Issue 165

Australian Road Rider

The real ride

Australian Road Rider4 min read
The Return Of The Sensible Sportsbike
Sports bikes never went away, they just got more radical. Going fast on a motorcycle is one of the joys of riding. Feeling the wind, hearing the noise, enjoying the rush of endorphins as you wind the throttle on, driving the bike forward, tipping it
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Australian Road Rider the Real Ride
EDITOR Nigel Paterson npaterson@umco.com.au ART DIRECTOR Martha Rubazewicz REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS Geoff Seddon, Brian Rix, Phillip James, Ian Neubauer EDITORIAL roadrider@umco.com.au SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES mailorder@umco.com.au ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Ad
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Online At Roadrider.com.au
Have your say by letting the editor and the ARR readership know what you think about any article or motorcycle-related topic. There are numerous letters already there, mostly relating to articles in recent issues Being a bi-monthly, the lead times ar
Australian Road Rider2 min read
Desertx: Ducati’s Mammoth Dirt Bike
MORE INFO links.roadrider.com.au/165DesertX With its 8-valve Testastretta engine, Paris-Dakar styling, dirt bike features and adventure bike capabilities, the new DesertX looks like being an incredible bike for those talented enough to throw such a b
Australian Road Rider3 min read
More Bite
Triumph obviously has a lot of faith in its new 1200 Tiger range, now with a three-year warranty. These machines are taking on Japanese, American and other European brands in the most hard-fought category of all – adventure. The design is modern, adv
Australian Road Rider2 min read
Christian Dior Vespa
Sometimes, in the fantasyland we know as high fashion, exclusivity means a lot more than price: value becomes an abstract where people are willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money to have something because, well, someone else doesn’t. So when a fam
Australian Road Rider2 min read
Aprilia Builds An Adventure Bike
Both LAMS and full-power versions of the new Aprilia Tuareg 660 adventure bike will be in showrooms in the coming months. Designed to be tough enough for harsh adventure riding conditions yet civilised for cities, the new Tuareg is the first Aprilia
Australian Road Rider3 min read
More 2022 Harleys Announced
Harley-Davidson believes more and more of its customers (and potential customers) are looking for higher performance from their bikes, so it’s announced three new 2022 models which should be here soon, all offering better engine performance and handl
Australian Road Rider2 min read
Bsa Revived, New Gold Star Coming
“It’s all about the character,” one of the designers tells the camera about the new BSA Gold Star soon to be manufactured under the re-born brand name by Mahindra, the giant Indian motor vehicle company. Taking all sorts of design cues from the past,
Australian Road Rider7 min read
21st-century Sportster
It’s not about the performance. The first thing you should know about the Sportster S – it is not a sportsbike. The second thing – it’s a stonking load of fun to ride. It’s a 121-horsepower performance cruiser, with style, a low seat and an aggressiv
Australian Road Rider8 min read
New-generation Sports
Riding fast is an adrenaline rush; it’s why sportsbikes exist. The new Yamaha R7 will give you that rush, although it will do it for a lot less money than just about anything else you can describe as a full-size sportsbike. Rounding up bigger, faster
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Ho And Lams
Yamaha provided ARR with a full-power 689cc, $14,999 ride-away ‘HO’ version. There’s also a 655cc LAMS-approved model ($13,999 ride away) for those who don’t have an unlimited licence. The HO version produces 72hp @ 8750rpm and 67Nm @ 6500rpm. The LA
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Competition
On paper the Aprilia 660 looks to be a competitor to the R7, but they are quite different beasts. The R7 is a Supersport track specialist that works to some degree on the street. The Aprilia is more street focused yet works to some degree on the trac
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Yamaha R6 Track Model
The road-registered version of the R6 has been discontinued in Australia. Fortunately, Yamaha is offering limited numbers of a track-only variant. It is essentially the road bike stripped of lights and fitted with a race fairing. There’s still a bit
Australian Road Rider10 min read
Staying Single
La Nina was in full swing last summer, drenching rains sweeping across the east coast, saturating the land and keeping bridges and causeways continually wet. I came to one with a bend where the road turned about 60 degrees in the water to run diagona
Australian Road Rider7 min read
Return Of The British Bulldog
The front wheel came up off the bitumen as I pinned the throttle and stayed there until I grabbed the next gear, something which isn’t particularly surprising on a big-bore hyper-naked … until you understand the front wheel was lofted at over 100mph…
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Competition
The cheaper Tuono is now a more rounded, longer-distance package (heading down the KTM Super Duke GT path) but still delivers Tuono excitement all day long. It matches the Triumph in sport performance. The $4k more expensive “Factory” is the hyper-sp
Australian Road Rider1 min read
The Electronics
As a premium offering, the Speed Triple has an electronics package to match expectations. The RS has four control modes (Rain, Road, Sport and Track), each with adjustable settings for engine map, ABS and Traction Control. A customisable Rider Mode i
Australian Road Rider4 min read
Destination Gold Coast
I sat looking over my scrambled eggs at attractive people exercising, the sparkling Pacific providing a stunning backdrop as I pondered how wonderful life can be. Yet it was going to get even better on this shinning 21° morning. Within 10 minutes I’d
Australian Road Rider5 min read
Confessions Of An I.c.e. Addict
I was a pre-teen and hooked on I.C.E. The rush of adrenaline, the smell, the feel. They were, and still are, addictive. I take a hit as often as I can. In my humble opinion, there is only one way to really experience I.C.E. – not cooped up surrounded
Australian Road Rider7 min read
10 Tips For 2-up
If you’d like someone to enjoy a ride on the back of your bike, it’ll work out much better in the long run if you consider their feelings and comfort (both mental and physical). It’ll also be better for you, because a shared experience is often a bet
Australian Road Rider7 min read
North By North-west
Have you even seen how a foreign tourist reacts when they see their first kangaroo? That’s how we looked when we saw our first grizzly bear, a massive, beautiful beast. Except a kangaroo won’t eat you. And Americans think Australia is dangerous just
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Motorcycle Friendly
On an overnight stop in Grangeville, Idaho, the desk manager invited us to park under the covered motel entrance and then put witches hats next to our bike and two other bikes to keep cars away. He also put cleaning towels on the bike seats for our u
Australian Road Rider9 min read
Stars And Stripes Adventure
The sand can be soft at Lightning Ridge, and it’s often impossible to judge its depth. Even a laced 19-inch front wheel can get twitchy and start sliding around in these conditions, and you know you’re getting adventurous when you’ve got 300kg+ of ma
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Competition
A brilliant bike developed over decades; a sensible buyer would seriously consider the German machine. Pricing will be similar if upgraded to match the spec of the Pan America. Upgraded with adaptive cruise control for 2021, KTM’s off ering is powerf
Australian Road Rider2 min read
Adaptive Ride Height
The problematic adventure bike seat height issue has been addressed with Harley’s Adaptive Ride Height option. Often, seat height is a deal breaker for smaller riders wanting to enter adventure bike land, and Harley’s solution will be welcomed by man
Australian Road Rider2 min read
Factory Accessories
The most popular accessories are likely to be the adaptive rider height, spoked wheels and panniers. Harley also offers many other accessories. The grey test bike had a full suite of protection options such as crash bars, radiator guard, headlight gu
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Things That Caught Our Attention
The Harley has a few unique features riders will notice over time, such as self-cancelling blinkers linked to the bike’s IMU. Once engaged, they wink till the bike detects the lean into the turn and turn off as the bike rights itself. Or the rider tu
Australian Road Rider6 min read
Back To Bali
"Stuck? Nuh, mate. It’s not me who’s stuck. It’s you.” I used this line over and over with great effect with my mates back home during the pandemic. While they killed time during lockdowns tiling their bathrooms, learning how to bake sourdough cookie
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Renting A Bike
With no public transport and very few sidewalks, renting a scooter for transport is part and parcel of the Bali holiday experience. There are thousands of little shopfronts on the island where you can pick up a Honda Vario 110cc for around $5 per day
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Is It Safe?
In 2019, 144 Australians were hospitalised in Indonesia, nearly all of them in Bali and nearly all of them in motorbike accidents. That’s close to one crash victim every two-and-a-half days. “The number of Australian tourists who have motorbike accid
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Motorbikes And The Law
Most motorbike rental shops in Bali don’t give a toss if you have a rider’s licence or not, but your travel insurance company will. You need an Australian licence and it’s a good idea to get an international driver’s licence before you travel oversea
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Aprilia Tuareg 660 – Technical Data
ENGINE TYPE: Aprilia forward-facing twin-cylinder, 4-stroke, 659cc, liquid cooled, dual overhead cam (DOHC) with silent chain drive on the right side, four valves per cylinder. 6-speed gearbox. APRC SUITE THAT INCLUDES: ATC (traction control), AEB (e
Australian Road Rider3 min read
The Barbering Biker
Spotting a trailer-equipped, strange-looking Indian Vintage with a horse’s saddle as a back seat in the NSW outback town of Lightning Ridge was pretty bizarre… and realising it was being ridden by a grandmother only made the situation more unusual. B
Australian Road Rider5 min read
Buyer Beware
A modest windfall had my mate Slim thinking about a new bike. Not a new new bike, it wasn’t that much of a windfall, but enough to consider spending maybe 10 grand. If he could find something for half that, even better. More important was that it was
Australian Road Rider10 min read
Intuitive’s Versatile Mounts
Intuitive Cube has a bunch of innovative mounts to make it easy to access your phone and mount your GoPro. Although fairly new to Australia, Intuitive Cube was founded in 1977 and has been making phone holders since 2012. While Cube offers phone case
Australian Road Rider6 min read
Dog On Tour
The landslide over the Pan-American Highway occurred just moments before we arrived. That meant we were at the front of an unending line of vehicles. Since we were on bikes, we naturally filtered to the front of the roadblock. It was nearing midday w
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Follow The Big Trip
Jessica Stone is the founder of RUFFLY ethical outdoor dog gear, which is based in Los Angeles and Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. She and partner Greg designed the RUFFLY K9 Moto Cockpit, a motorcycle dog carrier for medium and large dogs. On March 5, 2022
Australian Road Rider2 min read
A New Rally Bike
I With the 2020 National BMW Motorrad Rally approaching, I was in a quandry: take my beautifully restored historic R90S? Or sully my beautiful Ducati Monster with luggage? Instead, I bought a new BMW G 310 R. I tried for the G 310 GS, but alas the lo
Australian Road Rider1 min read
That Bike Of Yours
MOTUL CARE PACK WINNER Every issue we’re giving away this beaut pack of Motul cleaning gear worth $49.95. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is send us a pick of your shining steed and we’ll pick what we think is the best shot and c
Australian Road Rider3 min read
Last Look
It’s been a decade of Ducati Panigale. Named for the town where there are produced, Borgo Panigale in northern Italy, Ducati announced the new machines in late 2011 and we were riding the new monocoque-chassis equipped sportsbikes from 2012. Looking
Australian Road Rider1 min read
Navigation, Phone, Music
If the rider has a smartphone, the PA has everything needed to get to the destination and provide entertainment on the way. Full-screen navigation, music, texts and phone calls are all offered once the rider’s phone is paired. The navigation function

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