The Hildebrand & Wolfmüller is the world’s first production motorcycle and the first to be called a ‘motorcycle’. Strictly speaking, they called it a ‘motorrad’ since they were German but I digress…
Continue reading
Category Archives: Motorcycles
The new BMW R nineT /5
The BMW R nineT /5 is a exclusive (read limited production run) model to mark the 50th anniversary of the /5 series (and of motorcycle production in Berlin Spandau).
Continue reading
Honda GL1000 Gold Wing Cafe Racer
Gold Wing cafe racer. Four words that you don’t normally expect to read in the same sentence but that’s the thing with motorbikes, cafe racers even more so, it’s all about the individual, their tastes and desires.
Continue reading
Honda CB750F “Freddie Spencer” Replica
In 1981, “Fast Freddie” Spencer competed in the AMA Superbike Championship series for Honda aboard a modified Honda CB750F Super Sport finishing in 2nd place in the Championship behind Eddie Lawson on his Kawasaki. This article describes one man’s dream of building a replica of this bike.
Restoration of a Moto Morini 3½ Strada
Riding a Moto Morini marks you out as an individual in a way that only an Italian motorcycle can. Launched in 1973, a year ahead of its better known Sport sibling, the Moto Morini 3½ Strada remained in production until 1983.
Fantasy Auction results
Last Autumn we played a game of Fantasy Auction with the lots available at Bonhams’ 2015 Autumn Stafford Sale. As promised, I’ve checked the results and here’s a summary of how I would’ve got on: Continue reading
Restoration of a Kawasaki Z750 Turbo
WHO CAN CATCH A KAWASAKI? screamed the cover of Kawasaki’s 1984 range brochure and racing across that cover was a Kawasaki Z750 Turbo looking pretty much just like the magnificent example above. Resplendent in its two-tone Ebony/Firecracker Red livery, with gloss black engine and black chrome exhausts, this 1984 ZX750-E1 model looks box-fresh and ready to go. Continue reading
2015 Autumn Stafford Sale
This weekend brings the 22nd Carole Nash Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show in Stafford and, with it, Bonhams’ 2015 Autumn Stafford Sale. Being unable to make it in person, I thought I’d console myself with a game of Fantasy Auction. What’s that? You’ve never played? Allow me to explain. In Fantasy Auction, you choose a real-life auction and then you set yourself a budget and then you pick the lots you really could be tempted by and what your maximum bid would be. After the auction, you can check the results to see whether you’d have been successful.
60th Anniversary Yamaha YZF-R1
OilySmudges recently posted an article asking Yamaha to bring back the iconic “Speed Block” design. Imagine our surprise when today (18 September 2015) Yamaha announced that a limited edition 60th Anniversary version of the YZF-R1 will be produced for the 2016 model year featuring this iconic design. Continue reading
Yamaha “Speed Block” Graphics
They are one of the most enduring motorcycle branding exercises of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century and have graced both race and road machines but when were the Yamaha “Speed Block” graphics first seen and where did they come from? Continue reading