Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter Episode 127, the slightly behind the curve episode, with Martin Fitz-Gibbons and Simon Hargreaves waffling along as usual – supported and enhanced by Bennetts, the bike insurance specialists, and www.bikesocial.co.uk, the home of all things two-wheeled and powered by an engine, internally combustible or electric or, indeed, propelled by little more than an inappropriate fragrant emission.

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...

Many thanks to Bennetts and Bike Social for their continued patronage, and many thanks to you, dear listener, for lending us your ears... and please keep sending your thoughts, musings and life stories to us here:

anything@frontendchatter.com

You can get us on the Socials:

@SimonHbikes

@Mufga

Cheers ma dears.

Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, Britain's most paracorded motorcycling podcast Fronted by Simon Hargreaves, Ended by Martin Fitz-Gibbons and Chattered by www.bikesocial.co.uk and Bennetts, the bike insurance specialists.

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.

Thanks for letting us into your ears, hope the new lockdown and winter aren't too savage for you, and please email us your further thoughts, comments and/or questions to:

anything@frontendchatter.com

@SimonHbikes
@Mufga