Bike Devil’s Week on Two-Wheels: News Update – 06 January
Welcome to the first Bike Devil update of 2020!
Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. It’s that time to get all the latest news and updates for the week so grab a cup of something warm, sit back and let’s get started…
Famously, January sees new model launch season begin in earnest, and this year is no different. Arguably the most hotly-anticipated bike to be launched this month will be the new Honda Fireblade, with the world’s media getting the chance to put it through its paces at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar. Hands up who wants an invite to that!
Also waiting to steal headlines will be the supercharged Ninja H2 from Kawasaki, the updated Ducati Panigale V4, Triumph Thruxton, and V-Strom 1050XT. With the high quality of these bikes it’s going to be hard to choose one, let us know if any of these will be joining your collection in 2020.
There’s new kit out there too, including a new range of airbag jackets from RST which is, they claim, available at a price point more within reach of everyday riders. You can decide if £400 upwards fits that bill, but compared to the costs of other kit packed with airbag tech, they may have a point.
Arguably the toughest of all races has kicked off in Saudia Arabia, with the 2020 Dakar Rally underway! It’s the first iteration of the famous event to take place in the Middle East, and after two stages it is Briton Sam Sunderland who leads the way by nearly 80 seconds. 2019 winner Toby Price won the opening stage but a nightmare second stage – won by Ross Branch – dropped him ninth overall.
Over in America, the 2020 Supercross season kicked off with Anaheim 1 over the weekend, which saw the season opener in the Angel Stadium live up to all the pre-season hype. Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing’s Justin Barcia took the first win, something he also did in 2019, but rookie Adam Cianciarulo made him work for it throughout the evening. In the 250 class, Justin Cooper earned his first win to start his Western Regional 250SX class title chase off with the points lead.
And road racing’s quiet spell over winter was peppered with the news that Peter Hickman and Smith’s Racing will switch from Triumph power to Yamaha for this year’s supersport action.
So that’s it for this week, good luck making it through the working week and stay tuned for the next Bike Devil news update!
