motorcycle

Adventures goes on

Posted by gozamite on 2.6.2022
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycle. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Springtime was so short! It started in the end of April and soon in May you will start to feel like it’s summer already. And I had so many ideas about new possible routes for transeurotrail.
First idea was to make additional route Helsinki – Turku. There was already one but it was going from Turku to the TET route and to connect to it in Räyskälä (almost 100km away from Helsinki). So I started to check my plans in the beginning of May.

Here I’m riding the few possible selections Between Karjaa & Perniö and also all the way to Teijo ironworks area. I made second checking ride a week later and I was checking the possible routes between Salo and Lieto. I found only private yards and tracks that were impossible to ride.

The new update for the TET route was made on 13th of May!
On that same day I was riding again! For that ride I found interesting start From Karjalohja: A very small ridgeroad going between two lakes (Kannaksentie) -but there are quite many summercottages on the way, I’m not going there again.

The part in the end of this video comes to Ruonankorventie that I have recommended to quite many riders that they should check this. I was riding from Lohiojanie to Lemmulantie and then to Ruonankorventie.
On May 15th I was inviting riders to make a group-ride to Iso-valkee and 15 bikes came to make a very nice ride together!! You can see some pictures here! I made also a video:

Then in the end of May (Helatorstai/ Ascension Day) I made a ride to check some small roads and tracks on Hanko Peninsula. Found some very good ones! Here’s the video:

Waiting to ride again!!

New bikes for 2022

Posted by gozamite on 1.1.2022
Posted in: adventure bike, dirt bike, enduro, Honda, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Eicma 2021 was in November but there was not too many interesting bikes.
Now when we are already in 2022 it is interesting anyway to look the newcomers for this year.

1. Aprilila Tuareg 660
This bike is coming straight to the same category than Yamaha T700 so it will not be easy to find buyers… Or is it? The adventure segment is growing fast, more and more new bikers starting their adventures every day/ week!

80hp – 70Nm – 187kg – Seat height 86cm – 18 L tank

2. MV Agusta Lucky Explorer 9.5
This one is not coming to the stores yet in 2022. But it proves that all manufactures really are interested about this adventure segment. Maybe even more interesting is the little brother Lucky Explorer 5.5

125hp – 85Nm – 220kg – 85cm seat height – 20 L tank

3. Honda NT1100
It’s quite long time since Honda had an affordable big touring bike. This new NT 1100 will be filling the missing gap. It has the same engine than 1100 Africa Twin but after that pretty much everything is different.

100hp – 104Nm – 238kg – 82cm Seat height – 20,4 L tank

5. Harley Davidson Pan America 1250
This bike is been in stores allready for awhile and there is a lot of test riding videos of this bike!
But it is so BIG newcomer and remarkable new model to the market. Everybody’s even saying that it is not bad at all! It is actually very good!! Harley Davidson has now an Adventure Bike!

150hp – 127Nm – 240kg – 79cm Seat height – 21,2 L tank

New S1000R

Posted by gozamite on 25.11.2020
Posted in: BMW motorrad, BMW S1000R, Extreme ride, Make life a ride!, motorcycle. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

In 2013 BMW introduced this naked superbike!
And when I saw it in Helsinki Motorcycle exhibition I simply had to have one! It was my first motorcycle I bought as a new one.
Then 2015 came the XR with same engine but totally different bike and the generation 2 was introduced first to the XR and now 1 year later comes totally new S1000R:

S1000R 2021

It has same engine that XR has. So no shift-cam technology. Same 165hp and 114Nm torque. But it is lighter than previous S1000R (199kg)!
So when Kawasaki & Ducati made super naked bikes with over 200hp -BMW decided NOT to go along in this kind of race. BMW thinks the real race is on the racetrack or in the streets.

Basic White Yellow
M Motorsport paintwork

This new S1000R has some nice options in it! Here’s the list:
Three riding modes, Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) and ABS Pro as standard. Optional equipment “Riding Modes Pro” with riding mode “Dynamic Pro”, Dynamic Brake Control (DBC), engine drag torque control, MSR, “Engine Brake” and “Power Wheelie.
The swingarm comes almost straight from S1000RR so this is one step closer to a racebike. And BMW promises it will be very fast and enjoyable ride!
Who are we to question this?

Tiger 900 Rally Pro testride

Posted by gozamite on 25.5.2020
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycle, Off-Road, test-ride, Triumph. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Took a short testride today. Even I knew this is going to be great bike I was still surprised! What an amazing bike!
The engine is marvellous! It gives smooth power already from 2000rpm and it sounds very nice too.

Already OffRoading…

The suspension is totally with manual adjustments but it seems it made me very happy with the factory defaults (I’m 120kg’s!) And that is rare. I was also very happy with the riding position even when I was standing. Maybe I would add 2cm’s to the height of the handlebar if I would be the owner of the bike.

The bike doesn’t look very special… Except the spoked wheels are very nice!

This bike would be big enough for me and for my wife. The power is ofcourse much smaller than in XR but I think I could manage with it.
I did find ONE thing I didn’t like! When you’re filling the tank the lid of the tank doesn’t stay up! So when you take the gaspump you have to lift the lid up with your other hand to get the gas to the tank… Not very big thing but it made me think how easy it would be to change this!
One interesting thing was the rpm meter in the TFT-screen! There was 2 of them!!! One on the left side and then another on the right side of the TFT…
It seems they had (too much) space in the TFT screen to put it there twice 😉

Keimola race track (or it was a race track)

S1000XR 2020 review

Posted by gozamite on 14.5.2020
Posted in: adventure bike, BMW, BMW motorrad, BMW S1000XR, motorcycle, motorrad, OneworldOneXR, S1000XR, test-ride. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

Today I took the testride with the S1000XR (New 2020 model). My wife was there with me so she could give some opinions about the rear seat and how the bike feels from her POW.

IceGrey BMW S1000XR

When you sit on the bike you can notice right away that the seat feels quite different. It’s more narrow and the edges are too sharp. Luckily I’m quite tall and my knees are coming quite high so I don’t feel this sharp edge almost at all. In my 150km testride I didn’t feel uncomfortable and I could ride longer trips easily!

#OneWorldOneXR

Then I notice the narrow handlebar. But it doesn’t bother me at all! Maybe I should’ve gone to some heavy traffic where you need to use the maximum steering… But in this kind of normal street riding it didn’t bother me (Even I like the wide bar of the old XR!)

Boxroad in Sipoo Finland

The bike feels maybe little bit lighter, it feels like it wants to take the corners tighter and faster -it reminded me about S1000R that I was riding back in 2014. All the buzz or vibration is gone from the handlebars but there was few times when I felt a little bit of buzz in the bike itself -somewhere around 4000rpm.

Spjutsund pier

Since I have owned already 3 XR’s it makes me think “Is this bike really so much better than my old XR?” The price of the new bike is about 4000 euros higher. Is it worth it?
I think there is 2 correct answers to this question!
1) No it is not worth it! Keep the old one and you will be very happy with it!
2) Yes definitely! They made it little bit better, little bit more unique and little more nice in every way (except maybe the seat!)

Bike by the sea

My wife didn’t like the backseat of the bike. She thought it was too short and the handlers for her were too short also. They should go further behind the seat.
One thing I found very interesting! There was 1 page in this new TFT screen where you can see the leaning angle of the bike… I think I would be staring this page only… all the time! Or at least when I’m riding in the curvy road.

It will be mine, someday!

Thank you Biketeam Vantaa for making this testride possible.

Enduroride April 19th

Posted by gozamite on 20.4.2020
Posted in: actioncamera, adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

We don’t have a lockdown in Finland. We are allowed to go out but meetings with more than 10 people is not ok. There was only 4 of us in a beautiful sunny weather and almost +10 degrees celsius. This time I didn’t choose any difficult tracks… and I finally made a video of this interesting route:

Old railroad track

This was a narrow railroad in Finland and it stopped working in 1967. But the track has stayed and it’s kind of in use as a road. But for example now in spring it can be tricky if there is still snow (and there was!!)
Unluckily my riding ended with the flat front tyre in Karkkila (65 km’s from home).

I was lucky that there was one big bike (KTM 1090 Adventure) so I could take a ride with him back home and then I picked my bike with my big car…

MP Messut 2020

Posted by gozamite on 31.1.2020
Posted in: BMW motorrad, Ducati, Honda, kawasaki, KTM, motorcycle, motorcycling, S1000XR, Triumph, yamaha. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Motorcycle Exhibition in Helsinki 2020

Here are the most interesting new bikes (my opinion):

1. Suzuki V-Strom 1050
New V-Strom has design that reminds a lot the old DR 800 (and 750) adventure-bike from 80’s and 90’s. Now it has 1037cc V-Twin engine with 107 HP.

V-Strom 1050

2. BMW F900R & F900XR
1 year ago BMW brought new 850cc engine and now they made it even bigger! This new parallel-twin gives 105 HP and XR version makes nice small brother for the S1000XR adventure bike!

F900R
F900XR

3. Ducati Streetfighter V4
Ducati is now officially “the king of naked bikes”. This amazing bike has 208 HP and the bike weights only 180kg!!
You can update the exhaust and the bike will have even 220 HP!!!

4. Harley Davidson Livewire
HD makes a big surprise for quite many! It is bringing full electric bike with very reasonable price!! You can ride more than 200 km’s with one charge. And it’s totally silent.

HD Livewire

I spent few hours in MP Messut 2020 and took quite many pictures.
Here you can check my pictures.

New BMW S1000XR

Posted by gozamite on 9.11.2019
Posted in: BMW, BMW motorrad, Make life a ride!, motorcycle, motorrad, S1000XR. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

BMW Motorrad made a quite big miracle when no-one shared any pictures about new model. So it was first time for all of us on November 5th 10 am when they released the new models: BMW S1000XR, BMW F900XR and BMW F900R. Here is the video of BMW Motorrad Press Conference at EICMA 2019.

First time for everyone to see the new models

There was few surprises in technical specs of the new XR. It has the same engine than the new RR has but does not have the Shift Cam technology. I asked about this from BMW Motorrad and they answered like this:
“Hi Gozamite. There will be no ShiftCam technology. Above all, since this technology offers great possibilities for achieving maximum engine performance, the use of a ShiftCam has no advantages due to the specific demands on the full midrange power curve in the XR engine. In addition, additional weight could be saved in this way, which benefits the agility of the entire vehicle.“

BMW S1000XR (Red color with Carbon details)

Second surprise was that even the bike has new engine it doesn’t have more power than previous model! The consumption is also about the same. So for all those who were waiting much more powerful bike this is a big disappoinment!

S1000XR (Ice Grey color with carbon details)

But the new model looks very nice. I don’t like the color options too much. So I’m thinking I will not change to this yet…. But you never know, maybe I can’t say no when I will see the bike in february in Helsinki.

Testride Triumph Scrambler 1200

Posted by gozamite on 9.6.2019
Posted in: adventure bike, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycle, motorrad, Off-Road, test-ride. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Triumph brought totally new models with 1200 twin engine. It has nice 90 hp -which doesn’t sound much but in this kind of bike it’s more than enough.

rrem

Even I didn’t have real knubble tires I felt the calling! “Go to the gravel! Go to the forest!” -It was shouting… And I did.

This is bike is definitely at home when riding in gravel!

It’s totally the best bike that I have ever been riding in the gravelroad! It is too heavy to take Off-Road but I don’t really miss that anymore.
The seat should be softer and it should have better design. I could feel my ass wouldn’t like this after 200km’s!

MP Messut 2019

Posted by gozamite on 2.2.2019
Posted in: BMW motorrad, enduro, Honda, KTM, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle, motorcycling. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Helsinki Motorcycle exhibition 2019

This time it was very interesting! There was so many new models it felt like there’s no time enough to get to know all of them. Luckily I’m not a big fan of sportbikes… So few bikes wasn’t so interesting to me.

1. KTM 790 Adventure
Maybe the biggest group of interested viewers was around this bike. It’s no wonder. The bike looks very good! It has hew parallel twin engine that KTM introduced last year. The engine has little bit less power than in 790 Duke but of course the torque is better is all rpm’s. Bike has almost all possible electronics: traction control, cornering abs, offroad abs, ridemodes and so on. It has 20 litres tank that gives the bike easily more than 400 km’s range on the road. Tank is placed around the engine so the center of gravity is very low. Price for this bike is 18500€ in Finland!

Tank around engine
It was difficult to take pictures of this bike! There was so much people all around it all the time.

2. Yamaha 700 Tenere
Another adventurebike but totally different kind of idea! This is simple, not too much electronics and it looks more ready for an OffRoad ride! It’s almost 6000€ cheaper than KTM! The final price is still open but they said it will not be more than 12800€! 200mm travel is not much but they’ve tested this bike quite long time so I guess they think it’s enough. 16 liters tank gives this bike more than 300 km’s range.

It should’ve been white-red bike in the show!
But this look very good! It calls me to make an offroad ride right now!

3. BMW R1250GS
And here is another adventurebike but yet again totally different kind of thinking. This is legend of all touring/ adventurebikes but now it has bigger engine, more power and torque and it’s again more expensive. It has simply everything you can ever imagine the bike could have… -Ok, no reverse gear or automatic gearbox but anyway.
The price for adventure version is more than 31000€ in Finland

Big bike to make long rides and tours

4. Suzuki Katana 
Suzuki makes a nice return to interesting and “modern” bikes. But the funny thing is that the design is very retro when it is based on 80’s Katana.
The engine they take from GSX-S1000F so it delivers very nice power and easy riding. And the way it looks it will always give strong feelings to all pure motorcyclists!

Katana

5. Triumph 1200 SpeedTwin
Triumph presents new line with 1200 Twin engine. The bike still looks totally retro but the engine is now more like modern and sporty. It delivers 96 hp with 112Nm torque in 4950rpm. Compare this with T100 engine: 64hp and 80Nm in 3800rpm -you can say that there is a big difference.

SpeedTwin

You can see more pictures here.