Most factory racing efforts are intended to raise the company profile and sell more bikes, or are used to develop and test new technology that filters down to and improves road-bike performance. But the early road-legal efforts of Ferrari and MV Agusta were basically afterthoughts, and sales of these vehicles were simply intended to help…
No one is arguing that we don’t live in an era where “learner bikes” aren’t very sophisticated machines, but no matter how impressive the electronics found on modern small-displacement bikes may be, and no matter stone-axe reliable the mechanicals are, there’s something distinctly uninspiring about the weedy exhaust note of a single-cylinder KTM RC390. It’s…
Suzuki’s original GSX-R750 is arguably one of the most influential sportbikes of all time. Other bikes may have incorporated some of its design and performance elements, but none were able to combine them all into such an affordable package, or were able to capture the public’s imagination in the same way. Every iteration of the…
Update 3.20.2017: Back on eBay after first being on RSBFS in August 2014 for $11k. Current bid is just under $7k reserve not met. Links updated. -dc I’ve always loved the look of the Aprilia RS 250, but I’m only a recent convert to the stink and rattle of two-strokes. Well, technically, I’m a hypothetical…
We all love focused, hard-core sporting machines. It’s right there in the website’s name, so why else would you be here? But there comes a time when past injuries, the debilitating effects of aging, and old war wounds start to make the fully-committed, racer’s-crouch position required impossible to maintain for the length of time it…
Pantah Week continues with this very rare, and very oddly-styled machine. When you say “Ducati” to pretty much anyone, it conjures up images of sleek, exotic, often uncomfortable machines designed to win at all costs on track and inflame the desires of motorcyclists all over the world. What you wouldn’t normally imagine is something like…
Until pretty recently, Ducati’s 750 F1 was the redheaded stepchild of the Ducati family: it wasn’t a bevel-drive and so wasn’t really considered worthy of being considered a “classic” Ducati, didn’t have the reliability [cough, cough] of the modern two-valve twin, or the performance credentials of the liquid-cooled four-valve superbikes. But values have been rising…
The Ducati 916/748 was the poster child for performance motorcycles throughout its production, with the same sort of ubiquity the Lamborghini Countach enjoyed in its heyday. With so many of them made over such a long timeframe, it’s easy to forget how huge an impact the bike had when it was new: Tamburini’s creation may…
