After a short bit of town and freeway riding from John Valk BMW Ducati, it’s pulling out of US customs where Ducati’s Monster S4R shows it’s true nature. A little too much gas may have been applied, and the exuberant monster kicked up it’s heels… well, actually it’s front end.
Category: Motorcycle Tests
Which motorcycles and products we’ve tested, and exactly what we think of them.
2004 Suzuki V-Strom DL 650 – The Seductive Whiff of Adventure
The smell of pine and mud hangs in the warm late summer evening air, south of Manning Park on Highway 3. It’s a perfect motorcycling moment… that falters the moment you realize the smell of mud is the result of bridge construction, that the road has veered suddenly, and that the temporary Bailey bridge’s surface…
Honda ST1300 – Dropping the Hammer with the Big Blue Meanie
When we first tested Honda’s ST1300 we came away wondering just where the sport in big red’s Sport-Tourer resided. Was it optional? Had the dealer forgotten to put it in the ample left-hand glove box? So in the name of journalism (read fun), we took the ST out again… and poked it with a stick… a…
2004 Suzuki Burgman AN-400: Hello Kitty, Goodbye Dignity
I wind the throttle wide open as I round the corner, leaning my shoulders off for all I’m worth. The bike bucks and wallows a bit under me as I catch a compression bump, but the grip holds. The execution is near perfect, I slingshot around my prey in a questionably legal pass and rejoin…
2004 Ducati 999 – Hello God… Can I Borrow Your Bike?
I’ve just been through a series of corners on the Ducati 999, and I’m searching for words to describe it; heady, exhilarating, enthusiastic, invigorating, enlivening and inspired all leap to mind. Then I hit on it – it’s rapture. The 999 is a quasi-religious experience, which makes sense; this bike was designed by the Italians…
Suzuki 2004 GSX-R 750-Put Lightning in a Beer Can, Add a Hornet, and Shake
I’ve just hit 10,000 RPM and the GSX-R 750 has gone all Mr. Hyde on me. It’s gone from a pleasant pull to this blaring, manic, mad, howling kind of savage. Now this can also be said of the recent crop of 600s, but the 750 is better. Like a 600 you really get a…
2004 Honda VT750 Shadow Aero – Classic Analog Sense in a Digital World
The bike is sitting there in the parking lot, purring to itself in a quiet manner foreign to most big twins. Which is fair enough, because at 750cc the Honda Shadow Aero isn’t exactly a huge thumping, vibing mass of old iron, it’s something from an altogether different caste – an entry-level bang for the…
Thunder and Lightning – the Buell XB12S and XB9S
The fuel injection light flicks off giving me the OK to fire up the Buell XB12S Lightning. I thumb the ignition button and it shudders to life. Which answers the first question people ask about the Buell, “Does it really shake as much as everyone says?” The answer is, “Yes”. At idle the Lightning XB12S…
2004 BMW R1200GS – Taking the Streets
Who am I to turn down the offer to ride the newest BMW offering, the ground-up reworking of the GS theme, the R1200GS. Especially when that offer involves cavorting about the streets of San Francisco in a riot of location shots and twisty roads. Right off the top I can tell you this; there is…
R1200GS – Beautifully Teutonic or Ungainly?
I was jazzed at the opportunity to test the new 2005 BMW R 1200 GS, but not particularly impressed by the choice of venue: Las Vegas. I don’t really gamble and have a hard time sitting still through a stage show, though that last Siegfried and Roy show may have been interesting. More importantly, I…
2003 ST4s ABS – Yes, It is supposed to sound like that Officer
The Italians, they’ve brought us Lamborghini, Ferrari, and well… Fiat. What they aren’t known for are their sensible four-door sedans, which when you get down to analogy is a bit what a sport-tourer is all about. A sport-tourer is sensible, comfortable, handles well enough, and goes quick enough to be fun… which brings us to…
The ’04 BMW R1200C Montauk – Cruising Exemplified
On a motorcycle we are titans, roaming a new and beautiful world, unsuspecting, innocent, and uncaring of the changes we will see, moving forward along interlaced roadways, and existing in the now of travel and motion. Nowhere has this been truer than riding the BMW Montauk; it is the bike that has given explanation to…
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