Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki are getting together to research the use of hydrogen as a direct alternative fuel for petrol engines. The Hydrogen Small mobility & Engine technology group (HySE) will look into all practical aspects, to see whether hydrogen can work as a realistic alternative fuel for motorcycles while cars decarbonise through electrification. The four companies have divided up the jobs between them. Honda will concentrate on model development while Kawasaki will look at auxiliary systems such as fuel supply and tanks. Yamaha will research making refuelling with highly volatile hydrogen a safer process as well as testing hydrogen engines, alongside Kawasaki. “We are committed to this endeavour,” said Kenji Komatsu, Chairman nominee of HySE, “with a sense of mission

We’ve all heard of overland riders whose 12-month trip across the world extends to several years, but how about being on the road for 34 years? Not only that, but on the same bike! That’s what Australian couple Sam and Stew Saunders have done, having been travelling since 1989 on their BMW R100GS, covering 150,000km (over 90,000 miles). They started out riding from the UK to Australia, getting there in 1991, and later shipped the bike to the US and rode through South and North America. More recently they planned shipping to Japan and riding to South Korea and Vladivostok before turning west and riding back to Europe through Mongolia and Russia. First Covid, then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, has put paid

Girder forks were the standard motorcycle front suspension through the 1920s and ‘30s, before being superseded by telescopic forks after WWII. Since then, telescopics have become almost universal despite their widely acknowledged flaws. But now it looks like the girder fork could be making a comeback, albeit in more sophisticated form than the pre-war original, based on designs by British engineer Norman Hossack, who developed a modern girder fork in the 1970s. BMW’s Telelever front end has been well established for about 30 years, though on a shrinking number of models, now only fitted to the K1600 tourer, while more recently Honda has fitted a similar system to the Goldwing. Now Chinese manufacturer CFMoto – is following suit, patenting a girder

Triumph of Hinckley has announced new initiatives to attract younger people into the motorcycle industry, countering fears that the industry has an ageing workforce as well as customer base. The Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) is well aware of the problem, and at last November’s Motorcycle Live show ran a Careers Hub stand with BikeJobs and the National Motorcycle Dealers Association, which resulted in 150 serious enquiries. Now Triumph is to launch a range of schemes to encourage young entrants into motorcycle engineering, retail and design. In an interview with MCN, Paul Stroud, Triumph’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Our dedicated STEM Outreach team is also planning the new Triumph Design Awards, which is an opportunity for students to showcase their innovative designs and

Wolverhampton Speedway, home to the Wolverhampton Wolves team and thought to be the oldest active speedway track in the UK, is facing closure after nearly 100 years of racing. Entain Leisure, owners of the Monmore Green site, have decided to concentrate on greyhound racing, and informed the Wolves promoter Chris Van Straaten that the current lease would end on 31st October. Until now, the team has signed up for a three-year rolling lease, but the latest lease has been cut back to one year. A short statement on the Wolverhampton Wolves website read: “Club bosses are devastated by the news and will be making no further comment at this time.” “The impact on British speedway as a whole will be considerable,” wrote

Mental Health Motorbike (MHM) – the charity which provides mental health support from and between bikers – has teamed up to with Phoenix Motorcycle Training to make mental health awareness an integral part of rider training. MHM is training 24 members of Phoenix staff as Mental Health First Aiders, spread across all of the company’s 22 sites in the UK. Paul Oxborough founded MHM in 2020 after a friend suffered as a result of poor mental health. “We lost a friend to suicide and decided we had to do something about it,” he said. “Having been a motorcyclist for so long, I knew that community and thought that was a good place to start.” Mental Health Motorbike now has a nationwide

Scottish Police will be using unmarked cars and bikes this summer, in a bid to reduce motorcycle casualties on the country’s roads. “We’re quite fortunate in Scotland, with some of the most beautiful roads (in the UK),” said Deputy Head of Road Policing Stewart Mackenzie. “We’re keen to see people making use of those roads, but we want them to do that safely and responsibly.” Twenty-seven riders died on Scottish roads across 2022/23, most of those during spring and summer – 455 motorcyclists were involved in a serious collision in Scotland in 2021. As well as the unmarked vehicles, marked motorcycles and cars will be out and about on the key routes, especially at weekends, to deter unsafe riding and driving, backed