I’ve spent some time poking around the Pierobon website, realizing that I will likely never own a Pierobon-framed track bike. As the seller mentions in their listing, this Ducati 1200DS-powered Pierobon X60R is one pricey piece of kit: the earlier F042’s frame alone goes for about $3,500. And that’s before you add a swingarm, fuel…
To some, it might seem like sacrilege to take a gorgeous, expensive, limited-edition Ducati superbike and turn it into a trackday toy. But if you’ve got the money to spend on something you can afford to wreck and want the very best, you can’t go wrong with today’s Ducati 1098R track bike. Honestly, homologation-special Ducatis…
Yamaha’s R7 was among the last in a long line of machines from the Age of Homologation Specials, where the manufacturers competing in AMA and World Superbike racing created limited runs of insanely expensive bikes that looked like production models, but were chock full of trick bits like adjustable steering heads and exotic engine internals.…
If you replace or heavily modify every single component of a motorcycle, does it become something entirely new? That’s kind of the philosophy at work behind the Muzzy Raptor, a thoroughly massaged version of Kawasaki’s ZX7RR built by tuner extraordinaire, Rob Muzzy. That might sound like the stage name of an 80s glam rocker, and…
Racing at the highest levels is a game with very high stakes, and teams are willing to spend a fortune to eke out the smallest advantage over their competition. So if you’ve got a race series designed to showcase up-and-coming riders, how do you limit costs and make sure the playing field is relatively level…
Unlike Honda’s NSR250R, the RS250R was Honda’s over-the-counter race bike intended for privateer teams. Of course, if you were a factory outfit, you could get your hands on something like the NSR250 or RS250RW, which honestly gets a bit confusing. Especially the fact that the NSR250 and NSR250R are completely different bikes, and the one…
One school of thinking about fast bike riding posits that the goal is speed, and that the motorcycle itself is a mere tool for achieving that end. But although a track-day GSX-R makes plenty of sense from a purely practical point of view, practical can be a little boring, so why not go fast with…
For some people, a race replica just isn’t enough. And if you want the real thing, a genuine racebike can be very pricey to run, and parts might be literally, not just figuratively, impossible to find. Sure, you can occasionally buy an NSR500V, but can you find parts to rebuild the engine? No, you cannot.…