These days, Moto Guzzi “sportbikes” really need the quotation marks I’ve included here. Ducati managed to develop their signature 90° v-twin format and stay competitive among the current crop of tech-heavy rockets, but it’s unlikely that, even given a pretty large budget to attempt something like that, Guzzi could have stayed true to their longitudinal…
If you’re into bikes that aren’t obviously compensating for something, this little Honda CBR400RR offers big-bike looks and serious refinement in a more compact, less overwhelming package. The included photos are very nice, but the seller has included just three of them, so I’ll keep this post short. In general, 400cc sportbikes from this period…
Suzuki’s RG500Γ “Gamma” didn’t actually use a detuned version of the racing RGB500’s engine, but at least shared that machine’s square four two-stroke configuration, so it looked and felt like it could have been developed from the real thing. The specifications were certainly unlike anything else on the road: twin cranks, disc valves, four cylinders…
“A man’s got to know his limitations,” Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry famously deadpans in Magnum Force, a film which happens to feature several Italian motorcycles, none of which are an Aprilia RS250 like this Cup Challenge bike. The decision-makers at Aprilia must have been fans of Clint Eastwood though, as they took that advice to…
If you’re shopping for a rare homologation Honda from the 80s or 90s, it’s usually not that hard to be sure you’ve got the real McCoy. Does it have a V4 and a single-sided swingarm? It’s probably the real thing. But Ducati was a much smaller organization, with much less in the way of financial…
It may not look like a sportbike or a race-replica to riders weaned on GSX-Rs and Repsol Hondas, but this classic blue-and-white Suzuki GS1000S is both. In fact, this upright, bikini-faired, four-cylinder monster is one of the original “superbikes,” and competed on road and track against other air-cooled inline fours from the Japanese manufacturers. “Bigger…
“Ram air” was a very 90s gimmick with dubious benefits, especially on the road, but they gave bikes of the 1990s like this Suzuki GSX-R750 SRAD a distinctive style, with oversized fairing nostrils and large intake tubes that curved through the rider’s view and into the top of the tank to pressurize the airbox. Well…
Ducati’s modern era really started here, with the 851. The air-cooled Pantah engine, with its rubber cam belts, was a step forward, compared to the bevel-drive twins and set the stage for Ducati’s move into the future. But it was the liquid-cooled, four-valve version of their classic L-twin that finally brought them fully into the…
