2003 Red Honda Cbr 600rr on 2040-motos

Moto blog

Bahrain track days

A few months ago, expat (and ex racer) John Beddall made contact to ask if I fancied doing some track day instruction out in Bahrain.  After thinking about it for two seconds, flights were booked and a plan was put in place to look after around forty riders for a day at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).  Young Taylor Mac was also recruited to look after any tasty riders that I couldn’t deal with   The Brits out there love their bikes, however, quite a few locals also turned up plus a few others from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  Most were on high end Superbikes, like S1000s, Panigales and RSV4s but there was also a healthy number R6s and new 675Rs.   Although this fabulous Hermann Tilke designed circuit is around ten years old incredibly it has never hosted a bike race.  The highlight of the year there is F1 but being owned by the Bahrainian Royal family, there is no desperate need for the circuit to operate as a profitable business.  The track reminded me of Qatar but much more interesting as some great undulations have been built into its desert location. We shared the track with Supercars on the day (20mins on/20mins off) and as you might imagine it was betty swollocks for seven hours in the 30 plus temperatures.  As usual there was a few offs with poor old RS1000 Aprilia mounted Andy breaking his femur early in the day.  Two other buddies appeared to swap bikes mid air in another incident but fortunately escaped unhurt.In the evening everyone stayed for an al fresco dinner in the paddock with the craic going on for hours as the Fosters kept flowing.   All in all it was a brilliant trip and it has left me thinking there could be cost effective ways of getting Brits out there for track days next winter.  I'll keep you posted.Cape Town next to make my racing comeback at the Killarney 8 hour on a CBR150 Honda.  Hopefully I can manage the beast, I'll post a full report next week.

Honda's latest Cub

Honda released their original C100 Super Cub way back in 1958 when other bikes at the time proved to be notoriously unreliable and difficult to ride. Since then, they have sold over 27 million C90s, with the step-through framed bike proving to be easy to ride and even easier to maintain. Looking like it's come straight from the film WALL-E, the new UNI-CUB might have two wheels but any similarity with a Honda C90 ends there.

Honda Reports 2013-2014 Sales Results

A strong fourth quarter helped Honda see a 9.8% increase in motorcycle sales and a 9.3% increase in motorcycle revenue for its fiscal year ended March 31, 2014. The Japanese manufacturer reported sales of 17.0 million motorcycles and ATVs over the fiscal year, up from the 15.5 million sold in the previous year. Honda’s worldwide motorcycle sales increased in each of the previous seven quarters going from 3.8 million in the Q2 last year to 4.5 million in the most recently completed quarter.