MCi Tours Newsletter - November 2023 | |
Latest news on our Escorted, FlyRide, SelfGuided and RaceMeets motorcycle holidays. | |
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It's 'Black Friday' week, and we are offering 5% OFF ALL GROUP TOURS booked between now and midnight on Thursday 30 November, so get a move on and save yourself a few beer tokens on our short tours, or a full £350 on a single room on our North Cape tour!
What do we mean by 'group'? Any tour that we will be joining you on, as these have a set price to which we can apply the discount (unlike self guided tours). So, all Escorted tours, the Assen and Manx GP RaceMeets, and the Route 66 and Deep South FlyRide tours.
Just enter 'BF' somewhere on your booking form and we will apply the discount on your invoice. And if you forget just give us a call and we'll make sure we apply it for you. Simples!
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Motorcycle Live at the NEC
We took a trip up the NEC the other day, as I'm sure a lot of you have done too, just to see what was new and exciting in the world of motorcycling. While Yamaha have returned to the show it seems the Piaggio group decided not to come so we didn't get to see the new Moto Guzzi Stelvio, which we like the look of. Also notable was the absence of Harley-Davidson, and it was certainly a quieter show without the noise and razzmatazz of the bar & Shield brand. Indeed the whole show felt a little flat on the day we were there - how did you find it?
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Japanese
Suzuki have been very quiet in recent years, and we couldn't help wonder whether they were going to pull out of motorcycle manufacturing altogether. We're glad to see that in the last couple of years they have updated some of their existing range (eg Vstrom 1050 and Hayabusa), released a whole new platform (in the form of the 776cc parallel twin range of machines) and re-purposed some classic old engineering (the motor from the 2005 GSXR1000) in the GSX-S 1000 GT and newly announced GX. This takes them from what was a very sparse offering a couple of years ago to a fairly rounded range today, which has to be good.
We are all getting older, and nostalgia obviously sells nowadays. Kawasaki are offering a 40th anniversary GPz900R inspired paintjob on the Ninja 1000SX, three 90s colour schemes on the ZX10-RR (click), plus a ZXR7 inspired paintjob on the ZX-10R, 6R and 4RR models (click). For Yamaha there is the (in our opinion very well executed) XSR900GP (see pic) and 60th anniversary 'speed block' R1, R7 and R3 models, and at Honda a 30th anniversary Fireblade (click) as well as the Africa Twin Adventure Sport with a paintjob inspired by the original AT. Makes us all misty eyed...
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Europeans
Obviously the biggest news in the industry is the R1300GS from BMW, which is new from top to tail, and I'm sure you have all seen. I have to say, as we usually carry a lot of 'stuff' we are intrigued by the rear suspension on the new GS, which can bring an 'extra' spring into play when required. Pre load and damping adjustment are all well and good, but if your going to carry a significant amount of luggage a stronger spring is what is really needed, and this might be a proper solution.
As well as the usual updates to most of their range Ducati have released a new Hypermotard, built around a new high revving (for a single) 659cc motor, which is basically one cylinder of the old 1299 Panigale engine with some clever counter balance gubbins. Looks like they are taking the fight right to KTM's door...
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Not too much new on the Triumph stand, although the new Tiger 900 does look nice (see pic). It will be interesting to see what traction the new 400 single cylinder machines get in the UK, but with the excellent Triumph build quality they should do well in the 'lightweight' fight with Royal Enfield, KTM and others.
KTM announced the 890 SMT a little while ago, and very recently the 990 Duke, which harks back to one of the original 'Duke' (albeit that was a V-twin). While these are both similar parallel twins it seems KTM have revised this engine quite significantly yet again. There are also murmurings of the 1290 Super Duke becoming a 1390 in the near future, which will surely percolate down to the Super Adventure at a later date. Eeeek!
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Chinese
Rightly or wrongly, we admit we don't know too much about Chinese motorcycle manufacturers, but they are growing rapidly and should not be ignored. With a couple of old Italian marques (Moto Morini and Benelli) now being the 'face' of Chinese built bikes, as well as some new brands that are making good looking machines such as CFMoto, TRK (see pic) and Lexmoto, they offer good value bikes. Quality might still not be quite as good as Japanese and European manufacturers, but they are catching up quick, and might well be influential players in the future. Keep your eyes peeled...
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Our Austrian Tyrol & Italian Dolomites tour ran out of single rooms very quickly, so we have arranged another tour a few days earlier but this only has has a few single rooms left now, so if you are thinking of booking a single room on this tour don't delay. The web page is here.
We have also published our Best Biking Road in Austria (click here) and Dambusters, Harz & Colditz tours (click here), so all of our 2024 Escorted tours are now live. Corsica & Sardinia is still awaiting ferry pricing confirmation, so while the price is what we expect it is still to be confirmed. Give us a call if you have any questions.
Phone Direct :07736 017408
Email: paul@mcitours.com
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The 2024 dates for our US tours are now available, and Route 66 (click here) will start in Chicago on Friday 20th September 2024, with the Deep South tour (click here) starting in Atlanta on Friday 11th October 2024. These are fantastic life affirming trips, and if you would like to know more just ask and we'll send you the itinerary.
Phone Direct :0800 774 7149
Email: info@mcitours.com
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And from the SelfGuided desk...
...now it is my turn!
Here at MCi Tours we spend our time planning tours and holidays for everyone, and now it is time for me to enjoy my own holiday. I am off to the sunshine (hopefully!) this week, and will be back in the office on Monday 11 December.
My phone will be re-directed to my MCi Tours colleagues, and although I will have access to e-mail during my absence it will be very limited. I have hopefully kept everyone up to date with enquiries that are being worked on.
So far June 2024 is looking to be a very busy month for tour departures, and Spain and Portugal are proving to be particularly popular. We are expecting a busy January, with thoughts turning to holidays after the Christmas festivities, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch when I am back from holiday if you want to beat the rush.
With best wishes from a very excited Self Guided desk!
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This weekend sees the climax of a nail-biting MotoGP championship, although after a slightly frustrating race in Qatar last weekend things are not as close as they were, but we still can't wait.
Next year should be even more exciting, with Bastianini (hopefully) healthy, MM93 on a competitive bike again, the new Moto 2 World Champion Pedro Acosta joining the fray on a KTM, and rumour has it the wunderkind Fermin Aldeguer might also be coming up from Moto 2. Simply mouth watering stuff.
We are taking a group to Assen in 2024, and can arrange SelfGuided trips to Catalunya, Mugello, and the Red Bull Ring too. Click here for more details.
Phone Direct :07747 846409
Email: ollie@mcitours.com
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...Christmas is coming, and you really DO have enough socks, and don't REALLY need another gadget from QVC, but we CAN provide an eGift Certificate if your loved ones want to get you something you would REALLY like.
Whatever value they want, no expiration date - just point them in our direction, and we'll sort it out.
Well that's all for now, so take care, and if you are still riding your bike stay warm.
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