Form vs function

Here’s a theory for you: a huge gap is opening up between bikes built for serious road riding and bikes that knock you off your feet with a ‘wow’ factor. Sometimes the wow is down to the technology, sometimes it’s more visual. But you know it when it hits you. And it’s not emanating from the sensible, comfortable, high-mile bikes showcased by several of the world’s big motorcycle manufacturers at the Eicma show in Milan.

The sensible but not sensation-causing  bikes I’m talking about include the Kawasaki Versys 1000,  Triumph’s Tiger Explorer and a bunch of Hondas, including the Crosstourer and the X and S versions of the NC700. And that’s before you get on to such uber-sensible devices as the new BMW scooters and the latest Yamaha T-Max.

In the opposite corner – the sexy, exciting-looking, intriguing, envelope-pushing corner – we have the amazing tech fest that is the Ducatin 1199 Panigale: an entirely new motorcycle using a lot of track-developed know-how as well as electronic aids previously seen on the roadgoing Multistrada and Diavel. It’s also a visually arresting package. (I hesitate to join some of my journalistic colleagues in saying it looks fabulous. I think from some angles it’s a mess.)

But what’s it for? Things may seem different when we get to ride this and the other newcomers, but for now it all seems entirely concerned with going very, very fast, especially on a track, and using the bike’s electronics (from the traction control to the lap timer) to help you go even faster. That hasn’t really got much to do with my motorcycling life.

Also in the stunning-but-impractical camp you have the one-offs (choppers, bobbers, café racers, street scramblers) lurking in the farther-flung halls of the Milan show. The best of these make you smile, and make you want one… until you wonder exactly what you’d do with it. Although brilliantly executed by hugely talented craftsmen, way too many of them seem to be utterly unrideable.

Why can’t I have it all? Why can’t I have a great-looking bike that I can ride all day? Sure, it’s asking a lot – but it’s do-able, isn’t it?

The bike that struck me as being potentially the closest to the golden ticket – technical advance in the cause of road riding – is the heavily revised Kawasaki ZZR1400 (pictured). It’s not pretty, but it has a brutal necessity about it: everything’s there for a reason.

When we get to ride it, I really hope that it turns out to be the fast, powerful, comfortable, versatile bike I want it to be – and not a good bike twisted out of shape simply so that Kawasaki can make a few headlines by claiming that it’s the world’s fastest accelerating production bike.

Fingers crossed.

Colin Overland

While you’re online, have a look at this superb Panigale video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVKLl-ZBUwg