On Track Off Road No.181

Same goes for the revamped CBR650F,
which does look really attractive, and
CB650R. They’re all strong sellers in Europe,
just not exactly sexy headline material.
On Suzuki’s EICMA stand, a lady waving a
sword around and a bloke beating a drum
helped whip the crowd into marginal excitement
before the unveiling of… a black Katana.
Yep, just when Suzuki seemed to have
got back on track, their only new offering for
2019 is a GSX-S1000 with a few bolt-ons,
provided in two paint schemes. Sorry, Suzuki,
it’s time for action and not just words.
BMW did their best to steal Ducati’s limelight
at the Italian firm’s home show. The all-new
S1000RR has its focus set on track success;
as well as re-entering WSB with an officially
backed BMW Motorrad team, the road bike
contains some impressive technology including
hollow valve stems, the first time on a
production motorcycle. Will the RR achieve
more WSB glory this time after its rather
embarrassing withdrawal in 2012? It won’t
be easy as not only is there the Ducati V4 R
to contend with, but also a certain green bike
(the Ninja ZX-10R gains titanium conrods
and a higher rev limit for 2019) on which
BSB champ Leon Haslam will be aiming to
give his new team-mate Jonathan Rea some
overdue opposition.
The sports bike news from EICMA didn’t
stop there. Aprilia pulled the covers off a
big-capacity RSV4 1100 Factory that comes
with the latest must-have MotoGP technology:
wings. But the firm’s show star was the
RS660 concept bike, featuring a brand new
parallel twin engine, which could give Aprilia
access to the lucrative middleweight market
that they so desperately need. While it would
be great to see the racy RS concept reach
production, you have to assume Aprilia are
planning a rival for Yamaha’s MT-07, given
that middleweight sales volume is in naked
roadsters, not high-priced sports bikes.