Wednesday 10th February 2016

New bikes, old bikes and crashed bikes! PH2

A new Triumph and Baz's 180mph spill in detail...

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Somewhat unusually for this time of the year, there have been a few surprise late entries into the showrooms for 2016. Leading the way is Triumph's new Tiger Sport. Many assumed this more aggressive and sporty version of the old Tiger 1050 would fade away, but instead Triumph has given it a new lease of life with the same drivetrain as the Speed Triple gained last year. The Sport now has as standard ride-by-wire, power modes, traction control, cruise control and ABS while the styling has been given a sharper look and the brakes upgraded. No word on price as yet, but expect it to be roughly the same as the outgoing version as the Speed Triple didn't increase that much after its update. Triumph has also revealed two limited edition America and America LT cruisers. Only 25 of each will be made, they will boast unique paint by custom paint shop 8 Ball and John Bloor's signature will be on a certificate of authenticity.

Welcome Enfield's first adventure bike!

While over in India...
Slightly less exciting is Royal Enfield's first ever adventure bike - the Himalayan. Initially only for sale in India, the Himalayan uses (oddly) a smaller 411cc air-cooled single cylinder motor that makes 25hp. The chances are this will increase in capacity to either the 535cc motor as used in the Continental GT or the standard 499cc Bullet engine when the bikes comes to Europe.

Not forgetting Germany
A small bit of news from BMW, but pretty interesting nonetheless. BMW announced recently that its stunning retro bike, the R NineT, will be available with a brushed aluminium tank for 2016 in a Sport version. Costing £12,990 you can opt for either visible or smoothed welded seams and you get a high level Akrapovic silencer included in the package. How cool is that?

That's quite an impact...

And finally...bouncing Baz!
Technology can sometimes amuse and, if you are a bit of a crash vulture, this will certainly entertain. Loris Baz was considerate enough to be wearing a data logger in his Alpinestars race leathers when he hopped off during the recent Sepang MotoGP test. The data shows he was traveling at 181mph when his rear Michelin decided to call it quits and that Baz battled the bike for 1.9 seconds before being ejected, slamming into the track with a force of 29.9g on his left shoulder. Luckily for Baz he was wearing an Alpinestars Tech-Air race suit and the airbag system deployed, saving him from injury when he bashed into the track and then spent 6.6 seconds sliding down the start/finish straight! Isn't technology wonderful?

 

[K666ADM]

That data logger and airbag race suit is awesome and deserves high praise for doing its job and avoiding what could have been a much more serious level of harm.