Front End Chatter Podcast Archive – Episodes 120 - 129

We've had a rummage in the back of the cupboard and pulled out all those old editions of Front End Chatter that get pushed back there when the new one lands, brushed them down, tidied them up a bit and put them all together into one bumper page - the Front End Chatter Archive (Part 8 of… er lots).

Front End Chatter – Episode 120

Hello and welcome to FEC120, the 120th episode of not the UK’s most popular automotive podcast but one of them. As ever, we are indebted to Bennetts, the bike insurance specialists – and check out BikeSocial for the kind of comprehensive investigative consumer journalism you can’t find anywhere else.

However, if it isn’t comprehensive investigative consumer journalism you want but a pair of gas-bags waffling instead, here’s what’s in store for you in episode 120:

• does a necktube count as a face mask?

• a scatter-gun and largely incoherent round-up of MotoGP from Jerez #1 – including:

  • should riders be allowed to race with broken bones, and is the ‘medical’ tough enough?

  • will the championship result be any less significant if the favourite is injured?

  • should Repsol team manager Alberto Puig be allowed to troll other riders?

Plus!

• goodbye to the Honda Ron Haslam Race School

• does just the thought of selling a bike mean eventually selling becomes inevitable?

• which is the best Multistrada: original 1200S, Skyhook version, Pikes Peak, Enduro or 950?

• if a bike is SORN, is it worth MOTing it?

• should you try your first track day without tuition?

• what’s the future of bike magazines?

• what happens to press demo bikes?

• do phone cameras fail when they’re used on bikes as sat navs?

• is it safe to plug a tyre puncture with a plug kit?

...plus loads more...

Front End Chatter – Episode 121

And on this edition of FEC we natter about:

• details of the proposed Isle of Wight Diamond Races – Britain’s first new road race in modern times – and ask how likely it is to happen, who's paying for it, and what do the islanders have to say – plus, a detailed look at the layout and quality of the circuit itself

• action from MotoGP from Jerez #2, including the wisdom of racing with broken bones

• action from WSB at, er, Jerez again

• more electrical issues and who can solve them

• is there such a thing as a good, cheap, sporty V-twin?

• does comfort matter on a naked bike? 

• have sportsbikes got too radical and would a Superleggera outsell a GS if it was the same price?

• what does 'best bike of 2020' actually mean?

...and loads more!

Front End Chatter – Episode 122

And this week – well, what do you reckon? Let’s talk about the myWorld Motorrad Grand Prix Von Österreich. Topics include: 

• who’s to blame for that crash?

• is the circuit safe?

• why did Ducati apparently provoke Dovi into sacking himself?

• if riders could be somehow 100% protected from all harm and injury in crashes, would we still find racing such a compelling spectacle?

• is ‘safer’ inherently a) less exciting than dangerous, and b) is it inversely proportional to speed? 

Plus

• is Honda BSB rider Andy Irwin a liability?

• what’s not the correct method for transporting a guitar on a bike?

• more ‘heaviest things you’ve carried on a bike’, and why it might include 14 bottles of Jerez brandy, 24 bottles of Kronenburg and 45 multipacks of Orbit chewing gum

• don’t buy the first bike you see, unless it’s not the first bike you’ve seen

• more rear brake cornering advice

• is it worth chopping in a 2005 R1200 GS for the new R1250 GS?

• is a Sur Ron Light Bee (a sort of electric mountain bike) the future of biking?

• which bike has the best-sounding standard exhaust note?

• which is better: Triumph’s old Tiger 800, new Tiger 900, old Tiger 1200 or even older Tiger 1050? And what will Triumph’s almost certain new Tiger 1200 have a grumbly T-plane crank, and will it come with a 30-litre tank Adventure option? 

And muchly much more gossip and slander. Don’t sue us. We’re skint anyway.

Front End Chatter – Episode 123

And on this month’s – hang on, it’s been a month? – we chatter about:

• the closest, craziest MotoGP season since records began with exploding brakes, exploding forearms, exploding engines, first-time winning teams, bikes and riders, unlikely crashes and testing pit-to-bike radios

• why World Superbike is worth watching this year

• the merits or otherwise of Ewan and Charley’s Long Way Up, on Harley Livewires

• does Regina’s new M-Endurance chain signal the end of lubing and adjusting?

• is the FIM’s criteria for five push-ups really sufficient to determine a human’s fitness to ride a MotoGP bike?

• do bike journos adjust test bike suspension to suit their preference?

• do men really ask their partners for ‘permission’ to buy a new bike?

• the wisdom of repairing a puncture with a proper kit v a self-tapping screw

• how to start racing and which is the best bike or series to choose?

• which is the best hypersportsbike for a bit of pillion action?

• has the rise of social media bike content and the decline of print media brought younger riders into motorcycling?

Plus much more (well, a bit).

Front End Chatter – Episode 124

And this week Simon and Mufga natter about:

• autumn – why?

• why Dumfries and Galloway is a good place to ride a bike

• why we don’t review bikes any more

• BMW’s new M1000RR and why it’s failing to light Mufga’s fire

• future Mufga pays us a visit down the time tunnel

• Triumph’s Trident – what it is and how much it should cost

• high speed MotoGP review

• where, or not, to get up-to-date info on MotoGP engine use

• advice for your second track day

• is the current lack of spectators at race events sustainable, and if the racing has to change, how will it change?

• is buying a bike while under the influence a good idea?

...and much, much more.

 Front End Chatter – Episode 125

And in this fun-sized Mars Bar of an episode we chatter about: 

• how IAM observers are like twitchers

• what’s the best 125 ever, why isn’t it the Varadero, and are modern 125s better than classic 125s? 

• how to topple off an Africa Twin and an F800GS in style

• how far can you go on a Zero SRF, and still get back in a day?

• wet MotoGP from Le Mans including an uncannily prescient Martin suggesting Covid could play a part in sideling riders THE DAY BEFORE a viral Rossi misses a couple of rounds

• loads of chat about Ducati’s new V4 Granturismo motor powering the new Multistrada – how it’s bigger, but smaller, lasts longer, makes more power but less torque, and where has the whole Desmo business gone? And why? 

• a natter about details of Aprilia’s RS660, as Martin from the past pays a visit to remind us his half of FEC worked all that stuff out a year ago. Apart from the price.

• all before we dive into the FEC sack with its usual barrage of good points, corrections and fab stories.

Thanks for listening, and let’s do this again in a fortnight.

Front End Chatter – Episode 126

And in E126 we have:

• Yamaha's overhauled, uprated and enlarged (but not in the way you might have read) MT-09

• Martin's unnatural desire to buy a Piaggio MP3, as winter-hack path to an almost equally irrational Aprilia RS660

• the usual ramblings on MotoGP including where in the world is Marc Marquez, has he been moonlighting as his own brother, and what does this all mean for the 2020 title?

• plus emails on topics as wide-ranging as more small acts of human kindness, the IOW Diamond Races (or not), ugly features on otherwise not ugly bikes, the difference between buying the first bike you look at and the bike you look at first, why under- (or over-) inflating a tyre for an extended stint on a motorway might not be a good idea, and the real reason you want to adjust your suspension.

Front End Chatter – Episode 127

 And on the show this week we have:

• a new MotoGP World Champeen, and a slightly subdued Portimao ending to the craziest, least predictable and – let’s be honest – luckiest MotoGP season in modern history

• the best Joan Mir stat you will ever hear

• new bikes for 2021, including:

• BMW’s S1000R, the bike with the wrong half of the fairing removed

• Ducati’s Multistrada V4 which Simon hadn’t ridden, much, when the podcast came out, but which it subsequently turns out he had. It’s very confusing

• Ducati’s underrated SuperSport, now called a 950

• ...and the Panigale V4 SP, whatever that is

• Triumph 850 Sport, and how it replaces the world’s shortest-lived model, the Triumph Tiger 900

• Yamaha MT-09 Tracer and GT

• Yamaha’s track-only R6, and the death of the supersports 600

• PLUS! A brief dip into the FECsack and topics such as do track days matter when you’re over 50, is a Z900 RS Café better than a Z H2, tyre scrubbers, how come more people don’t commute on bikes, and much – a bit – more...

Front End Chatter – Episode 128

And in this episode of FEC we have: 

• Mufga’s riding impressions of the new Aprilia RS660 (closes eyes, makes brum brum noises)

• and SiH’s riding impressions of the new Ducati Multistrada V4 (closes eyes, makes brum brum noises), in case anyone hadn’t been watching Bennetts YouTube channel, reading the website or picking up just about every UK bike magazine and newspaper in the last few weeks

• Marc Marquez going for third time lucky for arm operations, while FEC will henceforth be acting as medical advisor for DORNA on the grounds we have a better handle on what constitutes fitness to ride than they do

• why we shouldn’t dismiss Long Way Up with such offhand flippancy

• why do we measure bike tank size in litres and fuel consumption in mpg?

• how to – but really, why – pull a wheelie

• what should a rider do with their helmet when dismounting and walking about?

• what’s the best electric bike out there, and why?

• why OE tyres might not be perfectly not great, but it’s not the tyre manufacturer’s fault, it’s the bike manufacturer we should blame...

Front End Chatter – Episode 129

Hello and welcome a fully festive, technically flawed, partially visual (which makes no sense to listeners in black and white) but otherwise entirely oral episode 129 of Front End Chatter, Britain’s favourite motorcycling podcast helmed by Simon Hargreaves and Martin Fitz-Gibbons and kept afloat by the oceanic Bennetts, the bike insurance specialists, and BikeSocial, all your two-wheeled needs digitally delivered via fibre optics (get well soon John!)

And this week on FEC we have:

• good news for Norton donors

• good news for scooter and moped manufacturers

• how the Covid pandemic has affected bike sales and how far and often we ride, and how it’s given us renewed motivation to do the things in 2021 we’ve always put off doing

• our favourite bikes of the year, and biggest disappointments

• what we’re looking forward to riding in 2021

• plus! Do you want an MV Agusta Turismo Veloce, or would a Tracer GT do the same thing? Or even a Z1000SX?

• would a Guzzi V85TT suit a novice off-road rider?

• is the NC500 really worth it?

• what’s Britain’s most picturesque motorway?

• is the 1998 Kawasaki ZX-9R C1 the most underrated sports tourer ever?

...and much much more.

Thanks for listening in. You can ask us questions, seek advice or just have a moan to us at  anything@frontendchatter.com

Until next time!

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