2013 Honda Crf150r on 2040-motos

Moto blog

Bahrain track days

A few months ago, expat (and ex racer) John Beddall made contact to ask if I fancied doing some track day instruction out in Bahrain.  After thinking about it for two seconds, flights were booked and a plan was put in place to look after around forty riders for a day at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).  Young Taylor Mac was also recruited to look after any tasty riders that I couldn’t deal with   The Brits out there love their bikes, however, quite a few locals also turned up plus a few others from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  Most were on high end Superbikes, like S1000s, Panigales and RSV4s but there was also a healthy number R6s and new 675Rs.   Although this fabulous Hermann Tilke designed circuit is around ten years old incredibly it has never hosted a bike race.  The highlight of the year there is F1 but being owned by the Bahrainian Royal family, there is no desperate need for the circuit to operate as a profitable business.  The track reminded me of Qatar but much more interesting as some great undulations have been built into its desert location. We shared the track with Supercars on the day (20mins on/20mins off) and as you might imagine it was betty swollocks for seven hours in the 30 plus temperatures.  As usual there was a few offs with poor old RS1000 Aprilia mounted Andy breaking his femur early in the day.  Two other buddies appeared to swap bikes mid air in another incident but fortunately escaped unhurt.In the evening everyone stayed for an al fresco dinner in the paddock with the craic going on for hours as the Fosters kept flowing.   All in all it was a brilliant trip and it has left me thinking there could be cost effective ways of getting Brits out there for track days next winter.  I'll keep you posted.Cape Town next to make my racing comeback at the Killarney 8 hour on a CBR150 Honda.  Hopefully I can manage the beast, I'll post a full report next week.

Honda Gold Wing Brake Recall – Round 2

While Honda has never seemed like a company to follow the old saw “We do it right because we do it twice,” the company has just announced a second recall of 126,000 GL 1800 and GL 1800A models to address a dragging rear brake problem that is serious enough to potentially cause a fire. We feel comfortable saying that this is certainly not the type of heated seats Gold Wing riders would want to have. The affected models come from a variety of years.

2012 Honda CRF250L – New Dual Sport with CBR250R Engine

The 2011 Tokyo Motor Show has produced a number of new concepts but there is at least one new production model. Honda premiered a new dual-sport powered by a 249cc engine reportedly based on the CBR250R’s power plant. The 2012 Honda CRF250L is a step up from the CRF230L and its carbureted air-cooled 223cc SOHC engine.