When word got out about the RS 660, we were all pretty gosh darn excited. We rode the RS last year and, despite not being able to firmly place it in a particular motorcycle genre, were pretty impressed with its peachy little engine, the way it handled and its space-age tech. That said, the...
When you’ve sold as many Monsters as Ducati have – more than 350,000 – you know you’re onto a winner. But whilst the Monster 1200 always seemed to be exactly what it said on the tin (a Monster), its smaller sibling, the Monster 900 never seemed quite as monstrous as I’d have liked….
BMW has finally given the S 1000 R a long-overdue update; it’s 5.1kg lighter, it’s got a new chassis and yes, before you ask, it does include the newer spec S 1000 RR based engine… sort of. Ok, it’s not in the same 200bhp+ state of tune and you don’t get shifting cams, but essentially, it’s…
Famed for mentally fast, techno-packed cars, and creating the world’s best-selling motorcycle, BMW tore the industry a new botty when launching the original S 1000 RR. It was, and still is, the benchmark for 1000cc four-cylinder weaponry. The 2009 S Thou’ was akin to a CBR600RR injected with some severe... Read more
Today is not a normal day. Yesterday was not a normal day either after engaging in carry-on combat with Benidorm-bound tourists on an averagely mediocre flight from London Gatwick. Needless to say I persevered in my avoidance of the Spanish strain of Ebola, and my trusty EasyJet flying machine navigated... Read more
Just after landing in Milan’s Linate airport, we jumped straight into a taxi and fled to Ducati’s exquisite 2015 model launch, held at a theatre in central Milano. Claudio Domenicali, Ducati CEO, hosted the launch that was streamed live to millions worldwide. There was banging dubstep, some beautiful, scantily-clad... Read more
There’s not much that betters the soundtrack of a Desmosedici. Ducati’s road-legal version of its GP racer was launched in 2007 and the entire limited batch of 1500 sold out quicker than Baron’s Jizz Machine stickers. While the GP derivations can’t be denied, Desmo owners didn’t get the full... Read more
There were lots of lavish techno queens unveiled at the Milan show but this retrosexual café racer concept from Yamaha also caught grabbed our attention. This is the handy work of the (unfortunately-named) Bender brothers from Germany. Raphael and Christian transformed a bog-stock XV950 into the Boltage as part... Read more
Straight after Honda’s shindig, it was Kawasaki’s crack at releasing some more wiz-bang for public consumption. The ‘track-only’ H2R and its supercharged howitzer was unveiled at Cologne last month and the target power output was 300bhp. Kawasaki, apparently, has exceeded those expectations with 306bhp – its slogan, ‘Built Beyond... Read more
0 miles It’s 6am. Out of the window the morning sun is hidden by dense fog, which is not a welcome sight. We make our way out of the most bizarre hotel rooms in Eastern Europe and down to see the bikes – all packed, set up, cameras and... Read more
Fresh from clinching the World Superbike championship with Sylvain Guintoli and his RSV4, Aprilia unleashed a heavily revised road-going model in Milan – or, rather, two new RSV4s. The RR, for me, was the bike of the show: resplendent on the stand in its new guise, and packing some... Read more
Ex-racer turned TV pundit, James Haydon kicks off with the first of some excruciatingly funny hire car anecdotes… “We were in southern Spain at a pre-season test with Red Bull Ducati. Ben Atkins (team manager) didn’t like hire cars being damaged, and I’d had a few warnings not to... Read more
After a long an arduous career trying to be the next big thing in the motorcycle road racing scene, going from one BSB round to the next, with one team after the next, on one bike after the next, I finally realised I probably didn’t have what it takes... Read more
As part of the Department for Transport’s ‘Future of Transport’ review, there has been proposals to ban any kind of ‘tampering’ with ‘a system, part or component, of a vehicle intended or adapted to be used on a road.’ In short, the government want to stop us modifying our... Read more
Yesterday afternoon, Yamaha announced that South African Moto3 star, and little brother of Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), Darryn Binder, will be racing a Yamaha MotoGP bike in 2022. He’ll be partnering Andrea Dovizioso in the rebranded RNF MotoGP Team, Yamaha’s satellite squad. Had Darryn spent the... Read more
It’s just been announced that Ducati have signed an agreement with Dorna Sports, the organisers of the MotoGP World Championship, to supply bikes for the FIM Enel MotoE World Cup. But not for a year or so. Starting in 2023, Ducati will be the ‘sole supplier of motorcycles for... Read more
For nearly 30 years, (since 1993) Ducati have been churning out big, brutish naked bikes under the Monster moniker. Since then they’ve sold over 350,000 of them. That’s averaging over 1,000 a month. Fair play. Personally though, I’ve never been much of a Monsterphile. I think it’s because growing... Read more
‘Sports tourers’ were a bit of a thing a few years ago. People seemed to love them, and there were plenty to choose from. Nowadays though, a lot of the folk that were into their ‘sports tourers’ yesteryear, are bombing around on adventure bikes. Everywhere you look, there are... Read more
At the weekend, I went out for a ride on my motocross bike. I wasn’t racing, I was just at the practice track with a few friends. Whilst I enjoyed my day for the most part, I found myself getting more and more irritated by the bloke parked three... Read more
I was caught off guard the other day when someone asked me, “if you could only have one bike for the rest of your life, what would it be?” That is of course one of the hardest questions known to man, up there with centuries old conundra like “What... Read more
We all know that racing motorcycles at a high level isn’t as easy as the top lads make it look. But for most, riding the bike is the easy bit. Because there’s a lot more stress involved in forging a career as a professional motorcycle racer than you might... Read more
If you watched WSBK from Argentina at the weekend, you’ll have seen Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes on some fairly retro looking ZX-10RRs. If you didn’t see WSBK at the weekend, you still might have seen pictures of their bikes floating around social media. But it wasn’t just a... Read more
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? If I could go back and do things differently with what I know now, I would. And if I could, I might stand a slightly better chance of realising my dream of being a motorcycling world champion. Because I made plenty of... Read more
If you’re into bikes, you’ve probably heard of GASGAS. They’ve been around since the 1985 and won 15 World Championships. But the fact that all of those World Championships have been in trials, a fairly niche sector of motorcycle sport, means GASGAS hasn’t ever really been much of a... Read more
