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Norton’s brand-new Manx R superbike promises to be the most advanced motorcycle ever built in Britain. But there’s also a lingering fear that it could be just another in a long line of half-finished cash cows trading off a beloved name that’s been dragged through the mud. This special 132-page bumper issue of Bike delivers our definitive verdict on one of 2026’s most important new bikes. We’ve ridden the Manx R on the road, thrashed it round a track and discovered its remarkable tech secrets. We’ve also revisited the astonishing achievements of the original Manx Norton racer – and even managed to ride a pukka 1954 works bike.

Elsewhere in our August issue we’ve been sports-touring with BMW’s R1300RS and Moto Guzzi’s V100 Mandello S. We’ve taken a closer look at a trio of temptingly priced middleweight sportsbikes to see whether any are worth your money. We’ve headed to France twice: once to ride the Trans Euro Trail on Suzuki’s DR-Z4S; and once with Team Bike to race an RC30 at Paul Ricard. We’ve explored a little-known European riding escape known as Asturias. And we’ve bagged an exclusive ride on Britian’s cheapest new bike, the £2799 Hero XPulse. Whatever and wherever you like to ride, this extra-large edition of Bike is packed with all kinds of inspiration to make this your best biking summer yet.

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Bargain of the year

Bike gets an exclusive first ride on this year’s cheapest new adventure bike, the Hero XPulse 200.Can it possibly be any good at that price? Oh yes…
By John Westlake Photography Gareth Harford

A GSX-R600 rider wanders over as I’m filling up the XPulse at the start of the day. ‘What’s that then?’ he asks, nodding at the Hero. As he looks the bike over, I rattle through the details – brand new to the UK, 200cc single, built in India – then ask him to guess how much. ‘Well, it looks like a Royal Enfield Himalayan, and they’re well over five grand [£5750, to be precise – Ed], so I reckon £4500.’ When I reveal the XPulse’s on-the-road price is £2799 he looks genuinely shocked, then suspicious… ‘Yeah, but is it any good?’
That’s the question. It’s all very well making an entire motorcycle for less than an Akrapovič exhaust, but if it’s awful, what’s the point? You might as well squander your money on new curtains (or something equally joyless).
Twenty minutes later, buzzing happily along the A47 towards King’s Lynn as the sun rises over the turnip fields, I ponder that the XPulse might be a lot better than good. After all, having nipped through a town centre, sat at 70mph on a dual carriageway, and carved round a couple of roundabouts, the XPulse seems remarkably competent. The engine pulls from 2000rpm and revs enthusiastically up to 9000rpm (an indicated 76mph). The suspension floats over rock-hard divots of mud laid down by Farmer Palmer. Steering is neutral on its Metzeler dual-sport tyres, and the gear lever action – always an indicator of shonky engineering in my book – is light yet positive.
Not only that, but nothing useful seems to be missing. There’s a USB port, fuel gauge, gear indicator, rev counter, clock, and a couple of trip meters (zeroed by two little buttons on the clocks, just like the old days). Okay, there are no riding modes, traction control or indeed any rider aids aside from ABS, but who needs them on a 20bhp bike? You can even Bluetooth your phone to the LCD screen for turn-by-turn navigation.
‘The XPulse thrashes past lorries leaking foulsmelling bin juice. Ah, the glamour of the Fens’

Still, it’s early days. Plenty of time for things to go wrong, especially as our destination is Kevin Hammond’s Adventure Bike Training school in Norfolk, where we’ll see how the Hero copes with smashing about off-road. If things are going to fall off (including me), it’ll probably happen there.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying the XPulse rather than tolerating it. As the sun starts to warm my back and my confidence in the bike grows, I thrum past cars brainlessly following agricultural machinery, then thrash past lorries leaking foul-smelling bin juice. Ah, the glamour of the Fens; world leader in pallet storage, roadside manure vendors and horrible smells.
Up to 50mph, the XPulse is perky enough to manage these cheeky overtakes, but faster vehicles require more planning and I tuck in behind the fly screen, swooping past lines of traffic like a teenager on an Aprilia RS125. Giggling may have occurred.
It does need a sixth gear though. Fifth gets you up to 75mph on the flat, but that’s near the redline and if you’ve got an ounce of mechanical sympathy it feels cruel, despite the vibes being entirely tolerable. Another gear would let it cruise at A-road speeds more comfortably.
But I suspect this isn’t on Hero’s urgent modifications list. The XPulse is designed and built for India where bikes have to cope with scorching weather, diabolical roads and owners with a relaxed approach to routine maintenance – high-speed cruising is not a priority. A Royal Enfield engineer who formerly worked for Triumph once told me that designing small cheap engines to survive those environments is far more challenging than making high-power motors for western markets because the little bikes spend so much of their lives bouncing off the rev limiter, often with low oil levels.
The fact Hero’s 200cc single has been tazzing round India for seven years (the past five with the four-valve motor you see here) suggests any reliability issues have been sorted. In fact, the whole bike has an evolved feel, as if every part has been tested and honed by tens of thousands of Indian owners. For example, I’ll bet the reason the rack has such an immaculate powder coated finish is because the paint of early versions didn’t last. Ditto the switchgear, which feels just as solid as any Honda’s – anything less would not have survived.
‘The whole bike has an evolved feel, as if every part has been honed by tens of thousands of Indian owners’

By the time I arrive at Kevin’s off-road centre, I’m ready for a stroll. The XPulse’s saddle is broad and comfortable, but two hours is enough. I’ve been hoping the bike would need petrol for the past 30 minutes but the bloody thing doesn’t appear to use any – later calculations show that over a mixed day of 70mph thrashing and gentle trail riding it returns 81mpg. With its 13litre tank, that equates to a 230 mile range.
Part of the reason I didn’t stop anyway was that the rest of me was fine. The engine may be small, but the bike itself isn’t, with a respectable 823mm seat height and sensibly placed bars and pegs; no knee or wrist pain. And because the screen keeps most of the wind off, my neck wasn’t aching either.
‘What’s that then?’ asks Kevin, giving the XPulse the onceover. I go through my usual spiel while beginning to worry about the wisdom of taking it off-road. When the bike was upgraded from a two-valve head to four in 2021 – an innovation still worthy of several stickers, along with two more bragging about its fuel injection – the Hero engineers were forced to add an oil cooler, which they decided to hang out the left. This no doubt made sense from an aerodynamic point of view because of all the lovely fresh air, but the radiator suddenly looks very vulnerable with an off-road excursion imminent.

‘It’ll be fine,’ says Kevin. ‘It’s rubber mounted and has a metal guard, and the crash bars will take the brunt. Plus I won’t drop it.’ Yeah, but I might. And I’m meant to be riding it home.
My worrisome inner monologue is interrupted by Kevin: ‘This actually looks very good,’ he says, fiddling with the switchgear and then jumping on and bouncing the suspension. ‘It’s going to appeal to a lot of shorter riders – I’ve got a 29in leg and I can get both feet down easily. A lot of women we see at the school turn up on lowered Himalayans, Honda CRF300s and so on. This is ready out of the box – it’s got the handguards, screen, bash plate, crash bars, radiator guard… is all that standard?’ Yep. Fancy a go?
‘Honestly, I’m blown away by how good this thing is’

And with that, he dons his lid and is gone, making some fulllock circles look irritatingly easy before disappearing over the crest of a hill into a huge bomb hole. I watch as photographer Gareth chases after him, shouting instructions to go through a massive sandpit more dramatically. A lifelong trials rider, Kevin won the international BMW GS Trophy in 2010, then became an instructor at Simon Pavey’s Off Road Skills school in Wales before starting Adventure Bike Training. Dramatic sand riding is not, as it turns out, a problem.
After 20 minutes of traversing all the obstacles at his centre, Kevin returns. ‘That’s great fun,’ he says. ‘I can see this working brilliantly for people who want a second bike to ride on green lanes. The cable-operated clutch feels good – I was using second and slipping the clutch where necessary – and the throttle response and fuelling is excellent, which is important off-road at lower speeds.

‘And although it’s only 200cc, it’s a willing engine – it doesn’t bog going up the hills and is a lot easier to ride round here than my Himalayan because it’s lighter [by 20kg]. Honestly, I’m blown away by how good this thing is.’
Blimey. I set off round the park and immediately see what Kevin means. The standing position is natural, nothing gets in the way of your legs as you move fore and aft going up and down hills, and the brakes – which require a good yank on the road – are perfect when you need some finesse going down steep, gravelly slopes. And it feels lighter than the 159kg Hero claim. Within five minutes I’m confidently mucking about in the same way I would on my 110kg Suzuki DR250.

Buoyed up by XPulse’s off-road prowess, I plot a route home taking in some of Kevin’s favoured trails. And sure enough, the Hero is a delight. Even my arch-nemesis – sand – fails to ruin things because the Hero’s slight rear weight bias makes the 21in front wheel less liable to dig in. And when what looks like a shallow water splash turns out to be two feet deep, I’m not at all surprised when the XPulse chugs on through without a splutter, then does it five more times so photographer Gareth can muck about with his focal shutter lengths. My only off-road doubt is ruts, just because the Hero’s ground clearance isn’t as generous as a pukka enduro bike (though the ‘Pro’ version could be an answer to this, adding 50mm more suspension for £200).
Back on the A47 and stuck behind a lorry transporting vile smells to Wisbech, I’m giddy with excitement about the XPulse. Herald, Mutt, Lexmoto, Keeway and Zontes all make bikes for similar money, but I’ve never ridden one with the Hero’s levels of finish, competence and all-round performance. It feels like an important bike – if we could only get more youngsters on motorcycles like this, biking’s future would be secure. In the meantime I suggest we all buy one as a second bike and go trail riding. I’ll see you out there.

There’s another one

If you want 50mm more suspension travel and adjustable forks, there’s the XPulse 200 Pro, which is £200 more than the standard bike at £2999. However, the seat height rises to 891mm, so unless you’re very tall or ride a lot of ruts, we’d stick to the standard model.

Who are Hero?

» Hero are the world’s second largest motorcycle manufacturer after Honda, though there’s some dispute over that because Honda include bikes made by various Chinese and Indonesian partners. Anyway, Hero are massive. Last year they sold 635,000 bikes… in October. That’s three times more than BMW made in all of 2025. In total Hero made 5.9m bikes in 2025, 3.2m of which were their 100cc Splendor. By comparison, the XPulse is a niche, premium model in the Indian market, selling a mere 40,000 per year.

Be adventurous

» We tested the XPulse at Adventure Bike Training’s base in Norfolk. It’s a cracking set-up that allows chief instructor Kevin Hammond to teach you the basic skills on a range of obstacles at your own pace, before guiding you down some local trails to put your new-found talents to good use. Contact Kevin for more details on 07949 508786, or visit adventurebiketraining.co.uk

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Racing

Team Bike’s first endurance race of the year at Paul Ricard proved to be a roller coaster of a weekend – as boss Ian Martin explains

PHOTOGRAPHY JACQUES AUDINOS / IAN MARTIN
Paul Ricard is fantastic – one of the best circuits we go to. I’d say Spa is the best circuit in the world, but Paul Ricard is a very close second. Especially for Team Bike – it’s our spiritual home. It’s where it all started with Howard Lees and co going down to watch the races in the late 1970s, then they started racing there in the early 1980s. It was always the team’s favourite meeting. We’ve all got a soft spot for Paul Ricard.
This fast, demanding and technical track in the south of France hosts the opening round of the 2026 Europe Endurance Cup, our first race of the year. It’s a special event because it’s a four-hour night race – it starts at 8pm on the Saturday evening and runs until midnight. Last year things didn’t go so well for us. We had a big crash during the race and one of our Honda RC30s caught fire (Bike, August 2025). But having said that we won our class the year before (Bike, August 2024), so we know we can go well there.

Solid start
The weather was beautiful – no wind, clear blue skies, absolutely perfect conditions. Our two riders, James Westmoreland and Dan Burnham, were out on track all day Friday for free practice. The spare bike (known as the ‘T’ bike) developed some fuelling issues, which turned out to be crap in the carbs. They’re really difficult to strip and rebuild at the trackside, so we had to do all our practice and qualifying on our number one bike.
Our first qualifying session went really well. James put in a 2m16s lap – quickest in class and sixth overall out of 60-odd bikes. Dan’s session didn’t go as well, though. He crashed towards the end, so then we had to wait for the bike to come back to the pits on the trailer. That was a problem, because the rules say you’ve also got to complete a lap of the final night qualifying session or you can’t start the race. That gave us just 30 minutes to completely rebuild the bike…
It was a mess – there were stones on top of the valves from where it had been in the gravel trap. We had to put some duct tape on the end of a long screwdriver and pick out every stone before I could spin the engine over. We managed to get it started, but then it was revving at 7000rpm because there was a stone stuck in the carb slides. So we’re trying to clean the carbs while also changing the bodywork, the exhaust, a handlebar and all the other bits – and time’s ticking away.
Finally, after the third time of getting the carbs off and on, we got it running right. James got out on track in the nick of time and crossed the start/finish line for his flying lap with 30 seconds to go. But despite all that, his flying lap was third quickest overall – on a bike we’d just rebuilt! We’d literally just made it. Everyone rallying round is what endurance racing is all about, and so we were feeling pretty good for the race.

I get knocked down…
James started the race on Saturday evening and he was absolutely flying. He was leading our class and had built up a really healthy lead over the secondplaced team; I think he was running sixth or seventh overall. He came in after about 45 minutes and we changed rider. Dan took over and started putting in some steady laps, when the bike cut out suddenly. He pulled over, got it running again and rode it back to the pits. It seemed okay, so we did a fuel stop and swapped riders again.
But just half a lap later, on the fast left-hander leading onto the straight, the bike cut out again.

And because James was banked so far over, it’s like jamming the brake on – the front just tucked under him. There was nothing he could do; I don’t think I’ve ever known James to crash. Luckily he wasn’t hurt.
They brought the bike to the pits for us, and at first I thought we could get it back out there again. But we didn’t know what caused the problem, and I didn’t want to send the bike back out there if there was a chance it could do it again. It’s a mystery – in 10 years of doing this we’ve never had an electrical fault like this before. We had to withdraw from the main race. We were gutted.
‘It was a mess – there were stones on top of the valves’

…but I get up again
That just left a one-hour sprint race on the Sunday. But to enter that we’ve got to put a bike together. We can’t use the number one bike because of the electrical fault, so that night we had to rebuild the ‘T’ bike with whatever bits we could salvage, swapping the carbs and fuel tank off the number one bike, changing the rear shock, the brakes, checking the whole thing over.
We worked until 1am, then up early on the Sunday. With no more practice time I could only give it a run up from the pit garage to the main gate and back – that was all the testing we could do. Everyone’s feeling pretty down and dejected by now – I joked that it was nice of the organisers to give us a second chance at disappointment. The sprint race was a chance to redeem ourselves, but we also had a chance to make it even worse…
‘Then James started moving through the pack – with a lap to go he’s in second…’

The riders decided that Dan was going to start the race, they’d swap after 25 minutes, and James would finish the hour. Dan got off to a reasonable start and we were about eighth or ninth in class, about 28th overall. We were one of the first teams to change and we had a really quick pit stop – something like 14 seconds to swap riders and drop in another 12 litres of fuel. We don’t waste any time.
Then James started doing his thing, putting us back up the leader board. We could see him moving up from eighth all the way through the pack – they must have wondered what hit them. We’re giving him his pit signals and they’re going P5… P4… P3… and then with a lap to go he’s P2. Just before the final lap he passed and took the lead – and in the end we won our class by three seconds – on the final lap! Winning lifted everyone’s spirits. We’d pulled it out of the bag, and it was a great way to finish on a high. Everyone was really happy – we were all hanging over the fences, waving to him. It was really cool. We should have got some champagne, but we waited two hours for a podium that never happened. I guess we’ll have to pick our trophies up at the next round at Brands Hatch…

Kyle Ryde returns at Brands!

» Next up is a four-hour endurance race at Brands Hatch on Saturday 27 June. It’s going to be a very special one for us, because we’ve got British Superbike champion Kyle Ryde back racing for Team Bike again. After what he did at Spa last year (Bike, December 2025) it’s going to be incredible to see what he does. It’s part of a No Limits race weekend, so we’ll have five classic endurance classes sharing the track with two modern classes (1000s and 600s). That means Kyle’s going to be racing our RC30 against modern superbikes once again. So come along on Saturday 27 June, support Team Bike and see what happens!

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Ahead of its time

How a spare-time side project in the early days of Hinckley Triumph went on to become one of the most radical, groundbreaking and trailblazing British bikes…

When the reborn Triumph factory’s first motorcycles appeared in 1991, they were greeted with a sense of relief. The Bloor regime made no rash promises, simply delivered machines that looked good, went okay, and did not break. Result.

The Daytona 900 was the pick of the early bunch. Clearly the work of a British design team headed by John Mockett, it borrowed little from either Japan or Europe, aside from cycle part componentry. Yet Mockett had further plans for that machine. ‘The boss came round to give the final okay for the Daytona,’ says Mockett. ‘He was always round my house anyway, and some of us had already been working on what became the Speed Triple.

‘I thought now is the time to show him, I muttered something about this being what we do in our spare time and then showed him the bike. He said: “Fuckin’ hell, looks like it’s been fuckin’ crashed.” But he knew he was looking at a departure from the norm.’

One of the beauties of the Hinckley Triumph operation were the uncluttered communication lines between boss Bloor and his lieutenants. ‘I would always phone Stuart Wood (Triumph chief engineer at the time) when I needed something,’ says Mockett. ‘But the Speed Triple wasn’t that hard to do because the frame had decent geometry.’

Ducati’s M900 Monster appeared in 1993 to general enthusiasm, but it was nothing like the stir created when the Speed Triple broke cover in 1994. ‘We all liked the Monster,’ says Mockett. ‘But the Speed Triple was a different thing.’

Where the original Monster was an almost frivolous take on a V-twin, the Speed Triple was a far more serious reworking of a three-cylinder sportsbike. With 95bhp, 55lb·ft and a fivespeed gearbox (not the Daytona’s six pinions) it was fast – and it looked faster. Cobby, coiled and fairly menacing in Diablo Black, it spawned not only a long line of Speed and Street Triples, but a raft of naked sports and hypersports machines from rival marques.

Aprilia Tuono, KTM Super Duke and MV Brutale all owe their genesis to the Speed Triple, and there can be little doubt it utterly lit up the Triumph brand back in the mid-1990s.

More often than not it’s the first-gen MK1 machines that still look the best, no matter how many subsequent versions are produced. Think Moto Guzzi Le Mans Mk1, 1974 Ducati 750SS – right-first-time jaw-droppers that were never bettered in either looks or impact.

The 1994 Triumph Speed Triple is one of those few machines. Newer Speed Triples are naturally far better rides than the original. But none look quite so dramatic and revolutionary as the first.

Mark Graham

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