If you’ve read my previous article on horsepower and torque, then you’ll understand why the whole top-trumps argument is completely irrelevant when actually choosing which motorcycle to buy. Those numbers tell you very, very little about what any given bike will actually be like to ride. If you’ve not read my article…well, you’re welcome to. But…
A lot of people get hung up on horsepower. The more a bike has, the better it supposedly is. A bike with less power than the other bike? Not as good at being a bike. Harley Davidson riders aren’t much better – they don’t know how much horsepower their bike makes (few people even know exactly…
Back in the 1980s, motorcycle manufacturers briefly tried forced induction out on production models, and then left it at that. The bikes were expensive, complicated to service and repair, suffered from turbo lag and in reality weren’t actually any quicker than their naturally aspirated stablemates. Suzuki’s GPZ750T was about as powerful as their bigger-engined GPZ900,…
Five months since my time with the Bandit was cruelly cut short, and four months since a new 2013 Triumph Street Triple R took its place in my garage. My RoadTrip map tells the whole story – the bike has barely been more than 50 miles in any direction, but I’ve still managed to put…
Regular readers will know that I’m a relatively recent convert to the fancy-suspension club, having been thoroughly impressed by the RaceTech GoldValve cartridge emulators and springs on my Bandit’s forks, and then astonished by the difference the Nitron Sport Shock made to the rear-end’s traction and stability. I’d taken the gamble and confirmed that, annoyingly,…
The title’s a little dramatic, perhaps, but then it was a dramatic crash. Filtering along stationary traffic after work one day, no traffic coming the other way, 10-15mph, carefully watching the line of cars ahead for hints of gaps or turning wheels that might signal calamity. Up ahead, a gap – possibly a junction. I begin rolling…
It feels to me like motorcycling has suddenly been split in two, torn down the middle by the two camps heading in opposite directions. And while I appreciate and enjoy all forms of motorcycling, I’m genuinely surprised about where I’m finding myself planting my flag. You see, motorcycling has been getting more and more sophisticated…
Do you remember buying your first bike? If you’re anything like me, and you got involved when you were relatively young, then you scraped together what little money you had for the bike, the gear, and the insurance, and were already out the door before the ink had dried on the documents. You then proceeded…
So here’s a question: which motorcycle engines are the most efficient? And before you all jump up and tell me that the smaller the engine, the more economical it is, that’s not actually quite what I asked, although many perceive fuel economy and efficiency to mean the same thing. Conventional wisdom holds that because motorcycles are generally…
There are a lot of hidden costs that come with any kind of vehicle ownership. It’s very easy to be seduced by a low sticker price (or finance payment), and forget all the other things that add up to make you reconsider walking or cycling to work after all. One of the more expensive items…
Boy Meets Bike 
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