Long forgotten in the wake of the 916, the Ducati 851 and 888 have seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, likely because they are seen as the genesis of Ducati’s four-valve, liquid-cooled v-twin superbikes that may have reached its apex with the Panigale: Ducati is struggling in WSBK and there is talk of…
I saw this, and my jaw dropped. But before I gush over this bike, I’ll admit: it’s difficult to understand this extremely rare and extremely expensive Ducati/NCR New Blue without a bit of history about Old Blue. In the early 1970’s, a couple of Cycle World editors were racing one of only a handful of…
Built between 1986 and 1996, the Yamaha TZR250 came in a variety of forms, from the original liquid-cooled, parallel-twin “2MA” to the “3MA” that came along in 89-90 and featured an interesting “reversed” cylinder design that had the carburetors mounted on the front of the engine, exhausts running directly out the back to through the…
This is not a road bike, that much is obvious at a glace: slick-shod, missing lights and signals, with just that big, redline-less tach and smaller temp gauge to distract the rider from the really important things like speed, speed, and more speed. Which is good, because this Ducati 916SPS was designed with speed foremost…
This is one of the nicest Aprilia RS250’s we’ve featured recently, although the seller’s claim that this is a “Rossi Replica” might be a bit of a stretch: Rossi was riding a 250 for Aprilia in 1998, but didn’t win the title until 1999. In 1998 he was second, and prior to that, he was…
If you’re one of those RSBFS fans who turns up their nose at bikes of questionable pedigree, you should probably stop reading now. Or make sure your keyboard is all warmed up for the inevitable flood of vitriol that will inevitably spill forth once you’ve finished reading about this particular Suzuki RGV250 VJ23 replica. The…
Ducati’s 916 bikes were built in great enough numbers, and are available for sale often enough, that it’s sometimes hard to think of them as “rare.” I mean, it’s much harder to find a nice ZX-7R than it is a 996 these days. But while we may have become a bit blasé about these former…
Mostly overlooked, even when new, Aprilia’s Falco is an ideal “mature” sportbike for someone who wants to stand out… subtly. Fast and comfortable, the bike featured a slightly detuned version of Aprilia’s 996cc v-twin that produced 118hp along with the usual “improved midrange and low-end power” that seems to feature on naked and sport-touring versions…