What do I know about Essex? Well, Blur’s Parklife album cover took me to Walthamstow dog track when I was a student, boy-band East 17 created a culture of naff track suits and the county’s residents wear too much gold jewellery and a whole generation of children are named after either white wine or Aussie soap actors turned pop stars.
So as far as I know Essex is a place that wears its culture and wealth on its sleeve, literally. Where better, then, to take two new shouting Chavs like Honda’s refreshed Hornet, a bike which in this bronzed colour looks like it’s fallen asleep at Dale Winton’s tanning shop, and Suzuki’s re-vamped Bandit, fresh from the Jordan school of chest enhancement.
In reality we could have included about twelve bikes in the category but, frankly, life is complicated enough and there are only so many pages in a month. Instead we decided to test these two bikes for 2005 against the existing class champion, Kawasaki’s Z750. The Honda Hornet gets something of a make-over in 2006 with fresh looks and CBR600RR-inspired upside-down forks.
Other than damping changes to the shock, nothing else has changed apart from the appearance, which, unless you’re blind (in which case I’m almost certain you’re not reading this) you will have seen that already. It goes little further than that except a revised front mudguard, new nose fairing and digital clocks. This UK press bike also has the optional extra belly pan on it for good measure.
Suzuki has been equally simplistic with its updates on the aging Bandit. A 2.9mm overbore on the now ceramic coated aluminium cylinders boosts capacity to 656cc. Beyond an equally striking colour option, with matching frame colours, that’s about all the refreshment you’re getting for the ten-year-old Bandit.
The question is, have Honda and Suzuki done enough re-vamping to topple the Kawasaki Z750? Hell, are they even trying to ‘beat’ the class leading Kwaka? The reason we voted it our top middleweight roadster is because the Zed does everything an unfaired budget bike should.
How well it will fare against a Honda Hornet with more St Tropez than Dale Winton and the Suzuki Bandit with a bigger tit job than Jordan is a question we could only answer by going to the heart of Chav-land.
Essex: Land Of The Car Where We Did It
We enter Essex from London, running endlessly up and down the gearboxes between traf c lights on dual carriageways and past more new and used car lots, Koi carp farms and garden centres than you could rattle a chunky bracelet at. Several hours pass as we ght our way through Ilford, Romford and Brentwood, places where the car is most certainly king and a person walking is usually heading for the nearest fuel station lugging a jerry can.
Beyond the dual carriageways of the London suburbs and into the depths of Foulness, the Crouch and Blackwater valleys south of Chelmsford, the scenery changes from grey to green and the roads become a whole lot more interesting and varied than you expect. Outside the school run and rush hour times it’s a great place to go for a quiet ride without leaving the Metropolis too far behind.
