Motorcycle Sport & Leisure

March 2007

1. BMW returns to road racing with factory team for the first time in 50 years, with works R1200RS Boxer competing in World Endurance series 24-hour races
2. Husqvarna’s all-new 250cc four-stroke engine impresses on debut, finishes joint runner-up in snowy opening round of World Enduro series as BMW undertakes due diligence on purchasing marque from its MV Agusta owners
3. BMW makes public debut of 450 Enduro bristling with innovation
4. BMW breaks 100,000 annual production marque for first time, reputed to be working on range-topping 1850cc six-cylinder luxury tourer
5. Cagiva to link with Kinetic in India to manufacture new 500 single as well as 125 Mito in both two- and four-stroke guise
6. KTM owners repurchase stock from Polaris bought in anticipation of aborted merger – but Americans hang on to 5% of equity, continue strategic partnership
7. Triumph Motorcycles sponsors English School Rugby champions – won’t go racing with factory team, though
8. Triumph sales up 18.3% in 2006 model year, to 37,400 units, profits up more than 10% as 675 Daytona wins International Bike of thje Year award
9. New Motorcycle Year Book 2 aims to be Motocourse for the street – needs to be more tightly written to attain that goal, but nice picturebook
10. Michelin delivers – new guide books for France and Italy uncover reasonably priced out of the way places with genuine character

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As exclusively revealed in these columns two months ago, it has now been officially confirmed that BMW will indeed make its long-awaited return to World Championship road racing in 2007 with a factory team.

In an announcement on March 23 from BMW Motorrad’s head office in Munich, the German company confirmed that it would be entering a total of four 24-hour races forming part of the 2007 FIM World Endurance Championship, beginning with the Le Mans 24-Hours to be held on April 21/22. Belgium’s former World Endurance champion, Stephane Mertens (also previously a winner of the BMW Boxer Cup) and his German teammates Thomas Hintereiter and Rico Penzkofer, together with substitute Markus Barth all former Boxer Cup contestants, will ride a special RennBoxer based on the R1200S streetbike which has been designed, developed and manufactured in BMW’s own race department. Thereafter, the bike will also appear in the Barcelona 24-Hours on July 7/8, the Oschersleben 24-Hour event on home ground in Germany on August 11/12, and the French Bol d’Or classic held at Magny-Cours on September 15/16, participating in each event in Endurance racing’s Open class, since 1200cc twins are not (yet!) admitted to the Superbike or Sport Production categories.

The new works BMW road race team will be run by Berthold ‘Berti’ Hauser, Sporting Director for the German marque’s Motorrad division and the architect of its blitz of the first four places in the 2000 Dakar-Cairo Rally, before BMW’s withdrawal left the rally world open for its Austrian rivals at KTM to dominate ever since. Indeed, the German company’s off-road activities, stretching back to the 1980s with the successful participation in the Paris-Dakar of the Boxer twin desert racers loosely based on the GS customer models, actually represented BMW’s only official two-wheeled competition involvement during the past five decades. For it’s been exactly 50 years since Walter Zeller finished second in the 500cc World Championship in 1956 on the BMW Rennsport Typ 256 factory road racer, winding up sixth the following year – each time with a pair of podium finishes in the six-race series. Since then, BMW has not until now run its own factory road race operation, preferring instead to support private teams with parts and assistance – a policy which yielded serial World Sidecar titles for BMW Rennsport-powered outfits over more than two decades, as well as victory in the gruelling Isle of Man Production TT in the 1970s, with Helmut Dähne on a factory-tuned but privately-entered BMW R90S. The successful Butler & Smith R90S Superbikes which took Steve McLaughlin and Reg Pridmore to victory at Daytona as well as the 1976 AMA Superbike title, were likewise home-grown American creations – making the 2007 Endurance bike the first BMW factory road racer in exactly half a century.

But Hauser has personal experience of going Endurance racing, from back in 1997-2000 when, in between masterminding the next round of BMW’s Dakar dominance, he was one of the group of BMW engineers and executives who in their spare time formed Das Boxer Team - a bunch of Teutonic tifosi determined to do what back then they weren’t allowed to even think about during office hours, and go road racing with a BMW. And win. In competing successfully with their self-prepared Boxer Team R1100S in endurance races all over Europe, as well as at Daytona, Berti’s boys underlined the competition potential of the BMW Boxer - although Hauser was always keen to emphasise that DBT was a completely private operation, quite independent of the BMW factory even if most of the guys involved with it did actually work there, mostly in the engineering department. “Though BMW regarded what we did as useful R&D, as well as good publicity,“ he said, “we had no direct factory support. We sourced all the sponsors and paid for all the running costs of the bike ourselves - our team slogan was ‘Just For Fun’, and that’s what it really was.” Not any more….

Das Boxer Team was formed in 1997, winning the five-round German Endurance Championship’s ProTwins class in 1998 and finishing second overall against all the four-cylinder bikes, initially with a 5-speed R1100RS-based racer, then later with the new 6-speed R1100S which they debuted halfway through the season at the Oschersleben 24 Hours, exactly one week after the public launch of the customer streetbike. As a mark of the team’s status as factory insiders, they’d been given one of the R1100S prototypes to transform into an endurance racer and test in secret at the factory test track in advance of the launch, ready to underline its potential as a true Modified Production racer by finishing 8th overall against all the fours and winning the ProTwins class on its public debut, as it did again in the final round of the season at Magny-Cours.

With help from BMW North America, Das Boxer Team next raced at Daytona in Cycle Week ‘99, when their only slightly stripped-down ex-endurance racer finished an impressive fourth in the hands of Martin Jost against the desmo mafia in the Pro Thunder race preceding the Daytona 200.  Back in Europe, the engine finally broke after 72 hours of racetrack time in the first round of the ‘99 German Endurance series, before placing second overall in repaired guise in the next round at Brno. But now the team had another objective, with the announcement of a Prototype class in the first-ever German round of the World Endurance series, the Oschersleben 24 Hours in which the BMW actually ran as high as fourth overall in the torrential rain which marked the race, before eventually aquaplaning off the track and struggling back to 34th at the finish.

This was Das Boxer Team’s final appearance – but the experience gained will surely be beneficial to Hauser’s new works team in competing in the World Endurance marathons this coming season, with an all-new factory bike which effectively represents the prototype of the HP2 ŰberBoxer ultrasports twin that’s expected to be launched later this year, as a tarmac equivalent of the limited edition HP2 Enduro and Megamoto high-performance customer Boxers already on offer. Though BMW has only released a single photo of the new bike being tested (perhaps indicating, with its first race less than a month away, that its development is going right down to the wire), some details are clear from this. While retaining the stock tubular steel chassis, the all-new and very aggressively styled carbon fibre bodywork incorporates a one-piece GP-style carbon seat unit replacing the heavy rear subframe of the standard R1200S, also acting as a shroud for the Akrapovic titanium exhaust’s silencer. The Paralever rear end’s single-sided wheel will be useful for fast tyre changes, while up front it seems that the Boxer’s trademark Telelever fork has been retained, but with new sliders allowing the adoption of a radial Brembo brake package. Factory sources confirm the engine layout remains the same 101 x 73 mm air/oil-cooled hi-cam format, with four valves per cylinder and power bumped up from the stock bike’s 122 bhp at 8,250 rpm to close to 140 bhp a thousand revs higher. Performance may be reined back for the first couple of races in pursuit of reliability, but it’s still envisaged that this R1200RS Endurance bike will lead to a Formula Extreme sprint version which will compete in the 2008 Daytona 200, as well perhaps as certain selected other rounds of the AMA Championship, in what for BMW is a key market.

The imminent debut at Le Mans of the RennBoxer endurance racer, coupled with the low-key March appearance of the 450 Enduro single in a German regional event (see below), means that BMW has already confirmed the existence of two of the four exciting new sports models exclusively revealed in these columns in the past three months. Attention now turns to the K1000RS four-cylinder Superbike reportedly under development for a 2008 launch, and its conjectured but unconfirmed three-cylinder K675S Supersport spinoff. Watch this space!

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BMW’s interest in acquiring Husqvarna from MV Agusta, including the Italian company’s Cassinetta factory on the shores of Lake Varese which would function as a dedicated single-cylinder manufacturing base for the German company’s various product lines, has progressed since being revealed in these columns at the start of the year. According to MV Agusta employees, at least two delegations of BMW executives have so far visited the MV Agusta base at Schiranna to look Husqvarna over and commence due diligence with a view to acquiring it, reportedly displaying particular interest in Husqvarna’s next-generation 250cc four-stroke engine set to be launched later this year as a 2008 model year product targeting the crucial smaller-capacity four-stroke offroad class. The extremely compact four-valve dohc six-speed engine weighing just 22 kg. that’s been under development for the past three years, made its competition debut in the first round of the 2007 World Enduro championship held in Ostersund in Sweden on March 17/18. There, in the hands of Polish rider Bartosz Oblucki, it coped brilliantly with the gruelling conditions of deep snow and finished equal second overall behind Finnish defending world champion Juha Salminen’s KTM, and therefore lies second in the E1 World Championship after this first round. “The new bike more than lived up to our expectations,” said Husqvarna team boss Martino Bianchi. “I think if BMW do end up acquiring us, they’ll have a fantastic 250cc product line to look forward to – certainly, their engineers who came to examine what we’re working on seemed very impressed.” Such models would give BMW immediate exposure in this critical smaller capacity segment of the offroad market, in which their rival for the crown of Europe’s top motorcycle manufacturers, KTM, has established a strong position alongside its larger capacity offroaders. This explains why BMW is taking to the dirt – their US dealers badly need dirtbikes (Buell’s forthcoming development of a range of 450cc offroad models powered by Rotax engines – with a 250 likely to follow – comes about precisely to suit a similar demand from Harley-Davidson dealers), and the German marque’s astute management headed by its president Herbert Diess are aware that in order to counter KTM’s expansion into the road bike market, BMW must compete with the Austrian dirt devils in all sectors – including offroad. And, perhaps most important of all, KTM’s leadership in the growing Eastern European markets comprising the former Communist bloc is almost entirely dirt-driven – another crucial factor behind this decision.

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Meantime, after its existence was flushed out here two months ago, BMW’s own prototype 450cc off-roader made its debut in a National German enduro at Űlsen on March 11, ridden by Sascha Eckert, BMW’s offroad development rider. The new tubular steel-framed bike, featuring Keihin fuel injection like its KTM rivals, is extremely innovative, boasting several features which make it quite unlike any other Enduro bike yet conceived. The compact four-valve motor with chain-driven dohc on the right of the cylinder features an asymmetric cylinder head design, with the exhaust camshaft positioned close to the centre of the cylinder, presumably to leave more space for the radiators, while on the intake side the Keihin throttle body employs a very steep angle of downdraught, breathing through a large airbox mounted where the fuel tank would normally be. This has been relocated under the seat, thus optimising weight distribution and compacting the mass of the bike, as well as ensuring more constant handling characteristics as a full load of fuel is used up. The clutch is mounted on the same axis as the crankshaft, rather than as usual on the gearbox primary shaft - a format which has been patented by BMW (although a similar layout was used by the Honda Cub 50 several decades ago!), and results in smaller overall dimensions and reduced power losses, as well as freeing up space for the frame design. BMW has also patented an alternative shaft drive design for this bike (yes, really!), using a Continental air shock as on the HP2 Enduro twin and Xchallenge single models, and have also developed an alternative chain-drive version, this time with a Paralever-style single-sided rear end.

However, the prototype debuting at Űlsen featured a more conventional but still distinctive chassis layout, with four mounting points for the motor. This sees the pivot for the aluminium swingarm mounted co-axially with the gearbox sprocket, a system previously used by Massimo Tamburini on his Bimota designs for four-cylinder Japanese sportbikes from 1973-83, and for the same purpose as here on the BMW Enduro, to ensure constant chain tension at all times, for longer life and to reduce chain snatch. This in turn permits the use of a softer rear shock which, like its KTM and Husaberg rivals, does not use a linkage – the prototype seen at Űlsen was fitted with a laydown Ohlins shock whose patented PDS internal system (also used in the Swedish firm’s WRC rally car shocks) compensates for the lack of a link. The 45mm Marzocchi upside down forks chosen by BMW are of a conventional type which does not feature the separate internal cartridge used on most of the Italian suspension manufacturer’s offroad front ends. A Brembo brake package completes the picture, using petal discs front and rear.

BMW’s traditional capacity for innovation has been faithfully adhered to on the company’s new hard enduro model, which will be raced in the 2008 World Enduro series by a factory team – presumably under the direction of BMW Motorrad’s Sporting Director, Berti Hauser. It remains to be seen, however, whether this and the Motocross version also under development, will compete next season in both showroom and race paddock under the BMW or Husqvarna labels…..

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To add further to the speculation about BMW’s future plans, the leading German magazine Das Motorrad has published a computer projection of a six-cylinder BMW luxury tourer, apparently tailored directly at the U.S. luxury touring market headed by the Honda Gold Wing. Since the 1850cc 24-valve slant-block motor of this putative model would be obtained by adding an extra couple of cylinders to the company’s existing K1200 powerplant, the idea is quite plausible, as a means of adding another layer of models above the existing K1200LT (which would be retained as a competitor to Harley-Davidson and the other twin-cylinder tourers, including the forthcoming Victory Vision launched last December and aiming to hit dealer showrooms in June), thus competing more directly against the Gold Wing in this high-end (but also high-profit) market sector.

BMW Motorrad’s annual production at its Spandau plant in Berlin exceeded 100,000 bikes for the first time ever in 2006, with 100,064 of the German marque’s products sold worldwide last year, an increase of 2.7% over the year before. European markets were the strongest contributors to this success, with 23,617 bikes being sold on BMW’s home German market, with Italy the second strongest with 13,51 units, followed by the USA with 12,825 and, perhaps surprisingly, Spain with 10,002 – ahead of both France and the UK. Most popular models were, perhaps inevitably, the acclaimed R1200GS and its Adventure spinoff, totalling an amazing 31,138 worldwide sales between them, followed some way back in second lace by the R200RT touring model with 13,384 units, and another surprise in third place, the F650GS and the Dakar enduro version with a total of 12,511 bikes between them, BMW has now produced more than two million motorcycles in total ever since production began in 1923, breaking the barrier for the first time in 206, with 2,061,977 bikes sold altogether in the 83 years since then.

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Irrespective of whether the negotiations which he now admits are in place with BMW for the German company to acquire Husqvarna are ultimately successful, MV Agusta president Claudio Castiglioni is planning to restructure his company in order to arrive at a more self-contained and streamlined operation for each of the three marques in the group. As part of this strategy, he is planning to relaunch the Cagiva marque with a series of models made in India, aimed at delivering cost effective quality at a competitive price.

This would also entail the company’s entire Husqvarna activities, including all engineering also embracing the development of new models, the offroad race department, and the manufacture of customer bikes being centralised at the modern Cassinetta factory on the shore of Lake Varese which presently also houses the assembly of MV Agusta models. This would instead be transferred in its entirety to the former Aermacchi seaplane factory the other side of the lake at Schiranna which, after housing Harley-Davidson’s European production from 1960 to 1978, was then acquired by the Castiglioni brothers as the base for their new Cagiva brand named after their father CAstiglioni GIanfranco di VArese. Subsequently, with the Castiglionis’ acquisition of MV Agusta, it became the headquarters of the group - but plans call for the Schiranna plant to be entirely dedicated to MV in future, with the current R&D and engine manufacture processes which are already carried out there, joined by final assembly of all MV roadbikes. Schiranna will also house the MV Agusta road race department, which will become an ever more vital part of the operation once Italy’s Ferrari of two wheels enters the World Superbike Championship in 2008, most likely with a team run by four-time world champion Carl Fogarty, who won the first two of his world crowns riding for Claudio Castiglioni in the days when Ducati was part of the Cagiva empire.

This polarisation of MV and Husqvarna into two separate structures would seem to bode ill for the future of the Cagiva brand, which while still selling a healthy number of Mito 125 two-strokes each year - 4000 in total in 2006 - has seen its Suzuki-powered Raptor models disappear from showroom floors because the V-twin engines it purchases from the Japanese company to power these aren’t Euro 3 legal. However, Claudio Castiglioni has already taken steps to relaunch Cagiva by making a deal with major Indian manufacturer Kinetic to manufacture a range of single-cylinder Cagiva models developed in Italy for manufacture in South Asia. This will include not only the current 125 Mito two-stroke, which has been made Euro 3 compliant thanks to the clever Dellorto ECS electronic carburettor already used so successfully on the Husqvarna 125 two-stroke models, but also a four-stroke version of the same bike – as well as a production version of the Mito 500 launched in prototype form at the Milan Show last November, powered by a retuned version of the 576cc fuel injected Husqvarna four-valve sohc motor producing 60 bhp in street guise – enough to deliver sparkling performance in a bike weighing just 133 kg. – only 4 kg. more than the 125 Mito two-stroke.

“The response to this bike was literally overwhelming,” says Claudio Castiglioni. “It was very much the project of my son Giovanni, and he certainly seems to have hit the target with it. There are customers around the world searching for a good-looking sportbike with agile handling and zestful performance at an affordable price, and the Mito 500 built in India to the highest standards, will deliver this.” Indeed, what began as a Supermono special ten years ago, when Cagiva engineer Gianluca Solazzo shoehorned an Husqvarna 610 motor into a Cagiva Mito frame in order to compete in the European Supermono Championship then run as a World Superbike support class, is likely to be fitted with its own dedicated dohc four-valve motor rumoured to have a capacity closer to 650cc when it enters production in one of Pune-based Kinetic’s three ultra-modern factories in Madhya Pradesh later this year.

Kinetic Motors is unusual in the motorcycle world in being run by a woman, 36-year old Sulajja Firodia Motwani, one of the daughters of company founder Arun Firodia who today overseas the Kinetic Group, of which the bike division is a part. Founded in 1970, it has since sold more than 6,000,000 vehicles in India alone, mainly its iconic Luna moped launched in 1974 which led the way in delivering personalised transport to Indian consumers, as well as more than 25,000 customers in the USA. Indeed, under US-trained Mrs. Motwani, Kinetic has become the most outward-looking of the sub-continent’s two-wheeled manufacturers, after forming a joint venture with Honda in 1984 which raised quality standards for locally-manufactured products, and ended only when Kinetic became the first Indian company to buy out its overseas joint venture partner when it acquired Honda’s stock in the company in 1998, thus becoming fully independent and Indian-owned. It has since turned towards Italy to expand its range, purchasing Italjet’s trend-setting seven-strong model range and related production lines – including the innovative hub-centre Dragster scooter - from the Tartarini family in 2004 when the Italian company folded, though they may regret passing up on the Scooop! three-wheeler invented by Leopoldo Tartarini, which has instead been such a hit for Piaggio rebranded as the MP3. Kinetic has also expanded its motorcycle range by teaming up with Hyosung in Korea, whose 250 Comet V-twin is manufactured in India, and whose 650cc Aquila custom is a local cruiser best-seller. Ironically, Hyosung approached Cagiva to offer its 90-degree V-twin 650cc eight-valve motor as a replacement for the Suzuki SV650 engine powering the 650 Raptor, but was unable to commit to a date for Euro 3 compliance, hence no deal. But in addition to this, Taiwanese scooter giant SYM purchased an 11.1% stake in Kinetic one year ago, as part of its plans to expand into India’s flourishing two-wheeled market, which is set to overtake China as the largest in the world, and in which Kinetic is a key player.

“We’ve been working towards teaming up with Kinetic for the past two years,” says. Claudio Castiglioni. “I’m sincerely impressed with their level of quality, which compares favourably with better-known European companies, and I’ve no hesitation in entrusting the manufacture of all future Cagiva models to them, for sale around the world both in Europe and Asia, as well as the USA. We shall continue to source or manufacture certain high-technology components ourselves, but these will then be shipped to India for installation on the Kinetic production line. We believe this will allow Cagiva to be very competitive in terms of price in offering an entry-level model range to stand alongside our MV Agusta prestige models, while combining Italian style and engineering with Indian manufacturing quality and price."

The debut of the first Indian-built Cagivas is scheduled to take place at the EICMA Show in Milan in November this year.

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After KTM’s proposed merger with US powersports giant Polaris Industries was called off last July by the Austrian dirtbike specialist’s president, Stefan Pierer, unfinished business still remained. For as a first step in acquiring what was foreseen would eventually be a majority shareholding in KTM, Polaris had previously in 2005 purchased a total of 24.9% of KTM equity from an institutional investor – a stake which under the agreement between the two companies at the outset of the proposed merger (more a Polaris takeover, in fact), KTM would be required to repurchase should the deal fall through. As it did….

Polaris has now agreed to sell the major part of its stake, totalling 1.38 million shares, to KTM parent company Cross Industries AG – which is wholly owned by Pierer and his partner Rudi Knünz – for a price of approximately $80 million, with the first tranche transferred before March 15, and the second due to follow by or before June 15. Interestingly, though, Polaris is retaining 340,000 shares in KTM - around 5% of the issued stock - and the two companies will continue to collaborate on technical and engineering projects, especially in the ATV market where KTM would seek to benefit from Polaris’ chassis experience, while the American company will be looking for KTM’s engine expertise to help improve the performance of its current products.

“Our strategic partnership has been valuable for both parties, and we expect this to remain true going forward,” says Polaris CEO Tom Tiller. “However, given KTM’s decision to remain independent, we agreed that it would be in the best interest of both companies to accelerate the ownership decision before the fall of 2007, when the call options would be exercisable (for Polaris to acquire a majority of KTM stock – AC). We respect KTM’s decision to remain independent, and we look forward to furthering our strategic relationship with it in the future.”

 

So, why did the marriage not happen? KTM’s Stefan Pierer was the one who broke it off. “I think being involved with KTM is about having fun and being successful at the same time, and we got the feeling - why should we stop that, why get sucked in to a very corporate US existence?” he says. “If a bigger company is taking over a smaller company, you know what’s going to happen. We risked losing what KTM has built up and stands for, in the minds of the customers as well as ourselves. I was also on the board of directors at Polaris, which by the way was very interesting. It gave me a big picture of what could happen, and what could maybe go wrong. And so the feeling of concern increased each day, until we thought we should make our position clear, since if it went on any longer, you risk creating misunderstandings and problems. Because, make no mistake, we do want to stay friends with Polaris, and work on some projects together in future. We’re delivering the racing ATV engine to them, if they need help on this or other engine projects, we’re there to give it - or if on the other hand we want something from them, we want to be able to ask them for it. Because it’s a situation where I think it was the right time to say - no, we won’t get married, but let’s stay good friends instead.”

So even after the engagement is broken off, KTM will continue working with Polaris. “For sure,” declares Pierer, “if it makes sense to do so in certain segments, and especially if it involves working with Mark Blackwell (former American 500 MX champion, Victory Motorcycles CEO, and Polaris International Director – AC), because he is a great guy with a deep understanding of the motorcycle business. Pulling out of the deal was a big blow to him personally, and that was one of the things I regretted most about doing so. But in terms of working together in the future, I think on the engine side we could help them, and maybe something could come up where they could help us, especially maybe in ATVs. But now for sure we go our separate ways. We’re better off alone!”

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Though a self-professed fan of World Superbike racing, who rather than hang out in sponsors’ hospitality tents claims to have stood in line to buy a ticket like any other spectator to go through the turnstiles to watch the rounds held at his local Donington Park track, Triumph owner John Bloor has opted not to spend his money sponsoring a race team. Well, just the once, with his two-year support of the factory-backed Valmoto Triumph team racing the 600 Daytona four in the British Supersport series in 2003-4, which eventually ended on a satisfactory note when the team’s solitary rider Craig Jones won the team’s final race before withdrawing in October 2004 – aptly enough, at Donington Park. Maybe Mr.Bloor was watching from the sidelines…..

However, away from motorcycles Triumph has been active in the community, and in 2006 sponsored Warwick School, the leading under-18 Rugby football team nearest to their Hinckley factory, on their month-long tour of New Zealand and Australia. In these two heartlands of the oval ball game Warwick acquitted themselves well, winning four of the eight tour matches held – an experience which evidently stood them in good stead on their return to Britain. For on March 28 at Twickenham, the cathedral of English rugby, Warwick School defeated Barnard Castle from Co.Durham to win the final of the Daily Mail Cup by a score of 24-23, in a nailbiting game which saw the lead change hands four times. The Triumph Motorcycles sponsored side are therefore the National School Rugby Champions of England, out of the 480 schools taking part in the knockout competition, and to achieve the title Warwick had to play every one of their games away from home, until the quarter finals when they knocked out the defending champions, St.Peters Gloucester, en route to making the school’s first ever appearance at the home of British rugby.

Speaking after the trophy presentation, Warwick’s director of rugby Mark Nasey said: “Our team has proved time and again throughout the tournament its ability to rise to the occasion against more established rugby-playing schools. A vital element in this has been the camaraderie and teamwork forged by touring New Zealand and Australia last summer, and living and playing together for one month. I’d like to thank our sponsors Triumph Motorcycles for their help in making that possible, which was a key ingredient in Warwick School’s path to success on a National level at Twickenham.”

“Triumph was very proud to support Warwick School’s tour Down Under, since both Australia and New Zealand are both key markets for us,” said Triumph PR Manager Andrea Friggi. “We’re extremely pleased that the team has gone on to win the National School Rugby crown here at home – congratulations to all the players and staff involved, as well as the parents for supporting their endeavours. Rugby is a game that’s all about teamwork – same as manufacturing motorcycles! Well done, Warwick.”

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Triumph’s recently published annual balance sheet for the 2006 model year shows that overall sales increased by 18.3% year on year, to 37,400 machines, with its turnover up 13.5% to GBP 200 million. Gross operating profit appears to be flatlining at GBP 10.3 million, however – until the benefits of a one-off property sale in 2005 valued at GBP 4.7 million are taken into account, when a truer picture emerges. As a company privately owned by Bloor Holdings, though, Triumph is not required to reveal net profits – but it’s claimed by insiders that these remain ‘healthy’, and certainly breaking the 10,000-unit a year sales barrier in the USA last year for the first time since Triumph returned to North America in born-again guise in 1995, will have been a major source of satisfaction to John Bloor and his team. So, too, will the decisive victory of the Triumph 675 Daytona in the International Bike of the Year awards, when six of the 15 participating magazines gave it top marks, leading to a runaway win with more than double the number of votes of the runner-up Yamaha R6. “Winning the International Bke of the Year award is a superb achievement for Triumph, and we’re extremely proud of the bike we have created,” says the company’s Commercial Director, Tue Mantoni. “The 675 Daytona has won almost every Supersport comparison test going, and we’re confident it’ll continue to achieve great things in 2007.” A Speed Triple 675 Naked version is expected to be launched later this year, with a 1600cc parallel-twin cruiser mainly aimed at the US market believed to be next up in Triumph’s new model roster.

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Another in the range of several well-produced bike books that have recently been published is Simon de Burton’s ‘The New Motorcycle Year Book 2: The Definitive Annual Guide to All New Motorcycles Worldwide’ published in the UK by Merrell at GBP 24.95 under ISBN 1-85894-338-8. That mouthful of a title says it all, really – for this is the second substantial and weighty volume in an annual series covering 100 of the new bikes introduced in 2006, primarily (though not exclusively) as 2007 models. As such, it attempts to be a kind of Motocourse for the street (well, some dirt, too), an aim it largely succeeds in meeting thanks to the well-chosen selection of models and the reasonably good photos used to illustrate them, which do however suffer from a lack of consistency. Some layouts are too obviously plucked from the manufacturer’s press kit – Japanese bikes are the worst offenders, typified by the layout for the Kawasaki ER-6, which manages to make one of the most individual looking J-bikes of recent years appear unbelievably bland. European models fare much better, with the studio shots for bikes like the MV Agusta Brutale 901R, Italjet Grifon or Ducati Monster S4Rs delectable enough to set any enthusiast into lip-licking mode - so as a visual record of the bikes that appeared in 2006, NMY 2 does the business.

De Burton’s text consists of around 250 words on each bike, with a skeletal specification panel which contains all you really need to know about it technically. With so few words at his disposal the entries would have benefited from being more tightly written and thus more genuinely informative, as well as from the attentions of a copy editor who might have picked up the several errors of fact in the text. Hyosung is a Korean company, not a Chinese one. Piero (not Pierro) Ferrari does not work for ‘the legendary Italian sports-car manufacturer’ (Which - the one with his dad’s name on? But don’t they do a bit of racing, too…?), but has his own quite separate engineering company where the Terra Modena motor was created. James Toseland and Regis Laconi hadn’t been ‘thundering around some of the world’s most famous circuits during the SBK race series’ on the Xerox Ducati 999 for more than a year by the book was published in October 2006 (and while he did so, Toseland won the 2004 World Superbike title on such a bike, which might have been thought worthy of mention) – Troy Bayliss was the man to link with this street spinoff. And so on – basically, what we have here is quite a decent picture book that it’ll be nice to pull down from the shelves to take a walk down memory lane with in future years, but with too short a text for each bike that is rather anodyne and not always entirely accurate. Depends how much you’ll like looking at photos as to whether you should buy it.

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Michelin’s red guide books are compulsory equipment for anyone who spends any time at all travelling around Western Europe, and wants to find somewhere to eat or stay that’s guaranteed to meet the high standards of the French tyre company’s fleet of inspectors, without breaking the bank. Well – you CAN go for the three-star restaurants and five star hotels to be found in it, but generally the presence of these is well flagged without your having to consult the book. It’s the less well known, out of the way places that Michelin is so good at uncovering.

However, many bikers prefer to camp, and for those the Michelin Camping France 2007 guide celebrating its 50th anniversary this year is equally useful, and includes 3,000 campsites spread throughout France that cover all budgets and types of accommodation. This year's edition includes a new category of 295 family campsites, featuring playgrounds,  children's clubs, and  other equipment and activities tailored to the needs of younger kids, and is an invaluable tool for hunting down that elusive perfect site.

However, unquestionably the most useful Michelin travel tool – apart from a spare tyre, of course – is the ‘Charming Places 2007’ pair of guide books, one of course covering France, the other Italy. Each of these includes 1,000 small hotels and guesthouses, as well as places to eat - almost all reasonably priced and each one presented with a photo which allows you to work out why it was included in the book. Having stayed at many of the ones in the Italian guide I can vouch for its dependability – if it’s in Michelin, you don’t need to worry about comfort, good food or value for money. ‘Charming Places Italy’ is ISBN 978-2-06-712255-0 and France is 978-2-06-712253-6. Recommended.

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