Red Bull Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade beaten by aeroplane at Silverstone:In a challenge set up by Red Bull at Silverstone between its BSB Honda CBR1000RR, F1 Ferrari and Red Bull Air Race Extra 300S Jonathan Rea could not hang in with David Coulthards super powerful Ferrari F1 car and the Red Bull Air Race Extra 300S piloted by Steve Jones.

Yamaha/Star Vmax:Good news is that Yamaha's questionnaire shows that there is no doubt what the public wants. Anything below 200 horsepower will not cut it with buyers. France was one of the great markets for the original Vmax and it was a commercial success. The new Vmax is most likely to become a 2009 model now. In France everyone still have to settle for a pitiful 100 horsepower version. Can you imagine this? Yamaha will launch its most powerful production model ever, and the French motorcyclists have to settle with less than half of that power.

Claudine Maffiolo at Yamaha France told me that they have no information regarding the timing or the reason for delay. But they have big expectations still for the Vmax in France despite the cap on power. At the Paris exhibition in 2007 everyone asked about the Vmax, Maffiolo said. I asked Maffiolo whether French motorcyclists would complain about being robbed of all that V4 power. "Nobody will complain because in France these are the rules. The previous Vmax was big in France, but in France there are big safety issues regarding powerful motorcycles." Whilst we feel sorry for the French biker, we move over to the UK where motorcyclists will get the full spec version.

BMW R1200S :Something has happened with BMW since the R1100S was launched in 1998. It was the most powerful BMW boxer then and R1200S will be the most powerful boxer now. BMW wants their bikes to be the perfect road bikes, but the press release leaves us with conflicting messages. It states that the R1200S is for people that find the Japanese and Italian superbikes too extreme whilst providing photography of the R1200S from a racetrack and offering high spec Ohlins suspension and a wider rear wheel to accommodate more racy tyres for more lean on a racetrack. Not to forget that "race ready" 213kg weight. We think that whether it wants to or not the R1200S will initially be compared to bikes such as Ducati 999, Aprilia RSV and Honda Fireblade. Then when everyone has slagged off the lack of top end power and speed it will find its place exactly where R1100S is today. That's with Suzuki SV1000S, Honda VTR1000F, Ducati 1000SS, Buell XB12R Firebolt, MZ1000S and Yamaha FZ1 S. It's not a bad place to be and with a new more powerful GS derived boxer the R1200S can't go much wrong in its segment. It is probably sailing up to be the favourite in this sports all-rounder market. It's between a full on sports bike and a sports tourer basically. But more sporty than ever. And it should be just as fun and safe to ride and slightly more satisfying to look at than the old R1100S. TS

Harley-Davidson: The 2-1 Trike, as H-D calls it, was a no show at the Intermot despite what my source told me first.Harley-Davidson was not the only manufacturer that changed its mind regarding the Intermot show. Also KTM decided to show all its 2009 models at the EICMA show rather than in Germany. Whether Harley-Davidson will show us its 3-wheeled secret or not in 2008 remain to see though.

Ducati : is now ready to take the new Monster design first seen on the 696 to the next level. New from that concept is the addition of the powerful air-cooled 1100 from the Hypermotard. The 2-valve Desmo twin is a pure torque generating machine and max torque output is of 105Nm @ 6.000rpm. At 7.500rpm there's 85 horsepower to play with. Apart from the larger engine, the Monster 1100 also features a single-sided swingarm.

Yamaha : have just released this infomercial on YouTube. The new XJ6 Diversion is set to cater for a growing budget market in Europe and something tells me that the old FZ6 Fazer might be less than budget soon. The engine is to regard as a new engine despite the fact that the main architecture comes from the FZ6. Torque is what the Yamaha engineers has been striving for, but the 78 horsepower max output still doesn't happen until a high 10.000rpm.

Aprilia RSV4

Aprilia RSV4: From Italy we have these pictures of the production ready version of the 2009 Aprilia RSV4 Factory and also of the race ready RSV4 superbike which Max Biaggi and another unnamed rider will bee seen on in World Superbike. This is the highly anticipated V4 1000cc superbike set to replace the old RSV 1000 R. We have heard that the standard and Factory version features a 180 horsepower engine whilst the racebike more than 210hp.