UPDATESold for $10,000 on December 9, 2023 The Quarter-Liter Sportbike ClassIf you weren’t a dyed-in-the-wool two-stroke fan, or didn’t read British biking magazines back in the 80s and 90s, you might never know that there was a war going on back then between the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers to dominate a category that didn’t even exist…
Ducati’s quattrovalvole S4 was a recent 2001 addition, and deserved the commemorative treatment. Though a bit tricky to trace the Senna provenance, grey with red wheels was a Monster staple. With carbon just about everything and gorgeous red accents, today’s S4 might have a dealer-installed kit or be a factory special. Either way it’ll makes…
The Ducati 900SS/CR was a bread-and-butter model for Ducati throughout the 90s, a more affordable option for Ducatisti who didn’t really need the performance or maintenance headaches of the more exotic four-valve bikes like the 851, 888, and 916. Here in the US, we mostly got the 900cc version, but 750 and 600 examples do…
The original Moto Guzzi V7 Sport was ground zero for a line of Italian sportbikes that stretches in a continuous line to the current day. Yes, it has shaft drive. And yes, the rumors are true: the engine started its life powering an odd, three-wheeled military tractor. But if ever there was a machine that…
Known colloquially as the “Mark IV Le Mans”, the Moto Guzzi Le Mans 1000 was an evolution of the company’s big sporting v-twin motorcycle. By the mid-1980s, Guzzi was definitely struggling against the Japanese manufacturers, and the new bike soldiered on with the same basic frame design the company had been using since the mid-1970s…
Today’s Suzuki RGV250Γ VJ22A is still a rare sight here in the USA, in spite of them now being eligible for import. 250cc two-stroke sportbikes have a small but fierce following here and all share a similar template: two cylinder liquid-cooled powerplants, six-speed gearboxes, stiff aluminum frames, and triple disc brakes. But the devil, as…
If you’re looking at this Ghezzi-Brian Furia thinking, “what the hell is a Ghezzi-Brian Furia,” you’re definitely not alone. The engine should look pretty familiar to anyone into Italian motorcycles though: those sticky-outy cylinders should be a dead giveaway that this is Moto Guzzi’s venerable two-valve v-twin. So what’s going on here? Moto Guzzi is…
I feel like the Buell S3 Thunderbolt is a bike that generates controversy here on RSBFS. Something about it not being a “real sportbike.” Sure, it’s a bit of a mongrel, a hodgepodge of top-shelf components, garden shed bodywork, and a torquey Harley Davidson lump all mixed up, with incongruous Harley clocks staring you in…
