The trickle-down of race-bred technology, developed by genius racers like Valentino Rossi, is less of trickle now and more of an ever-widening hole in the dam of technical progression, pouring its way from racetrack to showroom by the following year. (Although, that dam is being rapidly plugged by accountants’ fingers and exponentially restrictive emission regulations. But that’s another story.)

Now most bikes feature some form of calming technology that allow you to change engine characteristics via different fuel maps. Many bikes feature some form of ABS now, ranging from simple wheel-speed sensors to slightly more complicated systems. This isn’t new anymore. However it gets better and better and, after this year, will no longer be a dirty word among biking purists. And traction control has been talked a lot, but makers of true sportsbikes are reluctant to embrace the technology in their production bikes. Yet no rider can watch Casey Stoner barrelling into a corner during a MotoGP race, pinning the throttle wide open, his faith fully in the Ducati traction control, and not want a piece of that. Let’s face it, the average weekend warrior can’t get anywhere near the full power of his litre superbike, and all have had one of those terrifying moments where it’s scared the bejesus out of them, whether they’ll admit it or not.

Sportsbikes have developed to a point where we just don’t need anymore power; what we now need is a way to actually enjoy our bike and play with its potential within our own, different comfort zones. We want to pretend to be Stoner or Rossi.

This year the focus has shifted instead towards manufacturers whose bikes have always been great but regarded as niche machines, dominating niche genres, or luxury playthings, expensive and temperamental. It’s BMW and Ducati in the spotlight in 2010 – two companies unashamedly embracing the GP toys we want to play with.

BMW, known for making off-road battleships like the R1200 GS, have left bike journos aghast with the new 192bhp S1000RR supersports bike (read that again: 192bhp, in a 204kg machine!). It’s already being lauded as the best litre bike you can buy, and ride on the road. Part, if not most, of this is down to the kind of development you’d expect from BMW, once they decided to use their technical knowledge of building the best off-road bikes to develop a proper sportsbike. The engine is a vanguard of technical progression, and the chassis it sits in is a mathematical masterpiece. But what elevates the S1000RR above the Big Four’s offerings is its full-on ABS and traction control systems, integrated into an electronics package that’s so clever it probably updates your Facebook page when you get your knee down.

No other manufacturer has plunged so deep into this technology. They’ve jumped into the hole we expected Honda to fill. The BMW has four switchable modes: Rain, Sport, Race and Slick. The first two are all you need on the road; the latter two unleash more power and loosen off the safety systems a bit. And this is where the genius lies – unlike any of the existing, relatively crude traction control systems (Kawasaki’s new 1400GTR, Ducati’s 1098R…), the Beemer system not only measures throttle input, wheel spin, possibly sphincter dilation, but also lean angle. This is a first in a production bike. In Rain mode it will take over your ham-fisted throttle control once you lean past 38 degrees. Sport and Race mode give you 45 degrees to play with before it starts questioning what you’re doing with your right wrist. And Slick mode, obviously for when its shod in slicks and can lean further, goes to Rossi-mimicking 53 degrees. Clever stuff.

The biggest surprise of the year however, and the bike that sets a precedent – not only for the manufacturer and its future models but for everyone else – is the new Ducati Multistrada 1200. Here is a bike that raises the game significantly by creating four machines in one, not just four different engine characteristics. Actually, it’s 16 bikes in one, but I’ll get to that. This is the small Italian firm’s most important bike to date, at their own admission, and the bike that could change perceptions of Ducatis as being unreliable, agricultural, noisy track toys that need servicing every weekend.

The new ‘Strada joins a class of gadget festooned trailies, like the 2010 BMW R12000GS and the forthcoming Yamaha Tenere, but brings with it the technology to transform itself into a road bike, a tourer, an off-road mud plugger and a city bike. It also features four mode settings, flickable at the handlebar, but these settings alter the suspension set-up, as well as the power delivery and ABS sensitivity. It truly is a remarkable piece of kit, for so many reasons.

The fact Ducati have increased the engine mileage before servicing instantly makes a Duke more affordable and more attractive. And you can expect all the developments on this bike to make their way to other Ducati models very soon. But the fact you can flick between the perfect city bike – softer suspension for potholes, tempered throttle response, highly sensitive ABS – to a full-power Sport mode – taut suspension, all 150bhp, medium ABS sensitivity – is a revelation. Want to head off up that firetrail? Hit Enduro mode and the ABS drops to well-relaxed, the suspension extends and the power switches to one of three power curves.

And it’s all tweakable, so you can choose full 150bhp off-road if you plan on doing the Dakar, or not. In fact, each of the four modes allows you to also select solo or pillion, with or without luggage, making sixteen factory suspension settings, all of which you can programme into your four modes. If you’re not happy with Ducati’s chosen parameters, you have 31 damping settings to play with on the forks and 16 degrees of rebound on the rear shock.

The £10,995 base model doesn’t feature the electronic suspension, and the ABS is a £700 option. The four modes alter engine mapping only. But most UK deposits have been put down on the full-featured £14,295 S Touring model or S Sport model. The Touring comes with panniers, heated grips and a centre stand while the Sport gets carbon fibre trinkets.

I’d buy one based on looks alone, but this underlying controllable schizophrenic nature is the future, and I find it very exciting. Although, I probably shouldn’t at the moment: I now have to go outside and deal with my Audi, which is currently switching its lights on and opening the windows when it fancies, after getting rainwater into its Comfort Control Module a few weeks ago.

Hmmmm

The post Techno Philia appeared first on Influx Magazine.

Rich Beach explores the Italian penchant for two wheeled style

Passion. Italians have it in spades. In fact, where we are all made of 3/4 water, the Italians are 75% pure passion. Passion flows through everything they do, from throwing a dish together, constructing an argument to building a motorcycle.

And the difference between Italians and the rest of their European brethren is starkly apparent when you have to sit through a pre-launch presentation from say, the press office of BMW motorcycles. Here, you’ll be efficiently bombarded with fact after German fact, number after number, dry weight, rake angle, torque curves… The spiel from a Japanese manufacturer will consist meanwhile of mind-bending new technology and nano-scale efficiency improvements, although admittedly with much talk of spirit. Honda is always particularly keen to remind we hacks of the spirit within their machines – albeit in a Zen kind of way.

But then you go to Italy, where a small almost cottage industry manufacturer (yes, Ducati is a cottage industry if you compare them to the Japanese), tucked away in the rolling countryside are releasing their latest machine – a machine designed with passion, powered by desire and marketed with dreamy, oozy desire.

Moto Guzzi's beautiful Falcone of 1950

Outside the gates of the Moto Guzzi factory, in the tiny little picture postcard village of Mandello del Lario, the company’s slogan reads: The Winds of Passion (in Italian). Now, I won’t be so crude and repeat the interpretation some visiting bike journalists and myself made of this. Let’s just say we sniggered. But that was before we went inside and were stunned silent with awe as we were led around the museum filled with historic Guzzis. The only winds of passion came from the mouths of each employee we spoke to about their life dedicated to the town’s iconic marque. This was the factory their father dutifully toiled for, and his father before him. For each of them, it genuinely appeared to be an honour to work there.

The Germans and Japanese, also of course, have museums of motorcycle development. But in each case it feels just that – a pristine display of their ever forward marching progression. Inside the Italian factories on the other hand, it feels more like the scribbled pages of Da Vinci’s notebook, a scrapbook of ideas and family memories, faded pages and curled corners to boot. The history envelops you and, despite their current bikes’ modern technology, you still feel the weight of the history of the marque riding pillion with you. You get a feel for this inexplicable quality that is this ‘passion’, the joy. You experience it as you ride a Guzzi, or Ducati, Aprilia or even an MV Agusta.

MV Agusta is the ultimate Italian motorcycle marque. This 860 is one of our favourites

Italian’s don’t make food, cars or motorcycles; they make love. When you hand over £40-50,000 for a Ducati Desmosedeci RR – probably the sexiest, most desirable production supersports bike in the world, you’re riding a piece of highly efficient 200+mph, 170kg, carbon fibre filth. You dirty pervert you.

And it’s no coincidence the greatest motorcycle racer the world has seen is Italian. Valentino Rossi is storming towards his 9th World Champion title, despite the efforts of his Spanish and Australian title contenders. Not enough passion you see. No one celebrates a win, engages the public or showboats like Vale. He doesn’t like easy wins and he respects, not hates, anyone who can beat him. He’d do it if he didn’t get paid. Because of the passion.

If only the classic Italian automobilia were as reliable and consistent as Rossi. Which is a point that seems to prove the indubitable power of passion – if vintage, and even not-so-vintage Alfas or Ducatis, are renowned for breaking down, or suffering problems, which they are, then what is the attraction if a Jap machine will run and run and run?

The difference is, the enthusiastas of the rich and frustrating world of Italian machinery know full well that to keep a beautiful motorcycle, or car, in good order, they must dedicate time, affection and constant maintenance to her. Just like the young Sophie Loren – she’s beautiful but highly-strung. Most importantly, she requires regular, attentive, passionate, extensive, joyous and expert servicing.

Give her these things and she will make you feel like God.

The post Italian Motorcycles: Winds of Passion appeared first on Influx Magazine.

I had arrived in my far-from-classic Audi A3. I like my car, a lot. It goes very well, rarely has any problems, has air-con and fuel injection and starts first time, every time.

Steve’s Sunbeam, on the other hand, always had problems, the air-con was the roof, off, and it never started first time – sometimes not at all. But he loves it, probably more than I love my Audi.

What is this madness that makes normally sane people become irrational about a car simply because it’s old? Maybe it has nothing to do with its age, but how it looks. Maybe, like the one-eyed, three-legged dog in an animal rescue centre, you simply have to take it home and dedicate your life to it, nursing it along for other reasons, rational or otherwise.

Perhaps owning a classic is a charitable act, keeping old dogs alive. I asked Steve later when we were all sat round the table… “I’d always wanted one, ever since I was a kid,” he told us. And that’s an answer many classic owners will offer, be it about a historic classic, classic or modern classic.

And therein lies the big question: what makes a classic a classic? For road tax purposes, anything registered before 1973 is tax exempt and regarded as a classic. (That’s the year I was born. Why can’t I be tax exempt?) According to HM Revenue and Customs, anything over 15-years old is regarded as a classic, meaning the cars I grew up with, like the Opel Manta, the Sierra XR4i, Renault 5 Turbo, are all classics too.

But be very careful to whom you say that… Peter Skinner of the Karmann Ghia Owners Club has his own reasons for loving old dogs: “I’m an engineer and like engineering solutions. For me the Karmann Ghia, and of the course the Beetle it’s based upon, is a wonderful tour de force of engineering.”

Now this makes sense to me. The Beetle was indeed ahead of its time in terms of functional engineering solutions. “I’m interested in how the designers arrived at these engineering solutions,” Skinner continues. “The Beetle was a clever, utilitarian solution.” But then the classic madness appears: “But I do also own a Citroen DS which, in comparison, is a dog’s breakfast underneath; a heap of crap that won’t start either. But I love them for it.” Oh dear, and it was going so well...

Graham Searle, who runs the Jaguar Enthusiast Club, has owned over 60 Jags, and there’s nothing his doctor can do for him either. His reasoning for the one-eyed, three-legged dog ownership stands up a little more simply because, well, they’re Jags. “Jaguars were automatically called a classic when they were made,” he says. “But what really defines a classic is far from tangible. There are official definitions of ‘classic’ but everyone has their own meaning. For me it was those childhood memories, the strongest memories, of a neighbour’s MkII Jag.

Nostalgia is a big part of it, regardless of how far back you look or how old you are. It’s all the same emotion, of harking back to better days, regardless of whether they were actually better or not. Classics are different. Modern cars all look alike. They’re boring. I remember when snooker was in its heyday and there was the boring but brilliant Steve Davis, with little charm or personality. And at the other end was the obnoxious, arrogant, unreliable Hurricane Higgins. But it the one who had the character, or rather the character flaws, that was the most interesting.”

Steve Garret, owner of a mint 1980 Escort XR3i, always to be found polishing it in his drive down the road from my house, also talks about the nostalgia: “I grew up watching the bloke across the road polishing his XR3i and dreaming of one day owning one. I didn’t realise it’d take over 25-years before I would.” And his car is nearly 30-years old now, so it must a classic, right? “Of course it is,” he says, “regardless of anyone else’s definition, this is my classic right here, because I have the same feelings of nostalgia for it as Old Charlie and his Austin Healey. It’s no different. And just look at it…

Car manufacturers are still trying to reassemble the DNA in the right order to create the same emotions this car did when it was launched. And they’re struggling.” That evening, at Mark and Liisa’s, came to a close and Steve offered to drop me home as I had been drinking. Foolishly he’d parked the Sunbeam nose first on a slope, where he needed to back-up. It was about 11.30pm, in a densely populated residential estate. The cacophony of noise as he repeatedly attempted to start the car and keep it from bogging down and stalling as he attempted a reverse hill start, was embarrassing, to say the least.

After ten minutes, now illuminated by the numerous windows around us, each filled with a curious and weary face, he managed to back out of the space. Another five minutes of bicep-pumping 20-point turns, and we popped and banged away with a wave, amidst a chorus of cheers. And not angry cheers, but amused and probably pitying cheers. As I got out at my house five minutes later and watched him roar away, I found myself muttering, “I’d love one of those.” I immediately went inside and repeatedly slammed my head in a cupboard door until the madness had gone.

Author Rich Beach and his other, slightly more classic, ride.

The post Necessary Madness: Confessions of a Reluctant Classicist appeared first on Influx Magazine.

I’m ‘driving’ a modern, grown-up’s car. I’m wrapped in protective acronyms: ABS, DSP, EBD, ESP… I’m cosseted by moron-technology, anesthetised by invisible safety systems, wrapped in a hidden duvet of sound-deadening. Yet my soul is seeping out through the Dual Electronic Automatic Climate Control system.

Suddenly, as I approach the local college, a flash of vibrancy darts past me: two beaming smiles from inside a silver Peugeot 106 Quiky and I watch in my Self-Dimming Rear View Mirror as it skits with flighty excitement around the roundabout I don’t recall just navigating (because of my Intelligent Heliomagnetic Dampers).

Before my car gets me to my home – which is pre-programmed into the MMI GPS – I pass a red Citroen Saxo VTS and watch the giddy joy of it’s occupants, enjoying the thrills of car ownership and the visceral ‘feeling’ of real driving. Feeling? Is feeling something you get from heated-seats or the pressure on your forefinger as you apply the Electromechanical Handbrake.

No it isn’t. If I recall, it was what I felt when my first car – a Vauxhall Viva 1300 GLS (with black vinyl roof) – lifted off around a corner because I had no idea how to pilot a rear-wheel drive. That was a feeling. As was the tension as you build up momentum on a downhill just to overtake a lorry a mile in the distance. Proper driving. But today, if ever there was a better car than a Saxo or 106 to enter the slipway of motoring life, I can’t think of one. When the PSA Peugeot Citroen group refreshed its 106 pocket-hatch in 1996 and launched the Saxo off the same platform, the ripples travelled far and wide crossing gender and class boundaries and leaving an indelible mark on a generation of fortunate youth.

Once my carputer delivered me home, fetched my slippers and put the kettle on, I hit the forums on 106owners.co.uk and saxperience.co.uk to see what I was missing out on, having never owned a Saxo or series II 106. The uber helpful and friendly folk inhabiting these two forums gave me an education:

Ari33 // Peugeot 106 1.6 GTI

“The 106 GTI in standard form is probably the best value-for-money hot hatch you can buy. Its list of accolades are huge: being voted the 2nd best handling car in the world on Top Gear by rally legend Richard Burns and touring car pro Tim Harvey in 1998 - beaten only by the Ferrari 575 Maranello! Although not particularly powerful in comparison to the modern hot hatches, its low weight (950kg) gives it a power-to-weight ratio that enables it to punch far above its status. It’s one of a very few Front Wheel Drive cars gifted with what’s been described as the perfect FWD chassis balance: you can steer it on the throttle and, in the hands of an experienced and skilled driver, use its lift-off oversteer to provoke the rear end to drift out in a perfectly controllable fashion. What a chassis!”

Well put Mr Ari33. It seems there’s a lot to be learnt from owning these cars. Where a modern car might improve your IT skills (just to find the heater controls), the brilliant featherweight French hatches seem to be rolling universities offering a bachelors degree in the school of life. Here’s the curriculum:

//PHYSICS//

Ari33 // Peugeot 106 1.6 GTI
“With a skilled driver on a twisty country road the 106 GTI can hold its own against just about anything. It’s a real drivers car. Very involving. It feels like it wants you to hustle it. Once familiar with the chassis and its abilities you always know what it’s doing, how close you are to the grip thresholds and even the power steering provides very good feedback. I've never driven a car in the same price range that offers as much driver involvement.”

Steviee90 // Saxo VTR
“They handle brilliantly. The VTR/VTS can really teach you how to drive as they’re sportier and you need to learn a bit more about driving if you have one.”

Jonny-R // Peugeot 106 Zest
“Affordable, raw, French fun. Handling can be improved easily giving a lightweight hot hatch that is easy and fairly predictable to chuck around with just a hint of lift off oversteer to keep you on your toes. The engines all perform well for their size, wanting to be worked hard through country lanes where it performs best.”

Fidge // Saxo Desire
“Great fun to drive, easy to handle, likes going round the twisties.”

MrHouston // modified 1.0 Saxo
“It handles like a go-kart. What more could a young lad want?”

MECHANICS

Jaytee // Saxo VTR
“They're a brilliant first car as they’re fairly easy to fix if they go wrong and you learn about the various mechanical and general maintenance jobs that go along with owning a car. Before I had one I had no mechanical knowledge at all. Now I feel I could do various jobs on my car myself.”

Jonny-R // Peugeot 106 Zest
“Working on them is reminiscent of playing with Meccano: everything is so easy to bolt on and off. The scope for setting your car up exactly how you want it to perform is endless with so many aftermarket parts. When things break, which is a given, the abundance of cheap parts means you're not off the road for long and is all part of the fun.”

Hazmanscoop // 106 Quiksilver
The simplicity of the car is what makes it so good. I was a biker before and worked on them but I had no clue about cars. The Pug likes to break now and again which I’ve never seen as a bad thing but another chance to learn something new.”

Nij // 106 Rallye
“One of the last cars the 'average Joe' can tinker with.”

SOCIAL POLITICS

Goodall3518 // Saxo VTS
“The vast amount of modifications available means it’s easy to inject some individualism and make your mark. But the best reason is the fact it brings people together in such clubs as Saxperience.”

Cj_99 // Saxo Furio
“The huge amount of knowledge that is out there helped me make my decision, always knowing that someone will know what the problem is as most people will have encountered it. Only downside is the perception that people still have about the Saxo, i.e. ‘Chavs’ and the endemic Mcdonalds car park culture. I never go there in my Saxo because all I get is grief.”

ECONOMICS

Ferg // Saxo VTS
“Cheap to buy; cheap to run; cheap to repair; cheap to insure… Bang for buck, you can't buy a lot quicker for the money.”

Adamski // Saxo VTR
“A high fun-per-pound ratio. The VTR was pretty specced out compared to other cars for the money. And InFlux was one of the best things about being insured with Adrian Flux!”
[Shucks – thanks Adamski]

ART & DESIGN
Djflipsaxo // Saxo Furio
“The first saxo I ever bought was a VTS simply because it looked so good (and was quick). Being a young lady I wanted a small car and this was ideal.”

Peugeot_maniac // 106 XR
What I love most about the 106 is its modesty and it's practicality. It can be a simple stylish family car or a finely-tuned beast. In some cases it can be both.

Chris91 // Saxo Desire
“The Saxo is one of the easiest to modify. This is what young drivers look for in a car. I know people think drivers in Saxos are boyracers but it's not about that at all. The Saxo is simply a really fun, nippy and good looking car to own.”

Shortstuff // 106 Quiksilver
“At first I was after a Renault Clio but after seeing a 106 Quiky I fell in love with them; they look so good, especially with the GTi kit.”

Nj106 // 106 Rallye
“Because one day I was walking out of the school gates and saw a Bianca White Series II 106 Rallye roll past and when my mates pointed at the car saying 'Wow - that's amazing!', my mind was set. That's enough to make anyone want a 106.”

HUMANTIES

Sax-oli // Saxo VTR
“Even old people like them as they’re easy to park!”

LVC_VTR // Saxo VTR
“Saxo = sexo! Except when you’re broken down on the M25 (dont publish that bit though)! [Don’t worry, LVC, mum’s the word.]

STR18 // 106 Rallye
“The girls have a ‘thing’ for a sexy S2 106.”

ETHICS

Mikol // Peugeot 106 XL
It’s not a Corsa!

There you have it. It’s no surprise Adrian Flux insured 14,673 Saxos and 106s last year. So assuming you had a few grand in the bank (Hah!), should you trade in a ten-year old Citroen Saxo or Peugeot 106, take up the government’s scrappage scheme offer, and swap for a brand new, hi-tech, environmentally friendly modern car? I don’t think so.

I’ll let forum bum ‘Jazz’ have the final word on these frisky French featherweights: “they simply capture the spirit of youth.”

By Rich Beach

The post Hail the (French) Spirit of Youth! appeared first on Influx Magazine.