Many of our readers will find it very appropriate that I’ve referenced a Ray Bradbury short story about dinosaurs for the title of this post. In a world of GSX-Rs and ZX-7s the Moto Guzzi Le Mans IV was indeed a dinosaur, long past its days as a world-class sportbike by 1987. But by then,…
With pre-1990’s vehicles becoming easier to import than ever, there’s a strong market for slightly thrashed 250cc two-stroke sportbikes here in the US. These weren’t especially uncommon overseas but bikes like this Honda NSR250R are about as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth here. So while some might be annoyed at the opportunists cashing in…
While they weren’t huge sellers when new, the Aprilia RSV Mille represents one of the best bargains in the sportbike world right now, sort of a “thinking-man’s Italian V-twin.” Which is a much more flattering thing to say about a bike than, “Wow, that thing is pretty odd-looking.” Although, as I’ve said before, these things…
We could argue all day long about the style of the unpopular but very effective Ducati 999 versus the 916-aping but also very effective 1098. I happen to like the striking Terblanche-styled older machine, but there’s no arguing with the popularity of the restyled bike: they practically flew out of showrooms, adding credibility to my…
The water-cooled Monster S4RS was a great engine in search of a bike. It was spawned from the original Monster that was itself the proverbial Franken-bike: frame from an 888, suspension and wheels from the 900SS-CR, and a dash that looks like someone ripped the idiot light cluster straight out of a Fiat. They’ve got…
Given a clean sheet of paper and nearly unlimited resources, it’s no surprise when major manufacturers come up with good motorcycles. In fact, when you consider those factors, it’s shocking how often they get it wrong… But Buell had neither advantage in building his motorcycles and still managed to come up with some very interesting…
Here in the USA where torque, big, low-revving engines, and straight-line speed were the order of the day, corner-shredding 250cc race-replicas never stood a chance of being popular. But you always want what you can’t have, so quite a cult has grown up around bikes like this little Honda NSR250R. Powered by a reed-valve, liquid-cooled…
Ducati’s 750 F1 was intended to closely resemble their competitive TT1 racebike, and was the very last bike introduced before the company was taken over by Cagiva, when Ducati was on the ropes financially. It was the very last of the old-school Ducatis, and is finally starting to find its value because of that. The…