The Ducati Scrambler is set to be just as revolutionary as the Ducati Monster was in the 1990s – this is a brief introduction to the still quite new model. Introduction The Ducati Scrambler is a relatively new design from Ducati designed to appeal to the market for practical, retro-styled motorcycles with modern performance and…
Introduction The Honda Gold Wing has been pretty much the archetypal grand touring motorcycle from its debut back in 1974. This is a motorcycle that Honda described as the “King of King motorcycles”, their own CB750 having already been given the title of “King of motorcycles”. That Honda got their concept right in the first…
Introduction The Kawasaki KLR650 was such a good multi-purpose motorcycle that it was used by the Marines and formed the basis for the US Marines M1030M1 motorcycle created by the folks at Hayes Diversified Technologies. The Kawasaki KLR650 is a bike that Kawasaki got right all the way back in 1987 and had no need…
Introduction The Honda CB550 was probably the best balanced Honda of the seventies. It did not have the awe-inspiring power of the legendary CB750, but it had a stiffer frame and was a lighter and more nimble motorcycle. We might describe the Honda CB550 as Honda’s “Goldilocks bike” – the CB750 was too big and…
Introduction Before the movie “Back to the Future” had been thought of, Honda introduced its new model for 1978 as “First to the Future”. This was a new model that had big shoes to fill. Its predecessor, the Honda CB550 had been a simply brilliant motorcycle with good handling and balance. So the new motorcycle…
Prior to 1969 the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) rules for the AMA Grand National Championship were deliberately structured to favor side-valve engines rather than overhead-valve engines. The result of this was to favor American made bikes such as those from Harley-Davidson with their side-valve engines, and to disadvantage the overseas competition which was mainly from…
Introduction The Moto Guzzi Le Mans began life on the race track back in 1971 when Dutchman Jan Kampen decided to build a racing Moto Guzzi for the Zandvoort six-hour race. Kampen’s bike had the Moto Guzzi V-twin engine’s capacity increased to 810cc. As Kampen and Moto Guzzi engineer Lino Tonti were in regular communication…
The creation of the first viable motorcycles began in earnest in the early twentieth century, and as is often the case with new types of vehicle – their militarisation was to happen not long after that. When we think about World War I we tend to think of the mechanization of warfare, the emergence of…
If you are way out the back of nowhere, a long way from civilization, there are few things so comforting as the sound of a diesel engine on tick-over; if you are in a car or truck that is. If you are on a motorcycle the probability that you will have the comfort of a…
The triple-cylinder engine, as applied to motorcycles, provides an engine that can be inherently balanced. If you listen to a triple-cylinder motorcycle, such as a Triumph Trident or BMW K75, it sounds smoothly balanced for good reason. You will also coincidently notice that an engine with a multiple of three cylinders sounds smooth by comparison…
Curiously the inline-4 cylinder engine was being fitted into motorcycles very early in motorbike history. I say curiously because we like to think of technology as starting out with the simplest design and then evolving into more complex forms. So although some early motorcycles were built using a single cylinder or horizontally opposed “boxer” twin,…
The creation of the Japanese sword gives us an insight into the thinking behind the creation of the Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM). In the time prior to the Japanese creating their own sword design they used a variety of design concepts mostly borrowed from China. But there came a point at which they seem to have collectively decided that the two handed sabre was the best choice…
