It was great and glorious relief not to have “work” a stand at the motorcycle show this year.
My feet were grateful, as was my digestive system. There’s only so many gozleme and gourmet hot dogs (really?) a man can eat before passing from this world in a welter of impacted colon-content.
Instead, I attended as a member of the “press”, which I suppose I am, though I make no pretence to journalism.
This year the show was being run by Troy Bayliss Enterprises, and the great man himself was in attendance. He did not recall our brief meeting in the Gardner Straight toilets at Phillip Island scant minutes before Round Two of the 2000-and-something WSBK race. Or maybe he did. Either way, we did not speak of it.
And thus is born a racing team. Pic courtesy of MCNews.
The new Multistrada is stripped for inspection. Pic courtesy of MCNews.
Finally, I reckon Ducati have this right. The Diavel X.
Triumph’s Street Twin is a sweet twin. Sorry. I’ll show myself out.
She’s a Bonny lass.
The jewel in Triumph’s crown. The fully-loaded Thruxton S.
1200cc parallel twin with fuel-injection disguised like a carby. Cool, huh?
Yes. On a Triumph.
Buy shares in Autosol. Wear sunnies.
Needs a headlight and a rego plate. Good to go.
Which was just as well. The pre-start wee-wee habits of world champion motorcycle racers is no-one’s business but theirs.
What was everyone’s business was the announcement that Troy Bayliss Enterprises is now in partnership with a reinvigorated Motorcycling Australia, and will be running a brand-new national motorcycle-racing series for the next three years. Troy will be fielding a factory Ducati team in conjunction with Ben Henry’s Cube Racing, which will now be known as DesmoSport Ducati Corse. 2015 ASBK Champion 21-year-old Mike Jones will be the pilot, and there are rumours that Troy himself may saddle up.
For me, the show began during the Press Walk.
Kawasaki’s stunning ZX-10.
Kwaka’s KL650E is ready for urban warfare.
The new EX650F is kinda cute.
Such a dirty girl. The KX450H
This is when the media moves from stand to stand and is smilingly received by the manufacturer, and introduced to the latest models that have made their way to Australia. This year’s show followed mere days after the EICMA extravaganza in Italy, which is the traditional release expo for new models. So we got a few new bikes in Sydney, but not all of them.
Which was bitter-sweet.
The girls line up for Lukey. Pic courtesy of MCNews.
He searches for more hotties. Pic courtesy of MCNews.
The mighty Dave McKenna.
Dave’s less than mighty toe.
It was also bitter-sweet to share the Press Walk with the general public for the first time. My bitterness with the public did not cease until the Press Walk was over, and then it was sweet.
So what caught my eye? What were the stand-out, drool-inducing, shut-up-and-take-my-money motorcycles?
There were a couple, actually…
Suzuki’s purdy SV650
Suzuki’s not-so-pretty Todd Waters.
Here’s the SV in Barry Sheene livery.
The Boulevard is very appealing in slate grey.
Triumph’s 1200cc Thruxton S was simply stunning – a vision in silver paint, classic clip-ons, Brembos and Öhlins gold. The new black T120 Bonneville and the Street Twin also looked pretty fine. But I really dug the mental-looking drag-racing/salt-lake-drinking beast Triumph had ticked off to one side.
Yamaha offered up some fancy café racing metal with its XSR900, and also brought every wondrous thing Yamaha makes (motorcycling and non-motorcycling) to the show, occupying vast swathes of real-estate both inside and outside the main hall.
The very dirty Yamaha WR450F in 60th anniversary livery.
The new XSR900 is very hip.
This is the XS700, if the XS900 frightens you.
Sadly, the bike everyone wanted to see from Yamaha in the flesh, the MT-10, was still at EICMA.
To compensate, it brought stunt-monster Dave McKenna, who then stunted himself into hospital during his opening show when his big-toe bone came out to say hello to the world. This left Lukey Luke to carry the stunt-load all by himself, which Lukey did without going to hospital, so I can only surmise he wasn’t trying as hard as Dave was.
This is me being all mighty and taking delivery of the Heavy Duty Magazine/BikeMe! project Arlen Ness Magnum by Victory. And yes, I have sucked my gut in.
This is Pepper. But that is not Marcus sitting on it. Nor is that Homebush. Looks a bit like Lithgow actually.
Yes, those are skulls.
How to do metal-flake.
Indian came out swinging with two customised Scouts, some new paint for the Chieftains, and it also launched its Indian Motorcycle Riders Group.
Harley had its new Softails S range there, which I had ridden just the other week (and which you can read HERE), and a killer Blackline that had been customised from the catalogue. It also had Pepper, the monstrous 120-cube salt-flat hell-hog out the back, and Marcus from H-D would fire it up now and again and people’s ears would explode.
Suzuki had its snazzy new SV650 spinning around on a podium, the RMZ250, and a slate-grey Boulevarde I liked very much. But the big news at Suzuki was that Todd Waters had signed to race for them in the coming season.
Ducati moved heaven and earth to bring its new Diavel X and Multistrada to Sydney and the crowd was most appreciative. I am sure Ducati was pleased it had bolted the Diavel to the ground and had the Multistrada on a podium beyond the reach of hot-scissors action by the public.
Now that’s a Scout.
And so is this.
Kawasaki had a few new models, but all anyone wanted to gawk at was the new ZX10, and I do not blame them. Unlike the H2 and the H2R, this is the production superbike the Greenbloods have been howling for. If I get a crack on it, I’ll let you know if it’s what it certainly looks like it might be.
Moto Guzzi and Aprilia had every single model available for sitting on, but it had launched the RSV4R, the Tuono RR, the Audace and the Eldorado some months ago, so there was nothing to unveil. The Tuono RR still does it for me in so many ways, which you will remember I wrote about HERE.
You need to see it in the flesh.
The baby 675 Brutale.
The F4RC. The F stands for Fap.
The F4-RR. Yes. Fap.
It is called the Stradale.
And this is the Veloce.
BMW had its new LAMS bike, and had added yet more mid-spec bikes to its fabulous GS-range, as well as a neat-looking scrambler.
I spent a lot of time at the MV Agusta stand. But I always do that. They remain, for me, the most stunning bikes on earth. I just like to look at them. Yes, they’re great to ride and all that, but it’s their physical appearance that takes my breath away. I followed David, the local Sydney dealer (Mototechnica) , around like a panting dog. He eventually agreed to let me have a Dragster for a few days and I agreed to stop whining at him. It worked out alright, I reckon.
It was also great to catch up with the good folks at Held, Kreiga, Innotesco, Bike Skate and the National Motorcycle Alliance – purveyors of top-notch gear and in the Alliance’s case, the only motorcycle representation worthy of the name.
What was not good?
No Honda and no KTM.
No, I do not know why and I won’t speculate.
In their place there was a chamois salesman and boot-cleaners. And some strange old people selling Jesus and SMIDSY – none of which I had any truck with because all of it made my skin crawl.
And I would prefer my goosebumps to come from the promo girls, of which there were many and of a high quality.
And there was a pub nearby.
So it went alright.
THANKS
To Trevor Hedge at MCNews. He’s got lots more great pics on his MCNews site HERE.
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