Editorial

Our buddy Justin Fivella over at Super Streetbike magazine turned us on to this radical V12 Honda CBX built by Andreas Georgeades, an ex-pat South African currently residing in Southern California. Consisting of two six-cylinder CBX blocks mated Siamese-style to a single, custom-fabricated crankcase, Georgeades’ monster motor is mounted in ...    Read more

For those of us who misspent the mid-70s campaigning a procession of 125 Yamahas, the only thing more loathsome that Marty Smith was Marty Smith’s Honda RC125. Being roosted by a rapid procession of CR125-mounted dilettantes every weekend was bad enough. But watching that Smith guy take the National MX ...    Read more

It’s the sort of tool you never think about until till you need it, then nothing else will do. I had to pull muffler off my BMW GS to finish one of those 15-minute projects that burns up an entire Saturday morning. The only thing holding me up are two ...    Read more

Watch closely when the Team USA female bobsledders hit the ice on February 24th and motorcyclists will note a familiar, S-shaped logo peeking up from above the windscreen on Erin Pac's sled. Pac, ranked sixth overall in the 2009-2010 World Cup, competes wearing a custom-painted Scorpion EXO-400 motorcycle helmet for ...    Read more

Special thanks to two eagle-eyed, camera-toting readers, Patrick Duffy and Steven Weyrick, for capturing these images of a special motorcycle awareness message appearing recently on the digital signs that line California’s freeway system. “SHARE THE ROAD—LOOK TWICE FOR MOTORCYCLISTS”, the signs read, reminding the cage-bound commuters to be extra ...    Read more

Maybe you’ve always wanted to know how #46 gets ready for a fresh season of MotoGP, how he feels about the new engine rules or the changes he figures the 2010 M1 needs to stay on top? What keeps his pilot light lit after 14 years of racing? Despite the ...    Read more

Everyone should own at least one perfect thing, especially these days when the rest of life can be so far from it. I still can’t quite swing the Ducati 1098R or a 4500 square-foot mansionette adjacent to Laguna Seca to park it in, but that’s okay. I ride motorcycles for ...    Read more

In addition to the main gallery and a restaurant/retail wing, the 130,000 square-foot Harley-Davidson Museum complex in downtown Milwaukee also includes a third structure dubbed “The Garage.” This is where Harley-Davidson houses the majority of its archival collection, consisting of hundreds of bikes and associated materials not currently on display ...    Read more

I treat any motorcycle like it’s my own, regardless of who’s name is actually on the pink slip. But having taken temporary custody of the boss’s XR1200 long-term bike, I find myself being a little more careful than usual. The fact that I actually washed it has nothing to do ...    Read more

On this, the final day of the oughts, I’ll be seeing off a decade I won’t rewind with any particular fondness. Looking back too long is dangerous anyway. You might hit something. Besides, the only moment I can do anything about is this one. Here’s hoping the decade we’re uncorking ...    Read more

The obligatory buildup that started shortly after Halloween is winding down. Fewer ads pushing the Scooby Doo Chia Pet. Less mass hysteria in every mall parking lot. We’ve seen all the Christmas Specials, from Charlie Brown to Rudolph, Frosty and the Grinch. Aim your dish just right and some say ...    Read more

For reasons the evening news always seems to reinforce, Henry David Thoreau’s words keep bouncing around inside my skull. “Our life is frittered away by detail,” he said “Simplify, simplify, simplify!” I’m starting small by his standards, just trying to figure out what sort of motorcycle would fit best into ...    Read more

To use a phrase inspired by another motorcycle-riding hipster, Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli, Steve McQueen has officially jumped the shark. Still a style icon almost 30 years after his death, McQueen’s image has been pressed into service recently to market everything from pimped-out Mustangs to MILF-made folk rock to $380 sunglasses. ...    Read more

I hate this time of year. Not because of the looming holiday gauntlet I’ll be running for the next six weeks. It’s not so much because I get endure another discontented winter watching my beloved 49ers circle the drain. It’s a seasonal affective disorder though, triggered by shorter days, longer, ...    Read more

By the time an actual 09 Ducati Streetfighter showed up in our garage, I’d already decided not to like the thing. Pictures really didn’t do it for me. And the whole idea of a de-fanged, undressed 1098 sounded like sawing off a Caesar Guerini shotgun: tragically inappropriate and potentially dangerous. ...    Read more

Noise-induced hearing loss is a big issue for motorcyclists. The interior of a helmet can be an audibly offensive place: engine noise, road noise, and the sound of rushing wind combine to create a din that routinely exceeds 80 decibels, a level that experts consider “very loud” and potentially damaging. ...    Read more

Before we left the salt flats on Friday we pulled the fairing and tail off the Lightning prototype. I was having high-speed stability issues we thought might have been related to aerodynamics. Removing the bodywork and running naked removed the aero variable, and would tell is if the changes we ...    Read more

OK, so the Ducati fairing/whale tail combo isn't working as well as we hoped. Time to try something completely different:Now, if the car guys can quit spinning out and causing huge delays (you have no idea how long it takes to clean up windshield bits, when they're spread across a ...    Read more

It's difficult to describe the how bizarre it feels speeding along the Bonneville Salt Flats. The flat, utterly featureless landscape, the imperceptible horizon, and the blinding monochrome sameness deaden all of your senses, making 150 mph feel as serene as a negotiating a school zone. This sensory deprivation is ...    Read more

You learn things writing about the motorcycles that once lived in people's garages. Lyle Lovett is meticulous, with a photographic memory for all the details. Joe Gresch jarred a few screws loose with a motorized Schwinn against the Family Truckster back in the day. Maybe you know I exhumed my ...    Read more

Talk about cutting it close: technical inspection closed at 5 pm today, and the lead scrutineer signed off on our last bit of wayward safety wire at 4:58 pm. We have our blessed tech approval sticker in-hand and are now cleared for takeoff. Instead of starting tomorrow at ...    Read more

Honda probably thinks it’s too weird for Americans, and maybe it is. But I, for the record, don’t have a problem with weird. Maybe American Honda will surprise all of us and stick the CBR1000R into its 2010 Redbook. Stranger things have happened. The 09 DN-01, for instance. But for ...    Read more

I’m in Salt Lake City tonight, working my way slowly toward the town of Wendover, on the Nevada/Utah border. Home to Wendover Air Force Base, where the B-29 Superfortress the Enola Gay was housed during World War II, Wendover is also the nearest civilized outpost to the legendary Bonneville Salt ...    Read more

I’ve staked out the Comfy Chair in the Starbucks across from my gate at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Headed home after two days on Pirelli’s brand new Angel ST sport touring tire—successor to the Diablo Strada—in Asheville, North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Mountains are green, which means the roads winding ...    Read more

As soon as I can dig up enough information to write something about a 2010 model we can’t tell you about yet, I’m heading off into the Mojave Desert to a set of GPS coordinates you’ll probably never use. You shouldn’t, really. These are very nice people. Consummate professionals even. ...    Read more