‘THERE’S JUST NO POINT NOT BEING HONEST’
The Missenden Flyer on impartiality, searching for shoddy new bikes, and the downside of being vertically challenged
I’m often accused of only saying nice things about the bikes I review on my YouTube channel so that the people who lend me bikes to test will continue to do so. But what’s the point of that? It would make every review worthless. This accusation of partisan corporate gobbling is hardly new; magazines have been battling similar slurs for decades but it’s just as daft an accusation there, too. Reviews have no value if they’re not honest. In reality, I try rather hard to give my honest impression. More often than not, in the interests of balance and criticism, I have to indulge in extreme nit-picking to find things that fall below par.
Things like the fugly great exhaust on the current GSX-R1000, or the fact that you can’t put a helmet in the panniers on Yamaha’s Tracer 900GT take on more significance in my reviews than, perhaps, these otherwise excellent bikes deserve. My least favourite bike I’ve ridden recently is the 2018 Triumph Tiger 1200 XCA. I found it too big and heavy for my 5ft 8in frame and just didn’t get on with it in the same way as I have with my BMW R1200GS. The big Tiger still rides well, has a strong and characterful engine, advanced suspension, great handling, supreme comfort and one of the most comprehensive electronics packages seen in a modern bike. So by any fair measure it can’t be described as a bad bike. But that doesn’t mean I like it. It lacks a little finesse, carries its weight rather too high, and is too lardy for a fella of my size to push around his driveway. But that’s unlikely to bother you if you happen to be Dutch (reputed to be the tallest motorcyclists in the world). We’re in a golden era, spoilt by such a huge and enticing range of brands and styles of bike. It’s a tragedy then that the complex bike test regime, lack of government support for motorbikes, perceived high prices and negative national press coverage all conspire to mean fewer and fewer new people are getting into biking, leaving mostly a diminishing pool of us old geezers. It’s a shame, as there really are so few bad new bikes to deter newcomers joining the fold.