BMF's News Round Up – February 2022
The month's top motorcycle stories, brought to you by the BMF
Our news round-up last month focused on the rebirth of BSA, which joins Triumph, Royal Enfield and Norton in the growing club of old British bike brands enjoying a new lease of life. The Crighton CR700 isn't one of those, but it is a brand-new British bike, heading for launch this year.
Remember the Norton rotary racers of the late 1980s and early '90s? They had a string of race wins including a Senior TT, before being banned from racing by the authorities. Well, now it looks like they're back. Brian Crighton, the man behind the racing rotaries, has carried on development, and teamed up with Dorset-based Rotron Power, which makes paramotors (motorised hang gliders). The CR700 promises the power to weight ratio of a MotoGP bike – 220bhp and 129.5kg – so it should be quite lively. The first batch will be legal for track days only, but a road legal version will follow in 2024.
If the Crighton is one of the last hurrahs for petrol-engined bikes, the green credentials of electric two-wheelers have just got another boost (if they needed one). Research by the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering found that an electric TorrotMuvi (made in Spain) has significantly lower CO2 emissions than the equivalent Suzuki Burgman 125, and that's taking everything into account – manufacturing, riding, servicing and recycling.
Motorcycle and scooter sales had a post-Covid recovery in early 2022, getting back to pre-Covid levels after a disastrous 2021. The bestselling bike in January 2022 was Honda's CRF 300 L trail bike, with nearly 200 finding homes, while Honda also topped the naked class with the CBF 125. Yamaha's Nmax 125 was the bestselling scooter. Royal Enfield's new Meteor 350 has also done well, topping the custom class.
Meanwhile, a committee of MPs has predicted that road pricing will replace fuel duty and road tax as our road transport goes electric. Why? Taxing petrol/diesel at the pumps is easy, but taxing electricity on a domestic supply is trickier. In the future, it's likely we'll all pay per mile driven/ridden, the cost per mile varying according to type of road, congestion and time of day.
Talking of high tech, two new radar developments surfaced in February. Many upmarket motorcycles already have a simple form of on-bike radar, to keep riders safe from cars with driver-assist features, but Piaggio unveiled a more powerful 4G 'active' system – it's not yet available on a bike, but it's on the way. And Parisian bikers are seeing a novel use for radar, as the city installed its first radar noise detectors – these can snap a picture of noisy cars, bikes and scooters as they pass, sending an automated fine to the owner.
The BMF has thrown its weight behind Mental Health Motorbike, a new mental health charity aimed specifically at bikers. “We lost a friend to suicide and decided we had to do something about it,” said founder Paul Oxborough. “Having been a motorcyclist for so long, I knew that community and thought that was a good place to start.” Mental Health Motorbike has trained 130 volunteers in mental health first aid, and is aiming to put another 1000 through its two-day course this year – www.mhmotorbike.com
And finally...for the motorcyclist who has everything, but is still worried about security, how about storing the bike underground? That's the Bault, a steel and concrete box placed under the garage floor, with a hydraulic lift to bring your bike to ground level whenever you want it. Trickier to install than a ground anchor, and at around £20,000 all in, a tad more expensive.
Written by Peter Henshaw – editor@bmf.co.uk
The month's top motorcycle stories, brought to you by the BMF
Our news round-up last month focused on the rebirth of BSA, which joins Triumph, Royal Enfield and Norton in the growing club of old British bike brands enjoying a new lease of life. The Crighton CR700 isn't one of those, but it is a brand-new British bike, heading for launch this year.
Remember the Norton rotary racers of the late 1980s and early '90s? They had a string of race wins including a Senior TT, before being banned from racing by the authorities. Well, now it looks like they're back. Brian Crighton, the man behind the racing rotaries, has carried on development, and teamed up with Dorset-based Rotron Power, which makes paramotors (motorised hang gliders). The CR700 promises the power to weight ratio of a MotoGP bike – 220bhp and 129.5kg – so it should be quite lively. The first batch will be legal for track days only, but a road legal version will follow in 2024.
If the Crighton is one of the last hurrahs for petrol-engined bikes, the green credentials of electric two-wheelers have just got another boost (if they needed one). Research by the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering found that an electric TorrotMuvi (made in Spain) has significantly lower CO2 emissions than the equivalent Suzuki Burgman 125, and that's taking everything into account – manufacturing, riding, servicing and recycling.
Motorcycle and scooter sales had a post-Covid recovery in early 2022, getting back to pre-Covid levels after a disastrous 2021. The bestselling bike in January 2022 was Honda's CRF 300 L trail bike, with nearly 200 finding homes, while Honda also topped the naked class with the CBF 125. Yamaha's Nmax 125 was the bestselling scooter. Royal Enfield's new Meteor 350 has also done well, topping the custom class.
Meanwhile, a committee of MPs has predicted that road pricing will replace fuel duty and road tax as our road transport goes electric. Why? Taxing petrol/diesel at the pumps is easy, but taxing electricity on a domestic supply is trickier. In the future, it's likely we'll all pay per mile driven/ridden, the cost per mile varying according to type of road, congestion and time of day.
Talking of high tech, two new radar developments surfaced in February. Many upmarket motorcycles already have a simple form of on-bike radar, to keep riders safe from cars with driver-assist features, but Piaggio unveiled a more powerful 4G 'active' system – it's not yet available on a bike, but it's on the way. And Parisian bikers are seeing a novel use for radar, as the city installed its first radar noise detectors – these can snap a picture of noisy cars, bikes and scooters as they pass, sending an automated fine to the owner.
The BMF has thrown its weight behind Mental Health Motorbike, a new mental health charity aimed specifically at bikers. “We lost a friend to suicide and decided we had to do something about it,” said founder Paul Oxborough. “Having been a motorcyclist for so long, I knew that community and thought that was a good place to start.” Mental Health Motorbike has trained 130 volunteers in mental health first aid, and is aiming to put another 1000 through its two-day course this year – www.mhmotorbike.com
And finally...for the motorcyclist who has everything, but is still worried about security, how about storing the bike underground? That's the Bault, a steel and concrete box placed under the garage floor, with a hydraulic lift to bring your bike to ground level whenever you want it. Trickier to install than a ground anchor, and at around £20,000 all in, a tad more expensive.
Written by Peter Henshaw – editor@bmf.co.uk