Styled to resemble the RS250RF race bikes, the Honda NSR250 used a gorgeous aluminum twin-spar frame, triple disc brakes, and a whole host of lightweight, mass-centralizing tricks you’d normally expect to find on bikes with a much larger displacement. The NSR250 was motivated by a liquid-cooled two-stroke v-twin with two carburetors and Honda’s ATAC “automatic torque…
I’m really shocked there are any Honda Hawk GTs running around still so few miles on them at this point. After all, that’s kind of why you generally buy a Honda, right? So you can ride the hell out of it, without worrying about failing voltage regulators, expensive and frequent valve-adjustments, expensive parts… The bike…
Grey Market Week continues with another weird and wonderful small-displacement sportbike from Honda, the CBR250RR. At a glance, it might be easy to dismiss this little 250 as a primitive commuter like the current CBR300, since these days, that’s exactly what you’ll get. The CBR, Ninja 300, R3 are all clearly built as budget-friendly…
One of the shining stars of the two-stroke GP era, the hugely popular Kevin Schwantz and fellow American Wayne Rainey made headlines for their epic rivalry and “winner-take-all” on-track brawls. Although he actually raced an RGV500, a number of Suzuki’s road-going RGV250s were created with replica paintjobs to capitalize on Schwantz’ racing success riding with Lucky Strike…
Available for just three years here in the USA, between 1988 to 1991, the Honda Hawk GT sold pretty poorly. Introduced in an era when American buyers were snapping up fully-faired sportbikes, the Hawk was slower, more conventional-looking, and fairly expensive, so buyers here just weren’t sure what to make of it. Exactly what was…
Honda’s NSR250R was, until recently, unicorn-rare here in the United States. But a number of companies have sprung up to scrounge decent examples in Japan, where they are far less hard to come by, then ship them over here where they sell for a premium. Certainly, many have been truly thrashed by young knee-dragging hooligans,…
With many lightweight sportbikes now flirting with the edge of 25-year import rules, I expect we’ll see more and more bikes like this Yamaha TZR250 up for sale in the next couple of years. Road and track weapons designed to keep pace with Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki in the viciously-competitive 250cc class, the 1989-1990 TZR250…
An update of the earlier 1988 MC18, the 1989 Honda NSR250R model saw evolutionary changes to the bodywork and styling of this small-displacement sportbike. But the most impressive feature was the highly-evolved PGM-II electronic control unit. As brutally simple as two-strokes are in concept, there is real art in the tuning, and Honda’s PGM-II orchestrated…