Racing
From fireball in France to Spa superstars, it’s been an eventful year for Team Bike. Ian Martin reveals why he’s building a third RC30 for 2026
The last time the Team Bike RC30s turned a wheel was at Spa, when British Superbike champ Kyle Ryde smoked 90 per cent of the modern bikes we were up against [Ryde of a lifetime, Bike December]. That six-hour was our last race of the season, so now we’re back in the workshop getting ready for next year.
We’re going over the two 840cc bikes we ran most of the season. One of them caught fire after we got taken out by a slower rider at Paul Ricard. We got it out on track at Spa, but it needs stripping down and a bit more work. I’ve sent the one good wiring loom to Rupert Paul (rupesrewires.com) for him to copy and make two more.
On top of going through these two bikes, fixing them up and getting them identical, I’ve got another RC30 rolling chassis that I bought a couple of years ago from Italy. Right now I’m getting a fresh 750cc engine built for that.
‘I expect the 750 will be faster than the 840s; we’re hoping for about 135bhp’
The reasons we run 840 engines are reliability, availability of parts, and cost. If you’ve got deep pockets you can still buy new RC30 parts, thanks to a replacement parts scheme Honda launched in Japan a few years ago. You can buy a new RC30 fairing, but it’s about six grand and has the small headlights of the Japanese domestic market model, so you can’t even use it on a UK bike. A fuel pipe, only about 10in long, is £97. A crankshaft costs £17,000. [Part number 13310-MR7-P00, listed price £16,992.40 – Ed].
When we build the 840s we instead use the cases from an RC24, the original VFR750F. The castings are the same, so everything fits with a bit of machining. But where the RC30 has really thin liners that you can only overbore by about half a millimetre, the RC24 has massive steel liners you can bore out much further. So, we’re able to buy a set of RC24 cases for £50, bore them out from 70mm to 74mm, then put in secondhand FireBlade 929 pistons which are £10 each.
The result is a really reliable, competitive and affordable 836cc motor. It’s no faster than a 750, because the shape of the FireBlade pistons means you can’t get a good compression ratio – the most we can get is about 10.5:1. It makes about 130bhp – like I said, it’s not about performance, it’s reliability. Even after a year’s racing all we’ll do to the engines this winter is change the oil and check the valve clearances. But an 840 limits what classes we can run in. For example, we can’t run at the Bol d’Or Classic as that has a strict 750cc limit. But now we’re building a new 750 engine…
I had a set of RC30 crankcases sitting around, but they were seized. That meant we needed oversized pistons – the standard ones from Honda’s parts programme wouldn’t work, even if you could get them. Thankfully Stephen A’lee at GT Performance Engineering, who builds our engines, managed to source some genuine oversize 70.2mm pistons from Japan. Stephen does all our engines – he was taught by Brian Capper who was Team Bike’s engine builder in the 1980s. I expect the 750 will be faster than the 840s; we’re hoping for about 135bhp.
My plan is to take the two 840s to the European races next year, and use this new 750 at Brands Hatch in June. There’s a four-hour race piggy-backed onto a No Limits event, which means both modern bikes and classics will be out on track at the same time.
Kyle Ryde says he wants to do that race too – so that could be good…
» We wouldn’t be able to race without the support of Speed Couriers (speedcouriers.co.uk) in Manchester, who have been friends of Team Bike since the 1980s. Thanks also go to Dunlop Tyres, who have helped for the past four seasons with the D213GP tyres we need. And to Stephen A’lee at GT Performance Engineering in Plymouth for his incredible work preparing our engines.
If anyone else wants to get involved or sponsor the team, let us know at bike@bikemagazine.co.uk
Watch Team Bike in 2026
Team Bike will be competing at all four rounds of the 2026 Europe Endurance Cup (eelc.eu). Mark these dates in your calendar for next year and come cheer Ian and the gang on:
» 15-17 May: Paul Ricard (France), four-hour night race
» 26-27 June: Brands Hatch GP, four-hour daytime race
» 17-19 July: Navarra (Spain), four-hour daytime race
» 28-30 August: Pau-Arnos (France), four-hour daytime race
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