The Everyday, Everybody Triumph Triple

Jay has just stepped off the 660cc Triumph Trident after a spirited 45-mile ride through the foothills of Southern California’s Santa Monica Mountains. It’s nearing dusk and even though the temperature is unusually cool for this time of year, he encountered several other quick motorcycle riders with intimate knowledge of these twisty, high desert roads….

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India’s Latest Neo-Retro Single

Like any moto journalist, I jump at the chance to test ride new motorcycles. This generally involves free travel, meals and accommodation in some faraway, sunny locale, and plentiful time aboard a factory-fresh machine. However, when said invite entails riding a small-displacement commuter bike, one’s expectations are somewhat diminished. Single-cylinder 350s are not expected to…

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Best Beginner Rides

With the emergence of the Chinese streetbike market (see Open Mike Pg.6), and both Triumph and Royal En- field launching all-new beginner-friendly machines, 2023 is looking like an optimum time to be a newbie rider. Nearly every motorcycle showroom is stocked with easy-to-master machines engineered with rider-friendly hardware specifically targeted to learners. Amenities like slip-assist clutches, low…

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Big Changes, Massive Appeal For Flagship Naked

Story by Mike Seate, with Chris Abel and Nick Coumos Photos by Mike Seate/Ducati North America Change is controversial, especially in the high-stakes realm of performance streetbikes. In few 2021 models is this more apparent than with Ducati’s radically revamped Monster 950. The machine has boldly done away with much of what made the Monster…

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FIRST RIDE MV Augusta Dragster Rosso

Story: Alonzo Bodden, Jay LaRossa and Mike Seate “I wish I was 5’8” tall and had younger knees. Then I’d buy this bike and just do track days all the time!” That was comedian-turned motorcycle test jockey Alonzo Bodden’s enthused take after a few quick miles aboard MV Augusta’s scintillating Brutale Dragster triple. The strippeddown…

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Still Crazy After All These Years

Story: Linda Wilsmore Photos: Simon Everett Over the past fifty years, Tony Francis aka ‘Ace Rocker’, from Leeds, UK, has owned around thirty motorcycles, including Triumph, BSA, Panther, Matchless, Norton, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and currently also has a 1955 Triton. Well known on the biking and rock n’ roll scene, he runs the Northern Rockers…

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Kawasaki W800

We’d been collectively itching to get our mitts on Kawasaki’s new W800 since spotting one on the Team Green display stand at last January’s International Motorcycle Show. Fans of retro cafe racers have long lamented to loss of Kawasaki’s original W650 from the lineup, but after some 17 years the very British-feeling air-cooled parallel twin…

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Husqvarna Vitpilen

Story by Mike Seate Photos by Paul Rudolf Having sat on an idle Vitpilen at a recent International Motorcycle Show, I was struck by how low the handlebars were and how compact the overall design was of this Swedish-made factory cafe racer. Hoping to blag a test ride aboard one of the sporty 700cc singles,…

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Fourteen Cafe Racer

Fourteen Cafe Racer Story by Linda Wilsmore Photos by Simon Everett The engine is an Ariel Square Four, 997cc in standard tune, one of the last manufactured in 1958. The frame, a Norton Slimline, is from a 1960 Norton Dominator. Various parts were picked up from autojumbles and eBay, but the majority of custom parts…

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