News

Mini-Cassia Christmas Council volunteers stood on the sidewalk as members of Brother Speed South Central Chapter motorcycle club unloaded a cargo trailer full of $31,000 in new toys. The toys will be given as gifts to Mini-Cassia children whose families would otherwise couldn’t afford Christmas gifts. “We had to get a bigger trailer this year,” club president Gary Pawson said. After the toys were put away, Pawson gave Christmas Council president Linda Short a big hug and presented her with a $10,000 check on behalf of the club and an anonymous donor. “Merry Christmas,” he said. Read More from Magic...

Yamaha isn’t the first to introduce a leaning three-wheel “motorcycle”. Nearly a decade ago, Motorcycle Daily tested the Piaggio MP3. More weight and more complexity, but two contact patches in front combine for a remarkable level of rider confidence while cornering. Yamaha isn’t saying much about the NIKEN at this point, but we expect a production machine and all details to be unveiled on November 6 at EICMA. We do know that it sports a three-cylinder engine … presumably a derivitive of the triple introduced by Yamaha in the FZ-09 a few years ago.  Have a look at the photos...

“Why does my sportbike get such poor fuel mileage?” is a question we are asked all the time. Sometimes the questioner adds that the family four-door sedan gets better mileage than the motorcycle. Several factors combine to produce this result, as follows: 1. Pumping loss: As we throttle an engine back to low power, intake vacuum—produced as the intake strokes of the pistons try to pull air past throttle plates that are nearly closed—increases. 2. Engine mechanical friction: The bigger an engine is, the larger its bearing surfaces must be. 3. Excessive rpm: Engine mechanical friction increases roughly as the...

As the final aftershocks faded away, Mexican bikers gathered in the wake of the massive September 19 earthquake in Mexico City to provide assistance in getting food, water, medical supplies, engineers, and first responders into hard-hit areas of the city that larger vehicles couldn't reach. According to MotorcycleCruiser.com, rider/photographer Santo Anaya helped gather fellow motorcyclists from around the city and surrounding areas to provide aid and assistance to those injured and displaced by the disaster. With roads damaged and clogged with cars and trucks moving to safety, motorcyclists were able to reach many victims with relative ease. "Our chaotic city...

Nine-time Moto GP champion Valentino Rossi has returned to racing just 18 days after suffering a double leg fracture in an accident in training. Rossi, 38, was forced to undergo surgery on Aug. 31 and yet he has appeared to make an astonishing recovery. In under three weeks since the accident the Italian's team, Movistar Yamaha, confirmed that he completed "a few laps" at the Marco Simoncelli Circuit on Monday. "The nine-time World Champion put his fitness level to the test and successfully completed a few laps around the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli on a YZF-R1M, before rain disrupted...

John Eldridge has the kind of life most of us would envy. He’s an accomplished surfer, he runs a board shaping business and an award-winning café, and he lives in one of the most beautiful parts of England—Cornwall, in the south west. He also likes to build the occasional motorcycle under the name CMBL (pronounced ‘symbol’), like this nimble little Yamaha SR250 street tracker nicknamed ‘Space Hopper.’ “The Space Hopper was commissioned by a chap in London wanting a lightweight street hopper for weaving through the London traffic in style,” says John. (For those of you outside the UK, a...

It was September 2015 and, while I was still in my early twenties, I traveled thousands of miles across the United States on a motorcycle. Factoring in all my route detours—through deserts, down cobblestone roads, up mountains, down cliffs, across corn fields, etc.—I’d put the trip at just under 4000 miles. In the spirit of Forbes, I wanted to dissect my numbers so—should you to take a motorcycle ride across America—you know what to expect in terms of cash outlay.  Based on my expense analysis, the trip cost me a $1.17 a mile. Read more from Forbes.

On Tuesday night, Harley-Davidson unveiled a transformational lineup change for its 2018 motorcycles. The Dyna lineup has been merged into the Softail lineup to create one cohesive line of Big Twins slotted above the Sportster and below the Touring bikes.  The new Softails have an all-new lighter, stiffer frame, new suspension, and most importantly, the new 45-degree, four-valve-per-cylinder Milwaukee-Eight V-Twin engine now with dual counterbalancers. All of the new bikes come standard with a 107 c.i. engine, while a few are available with a bigger 114 c.i. option. Thanks to the new frame, the new bikes are about 35 pounds...

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 54 percent of fatal motorcycle accidents involve collisions with other vehicles—which most of the time are at fault. Perhaps that’s because traditionally, avoiding motorcyclists has been done old-school, requiring drivers to take care and watch out—a seeming rarity on today’s roads. Fortunately, though, drivers now have help available, as carmakers are beginning to embed automated accident-avoidance technology into their vehicles. Typically, cameras and sensors connect with ECUs, annunciators, and actuators to automatically scan for collision threats, warn the driver, and even initiate steering or braking actions to avert unwanted contact…such as...

Botched downshifts are rough on your drivetrain and can mess with your confidence. It can even lead to a potentially dangerous rear-tire skid if your timing is off and you release the clutch abruptly during a high-rpm downshift. The effect of clumsy clutch work is especially bad on big single- or twin-cylinder bikes that produce a lot of engine braking. A slipper clutch can help solve the problems caused by sloppy or rapid downshifts, and while slippers are becoming common equipment on modern bikes, not all of us ride the newest motorcycles. If your bike doesn’t have a slipper clutch,...

When Suzuki first introduced the GSX-S750 to the U.S. market back in 2015, we attended the press launch in Austin, Texas expecting an exciting ride behind local resident Kevin Schwantz. Instead, torrential rain prevented us from fully evaluating the bike. That original model entered a tough market against other reasonably priced alternatives. We are thinking specifically of Yamaha’s FZ-09. Although we didn’t do a long-term evaluation of the earlier model, it received a lukewarm reception from the press, in general. To Suzuki’s credit, they went right back to work on improving the bike. The result is the 2018 GSX-S750 that...

Land speed racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats is steeped in history. Last year saw Danny Thompson get into the 400mph club with the streamliner his father built 40 years prior. This year, another storied land speed racer’s legacy will be honored when Lee Munro takes to the salt 40 years after his great uncle Burt Munro set the still-standing 1000cc motorcycle fuel streamliner record of 184.087mph. Lee called us between shake down runs at southern California’s El Mirage dry lakebed to give some background on his racing history and what he and the Indian Motorcycle Company hope to achieve...

While 2017 won’t go down as a revolutionary year in motorcycling, it is still an important year for the sport. Honda and Suzuki updated their superbikes in significant ways, and the number of high-performance uprights continued to grow—great news for the cognoscenti. Fortunately, that’s not all. Much has been done to attract the newer riders, including the new Honda Rebels, as well as the Kawasaki Versys-X 300. While the surge of retro bikes appeals to the old hands on deck, many new riders are enticed to two-wheels based on the romance of nostalgia and the appeal of a less antiseptic...

Nathan Alexander's path to becoming a professional mechanic is quite different than others we've heard, and he may have eventually even found a job here at TransWorld Motocross had he kept up shooting and editing video. Growing up in Ohio, he was introduced to motocross through his uncle after the untimely passing of his father when Nathan was only 11 years old. Alexander first started to work on bikes by helping his buddy Nathan Skaggs maintain his privateer race bike, before later attending the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute. After graduation, he looked to find work turning wrenches, but he also enjoyed...

Transportation isn't a simple gas up and go, point A to point B equation anymore. Now cars drive themselves, travel for hundreds of miles without gas, and soon won't have a steering wheel at all. And though the future of transportation is currently obsessed with humanity's conveyance of choice—the automobile—motorcycles and scooters will play a big role as cities grow denser and green living transitions from a fringe lifestyle to federal law. To catch a glimpse of this future, Bosch flew me out to the green hills of the German countryside to visit its Mobility Solutions Proving Grounds in Boxberg....

For 10 years, California-based Zero Motorcycles Inc. has been carefully breaking into the broader bike market, offering power­ful emission-­free motorcycles. Its newest bike, the Zero DS ZF6.5, is the two-wheel equivalent of the much ­anticipated Tesla Model 3: cute, reasonably priced, and superb for day-to-day use. This is key, because even though consumers like to believe they’re altruistic, they’re in fact not. They say they’d buy an electric vehicle (if they could afford it), but studies show they’ll resist anything inconvenient. Who wants to worry about driving miles out of the way—and sitting and waiting—to recharge? The DS 6.5 offers...

BMW has generally always made distinctly European motorcycles. In a sort of break from their bread and butter, the BMW K 1600 B Bagger is a big cruiser designed for touring duty. It was designed to cater to American tastes in motorcycles as an alternative to the more traditional cruisers on the market.  As part of the marketing campaign for the new bike, BMW will be offering demo rides of the big bagger at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, reports Motorcycle.com, which attracts some 500,000 riders to a small town in South Dakota with a population of 6,832. The location of...

Custom motorcycles from nationally recognized builders will be on display at Angler’s Lodge and Cabins in Hamilton on Wednesday evening. Rebel Yell Bourbon will arrive around 5 p.m. with the six custom motorcycles, which are on their way to the Buffalo Chip Campground in Sturgis, South Dakota. The motorcycles will be displayed and raffled off at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally to the entrant with the best photograph of their “rebel” attitude. Photo entries can be submitted at rebelsuncaged.com. The builders of one-of-a-kind motorcycles are riding them - and transporting them on trailers at times - from Spokane, Washington, to Sturgis,...

Don’t mistake Keanu Reeves for some nice-guy motorcycle dilettante. He doesn’t care about your trendy Scrambler-riding blue jeans or your fashion-forward “motorcycle” jacket. And he definitely doesn’t want to ride your pretty little café racer. He is, on the other hand, more than happy to talk with you about the Arch Motorcycles KRGT-1 superbikes he makes with his longtime friend, Gard Hollinger, a revered designer in the motorcycle world. The $78,000 motorcycles are based on a prototype Hollinger made for Reeves years ago; each of the 2,032cc, V-twin-engine beasts are made to order in Hawthorne, Calif., an hour south of Los...

Today I found myself stepping off of a plane in Minneapolis, MN, with a few other journalists. While the X Games are currently in full swing here in the “Twin Cities,” we were in town for the launch of a new Indian Scout. The 2018 Indian Scout Bobber is a minimalistic, low-slung, blacked-out version of its predecessor. Looking at the bike once the covers came off, the word muscle comes to mind. The kind of motorcycle that kicks sand in your face and takes your girlfriend. I like it. The Indian executive team mentioned the word “badass” almost a few...