British Japanese FusionIt’s an oversimplification but, in some ways, the introduction of the Honda CB750 and the Kawasaki Z1 signaled the beginning of the end for the British bike industry. The engines that powered those bikes were powerful, refined, reliable, and relatively easy to tune for increased power, but the bikes themselves were often heavy…
Sportbike power figures continue to soar ever upward, with top-spec modern literbikes well past the 200hp mark. Sophisticated electronics make that power manageable for mere mortals, but there are very few riders capable of truly exploiting the available performance. At the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find find today’s Moriwaki MH80, possibly the perfect…
The Ducati 900SS/CR was a bread-and-butter model for Ducati throughout the 90s, a more affordable option for Ducatisti who didn’t really need the performance or maintenance headaches of the more exotic four-valve bikes like the 851, 888, and 916. Here in the US, we mostly got the 900cc version, but 750 and 600 examples do…
The original Moto Guzzi V7 Sport was ground zero for a line of Italian sportbikes that stretches in a continuous line to the current day. Yes, it has shaft drive. And yes, the rumors are true: the engine started its life powering an odd, three-wheeled military tractor. But if ever there was a machine that…
Known colloquially as the “Mark IV Le Mans”, the Moto Guzzi Le Mans 1000 was an evolution of the company’s big sporting v-twin motorcycle. By the mid-1980s, Guzzi was definitely struggling against the Japanese manufacturers, and the new bike soldiered on with the same basic frame design the company had been using since the mid-1970s…
Today’s Suzuki RGV250Γ VJ22A is still a rare sight here in the USA, in spite of them now being eligible for import. 250cc two-stroke sportbikes have a small but fierce following here and all share a similar template: two cylinder liquid-cooled powerplants, six-speed gearboxes, stiff aluminum frames, and triple disc brakes. But the devil, as…
Suzuki’s GSX-R1100 wasn’t the first “race replica,” but the newly-christened “Gixxer” really made that formula available to the everyday rider in a package that was both fast and reliable. The original GSX-R was actually a 400cc motorcycle, and the 1984 GSX-R400 was so well received that Suzuki quickly followed it up with a 750cc machine…
If you’re looking at this Ghezzi-Brian Furia thinking, “what the hell is a Ghezzi-Brian Furia,” you’re definitely not alone. The engine should look pretty familiar to anyone into Italian motorcycles though: those sticky-outy cylinders should be a dead giveaway that this is Moto Guzzi’s venerable two-valve v-twin. So what’s going on here? Moto Guzzi is…