Fast Bikes

It's mad to think that by the time you read this, we'll be into the third quarter of the year… where the hell does the time go? I swear it was only Christmas last week. That said, it's been an absolute blinder of a season so far, with lots of launches, lots of tests, and lots of two-wheeled adventures punctuating my daily shenanigans. We've actually just wrapped up an epic five-bike test on 1990s and 2000s icons only yesterday, which took place in 34-degree heat over a few days at Cadwell Park. We couldn't have asked for better conditions, a better circuit, or a better line up of bikes, either. Forgive me for teasing you with this, as the big test won't be in print for another couple of issues,…

EVOLUTION OF THE SPECIES 2025 DUCATI PANIGALE V4 ‘Convergent evolution’ is a very well-established part of biology. It basically says that totally different species can end up with similar body structures simply because they work best that way. As an example, a dolphin has a similar shape to a fish – long and smooth to let the water flow past as they swim, and big flat fins to control movement. But the cetacean started out 50 million years ago as a land mammal with legs; evolution for a life in water meant that those legs gradually changed into flippers and the body got more streamlined. There are parallels with product design, too. Almost every smartphone on sale now is a large, flat, black rectangle, whether it's made by Apple, Samsung,…

Upfront PLANET FAST BIKES – NEW METAL, NEWS&REVIEWS The supersport sector used to be so simple. Four Japanese 599cc inline-four sportsbikes duking it out, plus the Ducati 748 throwing out the occasional conrod at the back while looking utterly gorgeous. Then we got Triumph 675 triples and MV Agusta F3s, and everyone stopped buying CBR600RRs and R6s. The race class is now a wild-eyed smorgasbord of 15-year-old GSX-R750s, 636 Ninjas, new CBRs, Moto2-lite Triumphs and anything else you can squeeze past the tech regs rulebook. Ducati's kept a ‘middleweight’ sportsbike in its range, of course: the 748 became the 749, which was then boosted to an 848, 899, 959, and finally the current V2 Panigale, a 955cc beastie with 155bhp, about 60bhp more than the old 748 ever managed. The…

FEATURE How can it already be 20 years since Honda shifted the fundamental philosophy of its ground-breaking Fireblade away from a ‘less is more’ road bike toafull-blooded superbike designed to win races first with little or no concessions for road use? Twenty years! Fireblades between 1992 and 2003 were all sub-litre-sized engines with emphasis on weight and usability on the road rather than being designed with the superbike regulations in mind. Honda had its RC45 to do all its superbike racing for the bulk of that period, but when superbikes were allowed to be up to 1000cc and four cylinders in 2003, the twin-cylinder SP1’s days were numbered – and the obvious starting point for a new superbike was the Fireblade. By this stage, purists will say that there had…

FEATURE BLADE ON BLADE CHASSIS Fundamentally, they are the same, in so much as they both have alloy beam frames and swingarms. But how they are laid out is different and almost certainly driven by the increase in power output. The ’04 bike was really the first to go with a longer wheelbase by adopting a long swingarm in the search for mechanical grip following its own big jump in power from the outgoing 954 Fireblade. The ’24 carries that on by going longer again, with a wheelbase which is 48mm longer than the ’04 bike. Without a set of scales to measure each bike's weight distribution, I'd predict that the ’24 bike will have more weight on its nose, and the ’04 bike feels like it's very close to a…

FEATURE Weighing in at 268 kilos, and with a front wheel so big you could forgive it for being off a Penny Farthing, BMW's R1250 GSA goes against everything I love about sportsbikes… yet it's still one of my favourites on the market. While you might be wondering whether this is some warped crack at humour, or if my keyboard's been hijacked, I can confirm that my adoration for the big Beemer is very much true – and based upon firm foundations. For me, this journey began way back in 2009, at a time when I was racing litre bikes in Superstock 1000 at BSB. Being a bit young, a bit mad, and very much in need of zero encouragement, my editor back then decided the safest long-term test bike…