Motorcycle Sport and Leisure May 2017

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KTM’s incredible new 1090 and 1290 Super Adventure tested

TAKEN TO EXTREMES Ducati Multistrada Enduro tested on and off road

May 2017 No.680

TRIBUTE TO JOHN SURTEES PERFECT H HYBRID: 2017 YAMAHA TMAX PLUS: DUCATI SUPERSPORT ◆ TRIUMPH DAYTONA 1000

A JOUR R NEY LIKE NO OTHER CRASHES, STOLEN BIKES & WILD CAMPING: FOUR FRIENDS RIDE INDIA E STA B L I SH E D 1 9 6 2 : T H E OR IG I NA L A N D B E ST B I K E M AG A Z I N E

A chance encounter John Milbank

I

t’s amazing what you can learn if you take the time to talk to others. My chance meeting was bought about by necessity; I’d ridden deep into central London – the Minories car park (free to bikes, but it gets packed from 9am), just next to Tower Bridge – and as I stripped my kit off I saw a screw embedded in the rear tyre. But I was just off to meet a friend, and wouldn’t be able to get back until five in the evening. And of course, I had no puncture repair kit. Google Maps showed me a motorcycle workshop just one mile away – SBK City Servicing Ltd, on Hessel Street – that was open until 6.30pm. I spent the day with my fingers crossed.

Fortunately, the tyre stayed up during the 10-minute rush-hour ride, and when he’d finished with a customer, I was greeted by the owner, Rhalf Lo Turco. As in the Brazilian-born, ex-BSB racer.

While his mechanic plugged my tyre in the efficient little workshop, Rhalf took me to his office, filled with photos and trophies. Next to a shot of a helmetless young Rhalf pulling a massive wheelie on his GSX-R was a photo of him with Rossi, sandwiched between pics of him with Haga, Biaggi and many others…

And to the right were two walls, full of trophies.

Rhalf came to the UK in 2001, working as a motorcycle courier. The shop had been established since 2002, and he took it over from his brother in 2005. After doing just half a dozen track days, at 30 years old, Rhalf started racing relatively late in life.

Yet he won the Triumph Triple Challenge in 2009, coming third the year before and fourth in the Bemsee Rookie 600.

He went back to club racing, then did a year in Superstock, before Stuart Higgs invited him to race in BSB, which he did in 2014 and 2015 before retiring

– racing is a costly business and with two children, it was a huge pressure. “I’ve done some crazy stuff,” Rhalf told me. “But I’ve lived the dream.”

Rhalf ’s shop is one of those great little London gems, tucked away in a side-street that appears able to fix anything. He’s hoping to start running allinclusive track-training breaks from the UK at Cartagena, with accommodation at his apartment nearby… I wish him all the best!

It would have been easy to roll into the bike shop, get the repair done, and ride home none the wiser.

While waiting, I was also chatting to a guy who owns a CBR600 F1, riding it 120 miles each day, every day, for his commute. I’ve got a soft-spot for CBRs, having owned three, and this one looked good, besides a bent crash bung caused by a rogue bus. There are so many fantastic stories to be heard if we can make the time to stop for a chat.

In some ways over the last 12 months, the UK feels like it’s become a less inclusive place. Let’s make sure we all keep talking!

John Milbank, Editor

Mikko’s view I’ve never been a big custom fan, always suspicious of the emphasis of form over function – you know, wooden seats on bikes and all that. But this year’s Harley-Davidson Battle of the Kings custom competition opened my eyes to what the best in the trade can achieve: not just stunning bikes, but ones that look like they would be great to ride too. I’m starting to think I could get into this scene!

Motorcycle Sport & Leisure’s contributors...

Alan Cathcart

Alan Cathcart has been writing about bikes for more than 30 years, and riding them for even longer. He’s regularly given the keys to factory prototypes and being on first name terms with the bosses of bike companies around the world allows him to bag many scoops.

Roland Brown

Has ridden for 37 years and been a bike journalist for more than 30. At Bike he ended up as deputy editor before going freelance. An author of 11 books, as a racer he was Bemsee 1300 champion 1984 and raced UK F1, Superstock and Superbike, plus World F1 races.

Chris Moss

Mossy has raced the Isle of Man TT, dispatched in London and ridden everything from CX500s to fullblown GP prototypes. A former chief motorcycle tester for Motorcycle News, the 53-year-old admits he’s still loving two-wheeled life, and still learning.

Peter Henshaw

Peter knows his stuff – he’s a former editor of this very magazine. Now a freelance journalist, he’s got the same enthusiasm for anything with wheels that he’s had since a child. An all-year-round biker who doesn’t own a car, he has more than 40 books to his name.

Leon Mannings

Doc Leon is a man on a mission to promote the rights and interests of motorcyclists in the corridors of power where policy is shaped.

He advises various groups including MAG, and reveals what’s really going on behind the scenes..

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Contents

PAY LESS MSL May EDITOR: John Milbank: jmilbank@mortons.co.uk DEPUTY EDITOR: Mikko Nieminen: mnieminen@mortons.co.uk SENIOR DESIGNER: Justin Blackamore DESIGNERS: Fran Lovely, Charlotte Turnbull PRODUCTION EDITOR: Dan Sharp PICTURE DESK: Paul Fincham, Jonathan Schofield, Angie Sisestean PUBLISHER: Dan Savage: asavage@mortons.co.uk GROUP KEY ACCOUNTS MANAGER: Steff Woodhouse: swoodhouse@mortons.co.uk 01507 529452 / 07786 334330 ADVERTISING MANAGER: Martin Freeman: mfreeman@mortons.co.uk 01507 529538 ADVERTISING SALES: Zoe Thurling: zthurling@mortons.co.uk 01507 529412 SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER: Paul Deacon: pdeacon@mortons.co.uk CIRCULATION MANAGER: Steve O’Hara: sohara@mortons.co.uk MARKETING MANAGER: Charlotte Park: cpark@mortons.co.uk COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR: Nigel Hole EDITORIAL ADDRESS: MSL Magazine, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR WEBSITE: www.mslmagazine.co.uk GENERAL QUERIES AND BACK ISSUES: 01507 529529 24 hr answerphone help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk ARCHIVE ENQUIRIES: Jane Skayman jskayman@mortons.co.uk 01507 529423 SUBSCRIPTION: Full subscription rates (but see page 18 for offer): (12 months 12 issues, inc post and packing) – UK £50.40. Export rates are also available – see page 18 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value Added Tax. SUBSCRIPTION AGENTS: Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR CUSTOMER SERVICES NUMBER: 01507 529529 TELEPHONE LINES ARE OPEN: MONDAY-FRIDAY 8.30AM-7PM SATURDAY 8.30AM-12.30PM DISTRIBUTION: Marketforce UK Ltd, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU. 0203 787 9001.

PRINTED: William Gibbons & Sons, Wolverhampton The publisher accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. If you are sending material to us for publication, you are strongly advised to make copies and to include a stamped addressed envelope. Original material must be submitted and will be accepted solely on the basis that the author accepts the assessment of the publisher as to its commercial value. © Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISSN: 1478-8390 MOTORCYCLE SPORT & LEISURE (USPS:001-522) is published monthly by Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ UK. USA subscriptions are $66 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. Periodical Postage is paid at Bancroft WI and additional entries.

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72

New Zealand: Kiwi Coast to Coast

74

France: In Flanders Fields

78

Croatia: Back for more

82

Make it fit: Richard Millington

83

Events and club focus

84

India: A journey like no other

6

A tribute to John Surtees

13

News: Interview with Sam Sunderland

18

Subscribe and save money!

20

Letters: Win a Kriega pack

22

Segregation and discrimination: Leon Mannings

24

Test ride: 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000

32

Test ride: KTM 1090 Adventure

38

Test ride: KTM 1290 Super Adventure S

44

What’s that again? Maynard Hershon

46

Test ride: Yamaha TMAX DX

52

Test ride: Ducati Supersport

58

Ultimate Ducati Multistrada Enduro test

66

What do you do with a problem like WSBK? The High Sider

68

Inside the SWM factory

108 Tested: Richa Atlantic textiles, Oxford Dormex covers, Kriega rucksacks, Spada jacket, Shark Evo-One helmet

TOURING

112 Classic Test: 1991 Triumph Daytona 1000

Mark Kemp does South America

122 Future world: Kevin Cameron

71

52

KNOWLEDGE 92

2006 Suzuki GSX-R1000 Buyer’s Guide

98

Long-term test: Piaggio MP3

99

Long-term test: Honda Africa Twin

100 Long-term test: Suzuki SV650 104 Long-term test: Herald Classic 250 106 My Bike: Hyosung GT650

112

A tribute to

JOHN SURTEES

KNOWLEDGE

Alan Cathcart remembers one of motorcycling’s most iconic racers…

WORDS: Alan Cathcart PHOTOGRAPHY: Mortons Archive & Alan Cathcart

E

nglishman John Surtees, who passed away in London on March 10 from respiratory failure just a month after his 83rd birthday, was the only man to be crowned world champion on both two wheels and four. Before winning the 1964 Formula 1 World Championship for Enzo Ferrari, he won seven motorcycle world titles for MV Agusta – another Italian race team run by a single-minded autocrat, Count Domenico Agusta.

Born in 1934 at Tatsfield, Surrey, John grew up working in the South London motorcycle shop owned by his father Jack – a former bus driver turned sidecar racer – with whom 14-year-old John made his competition debut in 1948, passengering his dad to victory, only to be disqualified for being under age! On leaving school at 15, he began competing in grass track races at nearby Brands Hatch, but soon graduated to road racing after starting an apprenticeship in 1950 at the Vincent motorcycle factory at Stevenage, for which his father was a dealer. Later that season, on a 500cc Vincent Grey Flash he’d prepared himself, John Surtees recorded his first race victory at Aberdare Park in South Wales. By 1951 John was winning regularly, and hit the headlines for the first time by giving World champion Geoff Duke’s factory twin-cam Norton a hard time on his pushrod single at a major Thruxton race meeting.

During the early 1950s John Surtees established himself as one of Britain’s future two-wheeled stars, graduating from the Vincent in 1952 to a 500cc Manx Norton on which he competed that year in his first World Championship race, finishing sixth in the Ulster GP. In 1953 John made his Isle of Man TT debut, for which he’d been loaned a pair of factory bikes by Norton’s race chief Joe Craig.

But having already committed to racing it before the Norton offer came along, he felt obliged to also ride Dr Joe Ehrlich’s works 125cc EMC two-stroke, only to crash it in practice when the forks collapsed, leaving him with a broken wrist. Craig refused to forgive him

ABOVE: John Surtees on the MV at the 1960 Junior TT. ABOVE LEFT: A one-yearold John with his mother.

ABOVE: John with his fiancée Patricia Burke after receiving his MBE in November 1961.

for this until 1955, so in 1954 John raced a pair of 350/500cc customer Nortons he’d purchased himself to repeated success. He made his proper TT debut on those bikes, finishing 11th in the 350cc Junior race and 15th in the 500cc Senior, improving to 4th in the Junior TT the following year. Surtees also became British 250cc champion in 1954 after winning 15 races out of 17 starts on the unique REG DOHC parallel-twin, entirely created after hours in his home workshop by businessman Bob Geeson.

In 1955, Craig finally gave Surtees his first works rides aboard the factory Nortons in what would be the British manufacturer’s final season of racing its then outclassed singles. That year John won 69 out of the 75 races he started in Britain, and also began competing regularly on the Continent. But it was on an NSU Sportmax that he recorded his first ever Grand Prix victory, winning the 250cc Ulster GP at Dundrod. With Norton’s end-of-season retirement from racing imminent, John finished off the year by twice beating reigning 500cc World Champion Geoff Duke on the four-cylinder Gilera at Silverstone, and then Brands Hatch, results that, with Norton’s retirement, left Gilera itself as well as Moto Guzzi and BMW (for whom he’d ridden in the German GP on an RS500 Boxer) pursuing John’s signature for the coming season.

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John in the Becketts Junior.

But instead, in 1956 John Surtees began a five-year association with MV Agusta. Once admitted to the Agusta racing family, John won his first seven races on the Italian bikes in early-season British national races, before winning the Senior TT in the Isle of Man, his debut World Championship Grand Prix race aboard the 500cc four-cylinder MV, thus also scoring his first-ever TT victory.

Altogether, he competed in 15 IoM TT races over a seven-year period, finishing in all of them except the 1956 Junior, with six victories. He won again at Assen on his Dutch TT debut, and made it a hat-trick of victories the following week at SpaFrancorchamps in Belgium, to establish an unassailable lead in the 1956 500cc World Championship. Surtees thus won his first of seven world crowns aged just 22, despite suffering a broken arm in a German GP crash. He’d effectively been banned from defending his title by a six-month FIM suspension in return for supporting the privateer riders’ strike for reasonable start expenses at the 1955 Dutch TT.

SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR In 1957 John Surtees overcame any aftereffects from the broken arm to win the season-opening Spanish GP in Barcelona.

But that year’s MV Agustas were no match for the Gileras, and Surtees battled to finish third behind these in the 500cc championship, winning just once at Assen, and fifth in the 350cc series behind the all-conquering Moto Guzzi singles, and the pair of DKW two-stroke triples. This led him 8 The original and the best – established 1962

to urge Count Agusta to improve engine reliability and the four-cylinder bikes’ handling – especially with the full ‘dustbin’ streamlining that was by then universal.

“The problem was that MV Agusta was a sideline from the Count’s aviation business,” John once told me, “and that meant their knowledge of aerodynamics was directed towards gaining lift, whereas on a motorcycle you needed quite the opposite! Moto Guzzi had their own wind tunnel, and were much more capable of designing motorcycle streamlining that was stable at high speed.”

This led John to envisage leaving MV Agusta for Moto Guzzi, to the extent of agreeing a test ride on the firm’s increasingly competitive 500cc V8. But just before setting a date for this – which would surely have finished his chances of remaining with MV Agusta – on September 15, 1957 Guzzi announced it was joining Gilera and 125/250cc double World champions Mondial in withdrawing from racing.

MV Agusta had originally agreed to join its three fellow-Italian companies in retirement, but Count Agusta thought better of it, thus opening the door to his bikes’ successive GP race victories against privateer competition mounted on aging British singles, and an uninterrupted run of world titles for his four-cylinder red and silver ‘fire engines’. John Surtees was a beneficiary of this, winning a hat-trick of championships in 1958-60 in both 350/500cc classes by scoring victory in 32 out of 39 races, while also becoming the first man to win the Senior TT three years in a row. He won every GP race he started in 1958 and 1959, a total of 25

victories in succession, which resulted in his emulating Geoff Duke by being voted the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year in 1959.

But the lack of competition on two wheels led to him taking a test drive in a race car at Goodwood in which he showed promise.

MAKING THE MOVE TO FOUR WHEELS In March 1960, aged 26, John Surtees made his four-wheeled racing debut by winning the Formula Junior race at Goodwood in the first car race meeting he’d ever attended, driving a Cooper-BMC entered by his near neighbour Ken Tyrrell. Frustrated by Count Agusta’s refusal to allow him to race other motorcycles in non-championship events, he decided instead to combine both bike and car racing that year, making his Formula 1 debut for Colin Chapman’s Lotus team in the Monaco GP on May 29, retiring from the race with a broken transmission. Flying from there to the Isle of Man for TT practice, Surtees led all the way on his MV Agusta to win his final Senior TT, becoming the first person to average over 100mph in riding to victory on the TT Course, with an average race speed of 102.44mph and a new lap record of 104.08mph. It was an apt swansong, leading to two final world titles before turning his back on MV Agusta and motorcycle racing – but not however before competing in both a car and a bike race on the same day. This came on July 24 that year, when Surtees rode his MV to victory in the 500cc German GP on the Solitude circuit outside Stuttgart, before driving Rob Walker’s Porsche in the Formula Two race

KNOWLEDGE Practice at Brands Hatch in 1957.

John receives his BBC Sportsman of the Year award.

held later the same day, in which he spun into retirement with a dead engine four laps from the end.

John Surtees made an immediate impact on four wheels with Team Lotus, scoring a second-place finish in the 1960 British GP at Silverstone, in only his second-ever Formula 1 race, and taking pole position at his third, the Portuguese GP in Lisbon. Lotus boss Colin Chapman urged him to join his team on a permanent basis as the team No.1 driver for 1961, but the straight-shooting John turned him down on the grounds that, as he later admitted, Chapman seemed “too devious by half ”. Instead, he joined the private F1 Yeoman Credit Cooper team managed by Reg Parnell for the 1961 Formula 1 season, but this proved to be a mistake as the customer Cooper T53 was a long way from being as competitive as the works cars. An early-season nonchampionship race victory at Goodwood was thus John’s only win that year, albeit his first in a Formula 1 car. Nonetheless, Ferrari made an abortive approach for him to join them, while John was awarded the MBE for services to motorcycle racing in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, upgraded to OBE in 2008, and CBE in 2016. Yet, astonishingly, he was never granted a knighthood, in spite of his enormous success both on bikes and in cars, and his substantial charity work later in life.

For the 1962 F1 season Surtees joined the Bowmaker Racing Team, still managed by Reg Parnell, but now driving a V8 LolaClimax. But poor reliability and a weak chassis robbed him of any results until extra bracing resolved the problem, allowing John

to end up fourth in the World Championship with two second-place GP finishes. Having served his F1 apprenticeship, he then agreed to join Scuderia Ferrari in 1963, initially experiencing mixed fortunes in the V6 Tipo 156 with five retirements, a second place at the British GP, victory in Germany – his first GP win on four wheels – and fastest laps at Monaco, Silverstone and the Nürburgring.

But in 1964 John Surtees duly won the F1 World Championship for the Italian team by a single point from BRM’s Graham Hill, previously champion in 1962, and father of future champion Damon, who also began his career on two wheels, albeit not at GP level like Surtees.

FORMULA 1 CHAMPION John’s F1 title win came after two race victories at the Nürburgring and Monza, plus three second places and one third in a closely fought season when his Ferrari initially suffered repeated mechanical failure.

John’s Formula 1 world title victory was achieved despite the copious intrigue inseparable from going racing with Ferrari.

At the British GP at Silverstone, Surtees was obliged to put his workshop skills to good use as the only team member able to wield a welding torch, fabricating an auxiliary fuel tank that enabled his car to run the full race distance without stopping to refuel. Imagine Lewis Hamilton welding something up for his Mercedes F1 team today…

In 1965 John got permission from Enzo Ferrari to form Team Surtees and mount a CanAm sports car racing programme of his own in North America, to race between

John Surtees on a Hercules Corvette moped.

Formula 1 GP rounds. But after early success he suffered a major accident at Mosport in Canada that nearly killed him, when the suspension failed at high speed on the 5 litre V8 Lola T70 sports car he was racing, resulting in near-fatal injuries, which after a lengthy recovery left him with one leg much shorter than the other. John’s comeback race the following spring saw him and Mike Parkes win the Monza 1000km in a Ferrari 330 P3, but disagreements with Ferrari team manager Eugenio Dragoni over his physical health saw John walk out to join the much smaller Cooper-Maserati team. He won the season-ending Mexico GP for them to clinch second place in the World Championship, while in the Can-Am series he scored five wins in the Lola T70 to become champion.

For 1967 John joined forces with Honda to develop and race their RA273 V12 Formula 1 car from his Team Surtees HQ in Edenbridge, Kent. But with the engine under-developed and the car overweight, John got permission from Soichiro Honda to develop a new chassis with Lola, resulting in the lighter RA300 that Surtees himself drove to victory in its debut race at Monza.

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John Surtees on Wayne Gardner’s Honda NS500.

This was his last of six F1 GP victories in 111 starts – en route to fourth in the championship in Honda’s debut year. But with Team Surtees and Honda jointly on the verge of becoming a real championship contender with a smaller, all-new V12 engine, Honda cancelled the project without any consultation, and instead sent over a radical substitute, the air/oil cooled V8 RA302. John declared this “unfit to race” and “a potential deathtrap” without further development, and went on with the RA301.

Cruel luck deprived Surtees of almost certain wins in the Belgian and Italian GPs, in between which Honda independently entered the RA302 for the French GP at Rouen, with disastrous consequences.

After two laps, the magnesium-bodied car inexplicably crashed and 58 laps’ worth of fuel caught fire, killing local hero Jo Schlesser, its driver. At the end of the season Honda withdrew from Formula 1, after Surtees again refused to drive the car at the Italian GP at Monza.

After a troubled 1969 season in Formula 1 with BRM, John founded the Surtees Racing Organisation, which competed as a constructor in Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula 5000 from 1970 to 1978, starting with a GP car of his own design – the TS7 – that he initially raced himself. But for 1971 Team Surtees signed John’s successor as Britain’s (and MV Agusta’s) two-wheeled superstar, Mike Hailwood, although despite strong finishes in non-championship races, a GP win evaded the team. The strain of development, testing, management and racing was taking its toll, leading John Surtees to retire from competitive driving in 1972. Hailwood took over as No.1 driver for Team Surtees, and convincingly won the European Formula 2 Championship in the 10 The original and the best – established 1962

Hart-engined Surtees TS10, to register the team’s greatest success. After a frequently troubled nine-year existence in the Formula 1 paddock, Team Surtees was disbanded in 1978, without ever winning a Formula 1 GP.

MOTORCYCLE RACING RETURN Having renovated a lovely 16th century Tudor house near Lingfield, Surrey, John now built up a property business, while devoting time to motorsport consultancy, and to restoring many of the motorcycles and cars he’d collected or had on loan that were associated with his long career. He enjoyed demonstrating these and other classic machines at numerous events all over the world, but especially at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed, where he rode BMW motorcycles and drove MercedesBenz cars alongside Nortons and MV Agustas from his own stables.

Motorcycles remained his first love, and with the advent of Historic GP racing, John Surtees renewed his racing licence for what proved to be his final competitive event, the 1986 French Historic GP at Paul Ricard, run as a support race to the 500cc French GP. In that he finished third on his Manx Norton behind American Dave Roper and Kiwi former World Champion Hugh Anderson, both on Matchless G50s. After that he decided to hang up his helmet for anything except tests and demos, though it didn’t stop him from sampling Wayne Gardner’s factory Honda NS500 two-stroke triple at Snetterton, and impressing Honda race engineers with his perceptive questions and grasp of detail.

John Surtees was married twice, first to Patricia Burke in 1962; the couple divorced in 1979. His second wife was Jane Sparrow, whom he married in 1987, and with whom he had three children; Leonora, Edwina and

John at the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics show in 2014.

his only son, Henry, who followed his father into motor sport. Henry Surtees finished second in the 2008 Formula Renault UK Championship before he tragically died in a freak accident in the Formula 2 Championship race at Brands Hatch in July 2009, when a wheel from another car became detached in a crash and hit him on the head. He was just 18 years of age. John founded the Henry Surtees Foundation in his memory, to assist those with brain or head injuries.

John Surtees was a hard but fair man who set high standards for himself and others, which he expected them to adhere to.

He absolutely knew his own mind, and wasn’t afraid of irking influential people, stubbornly sticking to his guns even if it meant ruffling feathers. If he’d been prepared to compromise or go back on his word on various occasions, he might have achieved even more than he did, especially in the murky world of the Formula 1 paddock, where a straight-shooter like John was a fish out of water. He achieved a very great deal in life in spite of his humble origins, and both motorcycle and car worlds are very much the poorer for his leaving us.