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Assault and battery
I agree with Neil Milligan (Bike, March) – it’s good that Bike takes electric motorcycles seriously. And so you should. However, I do take issue with some of the central issues. Batteries are NOT environmentally friendly. Neil might have a home that allows for charging but many won’t (think bikers/ drivers in flats). Batteries rely on heavy metals mined mostly in Africa where vast areas have been devastated to feed the developed world’s demand. Like petrol we will run out of these raw materials if the whole world goes to battery (I don’t like the term electric) powered vehicles. And then there is the difficult task of recycling them. Back to square one.
But a hydrogen powered bike? Now you’re talking!
Daniel Connolly, email
Electric by stealth Looking at manufacturers such as
KTM and their adoption of saddlebag tanks – are they preparing us for the looks of an electric bike? Remove the exhaust on the new Monster and the clutch housing could be part of the electric motor, and the plastic that remains above could be the battery housing and ancillaries. Discuss…
And how do you continue to keep your magazine so packed full of interest during such difficult times? John Howard, email
It’s good for you
I’ve done fewer miles on my bike in the past 12 months than any year since I started riding in the 1980s. No rides to see the racing, no foreign trip with my mates, no long weekends in Wales, just a couple of days out and a few evening rides when lockdown allowed last summer. My Speed Triple’s MOT record says I’ve done less than 1000 miles. There’s only so much fiddling with projects you can do (though my GPZ750 rebuild has come on very well) before madness starts to set in.
I rode the bike to deliver something for work the other day and it felt absolutely liberating. I’d not really realised what an important part of de-stressing it was for me to get out, alone, on the bike. The whole Covid
catastrophe is raising a lot of questions around metal health and I’m absolutely sure that riding a bike is good for us. James Reid, email
Guzzi: don’t despair Guzzi riders everywhere must have been overwhelmed by the March issue. Not one, not two but three mentions in one issue! OK one was on the letters page… but it was the star letter. I thought the comment about Guzzi looking at sales figures and despairing was a bit harsh though. They are and always will be a niche brand, which is part of the appeal. I’m sure that the likes of Triumph and Enfield are not losing sleep.
I have been riding a Stelvio NTX for the past four years and enjoy its style and quirkiness, and my wife enjoys the comfort of the pillion seat having travelled all over Europe on it.
I wish Guzzi well with the V85 TT. I did try one but found it too light and twitchy in comparison with the 295kg behemoth that I have become used to. Who knows, a few more articles in your mag and the Guzzi despair might be turned around. Robin Welland-jones, email
Challenge by choice
I’d like to add something to the debate about tech that’s been growing in Bike’s letters pages: I think the growth of technical aids is great as long as choice remains and a ‘tech-enhanced’ ride can be just as pure as a nostalgic tech-free motorcycle.
I’ll explain. When the world isn’t scrambled I commute on a Z1000SX.
When it was new and ignoring my wife’s advice to stay at a friend’s I chanced a ride home with snow forecast. I ended up riding in the stuff (see photo). The tech kept me sunny side up before I saw reason and found a hotel and a pub.
On regular rides I configure the traction control to be there slightly and it allows me to push the boundaries of my riding with a safety element. I enjoy this as much as I enjoy occasionally fishtailing the rear of my other bike, a late ’90s TRX850, under heavy braking. Both are great but different riding experiences.
It’s not the tech that is at issue, but the removal of choice we need to fear. If the aids are ‘always on’ (as is the tendency with some new cars) then we will have definitely lost something. Jasper Hegarty-ditton, email
Ban the lot of them
Today was a pleasant, balmy, warm day in Surrey and there were lots of motorcycles, of all types, out and about. However, offsetting all this pleasantness was the ever present menace of unacceptable noise. And I’m talking the extremely violent hell-ish sounding noise of sports bikes with ‘racing cans’ accelerating and decelerating through small villages, visibly causing stress reactions from pedestrians, families and children. Our passion (I have a 2001 Yamaha FZS1000 EXUP Fazer) is being seriously compromised by a hard core of motorcyclists who think it’s their right to modify their machines to make extreme noise.
The industry and representative bodies have got to tackle this problem and there has to be a complete ban on illegal aftermarket exhausts/race-cans /where baffles can be easily removed.