Dearest FECers, welcome to episode 174 of the long-running – well, it's our ninth birthday, apparently, Happy Birthday to us etc – motorcycling podcast brought to you by Simon Hargreaves and Martin Fitz-Gibbons, and ably, nimbly and elastically supported by Bennetts, the bike insurance specialists (and if you haven't yet, you really should) and bikesocial.co.uk, the world of wokecycling on the web. 

And on this episode of FEC we have: 
• Martin making his spring comeback on his MV
• top tips for getting back into it after a winter lay-off
• the current state of play on the roads in Ireland
• Simon rides BMW's R1250 RS and gets confused by Triumph's DRLs
• plus a bunch of FECmails including naming your bike, which Guzzi, does your confidence dip, and what a compression and why is it ratioed? 

Thanks for listening once more, please spread the word, and please keep sending your thoughts, ponderings, musings, anecdotes, jokes, questions and offers of, well, anything, to:
anything@frontendchatter.com

@SimonHBikes
@Mufga

Hello & welcome to Front End Chatter with him, Martin Fitz-Gibbons, and me, Simon Harararargreaves. This is episode #173 of a long-running saga, in which we are as ever indebted to Bennetts, the only bike insurers who actually invest a shed-load back into British motorcycling culture to promote the British Superbike series, create an ocean of free content at www.BikeSocial.co.uk, planted the seeds for a rich and fertile YouTube channel, and allow FEC to come in your ears once a fortnight. That's gotta be worth the entry fee. 

And on this fortnight's FEC we have a new bike blitz with the return of the sports 400 in the unlikely shape of Kawasaki's ZX-4RR, the return of the sports touring supermoto with KTM's 890 SMT, and the debut of Suzuki's V-Strom with a 21in front wheel.

We also dive into the FEC sack – and, in a break with tradition, we harvest it from the top down, responding to the most current emails first (mostly commenting on FEC172's rather depressing message about the end of life as we know it). 

Anyway, we're still here, you're still here, and bikes are still awesome. So we're good. 

Please keep the questions (bike choice or existential), plus any other queries, comments and funny stories, coming to us at:
anything@frontendchatter.com
Catch us on the socials at: 
@SimonHBikes
@Mufga

Aye.