Given how few F4’s have actually been built, they’re over-represented on eBay. They’re the kind of motorcycle that people buy as investments or just to admire, then sell without putting many miles on them. And it’s easy to see why: they’re gorgeous but uncomfortable, uncompromising, and basically terrifying. Most reviews talk about the fact that…
When it was introduced in 1985, Suzuki’s original GSX-R750 set the standard for production sportbikes that’s lasted through the modern era. Interestingly, the first GSX-R’s eschewed water-cooling to simplify the engine in a bid to save weight at the expense of overall power. The aluminum beam frame and monoshock rear suspension and fully-enclosed bodywork with…
Most small displacement sportbikes look like small-displacement sportbikes, but Aprilia really knows how to make lust-worthy entry-level machines. While their RS250 is certainly no learner bike, this one definitely is: you won’t be going very fast on an RS125, but you will look good doing it… Manufactured between 1992 and 2012, the RS125 was a…
In 1986, one year after it was introduced, the GSX-R750 got a delinquent bigger brother, a misfit bike with race track looks that wasn’t eligible for any race track longer than a quarter mile or one with corners… As in the original Gixxer, the 137hp, 1074cc inline four-cylinder that powered the GSX-R1100 eschewed liquid-cooling to…
Much has been written about the little Aprilia RS250 on this site, about its “GP machine for the masses” character and handling, and its snarly little two-stroke v-twin borrowed from the Suzuki RGV250 and revised for improved power. Introduced in 1995 and produced in several iterations that were road-legal up until about 2002, the RS250…
In an era of mass-produced sportbikes, it’s easy to miss the details that made bikes like the Bimota SB4 so special. Virtually every modern manufacturer makes concessions to mass-production, and machines that, at first glance, look gorgeous can get a bit ugly in the details. MV Agusta’s F3 675 is a beautiful sleek, wasp of…
The GSX-R750 is one of the longest-lived sportbikes in existence. But there’s really just one version that I actually lust after, the second-generation Gixxer that was made for just two years, from 1989 to 1990. The look and the proportions are just right, and those dual round headlights are one of the best design elements…
Here’s something you don’t see every day: an Aprilia Project 108 Replica. You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to stump me, but this little beastie had me scratching my head: never heard or it. So a quick poke around the interwebs had me thinking this was very unlikely to have been…