BETA’S BACK!
ITALIAN BRAND BETA IS BACK IN STYLE FOR 2020 WITH
A FULL RANGE OF ENDURO METAL FOR EVERY TASTE.
T
his was going to be one of those big days. It was big for several reasons.
Firstly, this day was to mark the re-launch of Beta in NZ. Secondly, we were
going to be riding six of the Italian marque’s 2020 enduro range. That’ s lot
of bikes to get a handle on in a day.
Ok, a bit of back story. Beta Motorcycles NZ invited us along to the launch of
its 2020 Enduro range launch near Thames at the foot of the Coromandel. On
offer were the 125, 200 and 300 two-strokes as well as the 350, 390 and 480
four-stroke thumpers. Out of the company’s extensive enduro range, only the
250 ‘stroker and the 430 thumper were missing.
And so, the KR team assembled for a 5am start to beat the AK traffic and
headed south to be greeted by a huge range of bikes and an excellent test
loop that had a little of everything. The track loop had rocky streams, clay
and grass hilly farm tracks, cross country jumps, steep banks to play on and
in general was ideal for what we had in mind – getting to know the Betas. On
a day like this it all becomes a bit of a blur… Geoff (the KR snapper) wants
pictures of all the bikes being ridden, Vege (our publisher) wants to know how
they perform and which model would suit most riders in my opinion. I just
wanted to ride them all to try and form an accurate snapshot of what each
machine is like. Trust me, we were busy. Not slash your wrists busy, but busy
in a good way. We’ll be testing these bikes more thoroughly in future issues of
KR, but this overview should whet your whistle for now.
KIWI RIDER 39