club, national and international races, outselling every other bike and wooing a generation of riders. Yet it was built around a humble engine and modest steel-framed chassis that was anything but ahead of its time. Rivals all boasted superior performance, spec and tech.

’Twas not always thus. When the CBR arrived in December 1986, it was radical. The 600cc class only included Kawasaki’s GPZ600R, also a 16-valve water-cooled inline four. But the Honda aced it with a shorter stroke, wider bores, larger valves, higher revs and more power and torque, peaking at 84bhp and 44lb·ft. The CBR was also the first middleweight with sweet‑spot 17in wheels (instead of the usual 16in/18in combo), and the first to tilt the motor forward (by 35°) to straighten intake paths and lower the centre of gravity.

But it was the 600’s voluptuous bodywork that took it from merely contemporary to openly futuristic. It was fully encased in seamless, curvaceous plastic, with a shrouded front mudguard reaching down to the axle, a single-piece fairing swooping from headlight to belly pan, infills between tank and fairing hiding the frame, a single-section tailpiece wrapping round the light, and a huge rear hugger encasing the top third of the rear wheel. Teardrop mirrors were on winglet-style stems, and front indicators were faired-in. It looked like science fiction to some. _MCN_’s road tester, the late Jim Lindsay, was at the launch in Japan. ‘When we saw it, first thing we thought was how ugly it was,’ he recalled in 2014. ‘My first impression was: “Oh my god, it’s hideous!”. It was instantly nicknamed the Jellymould.’

The CBR’s project leader, Minoru Morioka, had been inspired by Massimo Tamburini’s 1986 Ducati Paso 750 and Federico Martini’s 1985 Bimota DB1 (both fully faired) – like them, he felt aero was more important to performance than saving weight through costly, exotic materials alone (hence the steel frame).

‘Honda certainly made a song and dance about aerodynamics, saying the CBR had less drag than the class-leading Citroën DX,’ remembered Lindsay. ‘But either way once you got it going it was outstanding. Stable, all the power you wanted, and was actually a very good bike all round – not just a sportsbike. So, having initially thought “bloody hell, what deranged idiot designed that?”, it was a better bike than the GPZ600R.’

Bike of the Year celebrates the machines that are genuinely improving motorcycling. The bikes that bring something new, exceed our expectations, and move the world forward rather than rest on yesterday’s laurels. In the past 12 months the Bike team has ridden at least 85 all-new, updated or tweaked models. Only 20 have earned a place in our countdown – and only one is worthy of being crowned Bike of the Year 2026.

Elsewhere this issue we’ve asked a real-life professor of engines to rank the craziest motors ever fitted between two wheels, from 49-cylinder two-stroke to 8-litre V10 to 400bhp jet-bike. Back on planet Earth (albeit a far-flung corner of it) is Ferdia Durkin and his gripping tale of riding a temperamental 23-year-old BMW R1150GS deep into the Sahara Desert. And if all that’s not enough, we’ve also found out what it feels like for a motorcycling mortal to pin the throttle of Marc Márquez’s 300bhp Ducati GP26 MotoGP race bike. Beware: it’ll pull your brain out of shape…

All this and plenty more, only in the latest issue of Britain’s best-selling bike magazine – out now.

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Martin Fitz-Gibbons spends an afternoon looking for somewhere to cool off while out on the **Triumph Tiger 900 Desert Edition**

**W**hen the Tiger 900 Desert arrived in late spring, I quietly dreamed I’d find a way of riding it to the parched, barren wasteland that inspired this special edition. I didn’t imagine that I’d have the time (or guts) to ride it to the Sahara (like Ferdia’s incredible adventure on p80) – but a pixel of positivity in the back of my brain had half-hoped I could squeeze in a hurried trip to the Tabernas Desert in Almería, or the beautiful Bardenas Reales badlands just a few hours from Bilbao’s ferry port.

  
In the end I didn’t have to go to the desert; the desert came to me this summer, thanks to five successive heatwaves between May and August. After the warmest spring ever recorded in England came record-breaking temperatures in June (peaking at 38°C), then the driest-ever July (just four per cent of expected rainfall). Halfway through August, more than 70 per cent of England is officially in drought.

  
Meandering along miscellaneous Midlands back roads on yet another sweltering afternoon, the countryside looks like it’s been bleached blonde. There are still patches of green to be seen, but even these are now tinged with the burnt brown and terracotta tones of a ‘false autumn’ – a stress reaction where trees and plants shed leaves earlier than normal to cope with the extreme conditions. They’re not the only ones adapting to survive: out in the fields, farmers are scrambling to deal with the earliest harvest in 50 years.

  
‘As the ambient temperature climbs to 30°C, bonus blasts of hot air flow over my legs’

Unfortunately, things aren’t any cooler aboard the Tiger 900. Even as the ambient temperature climbs towards 30°C, I’m acutely aware that bonus blasts of hot air are flowing over my knees and thighs. They’re pouring forth from the back of the dual radiators, which seem to have been designed so as to deliberately duct engine heat directly into the rider’s lap. Come on, Hinckley brainboxes; my groin is not your heatsink.  
But while things downstairs may be getting hot and sticky, so too are my tyres. The original Bridgestone A41s felt fine but boasted an overwhelming road focus, looking and feeling like pure sports-touring rubber. When a terminal puncture in less than 1000 miles saw them consigned to the skip, I opted for something with more off-road ambition: Michelin’s Anakee Adventure 2. The blockier tread and deeper grooves are a better visual match for the Tiger’s adventure aspirations, but don’t create any unpleasant noise or vibration on the road. And today, they’re still letting me chuck the Tiger around until the pegs scrape.

  
Beneath the Desert Edition stickers, what we have here is essentially a lightly accessorised Rally Pro – a former Bike of the Year. The Tiger 900 earned our crown in 2020 by being a convincingly capable, cohesive and consummate all-rounder. ‘There’s no standout “wow” moment with the Triumph,’ concluded editor Hugo Wilson at the time. ‘It’s simply a bike that’s astonishingly complete.’ Amen, H.

Six years on and the exact same sentiments echo around my lid today. Despite a subtle-but-significant 2024 update that smoothed out the T-plane crank’s sharp vibrations, found an extra 13bhp down the back of its crankcases and modernised the electronics, at its core the Tiger remains a bike that’s a delight to live with day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month – but, perhaps, not a thrill-a-minute.  
Joining the dots between a few of my favourite B-roads, it’s incredibly hard to pick fault with any individual aspect of the Tiger’s dynamic. The 888cc triple serves up linear power and flat torque via faultless fuelling, a slick two-way quickshifter and a pleasing, gurgling growl through its Akrapovic pipe. Bundling into turns, the Tiger stops sharply under its Brembo Stylema brakes, then pitches in keenly and crisply giving away little hint of its 21in front hoop or leggy 240mm-travel forks. It’s never fussy about gear choice, equally content pulling from 3000rpm or revving until power tails off above 9000rpm. But as polished and proficient a package as it is, and as swiftly as I find myself charging through the charred countryside, something still feels missing.

‘It’s a feat that the same bike I’ve been commuting to work on can also prowl the undergrowth’  
Time to mix things up, then. We’ve got an adventure bike on adventure tyres; why don’t we have an adventure? I spot a ‘Byway’ sign and choose to accept the invitation. Pull over, then pick ‘Off Road’ mode by pressing the button that looks like the _Masterchef_ logo. Stand up on the pegs then gently drift the rear end, kicking up a cloud of desiccated dust as we join a baked-hard dirt path leading past old farm buildings. Where will this mystery lane lead us?  
It’s a dead end; cock. Never mind. One careful full-lock U-turn (the Tiger’s too hefty for me to confidently risk one of those jazzy Elephant turns you see on YouTube), and we retrace our steps. But trundling back to the tarmac ignites a spark in the distant recesses of my memories, recalling a huge water splash that I know is somewhere near here. When I tackled it a few years ago the water level was higher than the front wheel of my Honda CRF250, a surging stream that saturated socks and threatened to pour over the top of the screen if you hit it too fast. Sounds like the perfect place to cool off and create a memorable moment.  
Onwards then – follow the hard-packed track downhill to the same secluded, sheltered spot I remember from five years back and… oh. The once-mighty river is today barely a dribbling trickle, so shallow and slow you’d struggle to drown a thirsty ant. Still, we’ve found water in the desert – or at least, on the Desert – and it’s still a hoot to charge through, front wheel slicing the stagnant streamlet into the air.

Out the other side and the trail carries on, tracing the treeline as it weaves between frazzled fields. The Tiger laps it all up, with its natural standing-up stance, a forgiving ride over rocky ground from quality suspension, and predictable punch from the engine. We both agree to take things gently – it’s way too hot to try any hyperactive heroics and, in hindsight, probably not a great idea to be out without a riding buddy. This might not actually be the Sahara, but it’d still be a fair wait until anyone passed by to help…  
When the track ejects us back out on to a road I hop off for a drink and look over the Tiger. It’s no ‘middleweight’ – it’s more than 230kg on _Bike_’s scales, that weight carried high by its 20-litre tank, and it’s broad between your knees due to the inline triple. Nonetheless, it’s an impressive feat that the same bike I’ve been commuting to work on for months, that slogs smoothly and serenely up and down England’s motorways, can also – with no tweaks or changes – happily head off for a prowl through the undergrowth.

  
And then it dawns on me. As I quietly admire the Tiger’s nose-to-tail splatters of sand, soil, dust, dirt and manky river residue, I remember that there’s a hosepipe ban on at the minute… MFG  
  
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This top-quality socket set is ideal for any garage or workshop. Boasting chrome vanadium construction for improved durability, this huge set of quick-release reversible ratchets, sockets, bits, bars and breakers covers every sort of fixing.  
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#### Crazy for capacity? Delirious for displacement? Nuts for number of pistons? You’ve come to the right place. Professor **Jamie Turner** reviews the loopiest lumps in the history of biking

Words: **Jamie Turner**  
Professor of Engines at KAUST, two-stroke lover, BMW K1200S and Ducati Monster owner.

**I** like being a Mad Professor. One of the remarkable things, though, is that it doesn’t matter how mad people get, it would appear you can always find someone madder – or more eccentric at least.

Fortunately, one of the best arenas to demonstrate this is where I reside in the automotive world, where it seems we have an endless supply of mad/eccentric right-thinking people all trying to put odd powertrains into bikes, with varying degrees of success.

In the August issue I described a concept which to me is eminently right-thinking – a two-stroke twin with direct injection and charge trapping valves – but I know many people would think that ‘mad’. Personally, for things eccentric, I’d always recommend a four-rotor Wankel rotary, if for no other reasons than (1) it’s not been put in a bike before, and (2) go and search YouTube for the Mazda 787B. Best sounding engine ever – and reason enough to continue research on rotaries. Which I do. Mad, eh?

#### **Eight-cylinder 280bhp two-stroke**

Anyway, one engine that ignited a lot of interest recently – and featured in last month’s issue – is the Veloce Aperion, a 1000cc, eight-cylinder two-stroke producing a claimed 280bhp. This output is eminently believable because each cylinder is 125cc and so likely comes from an existing donor design. The fact that each would similarly have to produce 35bhp suggests a lift from an existing design too, avoiding too much performance work. However, what will definitely require development is (a) the cranktrain, and (b) fitting the beast into a manageable chassis.

It was shown at the Bike Shed, and there are plenty of images to look at if you want an excuse to sit there with your mouth open for a while. You see, while the engine is generally in an ‘X’ arrangement, it’s not a classic radial layout, because it has four crankshafts geared to a common output shaft. Each bank of two cylinders seems to be at different angles – which doesn’t matter because the cranks can be timed for even firing (if so desired), and if the counter-rotating output shaft is geared 1:1 to them, then the whole shebang can be balanced. The reason why I am unsure of the bank angles is that the necessary forest of expansion chambers is so big you can’t actually see much of the engine…

The Aperion has a slightly less-odd relative in the Veloce Ethereal, with its four cylinders described as being in an ‘L’ configuration (so a 90° V4 then) and thus a lovely thing and all very sensible. Except that the bulk of the transmission appears to be in front of the cylinders and, in fact, the output shaft is between the two cranks. Wow. Let’s hope these things aren’t just vapourware and someone gets to ride them one day, because ideas and renders are one thing, but making a go of something so unconventional is something else.

Still, starting with a two-stroke is actually thoroughly sensible – just ask Langen – because there’s no shortage of misty-eyed stroker fans, some of whom have deep enough pockets to get such ventures off the ground. It is said that the difference between madness and eccentricity is purely down to how much money you’ve got, after all…

#### **48 cylinders – plus one for luck**

Now we have calibrated our minds, let’s mention some other bizarre engines that people have dreamed up to put in bikes.

In at the top, cylinder-wise, is the Whitelock Tinker Toy. Not a very descriptive moniker, but you are unlikely to forget it once you know it has 48 cylinders. Built from 16 Kawasaki KH250 triples (arranged as six inline-eights), it’s a Guinness World Record holder for the most cylinders ever put into a bike engine. Aside: in case anyone feels inclined to go after the absolute record number of cylinders ever put into an engine and then put that into a bike frame, let me mention here that even the Tinker Toy’s excess cannot approach that of the 383-litre Zvezda M507 from the Soviet Union, which was a 112-cylinder 16-row inline radial diesel engine. I know of no engine with more cylinders – if you do, please get in touch.

The Tinker Toy has six cranks and uses a 49th cylinder running as a slave to crank it. You know you’re onto a good thing when you need a second engine aboard solely to start the main one…

Fans of the downright odd may recall we’ve previously featured the Bistella (_Bike_, May 2023). It’s also a two-stroke – and beautifully built, it must be said – but has a meagre 10 cylinders. At least it’s a true two-row radial, and claws back bonkers points by using one specially made Roots blower per cylinder for scavenging. Packaging-wise it’s also an example of why we haven’t seen many radials in bikes – although I do seem to recall once seeing something where a similar-ish engine layout was directly in the rear wheel (technically that was a rotary, I think, but let’s not quibble).

In a similar, but slightly more modest, vein we have Allen Millyard’s extensions of Kawasaki two-stroke engines. We’ll return to him later, but these are gorgeously wrought jewels typically starting with a small Kwak triple and adding cylinders on either end. The five-cylinder is especially nice.

While this piece is not meant to be extensive – how can you be objective about madness? – eccentric people seem to be fond of making left-field two-stroke engines. While all the previous examples are essentially new creations, we should acknowledge those who take an engine from the non-biking world and transplant it. Here we have the Tul-aris, a Polaris snowmobile engine in a bespoke racer chassis. I’ll also give a shout out to my friend Dave Blundell, who’s bridging genres by taking two

Polaris engines and forming a 200-odd bhp 1400cc V4 with direct injection and Lotus-style charge trapping valves. Eminently sensible.

Let’s change tack to four-strokes now. Since we’ve already mentioned him, let’s start with one of Millyard’s confections. The Flying Millyard is a favourite – who wouldn’t want a big chunk of aero engine in their bike? This V-twin is made from two cylinder sets from a Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp radial, for ‘just’ the 4894cc. Fantastic. There was another V-twin built from two cylinders of a Rolls-Royce Merlin, by Lucky Keizer in Australia, but logically that would have been only 4504cc – positively emaciated in comparison, although it was supercharged, too. (‘Lucky’, I presume, because he seems to have survived riding it…)

Millyard’s built so many bikes I’ll pick one more. He recently sold his Viper V10-engined runabout. Being a standard Dodge Viper road car engine, it’s just the eight litres. It had no room for a transmission, but neither was there a need – one gear did the lot. If anyone wants a riposte to those electropropulsion bores who grind on and on about combustion engines being pathetic because they need a transmission, this provides the evidence that they don’t. You just need a displacement big enough – in fact, the adoption of the multiple-ratio transmission is evidence of the amazing broad-range flexibility of IC engines. Anyway, with the Viper, Allen holds the world record for the fastest pillion ride at 183.50mph, with Henry Cole being the hapless cargo. Not sure who was the maddest there.

In terms of bespoke bike engines, on the unusual list we should include the Morbidelli and the Norton Nemesis V8s (the latter with the hand of Millyard on it as well), and the Harley

VR2, in which the transmission was in front of the crankshaft. There is also the Neander Turbo Diesel, which was standout interesting because of its use of two crankshafts, geared together, each throw with a con rod up to one piston above it. There are sound engineering reasons for such a ‘hexagon drive’, which were once very nicely described by John Robinson in this very magazine, but it’s still undoubtedly extremely odd.

Finally, let’s get to The Biggie (as if X8 two-strokes aren’t big enough). Recently, we’ve seen a pronounced degree of ‘downsizing’ in car engines using turbos to increase specific power – and arguably it’s coming to bikes now, what with Honda’s e-compressor on their upcoming V3R roadster. The more you downsize an engine, the smaller it gets, while the boosting system gets concomitantly bigger. But if you really go for it, and use more and more turbochargers, then eventually the engine gets so small you might as well just replace it with a combustion chamber… and, hey presto, you’ve got yourself a gas turbine.

This infallible logic leads to turbine-powered bikes, of which the MTT 420RR is the standard-bearer. It’s powered by a Rolls-Royce Allison M250 turboshaft engine normally found in helicopters. Ben Miller rode its forebear, the Y2K, for _Bike_ in 2005, reporting epic lag and absolutely corrupting power. As well as its 420bhp, the 420RR apparently has 500lb·ft at just 2000rpm output speed (on what we call the ‘free power turbine’ shaft). At maximum power, the ‘gas generator’ shaft is doing 52,000rpm. This has to be the maddest engine-bike synthesis I know of, and I love that it exists. Wouldn’t want the fuel consumption though – it even makes a two-stroke look good.

Let’s decompress by mentioning six-cylinder engines. To most (I guess) these are on the cusp of madness versus eccentricity, but I’d go with the latter. This is worthy of a column of its own – hmm, that gives me an idea for next month – if only because of the sheer variety of choice available to the engine designer when he or she has to dispose so many cylinders, and many of the feasible layouts have been tried in bikes. You can make cases for most of them, but to me one at least stands out. Anyway, more to come. Because, naturally, more is always better.

Having dodged the crusher, is this the oldest and rarest **Suzuki GSX-R750** in the world?  
  
PHOTOGRAPHY JOHAN ROCHA

**FRAME**  
The steering head is a totally different shape from the production bike. Frame castings lack any internal webbing. There’s no crossbeam in front of the airbox bracing the main frame, and a curved crossbeam is missing from the rear subframe. Wobbles, much?

  
**HOLEY GRAIL**  
The first clue that led Johan to suspect this wasn’t a regular GSX-R750F were the five holes in the frame, near the rear engine mount – the production bike had only two. They’re cast, not drilled, which means they haven’t been added afterwards.

  
**BODYWORK**  
The fairing on this prototype is narrower than the production bike’s panels, and made from a thicker material. The side vents are a different size and shape too, as is the front mudguard and the rear side covers.

  
**ENGINE**  
Johan has documented dozens of engine differences including the clutch cover, alternator, oil lines, camchain adjuster housing, thickness of the cylinder head walls, con rods, pistons and plenty more besides.

  
**P**re-production prototypes range from lash-ups made only for proof of concept, through tatty development mules sprouting datalogger wires, to production-ready show bikes. Most are destined for the crusher – pre-production bikes, however complete, tend not to survive to end up on the road. Let alone one built more than 40 years ago.

  
But this Suzuki GSX-R750F, it seems, has. It’s owned by Johan Rocha, a 64-year-old German bike collector and restorer living in Portugal. He bought the bike five years ago after spotting it in an online advert, from a Belgian who appeared to be only its second owner. It’d done just 34,000 miles. ‘I’m a GSX-R750 fan,’ Johan tells _Bike_. ‘For me it’s the race replica that started it all. I know them very well.’ Johan had noticed something odd. ‘In the original 1985 GSX-R brochures, the rear section of the frame has five holes; cast, not drilled, so you can’t fake it,’ he says. ‘But every production 1985 GSX-R has two holes; this was the only time I’d seen one for real with five, so I knew it was special. I bought it immediately.’

  
But even Johan didn’t realise quite how unique it was. ‘I already had over 60 bikes in my collection,’ he says. ‘And a dozen GSX-Rs of different colours and years, so I just parked it.’ But then Johan bought another 1985 GSX-R750F – and when he put it side-by-side with his original bike, nothing looked the same. ‘You have to look and look and look,’ he says, ‘It’s unbelievably close to the production bike. Yet it’s so different – almost nothing is interchangeable. It took me a year to list more than 135 parts that are different.

  
‘It’s unbelievably close to the production bike – yet almost nothing is interchangeable’

  
And although visually similar, they’re not all small changes: the older frame is missing cross-bracing, the headstock has no bracing and less material, frame spars have no internal webbing. For a bike with a notoriously flexible chassis, Johan’s early GSX-R must feel like it’s about to snap.

  
The engine’s different, too. ‘The cases are completely different,’ says Johan. ‘You can’t swap them. There’s even Japanese marker pen writing inside the clutch cover – it has lasted all this time!’ So, where does Johan think his GSX-R comes from? ‘It’s detective work,’ he laughs. ‘The VIN says this is GSX-R750 number 22 – so with the visual tie-up with brochure photos, I think this is a pre-production bike from 1984. The VIN is in Dutch and Suzuki’s European base was in Belgium, and it wasn’t registered as a road bike until 1993 – that’s when its Certificate of Conformity was issued.’

  
Which suggests Johan’s bike is one of the first batch into Europe before public release in 1984, then used for bike show and promotional work, or possibly journalist test rides – all of which praised the GSX-R’s revolutionary performance, but commented on twitchy handling and weaving under braking. If they were riding Johan’s bike, it’s hardly surprising. And hardly surprising Suzuki undertook a dramatic overhaul for the production bike in a short space of time.

  
‘It’s astonishing how many little – and big – things Suzuki changed between this and the actual production bike, in only a few months,’ says Johan. ‘They were so meticulous. You can only imagine the number of engineers and production staff working on the bike in the early 1980s to turn it around.’  
And then it seems the GSX-R was put in a crate and stored, before being registered on the road and sold in the early 1990s.

  
At the time of writing, Johan is seeking information that confirms his GSX-R is indeed an early show bike, and whether it was assembled in Belgium or shipped complete from Japan, or somewhere in between – if anyone has inside knowledge of the Belgian vehicle registration service in the 1980s, get in touch.

  
In the meantime, the complete breakdown of Johan’s GSX-R750 can be found at :a[1984suzukigsxr750prototype.com]{href='https://1984suzukigsxr750prototype.com' }.  
  
**‘I bought one of the first GSX-Rs… then raced it’**

  
  
**»** Roland Brown, former _Bike_ road test editor, owned one of the very first GSX-R750s back in 1985. ‘I was at the 1984 Cologne Show when the GSX-R was on display,’ he remembers. ‘You needed a special invite to get into the Suzuki press conference; even though I worked for _Bike_ and had press credentials they still wouldn’t let me in. So I had to sneak in. I remember walking round the thing on a plinth and thinking “Jesus, it looks like a race bike”. And it was. I bought one of the first in the country, ran it in over three days on the A5 in the pissing rain, then raced it that weekend. It was brilliant – so sharp and light. I wrote about it being a bit twitchy; we put a crappy steering damper and a fork brace on it and turned all the damping adjusters to maximum. But my main memory is just how much better it was than anything else.’

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Honda’s hotly anticipated CB1000GT has finally arrived. With its fully loaded spec and a price that’ll cause rivals sleepless nights, has this Fireblade-powered sports-tourer been worth the wait? We’ve ridden 750 miles to Scotland and back to find out whether it’s a modern-day VFR750, or just a Hornet in touring trousers.

The GT’s 148bhp is nothing to sniff at. That’s more than British Superbike champion Kyle Ryde had when he rode Team Bike’s 1989 Honda RC30 this month for an exhilarating endurance race against modern machinery at Brands Hatch. How did Kyle rise to the top of British racing, and can he really compete with 200bhp superbikes on a machine that’s older than he is? Find out exclusively in Bike.

This month we’ve also compared a quartet of 450cc adventurers, ridden a £44k Brit-built bruiser, attended Ducati’s 100th birthday party, been charmed by Royal Enfield’s Bullet 650, and gawped in slack-jawed disbelief at a ludicrous eight-cylinder 280bhp two-stroke. All this and plenty more, only in the latest issue of Britain’s best-selling bike magazine – out now.

#### The October issue of Bike is out now at all good newsagents, or why not :a[subscribe and enjoy your first 3 issues for £3 - that's just £1 an issue!]{href='https://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/bike-magazine?utm_source=bikemagazine.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=bau_bike&amp;utm_content=newissue_bike' }

**Interview**  
British Superbike king **Kyle Ryde** clearly has the talent to be in World Superbikes or MotoGP – so why does he prefer racing in Britain?

By **Mat Oxley** Photography **British Superbikes**

**K**yle Ryde was born too late. About 10 or 20 years too late. The two-time British Superbike champion adores 250cc Grand Prix bikes – those wondrous, razorsharp two-strokes that were consigned to the dustbin of history by Moto2 bikes more than a decade and a half ago.  
  
Ryde is so into 250s that he owns one – a Yamaha TZ, manufactured when he was a wee kid – which he rides at trackdays and plans to race in classic events.  
  
‘I’m a believer that I was born at the wrong time, because I love riding 250s and watching videos from the 1990s and 2000s,’ says the 29yearold from Nottinghamshire. ‘A few weeks ago I met Manuel Poggiali \[2003 250cc world champion, who now works for Ducati’s factory MotoGP team\] at a Ducati event. He was gobsmacked that I wanted to know about the 250s, because I was only six or seven when he was doing well.  
  
‘A while back I got to see Max Biaggi’s Chesterfield Aprilia from the 1990s. It’s just unbelievable, because it looks trick even now – they were years ahead of their time. I should have been born in the late ’70s or early ’80s…'  
  
Ryde also likes old fourstrokes. Last summer he raced Team _Bike_’s 1989 Honda RC30 in the annual classic endurance race at Belgium’s SpaFrancorchamps, an oldschool racetrack if ever there was one. He plans to be back for the 2026 edition in September, having recently raced again with Team _Bike_ at Brands Hatch in June (p100).  
  
‘What idiot wouldn’t turn up at Spa to ride an RC30?!’ he adds. ‘For me to have the opportunity to ride anything like that, I’d bite someone’s hand off.  
  
‘I like the RC30 – to me it feels like a \[Yamaha\] R6. It took a bit of getting used to, but it’s one of the best bikes I’ve ridden, chassiswise. Obviously I have to thank my BSB team for allowing me to do that sort of stuff.’  
  
This year Ryde’s primary focus is working with his Nitrous Competitions Ducati crew to become British Superbikes’ first hat-trick champion since former GP star Niall Mackenzie won the 1996, 1997 and 1998 titles.

Ryde has been in BSB for the past decade. He loves the championship because – you’ve guessed it – it’s old school. Unlike most other superbike series – from World Superbikes to MotoAmerica – BSB doesn’t allow electronic rider aids like traction control, wheelie control and so on.

  
‘I enjoy the BSB rules because they take you back to what you could call back-in-the-day rules,’ he explains. ‘BSB isn’t that far away from those days when you could turn up with your dad and still do well if you were a good rider. I like that. Yes, you need a good team and mechanics to win, but it’s my sort of racing. It’s more rural and the rider’s got to do the hard work.’

  
There’s no doubt Ryde is a hugely talented racer and there’s little doubt he would be ripping it up in World Superbikes or MotoGP if he was Spanish or Italian. Because while Spanish and Italian companies love spending money on young racing talent, British companies don’t, so he never had the backing he deserves.

  
Ryde won the British 125cc title when he was 14, which got him a ride in MotoGP’s Red Bull Rookies series. He finished 15th in 2012, three places behind future MotoGP world champion Jorge Martín. In 2015 he made a stunning World Supersport championship debut, taking a podium finish at the Donington round.

Ryde seemed destined for the big time. Instead he was destined for several years of misery. Very expensive misery.  
  
‘I had a really good R6 for 2016, riding for an Italian team,’ he says. ‘It was Sam Lowes’ bike from when he won the title in 2013, a rocketship. And I didn’t have to pay for anything. The team sorted flights, everything, so it was ideal. But after a few races they said they couldn’t afford it anymore.’  
Ryde found rides elsewhere, but with teams that couldn’t give him what he needed – the right motorcycle and the right backup.  
  
‘All the bikes I had then were rubbish and all the teams were rubbish,’ Ryde recalls. ‘I was flying to races, with new tracks to learn and not trusting the bike I was riding, so it wasn’t good. If I’d had the sort of mental strength I’ve got now, I probably could have ground out a few more results and made it happen a bit better. But I still don’t think I’d have done what I potentially could have done.’  
  
Ryde wasn’t only wasting time, he was also wasting money, buying rides he couldn’t afford. By 2018 he had given up all hope of making it on the world stage, so he came home to have a go at BSB – and even that went awry.  
  
‘Going into 2018 my family and sponsors were still paying off my 2017 World Supersport ride, which was £100,000,’ he says. ‘We got halfway through 2018, paying for a BSB ride, when Mum and Dad sat me down and said: “We can’t do it anymore – we’ve either got to do something cheap or stop racing.” So I stopped racing for a few months.’  
  
How much money had Ryde’s parents and sponsors spent on his career to that point?  
‘Well over £800,000, with sponsors and Mum and Dad’s remortgages. Mum and Dad’s house cost sixty-something grand in 2002 and they’ve still got about £162,000 left to pay on it. I just wanted them to be happy, so I thought we would be back at some point, but we needed to get ourselves in a stable position. ‘Looking back at it now, I feel like, before I was 21, I’d gone through a lifetime’s worth of dodgy teams with Mum and Dad not being able to afford it. They were in debt, so it’s no wonder I stopped doing it.’  
And it’s no wonder that some people view motorcycle racing as a giant Ponzi scheme, which exists through the many at the bottom pumping in their cash to keep the few at on the top rolling in it.

Ryde reached rock bottom in May 2018, walking out of the Snetterton BSB round with no idea what would happen next.  
A few weeks later he was back. Ryde knew this was his last chance saloon, so he had thought very hard about which way to turn. And he decided on an unusual change of direction, racing a Kalex Moto2 bike in BSB’s GP2 category, a sub-class of the Supersport championship.  
‘We said we would never pay to ride a motorcycle again, so I put all my efforts in and all my sponsors helped me rent a GP2 bike,’ he says. ‘Obviously I need to thank my sponsors for that.’  
  
He won first time out on the Kalex and so dominated the following year’s GP2 championship that Hawk Racing owner Steve Hicken gave him a chance in the 2019 Brands Hatch BSB finale, which led to a full-time BSB ride in 2020.  
‘Why I’m sat here right now talking about all of this is thanks to Steve Hicken, because he’s renowned for taking on young talent,’ says Ryde. ‘He thought I had a sniff at doing well. That’s when it rocketed away.’  
‘I had to do everything to win – I put everything on the line’

Ryde scored his first BSB victories at Silverstone in late 2020, riding Hicken’s Suzuki GSX-R1000. Finally, he was on his way to fulfilling his early promise.  
‘Those two wins at Silverstone gave me the confidence and the trust and the opportunities I’ve got now.’  
Ryde joined the OMG BSB outfit for 2021, riding BMWs, but didn’t win another race until the team switched to Yamahas the following year. The R1 suited him better than the BMW and from there he was building and building: one win and sixth overall in 2022, six wins and third overall in 2023, then nine wins and the championship in 2024.  
  
BSB 2024 is remembered for one of the all-time greatest motorcycle races (1.5 million views on YouTube), when Ryde and Honda’s Tommy Bridewell went _mano a mano_ at the Brands Hatch finale – winner takes all. Yet halfway through 2024 Ryde wasn’t a title contender. He sat fourth in the points chase, behind Bridewell, Glenn Irwin and Christian Iddon, with only one win from the first six rounds. Then something happened and he won eight races from the last six. So, what changed? Did he give himself a good talking to? Did his crew transform his bike set-up? Or what?  
‘I went to a softer front tyre compound, which gave me more confidence throughout races. That transformed my season.’  
There you go – nothing more important on a racing motorcycle than the front tyre.

  
Bridewell and Ryde went into the last of the three races at Brands with Bridewell four points in front, so whoever won that race would become champion.  
‘I tried to win race two, so I’d only have to follow Tommy home in race three to win the title,’ Ryde recalls. ‘But I couldn’t beat him in race two, so I had to win race three. That made it easier in some ways, because I had to do everything to win. I put everything on the line.

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