2008 NEC Bike show
Popped down to the Bike Show at the NEC Birmingham, despite numerous weather forecasts for snow, rain, the end of the world and all between, we did not see a flake of snow all day long.
This year the show had more side stalls than main bike exhibits, as per usual i headed for the BMW Stand to see what was on offer, lot of nice new shiny bikes, and some fantastic deals on clothing, and accessories.
Cut Away, a really good detailed example of a R1 engine stripped naked and sectioned in places, some clever engineering
Came across a very nice Quad, I’ve always fancied one of these on the road, and a Hybrid , we saw one on a Dyno ready to run up for a bargin sale of £14,500 although it was fully kitted with Öhlins Shocks and some clever titanium exhaust systems. Don’t know what they have tricked to the engine but by the looks of the fuel injection system im guessing its dumping a lot of fuel into those cylinders.
Moving onto the KTM stand there now very good bikes, had a lot of people around them, they have stayed true to there roots and kept the Black/Orange paint scheme the RC8 has to be a must have bike, although they have a long way to go to go up against the much loved R1 or Ninja from Yamaha and Kawasaki
The new Kawasaki Nija 750 was nice, although they seem to have got smaller or ive got longer,as im more like a praying mantis when sat on them now, and to be honest numerious broken wrists, fractures have made it hard to tolerate the long hunched down postion now to make it enjoyable
As with all these types of shows there is the normal collection of weired and wacky bikes, well the first one i came upon was a 125 Motorcycle from China, its an actual police bike, i doubt an asmatic ant would struggle out running Mr Officer on that, still it beats the electric one we found last year
Along with the much laughed at Police bike was some very good examples of outstanding custom work, stating off with a Spondon framed bike,
A classic R1 turbo which was very subtle indeed and you had to take a double take to see where they had put the turbo
Right next to this was a classic ZX-10 from Kawasaki that had been giving the Turbo treatment and a very nice job it was as well, then there was a beautiful Yamaha RD350, a bike that brought power to the masses, with the now much missed YPVS Yamaha Power Valve System, an outstanding restoration job had been done
A Suzuki Bandit 900 had been fitted into a GSX frame that had been polished to perfection
Properly one of the best bikes i saw today was a custom built Vmax but what do you do to an already very fast bike, well clearly you add N02- Nitrous Oxide and a bloody great turbo into the mix, Single sided one off rear wheel, split final drive, The tyres have to be some of the biggest iv seen and the profile was so wide you could possibly have just stood the bike up without side stands, im sure it makes for an interesting ride
One of the strangest yet eye catching bike was this white beast, very clean cut styling , but odd, very odd bars.
A very good days trip, and its always good to some of the new bikes and some of the classic ones, the RD350 was a great reminder of past times
Came across a very nice Quad, I’ve always fancied one of these on the road, and a Hybrid , we saw one on a Dyno ready to run up for a bargin sale of £14,500 although it was fully kitted with Öhlins Shocks and some clever titanium exhaust systems. Don’t know what they have tricked to the engine but by the looks of the fuel injection system im guessing its dumping a lot of fuel into those cylinders.
Moving onto the KTM stand there now very good bikes, had a lot of people around them, they have stayed true to there roots and kept the Black/Orange paint scheme the RC8 has to be a must have bike, although they have a long way to go to go up against the much loved R1 or Ninja from Yamaha and Kawasaki
The new Kawasaki Nija 750 was nice, although they seem to have got smaller or ive got longer,as im more like a praying mantis when sat on them now, and to be honest numerious broken wrists, fractures have made it hard to tolerate the long hunched down postion now to make it enjoyable
As with all these types of shows there is the normal collection of weired and wacky bikes, well the first one i came upon was a 125 Motorcycle from China, its an actual police bike, i doubt an asmatic ant would struggle out running Mr Officer on that, still it beats the electric one we found last year
Along with the much laughed at Police bike was some very good examples of outstanding custom work, stating off with a Spondon framed bike,
A classic R1 turbo which was very subtle indeed and you had to take a double take to see where they had put the turbo
Right next to this was a classic ZX-10 from Kawasaki that had been giving the Turbo treatment and a very nice job it was as well, then there was a beautiful Yamaha RD350, a bike that brought power to the masses, with the now much missed YPVS Yamaha Power Valve System, an outstanding restoration job had been done
A Suzuki Bandit 900 had been fitted into a GSX frame that had been polished to perfection
Properly one of the best bikes i saw today was a custom built Vmax but what do you do to an already very fast bike, well clearly you add N02- Nitrous Oxide and a bloody great turbo into the mix, Single sided one off rear wheel, split final drive, The tyres have to be some of the biggest iv seen and the profile was so wide you could possibly have just stood the bike up without side stands, im sure it makes for an interesting ride
One of the strangest yet eye catching bike was this white beast, very clean cut styling , but odd, very odd bars.
A very good days trip, and its always good to some of the new bikes and some of the classic ones, the RD350 was a great reminder of past times
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