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Kawasaki Jimbo
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PostPosted: 17:08 - 01 Aug 2021    Post subject: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

After a couple of years hanging on in the back pages of Practical Sportsbikes magazine, Performance Bikes mag is no more. What’s interesting is the editorial confirms what I, and I guess most readers thought. It’s not even that sports bikes are unpopular, it’s that PB’s raison-d’etre, the modern flagships (210 hp Panigales, RSV4s… reigned-in by electronic safety devices*), are absurd as road bikes.

Shame about the mag’s demise, but it’s still quite surprising how many bike mags there are on the newsagent’s shelves.

*Elsewhere I read that Moto2 teams are abandoning throttle-by-wire in favour of throttle cables to give riders more feel.

I was looking at vintage bikes at the Shuttleworth museum near Biggleswade just yesterday and thinking I probably couldn’t ride some of them, I don’t understand the manual advance/retard, oil feed or whatever else some of those knobs and levers do.
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MCN
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PostPosted: 18:24 - 01 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

Kawasaki Jimbo wrote:
After a couple of years hanging on in the back pages of Practical Sportsbikes magazine, Performance Bikes mag is no more. What’s interesting is the editorial confirms what I, and I guess most readers thought. It’s not even that sports bikes are unpopular, it’s that PB’s raison-d’etre, the modern flagships (210 hp Panigales, RSV4s… reigned-in by electronic safety devices*), are absurd as road bikes.

Shame about the mag’s demise, but it’s still quite surprising how many bike mags there are on the newsagent’s shelves.

*Elsewhere I read that Moto2 teams are abandoning throttle-by-wire in favour of throttle cables to give riders more feel.

I was looking at vintage bikes at the Shuttleworth museum near Biggleswade just yesterday and thinking I probably couldn’t ride some of them, I don’t understand the manual advance/retard, oil feed or whatever else some of those knobs and levers do.


Phuque, PB was one of the better Bike Jaz Mags too.

I think one of the PB jurnos does (did) stuff with The Barron von Mumble.
Not bad shakedowns on fast bikes.
I could Google their names but.......

Edit...

I was 1000% wrong. Embarassed

He was with Fast Bikes. (Another better jaz mag)

"Alastair Fagan cut his teeth in the gritty underworld of Fast Bikes Magazine. As Road Test Editor for nearly a decade, Fagan has ridden just about every bike manufactured, plus some über-trick specials ranging from mentally-tuned Fizzy 50s to Kevin Schwantz's 1993 RGV500."

He is the guy who farts about with The Barron.
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Easy-X
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PostPosted: 21:23 - 01 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

Kawasaki Jimbo wrote:
I was looking at vintage bikes at the Shuttleworth museum near Biggleswade just yesterday and thinking I probably couldn’t ride some of them, I don’t understand the manual advance/retard, oil feed or whatever else some of those knobs and levers do.


There's all sorts of weird stuff on old vehicles... double-declutching anyone? Smile

Manual advance is just one of those things that have fallen by the wayside like chokes going in the bin with the advent of EFI. First advance/retard was manually controlled then there were auto-mechanical systems and finally bit the dust with fully electronic ignitions - all "black boxed" away from you.

For an old bike you might turn on the ignition, check the kill switch, turn on the fuel tap, pump the carbs a bit, fiddle with the choke, retard the timing, open the decompression valve... oh yeah and kick it over Laughing

This may be of interest:

https://www.real-classic.co.uk/2016/12/13/franks-famous-last-words-41/
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wr6133
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Joined: 31 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: 21:56 - 01 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

Easy-X wrote:
[

For an old bike you might turn on the ignition, check the kill switch, turn on the fuel tap, pump the carbs a bit, fiddle with the choke, retard the timing, open the decompression valve... oh yeah and kick it over Laughing


Might want to close that decomp before kicking it over Wink
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GSTEEL32
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Joined: 24 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: 22:10 - 01 Aug 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't say I'm not hugely surprised.

I recently stocked up on some early 90's editions of Performance Bikes and I can see why its gone by the wayside since.

The subject matter back then was much more diverse than it is now.

Four strokes, 2 strokes, GP reps, the early supermotards, the 600cc category, triumph making a re-emergence, the GP's filled with bat$hit crazy 2-stroke models, grey imports 400cc's, the naked category...,. plus, biking back then was a relatively cheap mode of transport available to all....

These days, I struggle to convince myself to buy a magazine because it has an "adventure" bike on the front... which they test in the "extreme" conditions of Balham and Clapham.

I feel now, the 125 category is as boring as watching Love Island. Superbikes are super duper, assuming you have a spare £20k for the entry level model. The 400cc category now has bikes which top out at 35hp, not 20,000 rpm. Bikes are judged on whether they have a USB, not whether they are actually a competent machine.

Plus ... group tests. There are none. Its become nothing more than a 4 page advert for the manufacturers, rather than the journo's telling it like it is.... anyone that's watched anything with Henry Cole can also see this methodology of blatant advertisement transfer to the TV too...

Its really the death of enjoyable leaner legal bikes that's killed it for me. If you never get the excitement as a teenager of riding and tuning a small bike for the sheer pleasure, why are you ever going to put yourself though the pain and cost of owning a much bigger bike ?

No sir, not for me....
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Kris
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PostPosted: 23:19 - 01 Aug 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Practical Sportsbikes is the new Performance bikes

The readership have got older, fatter and more inclined to twiddle in the shed rather than do 160mph down the bypass.

DiRE is a funny one. Used to be about a broad spectrum of bikes but now seems to represent the 55 year old adventure tourer rider who has a flip up lid and writes angry letters to the editor about how noisy bikes ruin his Sunday afternoons in the garden.

Laughing
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Easy-X
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PostPosted: 13:06 - 02 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

wr6133 wrote:
Easy-X wrote:
[

For an old bike you might turn on the ignition, check the kill switch, turn on the fuel tap, pump the carbs a bit, fiddle with the choke, retard the timing, open the decompression valve... oh yeah and kick it over Laughing


Might want to close that decomp before kicking it over Wink


Not something I had on the DT175 but it was always mentioned for the DT400's.
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wr6133
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PostPosted: 13:32 - 02 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

Easy-X wrote:

Not something I had on the DT175 but it was always mentioned for the DT400's.


Use the decomp to get the piston in the right place. After that you need compression for it to start and run. Good for stopping the engine too for various reasons I won't bore you with.
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 16:11 - 02 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

wr6133 wrote:
Easy-X wrote:

Not something I had on the DT175 but it was always mentioned for the DT400's.


Use the decomp to get the piston in the right place. After that you need compression for it to start and run. Good for stopping the engine too for various reasons I won't bore you with.


I have been thrown off the bike trying to start a 600cc Panther outfit with a decompressor and manual advance/retard much to the hilarity of the assembled old farts in goggles and waxed cotton coats. I thought I had broken my leg.

2 smoke kick starts were my forte Mr. Green
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Nobby the Bastard
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PostPosted: 16:21 - 02 Aug 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Starting a black shadow must be a right giggle.
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ThatDippyTwat
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PostPosted: 18:00 - 02 Aug 2021    Post subject: Re: Performance Bikes. Reply with quote

Polarbear wrote:
2 smoke kick starts were my forte Mr. Green

KX500. There is a definite knack to starting it, even if you're used to 2T's in general. Thing would give evil kickbacks to those not prepared for it.
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