John Wheeler looks back on the year - and the motorbikes he has most enjoyed testing
We expected to see some better roads in 2004, but more tolls. That has happened, some ahead of schedule which is not so magnificent as it might seem, given the still colossal deficit and, in road engineering terms, almost total lack of consideration for motorcycles.
Although the Luas works have finished for the moment, other delays, notably the utter joke of the M50 toll bridge, are even worse. A recent 20 per cent hike in tolls adds insult to injury. Although a motorcycle is rather less frustrated by miles long queues, at the risk of filtering, we find that most journeys involving a Liffey crossing can be accomplished in less time avoiding the M50 entirely.
So how did the year match up with our expectations?
Well, strictly on a technical front, we were not surprised to see more digital ignition and engine-management systems, making for greater reliability but also placing many tasks beyond the DIY enthusiast. This trend will continue to happen in the coming years.
We expected more cars on the road, if not on the scale of some earlier years. The popularity of the off-road SUV seems undiminished, despite coming under pressure from all fronts.
Given the distraction of the European Presidency, we expected to see less visible policing in the first half of the year, a trend which seems to have persisted.
We hoped for, but never expected to see lower insurance costs. We underestimated the quite disastrous effect this has had on bike sales, especially to younger riders. Little over a year ago most bike shops were crammed full of 50cc mopeds. Now, bike sales are reported to be 27 per cent down across the board, except for the high-cost, premium brands, where BMW is reportedly 80 per cent up. Some 20 bike shops have gone to the wall.
However in the past few weeks preliminary details of an important initiative on the part of the brokers AON and its underwriters AXA could become the most significant development in the past decade. Offering discounts of 30 per cent or more for approved training, this should make owning a bike much more affordable, especially for younger riders.
We expected lower, at least more realistic prices, for bikes. To an extent that has happened. Now, in many cases, once you deduct the effect of that infamous VRT, bikes are often cheaper here than in Britain.
We thought there was a chance that 2004 might see the emergence of a 1-litre automatic scooter. This didn't happen. We didn't really expect to see the development of a truly waterproof glove - it remains as elusive as ever.
So to the year in the saddle and our bike tests have covered 45 machines of all types and sizes from 50cc to 2,250cc and, in our endeavour to bring you the new, the interesting and sometimes the unusual, we have travelled over 30,000 miles by road, sea and air just to get to test them.
Though we try to cover as representative a cross-section as possible, there remain notable omissions. With some makes the Irish distributors do not have demo or press bikes and their British counterparts which do have press fleets don't consider Ireland their concern.
If we haven't covered your favoured make it's because of this. To achieve better coverage next year we will need the co-operation of private owners prepared to loan us their machine. We are happy to fully insure it, treat it with respect and acknowledge assistance.
Which now leads us to the ritual naming of the Bike of the Year. It seems an invidious task to single out one machine above all others, given the huge diversity of machine types in the two-wheel world. How on earth can one compare a 50cc automatic scooter to a hyper-sports machine?
Rather we prefer to hone in on those machines which seem to us to be especially fit for their intended purpose: the ones which gave us the most pleasure to ride.
BMW's ground-breaking R1200GS, which has earned world-wide acclaim, has to top the list. Few machines ever have been so advanced in concept or so superior in all conditions.
Suzuki's DL 650 V-Strom, Honda's Fireblade, the Kymco Miler 125 Scooter, Triumph's "mine's bigger than yours" 2,250cc cruiser, the Moto Guzzi V11 Café Sport, Yamaha's XJR1300 and its superb FJR1300a, BMW's unsurpassably good R1150RT, Royal Enfield's 500 Clubman and the often under-rated Honda CG125 all deserve mention as being particularly satisfyingly good examples of their type. It was also the year your scribe notched up his 50th year in the saddle and, thankfully, is still going strong. Merry Christmas and safe biking.