Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

[the original dual purpose enduro but their displays were bigger and bet- bike], was very famous. Same for Tricker, I hope." ter than previous years. BMW employed a "second floor" display: a staircase leads up to a private conference area, offering a view over exhibits. Such displays are common in The Tricker's base color is black, with international orange trim pieces. Oh yes, and the knobby tires feature the main hall with the car companies, and BMW's use of such with their motorcycle display shows how serious- fat orange sidewalls. Sweet, dude. ALL THE REST Several of the prominent non- ly the non-Japanese manufacturers are now taking the Japanese market. Now that big bikes can be sold in Japanese manufacturers were at Tokyo, but it was Harley-Davidson, BMW, and Ducati that were there with Japan, Harley, BMW and Ducati look poised to extract a long-overdue revenge. eN significant presence. No surprise announcements were saved for Tokyo, BRIEFLY• •• For pure production muscle motorcycles, Suzuki has added a GSX1400 universal Japanese motorcycle to their line-up, and a GS 1200SS nostalgia bike that resurrects the GSX-R1100 air/oil cooled engine and TT -Fl race bike bodywork from Suzuka 8 Hours race bikes of 20 years ago. Or, if staying under the speed limit is your idea of fun, Suzuki introduced the VanVan 200: a balloon tire dualpurpose bike with a long, low seat. For those not old enough to know, Suzuki had a VanVan 90 in 1971 with balloon tires and a yardstick-long seat. YAMAHA The change in licensing regulations in Japan a few years ago opened the Japanese market to the large-'capacity bikes that were previously export-only models. The change also effectively killed off the 250cc and 400cc classes in Japan that were once the main attraction of the Tokyo Motor Show. At Yamaha, their Japanese product line has now converged with the American and European product lines, thus there was little new on display. But there was one prototype on display at Yamaha that will no doubt get much ink around the world: the Tricker. The Tricker is an all-original idea from Yamaha, and Yamaha deserves a lot of credit. It's the sort of bike one would expect if your product design and marketing departments were made up of hardcore freestyle BMX junkies. Take one 223cc four-stroke single, a trials-bike-like minimal aluminum frame and short, low seat, and add extra footpegs on the front and rear axles, and you have yourself a Tricker. The Tricker has a wheelbase no longer than that of a YZ85, and relatively small wheels: 19 inches on the front, 16 inches on the rear. "I don't really understand the XGames, but it is so popular with young age," said Yamaha PR man Toshio Furusawa. "I don't know the market possibility [for Tricker] at this time, but there is a good [possibility] for the Japanese market. Twenty years ago, one of our products, DT-1 The Suzuki VanVan 200 . the ultimate beach cruiser? The ever-decreasing trend of domestic motorcycle sales is an issue on the minds of every motorcycle executive in Japan. "Compared to last year, we are seeing a slight decline. but I do believe that the market is showing signs of bottoming out." said Kentaro Kato. the managing director and COO of Honda's worldwide motorcycle operations. "With our new product line-up introduced last year. such as the FTR [a 250 street bike styled after AMA dirt track racersl. Honda have been seeing a recovery in demand. One of the major factors affecting demand has been environment for using motorcycles. There has been good news that the highway speed has been increased to 100 kph [62 mphl. But there are still challenges that need to be overcome. such as the ban on the two-rider motorcycles on highways. roads closed to motorcycles. antitheft. and difficulty with parking places. " Honda road racing stars Tadayuki Okada and Tohru Ukawa were interested spectators on the preview days. Okada indicated that as of October 24 he was still without a contract for next year. though talks with HRC had not broken off yet. Still. Okada has not been invited to any tests thus far of the 2002 RC-51. nor was invited to the RC211 V tests held in August and September at Suzuka. Ukawa indicated that he is contracted to ride the RC211 V in 2002. In the iast test. Ukawa said he was finding the RC211 V to be between 10 and 20 kph faster than his NSR500 on both straightaways at Suzuka. Ukawa also said that the RC211V feels smaller than his personal CBR600Fri street bike - it's so small. in fact. that Valentino Rossi has been telling HRC that he cannot fit in to the bike. The test season for the RC211V begins in eamest after the final All Japan Superbike round on November 18. an event Ukawa and Okada are contracted to ride for Honda on factory RC-51 s. Aprilia racer Tetsuya Harada was also at the Tokyo Motor Show. As of October 25. Harada was also without a contract for 2002, due to an impasse with Aprilia regarding duties for next season: Harada wants to win the 250cc title. whereas Aprilia wants Harada on the four-stroke GP bike. In Harada's view. Aprili'-s four-stroke GP bike is simpiy not going to be ready for next year. Kawasaki gave away posters at the Tokyo Motor Show promoting World Supersport champion Andrew Pitt and AMA Supersport champion Eric Bostrom on their ZX-6Rs. Suzuki employed advance aluminum welding technology during the creation of the B"King. On the frame. Suzuki used compound laser welding. a welding technique that uses two lasers - one C02. and the other gamma AG - aimed coaxially at the target. thereby energy density is 1000 times greater than conventional arc welding. On the swingarm - a truly beautiful work of metal sculpture - Suzuki employed alternating current plasma welding. This technique uses a high-temperature plasma flow to create energy densities 100 times higher than arc welding. and. significantly. with no weld splatter. The Yoshimura Tornado 5-1 is the second limited-edition complete motorcycle offered from Yoshimura. preceded by the successful Yoshimura Hayabusa X-l. "We built 100 Suzuki Hayabusa X-l s. and sold them all the first year." explained Fujio Yoshimura. "They were sold in Japan only. There was a lot of enquiries from overseas. but they found out they could not register those bikes in their own country. because the performance was too high or something like that.· The S-l will be a smaller production run through a combination of capacity at Yoshimura to build the bike. and anticipated customer demand. "We can only produce about 10 at a time per month. If there are enquiries from overseas. then that could be extra. Maybe 60 or 70, but that's about it." said Yoshimura. "It will be standard. No modifications or customizing. If they want to put on new brake caliper or disc or Michelin tire. that's their own choice. We developed with this equipment. because everything has to be matched; handling and all that. Special brake pads with discs and tires, suspension settings are made to work perfectly." Over in the main car exhibit hall, Suzuki displayed two vehicles powered by Hayabusa engines. One was an open-top roadster concept car. and the other was a production Formula Suzuki Hayabusa open-wheel race car. Suzuki has sold over 20 of the Formula Suzuki Hayabusa race cars in Japan. at about $30.000 apiece. Ducati had their pre-production Multistrada 1000 on display at TokYo. this one in classic Ducati red whereas the Multistrada displayed at Milan was silver. The verdict: if you want to make any bike look good. paint it bright red. Unlike it's heavily guarded appearance at the Suzuka 8 Hours in August. Honda had the RC211V on a rather open display at the TokYo Motor Show. This version has a much different frame and body from the RC211 V tested in April at Sugo. thus one could presume that Honda is busy working on another new generation RC211 V design in preparation for the coming season. As well. Yamaha had its YZR-M1 four-stroke GP on display at TokYo. with it's pants off and engine out in the open for all to see. Yamaha kept the fairings on the YZR500 and VZR250 display bikes, however. Stay tuned for a new-generation VZR-M1 to be seen shortly on the test tracks. III U III • e n e _ s NOVEMBER 14, 2001 31

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