Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, and it’s episode 215 of the long-running motorcycling podcast with him, Martin Fitz-Gibbons, and him, Simon Hargreaves – and immense thanks as always to the ever-supportive Bennetts, Britain’s best-by-miles bike insurer, and the magnificent bikesocial.co.uk, the website with all your info on the latest new bikes, used bikes, classic bikes, news, reviews and product tests.

Right, on with the show – and, today, we’re in for a reborn, reinvented, reimagined, reincarnated treat... because:

• Suzuki’s GSX-R1000R is back, baby, for 2026 – and we have all the details, hot off the emails from Hamamatsu: power, weight, colours and tech. You can read about it elsewhere – but you can only hear about it, er, here

• KTM are back, baby – details of production starting again in Austria; the what, the when, and the how many

• BSA’s Bantam is back, baby – yes, after only half a century, the owners of BSA, Mahindra, decide to resurrect the name for their new 334cc single roadster, as a direct rival to Honda’s GB350S
• and of course the FECsack is back, baby – more musings, ponderings and queries from you lot to us lot about that lot

Thanks for listening, please email your own compositions and questions and congratulations to Mufga on his new job to:

anything@frontendchatter.com – and we’ll do our best to read them out.

Thank ee again, and see you on the backside, baby!

Hello and welcome to Front End Chatter, Britain's crumbliest, flakiest motorcycling podcast, brought to you by the hapless hackery of Simon Hargreaves and Martin Fitz-Gibbons, nattering endlessly on and on and on anon. We are, as always, scrutineered and scrutinised by Bennetts, Britain's Best Bike Insurer, and bikesocial.co.uk (don't need the www, but try telling legacy media that).

And this month (as it turns out) on FEC, we witter about:
• Suzuki's new GSX-S8T and TT (cue schoolboy giggling)
• CCM going bust
• Dainese in debt
• global bike sales doing well, but not so much in Europe or North America, a pretty awful in the UK
• why automatic gearboxes are the opposite of a guitar solo

Plus much more, well, a bit...

Thank you for lending us your ears, and please keep you thoughts, musings, machinations and queries to:
anything@frontendchatter.com

Love ya!

Hello dearest ear-owners and welcome to Front End Chatter, source of the most significant soundwaves in British motorcycling since the feral howl of a raging Norton rotary haunted the quiet coastal village of Kirk Michael, or since the words "Go on then, I'll 'ave it" slipped breathlessly from the lips of a Derbyshire-born property developer attending the auction of a defunct motorcycle factory.

In this aural delight of an episode, Simon and Mufga regale themselves with a recap of the spectacularly special Highland Fling tours (so good they did them twice), along with:

• Loadsa goss about Triumph's Tiger Sport 800 and BMW's R1300GS Adventure having covered 3000 miles apiece
• Why MotoGP might be getting interesting again, and why the TT continues to fascinate every corner of the country for more than a century
• The forced-induction fabulousness that was the Bennetts Supercharged Showdown, where 50-plus Kawasaki H2 owners took over an empty runway
• Simon gets a taste of Ducati's £16,000 Streetfighter V2S
• Martin gets a taste of Voge's £6,000(ish) DS625X
• The latest facts, news, rumours and baseless speculation regarding Bajaj's takeover of KTM, and what it might mean for the future
• FECsack correspondence covering classic sports-tourers for young riders, the dubious bargains of Facebook Marketplace, how media gets hold of the bikes they test, bikes with undeserved reputations, the best British five-day biking tour, and more…

Thank you, one and all, for continuing to allow us to tickle your tympanic membranes - and enormously gigantical appreciations to Bennetts, Britain's best bike insurers. Be sure to get a quote direct from Bennetts the next time you need motorcycle insurance, and be even more sure to check out bikesocial.co.uk for all the best bike news and product reviews on the interwebs.

Continue to catch him and the other one on the socials (@simonhbikes & @mufga or something like that), and let us know where to take future FEC tours on anything@frontendchatter.com

Until next time!