I’m a huge Laverda fan, so it’s disappointing their attempted resurrection in the 1990s didn’t work out. It wasn’t that bikes like this Ghost Strike weren’t any good: the beam frames were designed by the famed Nico Bakker and handling was generally considered excellent, even superior to Ducatis competing in the same segments. The standard…
Compared to a modern superbike, the fire-breathing performance of vintage two-stroke race replicas maybe isn’t quite as wild as their reputation would suggest. At the time, they were light and very powerful, but weren’t exactly at Grand Prix extremes of either even then. Modern machines have levels of rigidity, suspension response, and electronic assistance an…
When the original “jellymould” CBR600F Hurricane was introduced in 1987 the enclosed, sleekly aerodynamic fairing hid a dark secret: a steel frame. While racier competitors had switched to lightweight aluminum construction, the simple, effective CBR600 F3 stuck with the less expensive material until the CBR600 F4 was introduced in 1999. Although the styling was hyper-modern,…
If you see the phrase “classic sportbike,” your head may suddenly be filled with John Player Nortons and bevel-drive Ducatis… But tempus fugit and disturbingly, bikes like this Kawasaki Ninja ZX-7R are rapidly becoming “classics” in their own right. But owning an old Norton requires you recalibrate your brain in terms of handling and performance,…
The Aprilia RS250 was my introduction to the quarter-liter two-stroke sportbike class. I didn’t even get into motorcycles until the late 1990s, by which time two strokes were completely gone from the sportbike scene here in the US. But, as an avid reader of the British biking magazines, I saw them mentioned time and again…
Pure prototype racing, as seen in MotoGP, is hideously expensive, since teams with money are free to develop every component from scratch, giving them an obvious leg up on teams less financially endowed. Production-based racing, on the other hand, is intended to keep costs down and allow a variety of teams and brands to participate,…
One of the things I love about Italian bikes and cars is that, no matter what, they look like the vision of one person, not a committee. Sure, there may be the occasional stylistic misstep, but oddballs like the Alfa Romeo Milano and Bimota Mantra make a statement, and you can feel the passion in…
Somehow, in spite of their achievements, performance, and reliability, Aprilias generally qualify as “bargain exotica” instead of blue-chip collectibles. But if you were looking to bet on a particular Aprilia that might qualify as collectible, other than the RS250, the RSV1000R Nera might be worth a look. The upstart Italians were dipping their toe into…