Smaller versions of big bikes are often built to a price. Even if they are serious sports machines, they can often lack some of the shiniest bells and whistles of the top-of-the range bikes. But not so the Yamaha FZR400. In fact, the 400 was actually considered to be a more sporting machine than the…
A pure homologation special never intended for mass-production, the Yamaha YZF-R7 OW02 was a spiritual successor to the storied OW01 that took the fight to the famous Honda RC30 and the Ducati 851 Corsa featured this past weekend. But where the Honda used a different engine configuration than their more common mass production sportbikes and…
Obviously, there are “rare” motorcycles that don’t cost an arm and a leg to own and, although there are plenty of affordable Ducatis, Aprilias, and even Bimotas that appear on this site, not everyone wants to own an Italian exotic or lives near a shop that can work on their baby. So if cash is…
Aside from the disastrous VDue, Bimota’s stock-in-trade was wrapping lightweight frames and fantastically exotic bodywork around reliable powertrains from established manufacturers. The magical formula that led to bikes like the Bimota SB6 seems so simple, it’s a wonder it took so long for other manufacturers to catch on: wrap too much engine in too little…
I wouldn’t normally post something so relatively common on a bike about “rare” sportbikes, but this particular 1998 Yamaha YZF-R1 is strikingly clean and low mileage, the kind of bike speculators or collectors might soon be snapping up. Japanese sportbikes offer performance, reliability, and ubiquity in equal portions. That’s kind of the point: you can…
Anyone glancing at today’s Honda CBR400 would be forgiven for thinking it was a much more powerful machine: the looks are pure sportbike, and then you notice the decals that shout “CBR400.” But what the little Honda lacks in displacement, it makes up for in sophistication: four cylinders, six speeds, gear-driven cams, aluminum frame… Produced…
Introduced in Europe in 1981, the Suzuki GSX1100S “Katana” and its littler siblings like this rare, apparently very late-production GSX400S stunned the motorcycle buying public. A quick glance at bikes available from other manufacturers at the time shows us deep in the era of the Universal Japanese Motorcycle, and the Big Four were clearly following,…
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…