It came up in office conversation that the sportsbike market in Australia is struggling.
This isn’t news to anyone, least of all the importers.
I’m an enthusiastic road-bike rider and if there’s ever a chance to get a run on a race track, I’ll barge people out of the way to be first in line. I love it. If it’s one of the big tracks, like Eastern Creek or Phillip Island, I may actually injure other people in my efforts to make sure I don’t miss out.
That underlines for me the problem with a sportsbike.
Even a four-cylinder 600cc production bike is a serious, high-tech, high-speed proposition these days. The modern litre-class bikes are beyond that kind of description. They’re straying into areas which need adjectives like ‘ballistic’. The 300kph barrier ceased to be a barrier a long time ago.