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2 months ago | 
hagerty.com | Stefan Lombard |Roland Brown
The young guy on the modern 125cc sport bike didn’t back off the throttle as he went screaming past me and the stationary CB72 where we sat in a lay-by on a busy dual carriageway. He barely gave the Honda a second glance, and if he had he probably wouldn’t have been impressed. To him this would just have been some old bike whose rider was jumping up and down on its kickstarter in an attempt to get it running.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
msn.com | Roland Brown
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Stefan Lombard |Roland Brown
The appeal of Bridgestone’s finest sports bike was easy to understand as it accelerated out of a curve with the sun gleaming off its shapely chromed fuel tank, its two-stroke parallel-twin engine revving eagerly, and its high-pitched exhaust note providing an exhilarating soundtrack. What made less sense was the knowledge that the 350 GTR was the high point of Bridgestone’s history as a motorcycle manufacturer.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
msn.com | Roland Brown
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Stefan Lombard |Roland Brown
Ducati is currently riding high. The Italian firm is reigning champion in both the MotoGP and World Superbikes series, last year sold almost 60,000 bikes to generate a turnover of more than a billion euros, and drew a record 90,000-plus enthusiasts to its annual World Ducati Week celebration in July.
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Aug 2, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Stefan Lombard |Roland Brown
The reborn firm’s debut model was a big, strikingly styled V-twin cruiser with a familiar double-barreled name on its gas tank. A quarter of a century ago, it was launched with great fanfare to begin a new era for one of America’s oldest and most famous motorcycle marques. But far from returning a legendary brand to health and prosperity, the Excelsior-Henderson Super X of 1999 proved a short-lived failure.
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Bryan Gerould |Roland Brown
It began as a “parts bin special”—cheaply developed and launched in 1994 with minimal fanfare. The first Speed Triple shared its 885cc engine and almost all other parts with other Triumph models. It looked fairly ordinary, in fact, with its low handlebars and single round headlight. Three decades later, the Speed Triple has arguably been Triumph’s best loved model—having helped establish the firm as a maker of exciting, well-engineered bikes, and contributed hugely to its success.
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May 23, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Bryan Gerould |Roland Brown
It’s a little more than ten years since Indian was reborn under the ownership of automotive giant Polaris. Since then, the famous U.S. motorcycle marque has grown its range to more than 20 models, increased annual production to over 30,000 bikes, and outclassed its old rival Harley-Davidson to win a sixth consecutive championship in SuperTwins, the top division of American Flat Track racing.
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Apr 24, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Bryan Gerould |Roland Brown
Four decades on from its launch, Harley-Davidson’s original FXST Softail is not a bike that would stand out in most crowds. It’s a simply styled cruiser with raised handlebars, a thick dual seat, and an air-cooled V-twin engine with cylinders set at the Milwaukee marque’s traditional 45-degree angle. But that first Softail more than justified the swirling dry-ice drama of Harley’s publicity photo.
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Mar 25, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Bryan Gerould |Roland Brown
Motorcycle stunt riding is far from a recent phenomenon, judging from a report of tests of a Ner-A-Car carried out in the mid 1920s. A lady named Mabel Lockwood-Tatham was evaluating a two-stroke Ner-A-Car, recounted journalist Vic Willoughby in his book Classic Motorcycles. “Riding ‘no hands’ with great confidence, she was surprised to see her escort, on similar models, either standing on the engine casing with hands in pockets, or lying flat on their backs on the saddle.
