Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1149641
VOLUME 56 ISSUE 30 JULY 30, 2019 P95 and high-speed damping—with a 43mm FGRT 204 fork set at a 25° rake with 4.13 inches of trail, via AEM Factory triple-clamps spe- cially made for Paton, hence the firm's badge on the upper face. This offers 4.72 inches of wheel travel, combined with twin TTX30 piggyback shocks delivering a surprisingly rangy (by twin-shock standards) 5.11 inches of hyper- controlled wheel travel. Wheel- base is 15mm shorter than the stock Kawasaki at 54.72 inches thanks to the beautifully fabricated Febur aluminum swingarm. The OZ Racing Piega forged aluminum wheels carry Metzeler RaceTech RR K3 rubber—with the rear a 180/55-17 tire same as on Dun- lop's TT racer. This helps keep the Paton pretty agile and quick steering, while also delivering the grip to make good use of that nice revvy motor. The twin 295mm TK front discs now ubiquitous in Moto2 are gripped by four-piston radial Brembo Monoblock M4-108 calipers, via a 19mm RCS radial master cylinder. There's a 220mm TK steel disc at the rear, with a twin-piston Brembo P34C caliper. You'll already have noticed that the Paton's array of components reads like a wish list for Italian after- market hardware, and that's added to by the quick-action Domino throttle and handlebar grips, the Rizoma mirrors incorporating front direction signals, the Valtermoto clip-on handlebars and foot con- trols, and GB Racing engine cov- ers. Add in the twin ellipsoidal CEV headlamps set deep into the nose of the identical fairing to the Dun- lop bike that's likewise painted in Paton's official 60th birthday livery, and you may begin to see some rationale for that sky-high price. PATON S1-R LIGHTWEIGHT TRACK TEST—ON TRACK After throwing a leg over the 31.8-inch-high seat—20mm lower than on the Dunlop TT-winner I was riding that day—I found a really spacious riding position which nevertheless made you feel part of the bike, with relatively low frame with a specially-made double-knocker cylinder head conversion. This was the first Paton, and though PAttoni and TONti later went their separate ways, the name stayed with Peppino for the rest of his life. One of the first Paton customers was a certain Stan Hailwood, whose 18-year old son Mike made his Isle of Man TT debut on the little Italian bike in the 1958 125cc TT, finishing seventh in spite of being at least six inches too tall to be comfortable on the tiny machine. Though some other bikes also found customers, there wasn't enough in it to make a living, so by the dawn of the swinging 60s, Pattoni found himself working for a Lancia dealer in Milan, in charge of the service department. But fate was kind to him, for the firm was bought by Giorgio Pianta, a car racer who recognized Pattoni's passion for racing, and let him set up a Paton race workshop in the back of the Lancia garage. There Peppino worked after hours on his motorcycles, after completing the day job, moonlighting his way to the Grand Prix starting grid with bikes created in his spare time. But it was only after his sad death in 1999 that Gi- useppe Pattoni's dream of seeing his bikes become serial race winners actually came true. This happened after son Roberto, now 57, dusted off the designs for the eight- valve version of the 500 Bicilindrica that Pep had penned in 1968, in order to resume manufacture of further ex- amples of it for use in Classic racing, which had by now expanded globally. The first of the 34 examples constructed to date of these re-creations (not replicas, since these are simply a continu- ation of manufacture of the old Paton 500cc racebikes!) was built in 2004, since when the green Italian twin costing upwards of 90,000 euros ($101,000) depending on specifi- cation, has replaced the ultra-short-stroke modern-day Manx Norton and Matchless G50 "Supermonos" as the weapon of choice at the highest level of Classic racing worldwide, re- peatedly victorious in the classic TT in the Isle of Man in five out of the past six years from 2013 onwards, most recently with TT legend John McGuinness aboard. The Kawasaki-en- gined Paton S1-R has now allowed the small Italian brand to step into the modern era with both road and racing versions, and in doing so has won a hat-trick of Lightweight TT races, thanks to Michel Rutter in 2017, and Michael Dunlop in 2018- 19, each time on the same motorcycle.