And now something from the smaller and more sedate section of life, how about some wonderful 350cc Italian V-2 twin goodness? The Moto Morini company was founded in the late 1930s, and successfully produced small-bore motorcycles in post-WW II Europe. The 1950s and 1960s brought with them racing machines, and the 1970s birthed the V-twins…
Pardon the title of this post. To be fair, I don’t know if this bike was well ridden, or ridden well. But I can tell you that it was ridden a lot. To the tune of nearly 28,000 miles, that is. That is not a problem for your typically over-engineered Honda motorcycle, but it is…
In the evolution of Ducati specials, the SPS name tag is one of a bygone era. Supplanted in later years by the “R” model, the “Sport Production Special” was everything a top level Ducati Superbike should be – faster, more powerful, more expensive and more exclusive than any of the more lowly models. Fast and…
Every iconic bike tells a story. In the case of the RZ350 – the last of the factory imported two strokes into all 50 U.S. States – the story is one of evolution. The RZ (or RD350LC as it was called in other markets), was an evolutionary beast that began with the RD series of…
Let’s just pretend that you’ve got your Super Dave Osborne stunt costume hanging in the closet with no place to go. Or, if you’re from another generation entirely, how about some Evel Knievel stars and stripes on leather? If so, we’ve go the perfect bike for you. Boisterous and bad in a user-friendly sort of…
From the wilds of South Carolina comes this tasty little morsel of forbidden fruit. Long regarded as the grayest of the gray market imports, the Suzuki and Yamaha four cylinder two strokes plagued the dreams of US riders with blue smoke and a peculiar sound. These were imported into the United States – usually over…
Kicking this post off with a provocative statement, I’m not sure the world realized what a tremendous talent we had in the form of Alejandro de Tomaso. While the Italian started life out as a racer (having participated in the echelon of F1), De Tomaso rapidly evolved into a business man with an eye for…
The 1980s: A period of rapid and wild development that set the motorcycling course for the next several decades. It seemed for a time that every innovation was rapidly made defunct by the next quantum leap in engineering – or experimentation. From the end of the 1970s right into the 1990s the world saw massive…
