Show Notes
Hello and welcome back to Front End Chatter, Britain's most durable motorcycling podcast, with Simone Hargreaves and Marion Fitz-Gibbons – a pair of ye olde worlde motorcycle journalists like wot they had off them magazines they used to have, talking about bikes, talking about riding them, talking about remembering what it was like to ride them, talking about dreaming of riding them, and talking about other things as well. Or even better. There's more to life than bikes – you might think that's what you came here for, but bikes are just the start.
Anyway, thank you to Bennetts, the marvellous bike insurers, and BikeSocial.co.uk, the best place on the web to locate all your motorcycling news, views and reviews. And check out their YouTube channel, whydontcher?
On this mighty organ of FEC we have: • a chat about the BikeSocial group test of the Suzuki GSX-8S, Honda Hornet, KTM 790 Duke and Yamaha MT-07 • Yamaha's Tracer 9 GT+ with added radar soup • a bit of natter about manufacturers using throttle mapping to define the power delivery of their bikes • KTM's upcoming 1390 motor, and what size it might actually be • ...and do we really need more capacity, and is that what really sells new bikes? • plus some of your FECsack emails, including what bike best sums up the 1990s?
Thanks again to everyone for your ears, and please write with your questions, thoughts, queries, jokes, funny experiences, and that time you met and he tried to get off with your girlfriend, to: [email protected]
@SimonHbikes @Mufga
More from Front End Chatter
Hello, welcome everyone and eyes down for The Big FEC Quiz Of The Year! For the first time in 224 episodes of semi-popular pontification, rarely informed speculation and increasingly elaborate two-wheeled tangents, him Simon Hargreaves and him Martin Fitz-Gibbons finally stop pretending to know all the answers… and start asking the questions instead.
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, Britain's most celebratory biking podcast, currently marking the historic 223rd anniversary of the moment Simon Hargreaves and Martin Fitz-Gibbons opened up a small family firm manufacturing essential podcast components. After the original Chatter Manors was flattened by an implausibly large quantity of pancakes falling from the sky, the burgeoning business was brought under state control by the good folk at Bennetts, Britain's best motorcycle insurance brokers. If your bike insurance is due soon get yourself a quote direct at bennetts.co.uk - and if it isn't, then head instead to bikesocial.co.uk for all manner of two-wheeled news and reviews. Oh, and don't forget to check out Bennetts BikeSocial on The YouTubes, where a brand new season of The Great Escape To The Country - sorry, What Bike Next? - will be dropping soon. Anyhow. In this episode Si & Mufga chatter all about: Downsizing, and whether small bikes are the next big thing Why Langen's Lightspeed is the polar inverse of BMW's R1300GS Silently sneaking around the countryside on Stark's Varg EX Screen (extenders) if you want to go faster Whether bike security is a total waste of time More grey import goodness Endurance racing glory and probably some other stuff too! It's a (relatively) tight one this, clocking in at just over an hour [Thank goodness - All]. Thank you, as always, for listening - and for the lucky few, we'll see you on FEC's 2026 The Moors The Merrier tour very soon! Until then, keep on sending your thoughts, wonderings and ponderings to [email protected] Mwah
Hello and sorry and welcome to Front End Chatter, and episode 222 of the motorcycling podcast that may (or may not) owe you an apology. That grovelling worm is Martin Fitz-Gibbons, and that recalcitrant rascal is Simon Hargreaves. Having spent several months avoiding facing up to the monster they unwittingly (in both senses) created, they're back with two hours of unrehearsed waffle about all things biking. As always they'd like to atone for their two-wheeled transgressions to Bennetts, Britain's best motorcycle insurers, represented on the interwebs by both BikeSocial (bikesocial.co.uk) and BikeClub (bikeclub.bennetts.co.uk) – between them a bewilderingly big bonanza of motorcycling news, product reviews, used bike buying guides, industry expert advice and so much more.
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, the motorcycling podcast, and none other than Episode 221 – they said we couldn't do it, but we've naysayed the naysayers. His name is Martin Fitz-Gibbons, editor of Bike magazine, and my name isn't but that's not important right now – what's important is we thank Bennetts, Britain's best motorcycle insurers who put more back into biking than insurance companies who put less back into biking, and some of whom put nothing back but merely take take take. Good people one and all. And also uber-thanks to the bikesocial.co.uk, the world of wokecycling on the web and on the YouTubes, with loads of news, views, new bike launches and road tests – all the good stuff.
Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, the podcast home of all things motorcycle-related, albeit tangentially sometimes, which, let's be honest, it's a slow news decade and we have to talk about something so why not just gossip? He's Martin Fitz-Gibbons and he's Simon Hargreaves, a pair of motorcycle content creators. And they're Bennetts, Britain's Best Bike Insurers, to whom we are all indebted, sometimes quite literally. And they're bikesocial.co.uk, where the web meets the world of bikes.