Front End Chatter Podcast Archive – Episodes 90 - 99

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 5 of… er lots).

Front End Chatter – Episode 90

And this fortnight we have, for your aural delectation, spoken words on:

RACING

• MotoGP is back, at Qatar where Miller’s seat comes off, Mav goes backwards, Rossi goes forwards, Marquez and Dovizioso repeat last season’s last lap, and Ducati plot a spoiler

• why MotoE isn’t coming to a short circuit near you soon

• Dave Bautista keeps on winning in WSB, but it’s not Ducati’s fault...

• ... so no pressure in BSB then, Scott...

 BIKES

• first ride on Moto Guzzi’s new V85 TT ‘classic enduro’ 

 PLUS!

• do business biking miles count as much as personal biking miles?

• more hi-viz pros and cons

• trail braking explained properly

• the great seat height debate, and how to make bikes fit more people more of the time

• more ideas on getting kids into bikes – and were 125s better in the 1990s? 

• which brands offer the best value for money? 

• why are there no wheelies in bike magazines anymore? 

 ... plus much more rubbish, nonsense and stuff. 

Front End Chatter – Episode 91

And what a bounteous springtime episode we have, containing gossip such as:

• COTA – or is it GOTA? – with Marquez beating himself while Rins wins on a Suzuki and Rossi is runner-up again again again (he’s going for another record: Pedrosa’s “Most Perennial Runner-Up” Award)

• A half-naked Lorenzo adds to his list of embarrassing advert

• World Superbike’s Dave Bautista demonstrates it’s easier to adapt from a V4 MotoGP bike to a V4 WSB bike than from a V-twin WSB bike to a V4 WSB bike...

• Brief chats about Husqvarana’s Svartpilen 701 – a KTM 690 Duke in a frock or chainsaw on wheels? – Yamaha’s Tracer/Ténéré 700 GT and BMW’s new R1250R...

• Custom-moulded ear-plugs v foam plugs?

• How Fairy Liquid solves visor misting

• How to approach your first road race

• Why aren’t more bike journalists nicked riding like idiots on foreign launches?

• Why riding more makes you enjoy riding more

• Is Yamaha’s Niken the perfect camera bike for filming cycle racing?

• Why seat height isn’t actually a good measure of the height of the seat...

...and so much less. I mean more. More. Much more.

Front End Chatter – Episode 92

Look out, it’s Front End Chatter E92, the biking podcast enabled, empowered, energised and veritably triggered by the cosmonauts at bikesocial.co.uk and bods at Bennetts, the bike insurance specialists, without whom this would all still happen but much less often.

And this week we have:

• Why being a MotoGP legend is bad for your health (especially if you’re a Brit)

• who’s actually likely to win the MotoGP title the next time Marquez doesn’t?

• what happened at the unfeasibly warm Bennetts British Superbike season opener at Silverstone

• why we won’t be watching the 2020 Dakar Rally from Saudi Arabia

• ideas to replace a Honda Blackbird with a £4500 sporty all-rounder

• why fixed spring rates are a great unspoken compromise of biking

• is the cost of insurance is putting off new riders?

• should you wait and get a used Svartpilen 701 or Iannone your KTM 990 SM?

• if you could spend two weeks touring in the UK, where would you go?

• ...and lots lots more. It’s a vintage FEC-sack.

Front End Chatter – Episode 93

This week on FEC we have:

• rambling thoughts on Jerez MotoGP, including Suzi Quartararo's hot laps, Zarco's loose lips, how this is the joint closest MotoGP championship since 2009, and a resurfaced Silverstone

• the experience of Yamaha's Off Road Experience

• what off-road bike should you get for you wife, except it's really for you?

• are bike vloggers the new bike journalists? 

• is there something in the water in Lincolnshire to create so many great racers, and does it match whatever they put in the water in Catalan?

• and much much more....

Front End Chatter – Episode 94

 And this week we have, for your listening infuriation: 

• gossip and stats from Le Mans MotoGP, including Marquez showing Lorenzo how to stay upright, and Quartararo showing Marquez how to be faster by not crashing

• who’ll top the TT timesheets this year? 

• Mud, sweat and beers with two days and 350 miles in Wales, following a rally-style route map on road and off on a Scrambler 1200XE

• News and first impressions from the launch of long-awaited, entry-level Yamaha’s Ténéré 700 and hilarious, expensive XSR700 XTribute

• How young is too young to ride a bike? And what’s the best route into riding for youngsters?

• Why aren’t there more Ducatis racing at the TT? 

• What’s the best big naked bike for touring?

• How to avoid the buffering wheel of death on the online MotoGP feed

• Is it an unwritten rule of bikes that you need to go fast, and does that put people off?

• And much, much more…

Front End Chatter – Episode 95

And what a weird podcast we have this week, as two – well, one – of Britain’s funniest, smartest, sassiest and damn amazing moto journalists – that’s him, Martin Fitz-Gibbons, with me, Simon Hargreaves –  discuss subjects as widely disparate as:

• how MotoGP from Mugello (remember that?) was won by a man who used to race an EXUP

• who did what at the wettest TT ever, including how Peter Hickman used an S1000RR engine he didn’t use, why it was a hybrid bike but not a hybrid engine, and why Harrison, not Dunlop, won the Dunlop Senior, on Metzelers, not Dunlops

• why John McGuinness might want to check the details of his Norton pension plan

• why FEC probably holds the lap record for the North Coast 500

• the practical and psychological merits of air-bag suits

• is it a risk buying a new bike in the first year of production?

• does wearing hi-viz make you a fluoracist?

• why oh why isn’t there a magazine website with videos and stories and everything (like, er, bikesocial.co.uk, maybe)?

• are any skills learned off road transferrable to road riding?

• is the polite biker nod a dying habit, and should you wave at other riders anyway?

• are racers made on the roads they grow up riding on?

Front End Chatter – Episode 96

Rambling gossip this month includes:

• MotoGP from Catalunya and why Lorenzo wasn’t the bad guy

• conquering the Rudland Rigg on a Triumph Scrambler 1200

• new bike news featuring...

1. Ducati’s Streetfighter V4, with added wings

2. KTM’s 790 Adventure R Rally with added springs

3. Triumph Rocket III TFC with added torques

• ...which is an awful lot of extreme/exclusivity/exotica all in one go, but should anyone really care, do they actually make any money for the manufacturers or are they just exercises in PR and brand awareness?

• are bikers getting more gammony?

• does size matter (we’re talking engines here)?

• why don’t more bikes have an overdrive top gear, and is it more fuel efficient to use big throttle in top gear of part throttle in lower gears?

• are Triumphs more unreliable than other manufacturers, and why doesn’t the press talk about it?

• You want a desirable, fun, impractical road bike – should you buy a Ducati 1098S or an MV Agusta F3 800... or something else altogether?

• BMW R18 concept bike – thumbs up or thumbs up bums?

• why focussing on less-tall bikers is size-ist; a lot of tall riders have problems too...

• more on the merits or otherwise of air-bag vests – do they work, and does risk compensation actually make you more likely to have an accident when wearing one?

Front End Chatter – Episode 97

Apologies for the late arrival of FEC#97 – delayed by unexpected items in the bagging area – but now it’s here, let’s tuck in! Brought to you as always by the furiously febrile funkateers at bikesocial.co.uk and the bike-insuring bike insurers Bennetts, this week’s regurgitation of previously held opinions includes:

• MotoGP (remember that?) round-up from Assen and Sachsenring, including neck braces, tankslappers, youngsters v old ’uns, should JL99 and/or VR46 retire, who’ll take ZR5’s place at KTM, and who’ll replace MCN race reporter now he’s taken the gig as PR blerk for Petronas Yamaha?

• with Rea overturning Dave Bautista’s lead in WSB, does he still think his ZX-10R is “like taking a knife to a gunfight”?

• MotoE’s first race – pointless comedy, the future, or both?

 PLUS! Listeners’ emails, including:

• do leathers and other items of bike kit have a safety lifespan, and what’s best to clean them?

• living proof back protectors are worth wearing all the time...

• why are the roads in the Fens so bad?

• has Scott Redding done enough to justify a ride in WSB next year... but will it actually pay more than he’s already getting in BSB?

• has BTSport’s coverage of MotoGP been successful?

• Chinese 125 retros: stylish or not? And why don’t the big manufacturers build such stripped-back bikes?

• ...and should we make an ethical choice not to buy bikes from China, given their human rights record?

...and introducing our new bike-buying advice section, VFECR800 Corner, including:

• what’s the best big £3k sporty bike for a big sporty bloke, upgrading from a ZX-6R?

• what’s the best £4k second bike alongside a Daytona 675 for two-up weekend touring?

• what’s the best bike to replace a Husqvarna 701 Supermoto and a Triumph Tiger 800?

• what’s the best bike to deliver top-endy, rev-happy thrashable thrills instead of single-gear flexibility?

• What’s the best cheap track-day bike to suit a 6-footer for a £2k?

Front End Chatter – Episode 98

And it’s a short and sweet episode this week, as we clear the FECsack in preparation for FEC100 (live at Cadwell Park near Louth, Lincs, on Tuesday Aug 13th), including:

• Mufga gets tugged by the Fuzz

• Why milking snail mucin for facials is a real thing

• WSB from the corkscrewy Laguna Se-ca, and the revelation pit lanes the world over are, entirely not in fact, named after Brad Pitt

• BSB from Snettingham Parks and the revelation Scotch Reading-not-from-Reading can’t half pedal a bike round a circuit he’s not seen before, but when is a jump start not a jump start

• would you beat Marquez on a road bike, first time out, down your favourite road?

• would WSB be livened-up by forcing winning riders to change teams?

• when is an oil flag not an oil flag?

• airbags – are they pointless out in the random environment on the road, away from predictable race track crashes? Or are they genuinely useful in certain road crashes?

• why is MotoGP’s video pass 30% more expensive in the UK than, say, France?

• should corporate greed be regulated?

• what’s a good, all-weather, non-dissolving London commuter bike for £3k?

• more from happy, hassle-free Triumph owners (but not Mufga)

• ...and a bit more.

Front End Chatter – Episode 99

And this time we have for your delectation:

• remarkable Mark Marquez marks his all-time record-equalling 58th pole position at Brno by qualifying with the biggest margin in the modern MotoGP era...

• ...although technically and mathematically, there’s still a chance Hafizh Syahrin could still take the title...

• ...but anyway, MotoGP is boring now because the same guy keeps winning all the time so we’re all going to watch WSB instead...

• ...or maybe we should watch BSB, with Scotch Redding still leading the championship after Thruxton, but by less, from Josh Brookes, not that it matters because, basically, Showdown...

• ...although we only needed to watch the last lap at the Suzuka 8hr because for 7hrs 57mins some bikes went round the track until Jonny Rea fell off and then won in the restaurant.

PLUS!

• an audio review of Moto Guzzi’s V85 TT ridden for 1000 miles in 35°C

AND! Your emails, including...

• Triumphs are still reliable

• with a few new bikes now coming with an SP (or R) version with uprated suspension, would it be worth buying the standard-suspended model instead and spending the difference getting it uprated by an aftermarket suspension specialist?

• how far does Mufga need to shove the drugs up his... oh, you had to be there, really...

• which used naked bike to upgrade from an Aprilia Shiver 750: Ducati Streetfighter 848, Monster 1200, Aprilia Tuono V4 or Triumph Street Triple RS? Or Speed Triple, even?

• would you rather have a perfect bike from a shitty dealer, or a bike with a few teething troubles from a really good dealer?

• is a late-1990s GSX-R SRAD750 or 600 still a good sportsbike today? Or is there something better from the same era?

• DO NOT MOCK THE MIGHTY DEAUVILLE... please

• ...and much, much more. No, really, even more.

Thanks for listening!

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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