One of my favorite bikes from years gone by is the Yamaha TT500. Yamaha did a great job with that bike, it worked well in the desert and on trail rides. It was easy to start (sort of), easy to ride (as long as you weren’t expecting it to act like a lighter European two-stroke),…
When you name a motorcycle after an Intercontinental Ballistic Missle it better be one hell of a bike. Norton did just that, sort of. Norton had some sort of Post War / Cold War theme going for a while. They had the Dominator, then the Atlas, next came the Commando… Norton was at war with…
Starting back in the Victorian era when motorcycles were just emerging, you’d have a guy building bicycles in one village, and another guy building motors the next village over. The guy building motors was thinking about putting them in an automobile or a farm tractor, the bicycle guy was just making bicycles. Well, one day…
Sometimes you just have to wonder why a motorcycle manufacturer would keep building a bike that they have already replaced with a much better bike? A bike that is smoother, faster and much more in line with the times. The 1976 Honda CB500T is the poster child for just that question. In the early to…
….gone South. Those of us that are afflicted with ‘VBD‘ (get your mind out of the gutter, it is not a sexually transmitted disease…it’s Vintage Bike Disease) seem to have a hard time resisting finding a way to sneak some weird, obscure, oddball motorcycle into our garage without our spouses noticing. I have tried it…
Picture this, you’re buzzing along a tight twisty mountain road on a classic roadracer that just happens to have lights and a horn. The bike is light, quick and amazingly agile. The bike almost knows what you’re going to do before you do. A very light push on the bars sends you through the corner…
In 1969 BSA commanded 80% of all the Brit bikes sold here in the USA. Eighty Percent! Who woulda thunk? I, and I think most of us, would have pegged Triumph as the leader but not so say the statistics. What was it about BSA that made it that strong a seller in a time…
Little hot rod two strokes are way too much fun to ride. Like a lot of us of a certain age, we grew up riding little ring dings, dirt bikes or street bikes, the late 60’s and early 70’s were ruled by two strokes. Three out of the four Japanese manufacturers based their whole product…
I have always been attracted to oddball motorcycles, yet another psychological flaw I can attribute my step-father. Bultaco, Greeves, any English bike and big thumpers. Sure, I’ve owned my fair share of UJM’s, my favorite being my 1980 Honda CB750F, but I like riding a bike that you don’t see a hundred of when you…
British singles, I love ’em. I’m not talking about the ones on match.com.uk, well, some of those are quite attractive as well but I’m talking about motorcycles. I have owned one that was stolen out of my garage, I have ridden a few that I was loaned and I believe that the British Single cylinder…
