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July 2025

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Cheap for a reason?

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SuperEnduro rocks Newcastle

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‘The buzz of the TT is a million times more than riding a short circuit’

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‘I’ve got the throttle open, the front brake on, and I’m on full lock…’

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120 years in the making

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How many valves is too many?

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June 2025

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May 2025

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Tortoise versus Hare

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The Cole shed

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Why you need a K5 now

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One VERY careful owner

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2025’s best used bikes

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April 2025

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A Winter’s (Trans Moroccan) Trail

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

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New bikes

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’81 Triumph TR7T

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Easy as that

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‘Y’know what? I want one’

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SAM SUNDERLAND

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Trackday Clobber

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SIX MONTHS FROM HOME

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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

Features

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Bike magazine is your definitive guide to the world of motorcycling. Every issue you'll find incredible motorcycling travel stories from our team and readers with amazing adventures and epic photography. Plus, there's expert opinion on all the new motorcycles available in the UK, giving you all the details you need to choose your next bike.

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There’s never been a better time to buy a motorcycle. Seriously. New prices are staggeringly tempting, modern day finance makes them remarkably affordable, and the influx of rapidly improving Chinese machinery means everyone has had to reset their understanding of value. Just see our cash-savvy group, special Deals on Wheels section and investigation into machines from Asia in the latest issue. We’ve got the expert pick of top-value best buys too, from two-quid widget to indestructible tools.

Need more? TT star Davey Todd reveals all to Mat Oxley ahead of this year’s races, we go behind the scenes with Triumph’s new off-road team in SuperEnduro, and we get a first taste of a brace of new bikes including Yamah’s updated Ténéré and the new Moto Guzzi V7 Sport. And so much more besides…

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#### Chinese-made motorcycles have impressive specs for attractive pricing. **Chris Cope** asks whether they’re great value or if you get what you pay for…

Photography: **CFMoto, Lexmoto, Keeway, Kove Moto UK**

**F**rom AJS to Zontes, there’s almost a made-in-China motorcycle in the UK for every letter of the alphabet. Not surprising. More than 200 individual companies in China produce bikes and bike components. And, according to stats from the China Chamber of Commerce for Motorcycles, those companies produced 19.97 million motorcycles last year, about half of which were exported. Add more than one million exported engines on top of that.

All those Chinese bikes carry a stigma, however, rooted in the bad old days of poorly made knock-offs. US journalist Evan Allen tells a story about a ‘pit bike-type of thing’ his father brought home when he was a kid. ‘It barely ever ran,’ says Evan. ‘And when it did, you couldn’t get more than 20 minutes of riding in without the footpegs falling off.’

His experience isn’t uncommon. But – importantly – it’s also not recent. That story’s from 2008. We still used tax discs back then. The iPhone had only recently been launched. And remember Basshunter? Me neither, but seems he was No.1 in the charts for five weeks running.

Times change. Chinese bikes we see in the UK today are of better quality and desirability than they were when Fabio Capello was manager for England. ‘We’ve reached a point where we include Chinese bikes in tests and don’t need to say “good for a Chinese bike” or have any caveats,’ observes editor Mike Armitage. ‘In fact, we’ve stopped pointing out where they’re made.’

But old stereotypes die hard, and many riders still look at Chinese bikes and ask: are these things cheap for a reason? Sure, they’re way better than they were – but does that really mean you should buy one?

In the UK, five of the most attention-grabbing Chinese brands are Lexmoto, Qianjiang, CFMoto, Tayo, and Loncin. You’ve probably only heard of three of these, which speaks to one of the quirks of Chinese brands: they’re traditionally really fond of rebadging, and this can make things confusing.

**Lexmoto** is the most successful Chinese brand in the UK, outselling its nearest competitor by almost two-to-one. Lexmoto is a British name – a subsidiary of Devon-based Llexeter Ltd – but their small-capacity bikes come from a variety of Chinese manufacturers. ‘We have transitioned over the years from a cheap product company to, now, an established motorcycle brand which is holding its head high,’ says brand and sales manager Rob Woolley. ‘The factories we deal with now are some of the best in China.’

**Qianjiang** takes bragging rights for producing the UK’s bestselling Chinese model. Its Keeway Superlight 125 has been No.1 for three years running. Qianjiang also wholly owns Benelli and recently resurrected Morbidelli (see p32). The Benelli TRK702/X was the bestselling bike in Italy last year, and their TRK502 held the title from 2020-23. Qianjiang also builds Harley-Davidson’s X300 and X500 for Asian markets. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool Harley guy who didn’t know that, find a safe space and give yourself a moment. Such partnerships are common.

**CFMoto**’s joint venture with KTM is one of the best-known examples of a ‘traditional’ brand working with a Chinese one. CFMoto’s bikes were sold under the WK Bikes name when they first came to the UK, and the KTM partnership has helped them a lot. But despite attention in Western markets, CFMoto don’t rank among the top 10 of Chinese manufacturers in terms of output. **Tayo** does. It operates around the world with names you probably haven’t heard of, including Haojiang and Kiden, and in the UK their Zontes brand is consistently among the most popular Chinese marques. For a reason: in our February 2025 issue test with the Triumph Speed 400 and Royal Enfield Guerilla 450, we found Zontes’ awkwardly named but very pleasing ZT350-GK Sports Café was ‘astonishing value for money’.

**Loncin**, maker of Voge, is another of China’s top 10 manufacturers. Like CFMoto, its reputation in the West is stronger thanks to partnering with BMW – they’ve built engines and components for the Bavarian icon for about 20 years. Today it produces all of BMW’s C400 scooters and the engines for the F-series motorcycles: F900R, F900GS, F900XR, etc. And their Voge DS900X – driven by the same 895cc parallel twin used in the F900GS – is getting much interest from UK riders.

In the context of China’s production, the UK’s piece of the pie is teeny. In 2024 we bought 13,822 Chinese bikes, according to Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) data. This is almost 12 per cent of overall two-wheeler sales, but the majority were 50cc and 125cc machines. So, most buyers are probably the same as those buying non-Chinese learner-legal bikes: young people, delivery riders, Londoners who renew their CBT every two years.

Further up the capacity ladder, CFMoto, Benelli, Voge and Zontes are major players in the 126cc-500cc class – a segment that increased more than 26 per cent last year. ‘The \[CFMoto\] 450MT is a fantastic success,’ says Stephen Dibbs, director at Poole Moto. ‘We’ve probably got about 10 people who have placed orders, and we get two or three phone calls a day with people wanting to order them.’ As if to emphasise the point, one of these calls comes in while we’re speaking.

‘The Voge 300 is also very impressive,’ adds sales executive Jamie Nicholls. ‘It’s even got the right tyres for light \[off-road\] stuff. It’s ready to go.’

They say the typical buyer is over 40 years old – often closer to 60 – and by extension, more experienced. They are a little more confident in their ability to assess quality, more comfortable servicing their own bikes, a little more willing to take a chance on the unknown.

This is supported by Stephen Cope at TK Cope in Colchester, previously a Yamaha dealer but who’s bestsellers are now the Voge Rally 300 and DS900X, and the Benelli TRK502 – all of which are out of stock due to demand. ‘All we can do is sell what we can get, and that is what’s happening… as they’re coming in they’re trickling out. We have people who’ve been riding 30+ years and, particularly with Voge and Benelli, say these are up to the standard they’re used to. We’ve still got people sitting on the fence who say “I’d rather see them out on the roads for another six months before I think of buying”. But we’ve had customers who we sold Japanese bikes to for years, and no one’s come in and said “I won’t be seen buying one of those”.’

Poole Moto have struggled to keep the TRK702 in stock until this year, when it’s been overshadowed by the DS900X. ‘The 900 has been a fantastic success,’ says Stephen Dibbs. ‘The level of spec has really raised the profile of Chinese bikes.’ Perhaps unsurprisingly for a bike with a BMW engine, many of those interested are riders stepping down from the weight of their big GS. Many in that same group clamour for a 450MT.

But it’s not all adventure bikes. ‘Another one we’re getting loads of interest in is Benda,’ says Jamie. ‘Loads of people are excited about them as they look mad.’

Buyers aren’t only thinking with the left side of their brain: utility and affordability. Look at the Benda Moto LFC700 or Napoleonbob 500, and you’ll see what Jamie’s talking about. You’d stand out at your local meet on one of these.

This is always tricky because it overlooks so many variables. The quality of a bike is affected by an owner’s riding style and their attitude towards things like servicing, cleaning, storage, and upkeep. Not to mention usage. Expand that nebulous question to encompass the entire output of a country and it becomes quite difficult to answer. But anecdotal evidence suggests that, yes, they’re pretty good.

One reason the 450MT is in high demand is that it’s been receiving glowing reviews, praising performance and ruggedness. In our March 2025 issue, for example, John Westlake chucked one down a hill amid the Edinburgh Trial. Actually, he sent the bike (and himself) groundward several times. It eventually became too much for John, but not the CFMoto. ‘Bloody thing’s indestructible,’ he wrote. Similarly positive response from bike press and YouTubers is fuelling interest in Voge – ‘I’ve never seen a bad review of the 900,’ Stephen Dibbs says – and new-to-the-scene Kove (founded 2017, only arrived in the UK last year) have been winning praise here and in the US. Our test in the October 2024 issue declared the 800X Pro is ‘every bit as good as, if not even better than, the Yamaha \[Ténéré 700\]’.

In terms of warranty claims, the team at Poole Moto says issues have been insignificant and rare. ‘I’ve had no claims for Voge bikes,’ Stephen Dibbs says. ‘Our biggest issue has been supply.’ (They’re another dealer selling out faster than it can get it.) He also notes he hasn’t had issues getting parts for bikes, and Stephen Cope says similar:

‘Almost \[as reliable as\] the service we were getting from Yamaha. We happily sell the bikes and we’re happy to provide good backup for them.’

Buy a CFMoto, you get a four-year warranty as standard. Outside the UK, Qianjiang also operates the QJMotor brand; its bikes are sold worldwide, including European countries such as Germany, France and Spain – and in the latter offers sixyear warranties on some models. Impressive? Yes.

Back in the UK, a dig through recall data from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency turns up no red flags. You’ll find more recalls from traditional brands than Chinese ones, though of course they also have larger sales volumes and market longevity. This is not to say that Chinese bikes are completely without issue. Grab a magnifying glass and you’ll see overall refinement still isn’t _quite_ there when compared to traditional brands. Switchgear may feel a little flimsy, or overall design may seem uninspired.

And this speaks to something observed over and over researching this article: many Chinese bikes lack that intangible something that makes you _need_ one. With a Triumph or Moto Guzzi, you feel the people who designed them spent a lot of off-the-clock time thinking about them. You imagine they go for a weekend ride and take in what stirs their soul about the look, feel and sound, then show up for work on Monday and translate that into the bike they’re building. Chinese bikes feel like they’re made by people who don’t get weekends off.

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You’ll hear comparisons between Chinese bikes and the history of Japanese manufacturers. Journalist Justin Dawes recently said: ‘In the 1950s and ’60s Japan was making cheap, inexpensive bikes – some were copies of other things – but they also had their own clean-sheet designs.’ Until very recently, Chinese brands were more committed to imitation than innovation; they often still are. But as their industry matures – and importantly, as it becomes more interested in offering higher-end bikes to Western markets – we’re seeing new ideas.

CFMoto have exciting things in the works, like the 208bhp V4 engine it unveiled at EICMA last year. Kove is winning the affection of better-than-you off-road riders, and Benelli fans eagerly await the arrival of the TRK902 Xplorer. ‘Lexmoto’s future looks good,’ says Rob Woolley. ‘We have survived when others have had to close doors. The likes of WK, Mutt and Sinnis have all gone, which goes to show this market isn’t easy.’

The huge number of brands means others will inevitably fall by the wayside, but it seems the bad old days are gone. Chinese bikes are no longer the gamble they once were. Online-sourced 125s were ridiculously cheap 10 or 15 years ago because of both economics and shockingly low quality. Today they’re cheap not because of component or build quality, but just because of the economic reality in which they exist. Chinese manufacturers have low labour costs and a concentrated supply chain. Depending on the economic thinker you speak to, there may also be some element of coordinated effort to undercut competition.

Yes, they’re cheap for a reason – but that reason is no longer iffy quality. We need to stop calling them ‘cheap’ as this implies flimsiness; what they are is ‘affordable’. And the bikes we’re seeing in 2025 genuinely represent incredible value. Consider the DS900X. It has a BMW engine, KYB suspension, Brembo brakes, Pirelli tyres, cornering ABS, traction control, quickshifter, modes, keyless start, heated grips and seat, cruise control, dash camera, warning radar, tyre monitoring, power outlets and connectivity, all as standard – for £8499. Spec-up a BMW F900GS to match and it nudges £14,000.

Traditionalists may argue a lot of things are left out of that comparison. Dealer support, history, prestige, community, and other intangibles. But the bike that’s in your garage is easier to ride than the one that’s in your daydreams. Motorcycling needs motorcyclists, and if Chinese bikes are putting more butts on more seats – and providing a rewarding experiences and ownership satisfaction – they deserve respect.

**Bob McGeady, Shetland, Benelli TRK702**

**»** ‘I bought it from Tom Adamson Motorcycles in Elgin. I ran it in around the north of Scotland in two and a half days. On the second day, I ended up riding in a blizzard.

‘I chose it based on looks and the historical association with the Benelli name, despite its Chinese ownership.

‘I like that it’s light to move around, the clutch is very light, and the engine is responsive in the midrange. Back-lit switches and an easy-toread dash are refinements not always present on more mainstream models \[of similar price\]. The original screen is superb at keeping wind off your helmet, even at three-figure speeds, but there is a lot of wind on the shoulders. The seat isn’t great, but I always use an Airhawk.

‘I have not had any issues apart from rough fuelling around 2500-3000rpm, but that is not unknown. The TRK attracts discussion – and I’ve not had any negative comments. I’ll probably keep it for a long time.’

**Manny Villalba, Bere Regis, Voge DS900X (x2)**

**»** ‘Our previous bikes were two Aprilia Tuareg 660s \[Manny and his partner have a bike each\]. We had them a couple of years. We did two Spain trips and were quite uncomfortable. So, we were thinking maybe it’s time to get something a bit more substantial.

‘There were all the usual suspects – Africa Twin, Tiger, GS – but when you look at luggage options, crash bars and everything else, it starts to get serious money. I knew about the Voge \[it was already released in Spain\] and had been watching reviews. We both had a test and liked it. And when you weigh up what you get for the money, it was a worthwhile investment.

‘We’ve not had issues. There was a software update, which sorted the throttle hesitation. Everything else works perfectly: heated grips, heated seat, radar, tyre monitoring – and the lights are as good as any _car_ I’ve had. It’s a pleasure at night. I’m well impressed with that – and the quality of the dashcam.

‘I don’t foresee reliability problems. Fit and finish is good. I’m not one for washing my bike – I ride year-round and don’t stash it away. On the pannier rails, around the welds, there’s a little bit of surface rust, but it’s common on any bike – the Aprilias had Givi racks and had pretty much the same after a year.

‘The bikes get a lot of interest – people know about them, and they know it’s got the BMW engine. This is the future.’

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#### Part motocross, part trials, entirely crazy. We go to Newcastle for the SuperEnduro World Championship with the new **Triumph factory off-road team**

Interviews and photography **Chippy Wood**

Not many bigger names in SuperEnduro than British star Jonny Walker. Triumph’s factory rider started out doing trials before moving to motocross. ‘My friends had tracks, so I rode at them, and then just kind of fell into enduro,’ says the 34-year-old. ‘I did a year on my own when I was maybe 18 or 19, then got picked up by a British team supported by KTM. The manager was a guy called Julian Stevens, who was David Knight’s old mechanic. He was like, “we need to go and do an extreme race”, which at the time was the Erzbergrodeo. I was third on my first time.’ Walker has since won Erzberg, plus the Hell’s Gate, Tough One and Red Bull Romaniacs events. Quite handy, then.

You may be used to seeing Walker in red or orange, not these colours. He started with KTM (while still doing a proper job) and rode for the Austrian team for almost ten years before spending three with Beta. The Triumph move came after Jonny messaged head of global racing Ian Kimber, who’s been at Triumph for 21 years, via Instagram. ‘I was at the point where I was probably going to pack up,’ said Walker. ‘I’ve done it for 15 years… I don’t want to ruin myself for the rest of my life. But I knew Triumph were coming. I watched Supercross \[in the US\], saw the effort they put in, and wanted to be part of a British brand coming in. So, I messaged him, even if it was just some testing. It gave me a new motivation.’

How do you ready yourself for this chaos? By doing something equally chaotic. Triumph raced the TF250-X in Supercross and EnduroCross in the US in 2024, with promising results. When they signed Walker for SuperEnduro, he went out to get a taste for himself. ‘I went out for a couple of weeks and rode a bike – without Ian probably knowing. I said, let’s just go because I want to train for this. And then we came here \[to Newcastle\], did a one-off race \[2024 Indoor Enduro of Champions\] and won.’ The following weekend was the first round of EnduroCross in the States, so Ian and Jonny talked about doing a couple of rounds as a wild card… which quickly spiralled. ‘We had the conversation back at base,’ says Ian, ‘and said if he’s going well and wants to carry on, are we going to support the rest of it? Yeah. Of course.’ Walker won the final round and finished fourth overall – then it was straight into SuperEnduro.

Triumph’s dirt-bike outfit is run by Paul Edmondson, a four-time World Enduro champion and stalwart of the International Six Days Enduro (what used to be the International Six Days Trial, or ISDT). He’s also the chap with the responsibility of being at the controls of the second factory Triumph TF250-E in the Prestige category (and Edmondson was Daniel Craig’s stunt double for the glorious bike action in the James Bond film _No Time to Die_, too). ‘The team’s great,’ reckons Walker. ‘Paul’s the team manager, but he’s also been doing the testing from day one. My mechanic Jean Andoche (left) has worked for a lot of good teams over the years, and worked for Paul last year. He’s from Réunion Island – that’s near Madagascar. Miles away. But he’s a very good mechanic. He was only supposed to do one race with me, but we pushed Ian… Triumph turn stuff round so fast.’

‘We run the bike as stock as possible to prove that what you buy in the dealership can run at the best level,’ says Kimber. ‘Keeping the engine close to stock shows what we’re building is super-competitive.’ Triumph raced in AMA Supercross for a year so knew the 250cc four-stroke single and aluminium frame were good. But forks and shock were more of an unknown due to the demands of SuperEnduro. ‘We started from zero on the suspension setting,’ adds Kimber, ‘but managed to get the baseline.’

Fancy seeing a Tiger 900 being flung over a course like this? Who wouldn’t? And it’s perhaps not as unlikely as it seems. ‘Triumph do road bikes,’ says Walker, ‘and I kind of want to do videos with Red Bull and people like that on road bikes. I want to try to go a bit outside of the sport, bring something to the street. Romaniacs has a class for adventure bikes, which I would like to do. It’s something different. And with Triumph having a load of different bikes, it gives the opportunity.’

Triumph have been racing in AMA Supercross, EnduroCross and the FIM Motocross world championship with the TF250-X since 2024, as well as FIM SuperEnduro with the TF250-E enduro bike. These have been joined in their off-road line-up by new 450cc versions. But though the 250 arrived first, the bikes hold equal billing at Triumph. ‘They’re about 50/50,’ says Kimber. ‘But the 250 went into production first so was the natural bike to go and race with. We could have gone into MX GP and raced as a prototype and not worried about it, but it was important for us to prove the bike we were going to sell. So, we started with the 250. It also means we can grow our rider programme – riders can go from 250s to 450s. We’ve signed Mikkel Haarup again \[Triumph’s MX racer\] on a development year for the 450, then we’ll take him into 450s when it’s ready to go. It’s important to have talent that stays with you.’

‘When racers practise, they think they’re running at race pace,’ notes Ian. ‘Then when they get into a race environment, against everyone else, the pace goes on – and so the bike will react differently. Every track is different – and because we’re new to it, we didn’t have a baseline. Jonny’s racing in all the same arenas as he’s done over the past few years, so he’ll know the dirt, but he knows it from a two-stroke. Paul’s not run guys in SuperEnduro previously – he’s run four-strokes in Enduro GP, but the set-ups are completely different. And a lot of Jonny’s chassis experience is from a steel-framed bike, whereas we’ve got aluminium. Every round, you’re building up your data pile. Obviously when it comes around this year, he’s got no excuses…’

Billy Bolt (top step) is the fella to beat. The tacheshod Husqvarna rider from Tyneside nailed his fifth consecutive SuperEnduro world title in Newcastle, having topped the podium in the Prestige class at all seven rounds of the 2024/25 championship. Triumph were immediately at the sharp end, though. In a field full of other big dirt-bike brands including Beta, Sherco and GasGas, Walker stuck the Triumph TF250-E on the podium in six races, including a hard-fought second in Newcastle – and claimed second overall in the series, first time out. ‘I think what we’ve done and what Triumph have done with building a bike from scratch is pretty amazing,’ says Walker. ‘We’re battling with other brands that have been doing this for the past 15 years.’

FIM SuperEnduro will rock Newcastle again on 28 February 2026 for the GP of United Kingdom, the penultimate round of the 2025/26 season. Tickets will be available soon via :a[superenduro.org/schedule/gp-united-kingdom]{href='https://superenduro.org/schedule/gp-united-kingdom' }

#### **Davey Todd** is as happy racing around Brands Hatch as he is racing at the TT. But he has no doubt whatsoever which gives him the biggest kick

By **Mat Oxley** - **Mat is a TT winner, endurance racer, author and MotoGP paddock insider**

**R**acing motorcycles around short circuits and racing motorcycles around the Isle of Man are different games with a similar genesis, like football and rugby, cricket and baseball. That’s why it’s very rare for a rider to succeed at both. During the past halfcentury or so only a handful of riders have won a British championship and a TT in the same year.

Reigning British Superstock champion and 2024 Senior TT winner Davey Todd is one of them.

The 29-year-old Yorkshireman is therefore the perfect person to answer the big question: how do you compare the thrill of riding at the TT with riding around Brands Hatch or Thruxton?

‘The buzz is a million times more riding around the TT than riding around a short circuit – if I was to estimate it, on average, about a million times more,’ says Todd, wearing the mischievous grin that rarely leaves his face. ‘I genuinely love riding around short circuits, but once you’ve ridden the TT, nothing else is the same, nothing else gives you the same buzz.

‘In a sense, riding the TT sort of ruins everything else in your life, because once you’ve had that level of buzz and thrill, that level of adrenaline, you can’t get it from anything else. I do all kinds of extreme sports – skydiving, bungee jumping, snowboarding – striving to get that buzz from something else, but I don’t think it’s possible.’

Todd made his Isle of Man debut in 2018. He scored his first TT wins last June – beating established Island stars Peter Hickman and Michael Dunlop into second and third in the Superstock race, then two days later winning the main event, the Senior. Todd and Hickman both combine the TT with British Superbikes, so no one knows better how the two disciplines demand different riding techniques.

‘Gone are the days when people rode the TT at 90 per cent with a soft bike set-up,’ Todd says. ‘We’re pushing. Up on the mountain you’re riding as hard as you do on short circuits; you’re sliding, you’re getting your elbows down in a lot of places.

‘For me, a 132mph lap is comfortable. A 135mph lap is something else. You’re pushing as hard as you do at BSB but you ride the bike totally differently. You’re not rushing into corners on the front, because that’s not how you gain time. You have to weight the rear of the bike, take the weight off the front, otherwise the bike ties itself in knots.

‘You can soften the overall set-up for the bumpy parts, but then you can’t ride fast in the smooth parts, like the mountain, so you’ve got to learn to ride and adapt to a bike that isn’t perfect in many sections of the course.

‘There’s fast, slow, bumpy, smooth, old surfaces, new surfaces… everything. That’s what I love about it. If someone said we can make it all smooth like Donington Park, it would ruin it, because that’s part of the charm and challenge of the TT – you have to adapt to the different sections and ride differently. That’s why not every BSB rider who goes to the TT wins races.’

Todd – a bright and engaging conversationalist – started out racing motocross when he was a kid. He didn’t know it back then, but he was preparing himself for the TT, which nowadays is basically 200mph motocross with slick tyres on asphalt.

‘I’m a motocross rider, so I’m used to jumps and bumps. Some TT sections are bumpy as hell, like Ginger Hall to Ramsey. There’s nothing on earth like that section. You have to ride it like you’re riding a motocross bike; specifically, like you ride in sand – keep the weight back and keep on the gas – because as soon as you chop the gas, the weight goes to the front and you have a huge tank-slapper. You have to ride the bumps by wheelieing over them.

‘In motocross you stand up all the time – you get told not to sit down – so I’m used to standing in a squatting position like a motocross rider. That’s what you have to do around the TT – you barely sit down. People don’t understand how little pressure you put into the seat. Even when you sit down you’re taking all the weight through your legs and the footpegs.

‘Going from the TT to BSB and back again, you’ve got to be able to switch your mindset and notice every detail about your riding, about what makes you fast, then completely change your riding style from one week to the next.

‘At short circuits you gain loads of time by rushing into corners. I gain a lot of time by being extremely strong on the brakes and corner entry, but if I do that at the TT, I’ll lose time. On a short circuit it doesn’t usually matter if you sacrifice your exit speed because you’re straight into another corner, but at the TT there’s long straights after most corners, so you can’t sacrifice your exits, you need to make sure your exits are very strong every time.

‘And you’re not necessarily riding on the racing line, because there’s a manhole, or there’s a really bad bit of road, or the camber really drops away at the side of the road, so you can’t run all the way to the left side of the track before a right-hander, so you have to go into the corner in the middle of the track, which is something you’d never do on a short circuit. You have to be aware of all these things.’

After this year’s TT, Todd will have to reprogramme his brain once again for July’s BSB rounds at Snetterton and Brands. But changing his riding style won’t be the only issue.

‘At the first couple of BSB rounds after the TT I’m genuinely sat on the grid with absolutely zero feeling inside me,’ he says. ‘I could fall asleep. I’m trying to get myself psyched for the race, but there’s nothing. You feel dead inside. The last two weeks have used up your next six months of adrenaline, so you’re sat on the grid and you feel like you’re sat on the sofa watching Netflix. It’s weird. Weird.’

Todd’s father was a motorcycle nut whose obsession grew even bigger in his son. ‘My dad has been obsessed with bikes since he was a kid,’ he says. ‘He never raced but he had road bikes and dirt bikes. From when I was born all I remember is watching racing on TV – that’s all that was on in our house. Motocross, supercross, the TT, MotoGP… I used to beg dad to let me watch the supercross from the US at two in the morning, so he’d record it on a VHS.

‘Racing was the only thing I wanted to do. I don’t remember a time I didn’t want to race motorbikes.’

When Todd was three his mum and dad bought him a Honda QR50 mini-motocross bike. He started motocross three years later, winning club championships, national junior enduro titles and graduating to national events.

‘My heroes were Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael and Stefan Everts, so I wanted to be a motocross or supercross racer,’ he says. ‘But I had a lot of injuries and broke a lot of bones, which is normal in motocross. When I was 15 I broke my tibia and fibula; messed up the leg pretty bad. The doctors talked about amputating the leg and said I should never ride bikes again. My family were pretty worried about me losing a leg, but I was just, like, “can I race next week?”. Honestly, stopping racing didn’t cross my mind for a second.’

Todd didn’t stop racing but he did switch from dirt to asphalt. ‘When people ask me why, I say I needed to do something a bit safer, so I went to the TT – which leaves them a bit confused! Some friends had moved across to tarmac and did pretty well straight away, so I sold my dirt bikes and bought a 600, thinking how hard can it be?

‘Motocross is a lot simpler – you get your bike, set it up and away you go. I thought riding a sportsbike would be the same. Definitely not – we were met with a lot of challenges.’

Todd started the process of switching disciplines by doing a few trackdays before his first road race meet, the 2015 season-opening Thundersport Stock 600 round at Brands Hatch.

‘It was a weird transition, extremely alien. You have to get your head around the body position thing – in motocross you sit upright and lean the bike over; in road racing you lean off the bike with your knee down. I had these little goals set in my head: my first trackday, at Anglesey, I got my knee down; my third trackday, I got my elbow down.’

Todd won the 2015 Thundersport Stock 600 title, failing to stand on the podium only once – his road race weekend debut at Brands. No wonder several teams were chasing his signature for a ride in the 2016 BSB 600 championship. But all that glitters is not gold. ‘All these teams were asking me to ride but they wanted, like, £80,000. Those numbers were insane to me and my family, absolutely no way was it possible. Then one of them offered me a ride for £20,000, which I raised through sponsorship and working. But they took my money and shafted me. That was me done. I’d gone from thinking I’d made it to thinking I’ll never race again.’

The TT wasn’t in Todd’s plans, but his world changed forever in May 2017 when he got a call from World Supersport rider Tom Booth-Amos.

‘Tom and I are good friends – we’d raced supermoto together a bit,’ says Todd. ‘He was at the TT with his dad, who was working as a mechanic for Sam West. He said: “You’ve got to get out to the TT – it’s awesome. You’ll be blown away.” But I couldn’t even afford a flight. He said: “Just get out here.”

‘I blagged a plane ticket and ended up sleeping on the floor of someone’s race truck for two weeks – no blankets, under a jacket, backpack for a pillow. Tom took me to the top of Bray Hill. We climbed over a fence and as soon as the first bikes came through, I thought, whatever it takes, I need to have a go at this. I got the buzz for it immediately.’

Word got out that Todd was up for racing between the hedges, so an Irish team got in touch. ‘They paid for the ferry over in my little VW Caddy van, which I slept in for four months. We did the Skerries, Armoy and the Ulster GP. I was just hooked and couldn’t wait to do the TT but knew I had to learn the course, so every day I watched onboards and borrowed my little brother’s PlayStation to play the TT game, to the point where I was second in the game’s world leader board.’

His first TT in 2018 started with a 16th place in the Superbike race and ended with ninth in the Senior. Impressive. The following June he was sixth in the Senior. When the event returned following Covid he achieved his first podium, behind Hickman and Conor Cummins in the Superstock race. But his big breakthrough came last year: Supersport and Superbike podiums, and Superstock and Senior victories.

A new TT force had arrived. All talent, obviously…

‘I get a bit offended when people say “you’re so talented!”,’ he says. ‘I’m, like: “I work really hard, that’s why I won!”

‘Maybe I do have some talent, but I haven’t just turned up at the race and won because I’m talented. I’ve spent every waking moment for the past 12 months working towards this, or even the previous 29 years of my life. I’ve always been obsessed with motorbikes and racing – that’s where it comes from.

‘I’m living the dream. I used to say when I was younger that if someone offered me the minimum wage and said “we’ll pay for your racing for the rest of your life”, I’d have ripped their hand off. That’s all I want, to be able to ride motorbikes all the time.’ Todd has one target for TT 2025, when he will ride BMW S1000RRs for 8TEN Racing (Todd and Hickman are part owners of the team) in the Superbike, Senior and Superstock races; and a Honda CBR600RR and a Paton for Padgetts in the Supersport and Supertwins races (he won the 2022 British Superstock title aboard a Padgetts Honda Fireblade).

‘Obviously you always strive for more – I want to win every race. That’s what I’m going there to do – otherwise what’s the point?’

**Born:** 14 September 1995 **Lives:** Saltburn-on-Sea, North Yorkshire

**»** **2015** Thundersport Stock 600 champion  
**» 2016** 6th British Superstock 600 championship  
**» 2017** 3rd Armoy Superbike race  
**»** **2018** 9th Senior TT  
**»** **2019** North West 200 Supersport race winner  
**»** **2022** British Superstock champion, 3rd Superstock TT  
**»** **2023** 4th Supersport TT, Superstock TT  
**» 2024** British Superstock champion, Senior TT winner

Four-wheel legend **Damon Hill** reveals to Mat how he wanted to be the next Barry Sheene.

#### …and he’s cut the lockstops off. _Bike_ asks five masters of extreme skills to explain how to be a summer riding god

**Former British MotoGymkhana champion Rob Fox reveals the secrets of low-speed sorcery**

**‘W**hen I started in Moto Gymkhana I was getting my knee down, taking wide lines, riding like a maniac. Loads of fun, but my times were appalling. I started scrutinising videos from Japan, and learned it’s not about riding fast, it’s about riding the shortest distance. I changed my technique.

‘In Gymkhana we need to lean the bike over so it can turn tightly. I keep my bum in the middle of the seat and grip the tank with my legs. Don’t slide about, don’t hang off, don’t move my hips. I lock the bottom half of my body.

‘It’s all in the arms, elbows and wrists. You must be relaxed, but keep control. You’re going to be turning the bars more than you’ve ever turned them. But you’ve got to bend and twist your wrist, so you can turn the bars without adding more throttle or brake. Turning to the right is easier because your right hand comes back to your tummy. When you’re turning left your right hand is pushed out as far as it’ll go, and it’s hard to keep precise control of throttle and brakes.

‘I don’t touch the clutch. My 1990 Honda NSR250R is geared to do tiny little turns on idle, with the smallest front sprocket (13T), and a huge rear sprocket (51T). It gives precise, instant acceleration – such fun.

‘Coming into a rotation I’ll brake as late and as hard as I can, almost all with the front brake. Before I let it off I start getting the gas back on, just a few millimetres, and at the same time start turning. So I’ve got the brake on, the gas on, and I’ve got the thing on full lock. The NSR has a good steering lock, but I hacksawed off the lockstops on the bottom yoke so I could turn the bars even tighter. I can get the fork stanchion to touch the frame.

‘Get round the cone, let go of the front brake, wind on more gas and I’m on to the next obstacle – which hopefully I’ve remembered from the morning’s course walk. Generally I’m riding in a state of panic.

MotoGymkhana isn’t for everyone, but it gets my adrenaline flowing.’

**»** **Find a list of MotoGymkhana clubs around the world at :a[motogymkhana.org]{href='https://motogymkhana.org' }**

**DTRA National Pro champion Jack Bell makes a Ducati Scrambler 1100 dance like a dedicated dirt-tracker**

‘In some ways a Hooligan-class bike is easier to ride than a standard 450cc flat tracker. My Ducati Scrambler 1100 sounds like a beast, but the power is so linear at the bottom end. You have to move around on the bike more, you need to think about your lines more, and you must predict what’s going on. But they are heavy – if you crash one, you go down with a thud.

‘I’m at the top of third gear down the straight, using the rev limiter as a guide on when to brake. As I tip in I’m sat more to the front of the seat, then I throw the bike in, stamp on the rear brake and control the slide. In flat track we’re turning left, so I’ll have my right butt cheek off the side of the seat, and my right elbow up in the air. I have a steel shoe on my left foot, which wants to be coming off parallel with the left footpeg, and my right knee is pushed up against the fuel tank.

‘In the corner I want to scrub the speed off, turn the handlebars in, and get a feel for what the dirt’s doing. By the middle of the corner I’m starting to think about getting back on the throttle. The Ducati has about 90bhp, but you don’t want loads of power straight away otherwise it’s going to spin up like crazy, then you’ll be full-lock sideways about to high-side. It’s all in the throttle control. You just feed it in, get a feel for the slide – if you add too much, you might need to roll off slightly to find traction. Then on the straight I’m back to full throttle.

‘It’s a big bike, it’s a beast and it’s got some power behind it. But the Scrambler is the most fun bike I’ve ever ridden. I can come out of a corner, get both feet on the pegs and it just goes where I want it to go. On a 450 you’re having to work for it a lot harder. But a Hooligan bike is really nice to ride… when you treat it with respect.’

**Five-time world enduro champ Iván Cervantes rode a Triumph Tiger 1200 for 2493 miles in a day – all completely pinned**

‘From the beginning I say, no, it’s impossible. To break a world record, Triumph asked me to ride a Tiger 1200 GT Explorer at Nardò Technical Centre – a 12.5km (7.9-mile) circular test track in Italy – for 24 hours.

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