In a hurry to get over the horizon? MV has created one very sporty tourer to help get you there I was sitting at the red light, staring intently at the gear-position indicator in the top-left of the busy dash, as my left foot played hide-and-seek with neutral. Frustratingly, and…
Benelli responds to the emerging ‘compact’ market with more features, more power and a lower price tag When Honda came out with the Honda Grom last year, it left a lot of us scratching our heads. What is this thing? We thought. It’s not quite a monkey bike, but its…
Swinging through the bends in the hills north-east of home in sunny Melbourne, early morning, with the easy beat of a giant V-twin, comfortably settled in the leather seat, enjoying the cool morning air. It’s a pretty good place to be. The bike is brand-new. You can feel the engine…
When I was a kid I had a yellow-with-black-speed-blocks RD250E, which is how all Yamahas should be painted, by law. Back then a two-stroke 250 would do over 100mph, which is 160km/h in new money and at the ripe old age of 17, it felt like riding a rocket ship.…
BMW tunes into the Australian featherweight division with its new 313cc sportster; the G 310 R. When the crew at BMW aim their sights on a new market, they rarely miss. Take for instance the GS series and its place in the adventure market, the R Nine T models in…
Learners are spoilt these days. I can say that because when I was one, the choice of bikes to legally ride was fairly limited. I was too old when New South Wales adopted the Learner Approved Motorcycle Scheme (LAMS) in 2002, but was envious of the choice of bikes that…
We were recently privileged to be invited on the official Australian launch of the new Yamaha Tracer 700 and sent our resident Pommie road tester Nigel along for the ride. Good job too as he’s lived most of his life riding in the rain, and boy did it rain. We…
By Spencer Leech There’s a good reason why we try to test bikes over an extended period of time. There are a lot of things you pick up on when you have to live with a bike. This means commuting, maintaining, travelling and anything else you might do with a…
We head south to test out Triumph’s brand-new offerings “Yet another Triumph in ARR I can hear you say”. Yes, it’s true that we have featured quite a few in recent time. There’s a very solid reason for that. The Hinckley (the reborn Triumph brand) mob have actually gone berserk…
We have a brace of bikes to put through the test of real-world ownership. Will they stack up? Let’s meet the newest members of the Road Rider crew… So, a reader (that’s you, for the confused among us) rightly wants to know what a bike is like. The pressure is…