FEATURE STATE OF TUNE
When the first edition of Fast Bikes went on sale in April 1991, the world was a very different place. A Tory prime minister had just been sacked, the UK was involved in a big shooting war overseas, a financial crisis had kicked off, and Britain was having ructions with the EU.
Let's try that again. When the first edition of Fast Bikes went on sale in April 1991, the *bike tuning* world was a very different place. We still had a thriving 250cc twostroke race-replica class, with all the tuning options there. Superbikes were all 750s, making 100-110bhp – and if you wanted a full litre bike, you had to give up on handling, pretty much. The likes of a Kawasaki ZZ-R1100 had 125bhp+ but had too much mass and not enough chassis tech to cope. Forks were right-way-uppers, brakes were axial-mount and fuelling was by old-school carburettors. Quickshifters, ride-by-wire throttles, slide-control, launch control and wheelie control were science fiction. And the bikes were all effing brilliant.
Probably the best bit, though, was what you could do with a credit card, the classified ads in the back of , and a (landline!) telephone. Back then, there were no locked ECUs, five-catalyst exhaust systems, fuel injection warning lights, limp-modes, CANBUS electronics or ride-by-wire smart throttle speed restrictors. Bolt on a full race pipe and you could add 15bhp to the top end – then take the thing to any trackday in
