Road to Superbiking dengan budget RM30k

Opss, jangan salah paham gambar kat atas sebagai mukadimah sahaja. Nak dijadikan cerita, masa TTS haritu.. kawan aku ada bertanya motor apa yang best dengan budget RM30k maka terpikirlah idea untuk membuat research untuk posting today. Aku stay dalam range motor baru 250cc above yang ada clutch sahaja in no particular order supaya dapat pinpoint ke arah topic dengan lebih mudah dan tak buyers terhadap mana-mana brand. Secondhand dalam posting lain. 

Aku mulakan dengan keluarga Honda CB 500 series yang mengunakan enjin parallel twin. Ada 3 jenis konsep :

 CB500F = RM 28,288 

CBR500R = RM 28,588

CB500X = RM 28,688 

  

Next kita tengok CBR250R. Single silinder enjin 

CBR250R trico = RM 19,999 / CBR250R Repsol ABS = RM 23,499  / No abs RM 20,499 

Selesai dengan Honda kita ke Kawasaki pulak. Ninja 250R twin parallel enjin

Ninja 250R = RM 22.589 / Ninja 250R SE = RM 24,289

Satu lagi model Kawasaki yang terbaru yang sekarang mendapat perhatian ramai Z250 juga twin parallel enjin yang rupanya ala-ala Z800.

 Z250 = RM 21,589

Beralih arah pulak pada satu-satunya motor 4 dapur yang aku jumpa bawah RM30K dalam Malaysia iaitu Benelli TNT 600.

Benelli TNT 600 = RM 29,990

Kemudian kita ke Hyosung atau lebih dikenali di Malaysia Naza Blade yang menggunakan enjin V-twin.

Naza Blade 250 GTR = RM 13,888

Naza Blade 250 SE TBR = RM 16,088

 

Naza Blade 250 N = RM12,899 

Naza Blade 650 GTR = RM 22,600

Naza Blade 650R TBR = RM 22,988

Juga tak ketinggalan SYM T2 250 I yang menggunakan enjin single silinder 

SYM T2 250 I = RM 16,800

Megelli juga menawar 3 konsep motor yang mengunakan enjin single silinder 

Megelli 250RR version 2.0 = RM 15,800

Megelli 250SR = RM 14,880

Megelli 250MR = RM 14,580

Yang terakhir skali dari KTM, Duke 390 ABS yang menggunakan enjin single silinder

Duke 390 ABS = RM 26,500

Ok setakat itulah list motor bawah RM30k yang aku jumpe dalam Malaysia. Brand seperti Yamaha, Suzuki dan lain-lain belum ada kepastian lagi. Mana yang terkurang, korang boleh update kat dalam komen, kita sama-sama share. Bab performance aku rasa korang boleh la rujuk kat dalam group-group yang banyak dalam FB tue.. Aku tak mau komen bab tue.. Senarai harga may vary sikit sebab tak semua bagi price on the road so faham-faham je la. Nasihat pada yang nak beli motor, beli ikut kemampuan jangan ikut rasa nanti badan binasa. Fikir-fikirkan lah maintenance bulanan tapi kalau dah minat apadehal! Layankan je.. 

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Sejarah Dunia Superbike : 2013 lookback

Sedar tak sedar dah bulan Disember, the ending of 2013, so sebelum masuk 2014 aku nak recap balik sejarah dunia superbike.  Enjoy..

It's 10 years since..
The Foggy Petronas FP1 first entered World Superbikes

Also..
-Radial brakes first appeared on road bikes
-Ducati's Desmosedici entered its first MotoGP race
-Honda launched the CBR600RR 
-Neil Hodgson won the World Superbike title

It's 15 years since.. 
Yamaha unleashed the first YZF-R1

Also..
-Carl Fogarty and Pierfrancesco Chili clashed on the last lap at Assen
-Simon Crafar won his only 500GP at Donington on WCM Yamaha
-Honda Hornet and Yamaha Fazer transformed budget middleweights

It's 20 years since..
Kevin Schwantz won his only 500GP World Championship

Also..
-Yamaha's GTS1000 looked like the bike of the future. It wasn't
-Shinichi Itoh exceeded 200mph during the Hockenheim 500GP 
-John Britten's radical home built racer debuted at TT and set the fastest top speed of the week
-Ducati launched the Monster 900

It's 25 years since..
The world was blessed with the arrival of Honda's VFR750R RC30

Also..
-The first World Superbike race took place on April 3 at Donington Park, won by Davide Tardozzi on a Bimota YB4
-BMW K100RS became the first bike with ABS
-Suzuki launched the RGV250, Kawasaki the KR-1 and Yamaha the TDR250. Oil shares skyrocketed

It's 30 years since..
Kenny Roberts retired in style by winning his final GP at Imola

Also..
-Yamaha's YPVS two-stroke power valve debuted with the RD series
-An 18 year old Alan Carter won in his first ever GP at Le Mans
-Freddie Spencer scored the first win for a radial tyre in a 500GP

It's 40 years since.. 
Crash helmet became compulsory on a bike

Also..
-Bimota opened its first factory in Rimini
-Kawasaki's Z! landed in Britain
-Kim Newcombe won a 500GP with the boat engined Konig

It's 50 years since..
Mitsuo Itoh took the first (and still only) TT win for a Japanese rider

Also..
-The last season every 500 Grand Prix was won by a British rider
-Mike Hailwood scored points on his debut driving in F1. The same year he won races in 3 GP classes - and took the 500GP title

It's 90 years since..
BMW launched R 32, their first bike and direct ancestor of R1200GS

Also..
-The first running of the Isle Of Man TT Sidecar race
-Stanley Woods took the first of 10 TT wins in the Junior 350cc race
-Claude Temple achieved the first 100mph racing lap of Brooklands.

Mungkin ada yang familiar dengan nama-nama yang disebut dan mungkin tak, tetapi inilah sejarah dunia permotoran yang aku nak kongsi dengan korang. Harap boleh menjadi info yang berguna di masa hadapan. 

Credit: BIKE Magazine


 

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Top Ten Legends of the Fall

We all love a trier, and nothing says effort more than a tumbling mass of man and machine.

1: Randy de Puniet

You know something is wrong when Randy hits the same stretch of race track twice. Randy likes to explore any circuit, and as consequence tends to fall over more than your average racer – taking MotoGP honors year after year. He’ll go down in history!

2: Carlos Checa 

Doctors at the Clinica Mobile recently remove Carlos’s crash gene, meaning that he stayed on his machine of late, but scroll back a few years and it’s easy to see why he was given the “Careless Chucka” label.

3: Ruben Xaus

Large of the limb and big bounce, Ruben Xaus has been marshal bothering his whole career. It hasn’t mattered what machine he’s on, be it Ducatis in supersport. Superbike or MotoGP, Yamaha’s in the big league or the unruly BMW in WSB. If there’s gravel about, xaus sticks the magnet on and hones in on it horizontally. 

4: James Haydon

Not many racers in the UK can claim to have been on the national news for crashing, but that’s exactly what James Hayden did when he managed to run himself over in a convoluted smash. When James later joined the Crescent Suzuki squad alongside Shakey, paddock wags dubbed the team ‘Crash and Byrne’ – for obvious reasons.  

5: Dani Pedrosa 

It seems that lil’ Dani can’t have an injury free crash, Whenever the half pint Spaniard hits the deck, he hits it hard and usually ruptures this or dislocates that. 

6: Jorge Lorenzo

Gorgeous George got all his crashing out the way for his victorious 2010 championship campaign, but the previous year saw Lorenzo entering orbit with disturbing regularity before crashing down to earth in ignominious fashion plus this this season he got a title “Man of steel’ after broken his collar bone, went to surgery and finish fifth in the race! 

7: James Toseland

During the up phase of his career. JT’s arse was velco-ed to his seat. But now his plateaued, Toseland has been playing catch-up – the start of every vicious circle.

8: Alex Debon

Alex Debon broke his collar bone 12 times during his career, and if that record doesn’t suggest a different path than perhaps during those dozen crashes there were a few knocks to the head too. 

9: Rob Frost

Frosty single handedly kept fairing frabicators and paint sprayers in business and it was a dark day when he announced his retirement from racing in 2009.

10: Dave Croxford 

Dave Croxford is the father of crashing, managing to part company with his bike on an amazing 189 occasions throughout the sixties and seventies – he kept count carving notches in his walking stick!  

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Malaysia Superbike Newbie

Superbike is a generic term for motorcycles with large capacity engines that are very powerful and so can accelerate extremely quickly and attain very high speeds. These can include super-sports, cruisers, hyper-tourers and even some super-motards.  Sbk’s are motorcycles nonetheless and eminently rideable provided the rider calibrates his/her actions in strict accordance with the dynamics of the motorcycle.
 
Tips and points-to-ponder for riding superbikes:
 
Be clear and honest about your mindset. An aggressive attitude that gets triggered into competitiveness at the smallest pretext is a very dangerous and usually fatal combination with a superbike. These bikes demand that you ride your own ride.
 
Learn to become focused and stay focused on the ride. Superbikes can really stretch human ability and reflexes to their utmost and even beyond, in a jiffy. Only concentration on the ride at hand can save a riding situation from transiting from close to risky to fatal in the span of a few seconds.
 
Proper riding gear is of paramount importance when riding superbikes, not just for protection from a fall but as protection from the wind and debris thrown up by other traffic. At speeds around 150kmph, a small stone chip can hit hard enough to puncture and penetrate human skin. Think of what it can do to an unprotected eye.
 
A high level of riding skills already developed through serious learning-oriented riding on lower capacity bikes goes a long way towards safe super-biking. Learn as much as you can both off-road (through reading, videos, televised racing events, the internet, interacting with experienced superbike users) and on-road while riding. Remember, learning never ends in motorcycling and more so when riding superbikes.
 
Smoothness in operation of all controls is of utmost importance with superbikes. Rough handling of the throttle can induce a sharp wheel-spin that can have your ‘rear’ on the road before you realize what happened. And so it is with the brakes. Respect both these controls and learn to shift gears as smoothly as you can, taking special care while down-shifting (even on bikes with the ‘slipper-clutch). The engine-induced braking can lock the rear and send the bike in a skid.
 
Increase your margins of safety under given conditions when riding a superbike compared to what you did while riding smaller capacity bikes. For example, go easy in heavy traffic, avoid weaving through lanes and keep an alert eye on those rear-view mirrors. Remember your bike can brake quicker than almost every other vehicle behind you. Getting rear-ended on a superbike is a very real possibility.
 
Keep the motorcycle’s equipment level in the best of shape. Stick to the recommended maintenance schedule but still keep a sharp eye for obvious and impending mechanical failures. Slack chains, worn brake pads, low oil or coolant levels, weak battery, low tyre pressure, fused lights or worn out tires, all or individually can contribute more or less to an unsafe ride. Some safety issues like worn brake pads, low oil level or slack chain are obvious for their effects but others like a fused brake light bulb that can make the following car rear-end you at night even when you braked ‘normally’ are not so obvious.  So ‘all-ship-shape- is all-safe’.
 
These bikes have complex and expensive hardware and so take care to ‘feed’ them the proper fuel, oil and coolant. Bad fuel causes a drop in power and overheating in the short term and can severely damage the engine internals in the long term. So take care where you refuel  from. And keep a mileage log for the bike. Not primarily for economic reasons but because ‘fuel consumption’ is a good indicator of engine health.
 
Most superbikes are so made these days that at least one of their headlights is always on while the engine is running. This is a very good safety feature making the bike visible from far off and even through heavy traffic. If this is not a standard feature on your bike, remember to ride on the low beam all the time, night or day.
 
Other road users in a country like ours, that have a sparse superbike population, don’t expect a motorcycle to move so fast as a superbike can. Don’t expect them to anticipate your high approach speeds and get out of your way. They usually won’t. Slow down to ‘common motorcycle’ speeds when riding through a populated area or where people are expected to cross the roads.
 
Riding on our mountain road like Gerik or Cameron Highland on a superbike seems very enticing and is admittedly very enjoyable. But always remember that a superbike is NOT flickable as our ‘kapchai’ and so keep a very safe inside line during turns. High speeds invariably result in wider turns and you will have no chance to change your position towards the inside of the turn if another vehicle has encroached upon your outside lane. Braking while leaned is also no remedy as it too will result in a skid and a fall. In fact while on mountain roads, it would be safer to ride a trifle slower on a superbike than you would on your smaller bike.
 
Wet roads, whether due to rain or spilled water or whatever, can be a real pain on superbikes. Their soft-compound tyres have minimal grooves (to keep the maximum amount of tractable rubber on the road) and so are not very efficient at dispersing water from under the contact patch. Also the powerful engine can easily induce a wheel-spin under such low-traction conditions. So be very gentle with the throttle, especially while exiting turns and when starting from a stop. And the same care is critical while braking too. Locking up either or both the wheels is a distinct possibility on wet roads.
 
Take a pillion with you on a superbike only after you are thoroughly familiar with its behavior with just ‘you’ on it. As a thumb rule, do a few hundred miles on the bike alone, under differing conditions and at differing speeds to get the hang of things. Then take as pillion only someone who explicitly trusts your riding abilities. A pillion who ‘resists’ leaning and tenses up during acceleration and while braking can seriously upset the bike’s balance and things can go from bad to dangerous in a moment. Compared to a small bike, the acceleration on a superbike will necessarily feel a LOT stronger and this can scare most pillions. Same with braking. Talk to them before the ride and tell them what to expect.
 
It is extremely important to wear safety gear from top to bottom when astride a Superbike, in fact any kind of bike!

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