By 1981, England was almost irrelevant in the international game of motorcycle production. So Thomas Alexander Fermor-Hesketh (how’s that for a name?), an actual Lord and Baron who had already started a racing team, decided to start his own motorcycle company. You can guess where he got the name from.
2015 MV Agusta Stradale 800
A “lightweight touring” evolution of the Rivale 800, the Stradale got a longer wheelbase, shorter seat height, larger fuel tank, windshield, and factory luggage.
$7k Trailer Face-Off – 2008 BMW R1200RT or 2012 Moto Guzzi Norge
I’ve gone months without seeing a bike/trailer combo and today I randomly saw two that were nearly the same price. I’ve never ridden one of these and I don’t have any motivation to do so but they are interesting in their own way. Which would you choose?
289 Miles – 2008 Benelli Tre-K 1130 Amazonas
Over on the auction site we’ve got a rare touring bike with a shockingly low amount of miles – just 289 on this big dual-sport for those of you that think the Ducati Multistrada is too common. Like the Multi, the TRE K is a street-oriented adventure bike, though this is one of the “Amazonas” variants that adds spoked-wheels (with …
Pichler Fairing – 1981 BMW R65
The R65 has been one of the less popular Beemers over the last few decades, and I couldn’t really tell you why. Is it the relative lack of power compared to the rest of the BMW family? If having “just” 50 horsepower isn’t a problem for you, this could be a fun runabout for some lightweight touring as it’s equipped …
2024 Yamaha Tracer 9 GT+
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of attending the press launch for Yamaha’s newest generation of the Tracer. The big news was the addition of radar, which allowed for adaptive cruise control and assisted braking. It came with a $1,600 price bump (up to $16,499), and in my conclusion I felt like the radar wasn’t worth the …
2005 BMW R1200ST
Sport tourers were all the rage in the 2000s – especially in Europe. Just about every manufacturer had one, with some leaning more toward the sport side of the equation and others leaning more toward the tourer end. In some cases, manufacturers had multiple takes on the theme, finely splitting hairs in the sport/tourer equation. So, when BMW unveiled the …
170 Miles – 1995 MZ Saxon Country 500
In 1990 (soon after the fall of the Berlin wall), MZ was privatized. The new owners realized that they needed a four-stroke motor if they were going to sell bikes in Europe and the US, so they called up Rotax and got themselves a 494cc single. Then, they designed a family of bikes around it, like the Silver Star retro …
2016 Victory Cross Country Tour
One might argue that Victory Motorcycles only ever had one good idea. Actually, no, that’s not true. It had a lot of good ideas, but most were either abandoned or – toward the end – gifted to Indian. The Cross Country offered a revvy engine, ridiculous levels of comfort, and a chassis that’s about as nimble as is possible for …
2010 Honda NT700 Deauville
“I’ve had a NT700V Deauville for the last three years,” wrote reader Luke Rogers in response to my offhand comment about the model in a post on the NTV600 Revere. “It’s everything everyone says: boring, underpowered, utterly bulletproof… It’s the most boring motorcycle I’ve ever owned. It’s the best form of transport I’ve ever owned.”
1978 BMW R100RS
The BMW R100RS was the flagship of BMW’s late 70s lineup. With the world’s first full factory fairing, it was Germany’s answer to Japan’s big tourers like the Goldwing.
123K Miles, One Owner – 2001 BMW K1200LT
BMW’s marketing department would tell you that the “LT” in K1200LT stands for Luxury Touring. My favorite BMW mechanic would always tell me it stood for “Light Truck.” This isn’t a bad thing, though he (and I) do prefer bikes that weigh less than ~850 pounds. But as our buddy Greg Shamieh of Rolling Physics Problem would tell you, “nothing …
2017 Motus MST
So many things need to go right to succeed in the motorcycling world. Motus Motorcycles is an example of the truth that simply having a good idea is not enough. Motus was a Birmingham, Alabama, outfit that produced the unique MST and MSTR from 2016 to 2018. The (arguably) good idea that Motus had was putting a powerful and snarling …
2005 BMW R1200ST
The BMW R1200ST was the short-lived successor to the R1100RS/R1150RS. It’s a very impressive sport-touring machine but it was an absolute commercial failure in the US. I’d pin that on two factors: first, this bike overlapped too much with the RT and the GS. Second (and more importantly)…it’s not very good looking. Just 554 were sold in the United States …
Flying Fortress – 2017 Moto Guzzi MGX-21
Not so many years ago, I got a chance to visit Moto Guzzi’s factory in Mandello del Lario, Italy, where the iconic brand has been producing bikes for more than 100 years. As we were being shown around, our factory guide pointed to a gated opening in a nearby cliff.