The 17-inch front wheel has been the choice of mainstream superbike manufacturers for almost two decades. But it wasn’t always this way. It was in the mid 1980s that the humble hoop at the front of bikes came in for some quite detailed attention. Kicking off the decade and most Japanese litre bikes such as […]
So near, so Spa
Spa is the event which ruined every other biking weekend for me. Back in 2011 some mates were involved with Team Glam who were competing in the 4-Hour Endurance race and I tagged along for the Biker’s Classic. I’ve been along to my fair share of motorcycle events since my teenage years. And while some […]
Harris FireBlade Magnum 5
Harris Performance earned their reputation by taking ill-handling Japanese motorcycles, removing the engines, and putting them inside their hand-made chassis. That was a simple and effective recipe but by the early 1990s, even Japanese engineers had figured out horsepower wasn’t the only answer, and in 1992 Honda gave us the awesome FireBlade. Which makes the […]
Gorgeous 1973 Rickman Honda CR750
To many of us the name Rickman will conjure an image of a Honda CX500 with a white base coat fairing the size of a huge barn door. But at this 1973 Rickman Honda CR750 proves, they did much more than provide the Shoreditch cafe racer scene with even more to remove. Brothers Derek and […]
Viscount Vincent – stunningly rare and beautiful
Sometimes when a motorcycle is renovated its easy to lose the things that made it so special in the first place, but when you start with something as minimalist and purposeful as this Viscount Vincent, the odds are in your favour. One of around just 10-12 bikes that were created, this Viscount stopped me in […]
Honda MBX 125 – a lightweight classic in the making?
The Honda MBX 125 was never the top learner two-stroke, but the fact it didn’t achieve the pin-up status of the Yamaha RD125LC and the off-road Yamaha DT125LC meant that it’s a potentially better and more unusual choice. The Honda MB and MBX road range and MT and MTX off-roaders were introduced in 1979, and […]
1977 Harley-Davidson XR-750
This 1977 Harley-Davidson XR-750 isn’t a race replica – it’s the real deal. Even if it’s since been converted to a road bike. Although most Harleys are either fashionable stripped down customs or fully-dressed touring wagons, the XR-750 is the most successful race bike in the history of AMA racing since it was originally introduced […]