Look, I’ll get this out the way up front: the Bimota YB11 does not “look way cooler with the bodywork off.” Since the missing bits appear to be included, I’m going to assume, for the purposes of this post, that a lack of taste is the actual reason the bodywork isn’t currently in place. Don’t…
If there was to be sportbike bubble, the grail-like Honda RC30 might be leading the way, prices rising as you watch, with collector auctions drumming up some truly outlandish numbers. Still it is a venerable model which stood the WSBK universe on its head for a few years – lightweight, powerful, easy to ride, and…
For a while, World Superbike rules favored v-twins, thanks to the… um, influence of Ducati. Soon everybody wanted to get in on the act: Honda switched from a V4 to a twin for their RC51 and Aprilia’s first big bike fit a Rotax v-twin into a revised version of their gorgeous aluminum twin-spar beam frame.…
By the time Ducati’s 916 was retired, they’d wrung just about everything out of the bike there was to wring, and the sportbike world had moved on. From a stylistic perspective, the 998 was far too familiar after ten years and, while the design was still considered a classic, it was decidedly… classic. Of course…
As much as fans cringe when another nearly unused special hits RSBFS, mint examples naturally have the interest of buyers. This lightly updated SportClassic was used as a display article for a garage customizing company, and is ready for a riding owner. 2007 Ducati SportClassic Sport 1000 Biposto for sale on eBay Designed by Pierre…
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…
Moto Guzzi cross-pollinated their 1990’s unfaired sport model with the newly developed 992cc four-valve V-twin, the result being the V10 Centauro. Calendar-girl bodywork surrounds the air and oil-cooled beast within, tuned down from the Daytona 1000’s peak but still happy to rev to the 8,400 rpm limit and crank out 95 hp. This one has…
A lot of people consider the Honda RC30 and RC45 as the best Honda sportbikes to own but those are fully track oriented machines not really setup for daily use on the street. Additionally much of the success of the RC bikes can be traced to the VFR V4 editions (and ironically much of the…