Jacob Jablonski tells us the story so many of us already know by heart. This is Jablonski’s personal account of his relationship with his first motorcycle, a Buell 1125R:

Laverda, in Italian, means “wash your hands,” and that’s what Piaggio did after it acquired the small Breganze brand circa 2000 – washed its hands of the entire brand. (Piaggio bought Moto Guzzi at the same time.) Seven years earlier, though, one Francesco Tognon had bought the brand and produced the bikes you see here, based around an updated 668cc version of a pre-existing parallel twin. Some brave people from Texas, Laverda USA!, brought some bikes to California for the motorcycle press to crash. Why not? They were expendable.

Dear MOby,

Terry Hopkins tells us the tale of “the orange bike” whose powerplant narrowly escaped a fate worse than death – slowly rotting away in a dark dank Florida shop corner – only then to be stuffed into an exhumed Honda CB frame. The resulting build is more impressive than you might think: 

A reading from the book of Schvetz: On this very day [almost exactly 20 years ago] I have been running errands in city traffic, cruising effortlessly on the highway, carving some canyons and trail riding on the same machine for you, the lazy mouse dragger, upon a strange yet captivating combination of curvaceous lines, purposeful looking parts and some really tacky details. Yea, and verily – BMW used to make some very nice big Singles.

The setting is a small Midwestern college, the type that pretty much constitutes its own dot on the map, with brick-paved streets downtown, hardwood shade in the park, and colonial architecture peppered about campus. At its periphery: the house where you are presently sleeping, nestled between manicured quads and second-growth forests, a pastoral acropolis and the amber cornfields beyond. This house is, in contrast, a structure most easily defined as a festering sore bandaged with aluminum siding. Its insulation, for instance, is shredded newspaper. Winter heat circulates via a fan suspended from coat hangers affixed to a stained drop-ceiling above a gas stove with broken igniters. The walls are so rampantly mouse-infested, you’ve resorted to putting an overturned pot with peanut butter on it in the center of the flooded kitchen sink each night – a system devised because it’s easier to run the floating rodents down the disposal than to empty a hundred traps every morning before class.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Which is interesting, because at the millennial, when Kawasaki updated its sweet ZX-6R, I was 66.6% as old as I am now. Coincidence?! I think not. I have to say, though motorcycles really have cometh a long way, everything else seems to be slipping backward. COVID 19, killer hornets, a springtime with no MotoGP… Washeth thine hands, friends, amen.

When you think of a 1000cc Honda V-Twin sportbike from the start of the millennium, what comes to mind? Naturally, it’s the VTR1000F, right? Wait, what’s that? You’re thinking of the RC51? Well, Micky Garneau wasn’t. Granted he was looking for a street bike, but the time, effort, and money he’s put into his VTR1000F Firestorm, otherwise known as the Superhawk in the US, rivals that of many racebike builds we’ve seen. Here’s Part 1 of Micky’s bike build.

Yes! I mean No! The correct answer is maybe. It all depends on if you care about money at all, the love of which is the root of all evil. If you’re not worried about your income stream or getting the absolute best deal on a new bike, now is as good a time to buy as any and better than most since it’s springtime, and all the pretty new horses are out!

I couldn’t take it anymore. My surroundings were whizzing past my eyeballs quicker than my brain could process. Instead of relenting and slowing down, I thought maybe an upshift would bring the engine speed lower and give me a moment to recalibrate. But before clicking up a gear I had to glance down at the tach to see how fast the engine was spinning. It was somewhere around 10-11,000 rpm. That’s pretty fast for most motorcycles, especially those displacing 1103 cc – but the Desmosedici Stradale inside the 2020 Ducati Streetfighter V4S I’m piloting shows an (indicated) redline of 14,500 rpm. I still had over 4,000 rpm left to melt my brain! Incredible.

Are you sick of us talking about KTM Dukes yet? And by “us” I primarily mean Evans. Anyone who’s followed this space knows he bought a 790 Duke and has modified it to his version of what an R model should be. The list is relatively short and sweet, and covers the primary weaknesses of the 790. So let’s go down the list:

When I initiated this project with MO’s long-term 790 Duke, my goal was simple. I just wanted an excuse to keep the bike as long as possible before I would be required to give it back to KTM. However, even before I considered buying the 790 for myself, I hatched another plan. I was going to build my vision of what a 790 Duke R would look like. Now, KTM has let the cat out of the bag and proved that a 790 Duke R really was never planned, meaning that it decided on an 890 Duke R instead. While it is beyond my capabilities to bump up the engine’s displacement (and retune the counterbalancers or shorten the shifter throw, among other things), as I run down the list of changes I applied to my 790, I don’t think that, although I was just trying to craft my conception of the ideal naked middleweight Twin, I strayed very far from where KTM has taken the 890.

The AGV X3000, if you hadn’t noticed, is AGV’s heritage-inspired line of full-face helmets. What sets the X3000 apart from others cashing in on the retro resurgence is the fact that this helmet is designed to replicate AGV’s first full-face helmet that donned the head of none other than the legendary motorcycle racer, Giacomo Agostini in 1969. The fact that Ago himself helped design the original helmet that the X3000 is based off gives this nostalgic lid a bit more street cred than your run of the mill vintage brain bucket.

Motorcycling is a niche activity, with sportbikes comprising a small niche within it. Track-only sportbikes make up such a miniscule niche within a niche within a niche that they’re almost not worth talking about. Until one so cool comes along that we’re forced to pay attention. The Kramer HKR-EVO2R is such a machine. This is its story.

If you know only one thing about Don Emde, it is probably that, with his 1972 Daytona 200 victory, he became the first – and only – son of a Daytona 200 winner to duplicate the feat. Since those days, Emde has devoted his life to motorcycling. He was the publisher of Motorcycle Dealer News from 1985-1990. For the past 26 years, he has been Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of two magazines for LeMans Corp: Parts Magazine and Drag Specialties Magazine. Ten years ago, his portfolio was expanded to include a third title, Parts Europe Magazine, for its Trier, Germany-based warehouse.

Robert Perkins tells us the tale of his hopped-up 1990 Honda NS144F:

The spiritual heirs of the Bimota Tesi are still at work over there on the Adriatic coast, in Italy, creating their own Vyruses in spite of the corona one. This latest hub-steered creation, in the works for nine years, uses an all new HWSS (Hydraulic Wired Steering System) in yet another valiant effort to overcome the limitations of the telescopic fork. Ducati has supplied 20 special Superquadro 1299 engines, which we suppose means 20 Alyens will be built. The price, Vyrus says, is “not available.” I didn’t really need to be told.

Nope, this is not a First Ride review. Yes, I’m annoyed too. But hey, COVID-19 is affecting everyone in different ways. I won’t whine about not getting to ride new motorcycles for X number of weeks if you folks promise not to whine about, “Where’s the Ninja 1000 SX review!” I understand your anticipation, we feel the same way over here. When our comprehensive Ninja 1000 SX data dump (basically just a giant Kawasaki press release) was published last November during EICMA 2019, Kawasaki spilled all of the beans on the new model. Last week we had a “virtual press launch” which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, there was no new information to publish since Kawi had already released it all.

I credit my early foundations in motorcycling to my beloved Suzuki SV650. Like with any sport, you need to learn the basics before you can progress to the more advanced stuff, and while my motorcycling career progressed on a number of different motorcycles over the years, my foundation was solidly built on my humble little SV.

The internet is full of riding advice, isn’t it? Do this. Do that. Hang off. Knee down. Elbow out(!). You get the picture. Now, allow me to add my two cents to the armchair debate, on the subject that’s arguably the most controversial among internet rider coaches everywhere – whether or not to trail brake. The short answer is yes, you should be trailing the brakes. But we’ll get to the reasons why in just a moment.

(WARNING! This is an opinion piece by MO’s Senior Content Editor and does not represent MO’s official position on anything at all.)

The title of this story pretty much sums it all, doesn’t it? Today’s flagship literbikes are getting increasingly expensive, putting them out of the realm of all but the most well off among us. So, let’s look at sportbikes at the lower end of the price scale, shall we? Mainly the Ducati Panigale V2. Ducati’s last V-Twin sportbike, the super-mid comes in at 955cc and $16,500 (well, $16,495 at the time I’m writing this). I had lots of good things to say about it when I got to sample it around the Jerez circuit at the end of 2019. Mainly, I was impressed with how easy it was to ride (a refreshing thing after hustling 200 hp beasts around lately. I know, I’m spoiled) and how well the electronics work. 

Part of the fun of riding motorcycles comes from the mastery of controlling an unstable machine. Without their riders, motorcycles can’t stand up by themselves at a stop. When it comes to riding motorcycles, being able to precisely place your motorcycle where you want it on the pavement comes from practice and understanding how motorcycles turn. That technique is countersteering.

Way back in the old days of early March 2020, a huge crowd assembled among gathering clouds. The Supercross at Daytona ran on schedule to packed stands. It would be the last major motorcycle race for the foreseeable future, but we didn’t know that. The witnesses were mostly young and beautiful: These are the people who will carry the world forward when our boomer lungs fill with pus, and we utter our final, intubated gurgle. We saw the crazy reports of toilet paper hoarding circulated on social media. We weren’t blind. We knew something was coming. On this, our last night of innocence, we sat shoulder to shoulder blasting out throaty cheers to over-modulated rock music and watched Eli Tomac slowly reel in and then pass Ken Roczen to take the win. Then the shit hit the fan.

Read enough motorcycle reviews and you’ll inevitably hear people like the MO staff talk about two things: Rake and Trail. It’s mentioned so much because rake and trail have a major role to play in the way your motorcycle handles, and the people who design these motorcycles are well aware of this when going from CAD drawing to real-life machine. 

The first pair of off-road boots I bought when I started riding dirtbikes were some entry-level Alpinestars Tech 3s. The low price and the relative flexibility compared to others on the market made them a great choice for a newbie. I remember how little I could feel in those when I started using them and how foreign the experience felt to me entirely.

It was 20 years ago (almost) today, Sgt. Minime taught the band to play. We’ve been going in and out of style, but we were all guaranteed to raise a smile on this new Kawasaki junket in Daytona, including Tom Riles who captured all the excitement in stunning Velvia. Or was it Kodachrome? I’ll FedEx you the slides next week… While we were there, clattering around on Kawasaki’s new big cruiser and being 20 years more irresponsible, we also watched Mat Mladin beat Nicky Hayden’s brand-new RC51 to the line to win the Daytona 200. It was kind of a big deal. Those were the days, my friend. 

“When the house is filled with dread, place the beds head to head. `Tis an old Armenian custom,” or so says Emma Dunn in the 1939 classic Son of Frankenstein – the awesome original film Mel Brooks built Young Frankenstein upon 35 years later – and let’s see… 46 years ago. If you haven’t seen both lately, now that you’re cooped up could be a good time to do so. 

My greatest fear was of not taking the chance, of wimping out, of being that half-drunk guy at the bar, many years in the future, mumbling about the special whine of straight-cut gear-driven overhead cams, or staring at the floor in embarrassment, unable to pronounce “homologation” on the third try. Everyone who’s ever had a dream bike can tell you a story about it; most of them end with the words, “I wish I had it back.”

Recently, while practicing my government-mandated social distancing in the middle of nowhere on dirtbikes, I noticed a friend of mine had a new 6D ATR-2, 6D’s latest dirtbike lid. I asked him what he thought of it, “Well, I haven’t worn it too much yet, but I thought I’d get the safest lid I could.” It would seem, for those in the know, that 6D has made a name for itself – within a relatively short time, with the company being founded in 2011 – with it’s Omni-Directional Suspension (ODS) technology making for a “safer” helmet. In what is becoming a sea of great offerings, 6D helmets started a revolution in terms of solutions to injuries from rotational impacts with its original ATR-1 off-road helmet. 

At Daytona, Polaris loaned me a Slingshot for a few hours and I’m not even sure the three-wheeled Slingshot should be in Motorcycle.com, but that’s Evans’ problem. I just do the typing. The 2020 Slingshot is mostly new from the brake pedal forward. The driving experience is 80% automotive, 20% ATV Quad, and 100% motorcycle when it rains. It’s going to take me more than a few hours to acclimate to the oddness of this gearbox and the three-wheeler’s handling characteristics.

And the number of the beast was 493 pounds dry, claimethed Suzuki in 1995. If that was the case then fluids were waaay heavy 25 years ago, brethren: Filling the tank with 5.5 gallons of Ethyl, adding oil to the engine, fork tubes and rear shock, coolant to the radiator, five gallons of brake fluid, and lead acid to the battery had these things approaching the weight of Air Force One, fully Trumped out with gold fixtures. Guesseth what? Is it any coincidence that as these things have shrunk over the years to become ever racier, so have their sales? The GSX-R1100 was in fact a midrange-monstrous sport-tourer in a track suit – too big to fail! How I long for one today, but with cruise control… 

Scramblers are one of my favorite genres of motorcycles these days. I’ve always been a fan of the retro off-road vibe these types of bikes are centered around. The original scramblers, of course, weren’t off-road machines at all, but rather small street bikes chopped down to the essentials for weight savings and altered for better off-road performance. In this most recent modern era of scramblers, we’ve gone through the same trends seeing “scrambler” styling with little intention of actual off-road use, and just like in the ‘60’s, we are now seeing manufacturers offering these machines with real off-road chops. 

Honda has registered designs for the production version of a new CT125 model. Honda showed off a concept version of the CT125 at the Tokyo Motor Show last fall (pictured below), but the new design contains details indicating a production-ready model.

As COVID-19 continues to spread to alarming levels around the world, it’s no surprise to hear that the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas has been postponed until November 15, 2020. The American round will now be the penultimate race of the season ahead of Valencia which has been pushed to November 20-22. This, of course, comes after the first race of the season in Qatar was run without the MotoGP paddock while both Moto3 and Moto2 were able to race due to the riders having already been in the country for testing prior to the first round.

North of Payson, Arizona and just a few miles past the town of Pine, there’s a steep grade that climbs into the mountain range below the city of Flagstaff. Ahead, an older Chevy truck moves slowly through the trees. The Chevy is one of those faded metallic burgundy ones, the ones where General Motors’ ablative-burgundy topcoat survives only in the shady areas. Lower fenders and door sills, any body shape that falls downward and inward towards the centerline still had a glossy wine red finish. Whatever topside paintwork survived the sunlight consisted of chalky peeled silver. The hood and roof were littered with rust and the cargo bed rode at a 20-degree angle to the rest of the vehicle. Taken in its entirety, the auto-scene reminded me of prehistoric valley rubble deposited by a receding glacier.

Akrapovič has a new collection of high-quality exhaust systems now available in America, meant to complement the Triumph Modern Classics range whether you’re cruising the boulevard or heading down the highway.

If you’re making a tire in the sport-touring category, you probably have one of the most difficult jobs in the entire tire business. Where racers want the grippiest tire they can find, longevity be damned, and the touring set seek high-mileage with modest grip, the sport-touring crowd wants the best of both worlds. Oh, and it better have good wet weather performance, too. No easy feat.

It’s easy to take for granted the dynamics involved in creating a fairing for a motorcycle. Sure, you could easily mold a piece of plastic or resin and create a shape, but what thought process and research goes into such a mold? We take something like fairings for granted because they’re so commonplace. Big OEMs have the resources to hire big-name designers to create something that’s easy on the eyes, then study the fluid dynamics behind the designer’s sketch to see how different lines bend and shape the wind as it flows through it. Then these big players can utilize finite element analysis to dictate the strength of a part or component and adjust as needed for a given application. But nobody talks about these things anymore because this is simply something we expect. We’re numb to it. But when we stop and think about it, the fit and finish of a motorcycle determines its legitimacy.

As a flat softball-sized boulder flipped up from beneath the rear tire of the Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro I was following, the ringing of the krakebs from the previous night’s festivities grew louder and louder in my ears as I braced for impact. Subconsciously, I rolled off the throttle if only for a brief moment slowing myself enough to not make contact with the hurtling stone. Then back on the gas quickly to launch the 450(+)-pound motorcycle into the air over the rocks embedded in the road. Through bustling city squares, desolate tiny villages, and long barren stretches, our time onboard the Triumph Tiger 900 had been nothing short of an adventure. An experience of a lifetime; one perfectly suited for the Triumph Tiger 900.

Updated February 2020

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his Keihin FCR the breath of life (with accelerator pump); and man became a living soul. There was also the street version that first year, the DR-Z400S, but our man Mark Kariya would not have been caught dead on that, not when Suzuki invited him to ride the new “E” at Soboba with Malcolm Smith. Twenty years on, Suzuki still stocks the DR-Z400S and SM; now with the breath of life via Mikuni BSR36. When men were men, amen.

In the wake of declining sportbike sales, we’ve seen manufacturers drop supersport models or leave them untouched for years on end. For the more versatile, upright sporty bikes, the industry as a whole has not given up. For Honda and Kawasaki, models like the Ninja 650 and CBR650R offer sportbike looks with practical ergonomics and performance that riders can grow with. With both models receiving updates within the last year – including seriously stepping up their game in the looks department – these everyday sportbikes are even more enticing than ever.  

The world has come to grips with saddlebags on Ducatis now, my friends, but that wasn’t always the case. First came the ST2 with the air-cooled motor and it was good. Then a few years later, the ST4 with the liquid-cooled 916 engine: 99.5 horsepower were more than enough then, though frankly we usually preferred the nearly equal torque of the ST2 a couple thousand rpm sooner. Twenty years later, we’re waiting not-so patiently for the 200-hp V-four Multistrada to get here. There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.

Why can’t MO have a poll, everybody else does? To settle our own curiosity and because we can, we took the hard work upon ourselves to produce this highly scientific poll of MO readers. Some pundits have conjectured there’s a correlation between motorcyclists and political leaning; we aim to slice it a bit thinner than that here, to see what kind of motorcyclist leans which way. This Playbuzz baby’s going to show us not just what kind of motorcyclist supports each Presidential candidate, it’s also going to predict the outcome of the upcoming race if only MO readers voted. Which, really, makes tons of sense. We’re not just a microcosm, we’re a microchasm.

Twenty years ago the photos were still terribly tiny, and could you please hang up the phone so I can get on the dial-up modem. You’ve got mail! Who are these Italian upstarts anyway? We thought they only made scooters, and ring-dingy two-strokes for that skinny Italian kid to race? The world was about to find out differently; the Falco was an early messenger portending great things to come. No, I don’t know why it’s two pages? Probably to let the modem catch its breath. Let us give thanks for the wi-fi. Amen. 

Ever since protective moto-specific jeans hit the market, I’ve been searching to find some that I liked. It’s been a challenge. I’m 5’8” with a 30-inch inseam and pretty muscular thighs – the watermelon-crushing kind. For a long time, it was the fit that bothered me. Euro jeans were too skinny, others were too baggy. Furthermore, jeans built with aramid fiber offer zero stretch to help with fit. Even now that there’s a plethora of jeans on offer from many different brands, I’ve yet to find any that I, personally, am 100% stoked about, be it fit, color, style, etc. At long last, the Pando Moto Steel Black jeans have been like finding the needle in the haystack for me.

The Thruxton namesake is one that has described Triumph’s racing efforts throughout the middle of the past century. Now, the name designates a model that harkens back to those days that’s thoroughly modern while being meticulously designed to look the part of cafe racers from the 1960s. This new Thruxton RS continues to refine and develop Triumph’s factory cafe racer into a machine that will properly haul the mail and look smashing while doing so.

In those days 20 years ago, brethren, we rode with our heads held high and knees firmly on the ground; there was no crawling along on elbows with bowed heads in subservience to foreign foes and false idols. Later that year, Colin Edwards the Lanky Texan would win his first WSBK championship, and indeed – as red-blooded Americans had won half those titles since the series’ inception 12 years earlier – there was no reason to think we were not the chosen people. Let us not forget Kenny Roberts Jr’s 500 cc GP championship that year, nor the legacy of the Apostles Freddie, Steady Eddie, Wayne, and Schwantz. I may not get there with you, but someday we will return to the top of the mountain. A reading from the Book of Minime, with the help of the wise men Clavin, Roland and Nigel.

All of the Racer gloves I’ve tested have easily stood by the claim of the best fitting gloves you can buy, and the Racer Multitop 2 is no different. Much like Cinderella and her glass slipper, I slipped the medium-sized gauntlets on and whaddya know, a perfect fit. I typically wear a large in most European brands and MX gloves, but mediums have always fit me spot on for Racer gloves. As someone who’s easily bothered by ill-fitting gloves, Racer’s consistency is a welcome surprise in a market where different styles of gloves can fit in vastly different ways even interbrand.

Stop and think about helmets for a minute. Undoubtedly the most important piece of safety equipment motorcyclists wear, have you thought about what goes into testing a helmet? Basically, a helmet is dropped straight down onto a surface and the results of the impact are measured. That’s all well and good, but there’s more to a crash than the impact itself. And besides, how many accidents involve the rider falling straight down, as if dropped from a building?

Klim makes some of the most technical gear on the market. From the companies Klim partners with, to the level of thought, research, and testing that goes into new products, it’s always exciting to hear what the brand has coming down the pipeline. Recently, I had the opportunity to take a trip with the folks from the Klim HQ in Rigby, ID, to the Gore facility in Maryland (think Gore-Tex). We had the opportunity to tour the Gore labs – an eye-opening and mind-blowing experience – and later got to check out some of Klim’s 2020 product line, which includes some new stuff that I think will be a hit for the company. In addition to new gear of its own, Klim has teamed up with In&Motion, a company that makes motorcycle airbag vests, to bring the Klim Ai-1 airbag vest to America’s motorcycling contingent.

Part one and two of BMW R NineT Racer were filmed on location at Buttonwillow Raceway in the scorching heat of a summertime Mojave Desert. Now for part three, Boxer Team America heads Northeast to SLC and the high elevation of Utah Motorsports Campus (formerly known as Miller Motorsports Park for those of us that have been around for a while) with two new team members to participate in another AHRMA National.

Taking this job with Motorcycle.com has opened up an unbelievable set of opportunities for me. I’ve had the chance to ride some amazing motorcycles in some of the most awe-inspiring places. If you’d asked me when I moved from the Midwest ten years ago if I thought I would’ve had the experiences I’ve had so far, even though I’ve always been hopeful, I couldn’t have imagined just how incredible it has been. Not a day goes by, even the long ones in front of a computer, that I’m not truly grateful for this.

So far in this celebration of 2019 on Motorcycle.com, we’ve turned to the staff MOrons for their choices of the best first rides and best shootouts of the year. Now, we gaze into the magic ball of Google Analytics to see what you readers selected with your finger taps, mice, and trackpads. While in the past we’ve typically had to adjust the clicks by the number of months that the articles have been live, I chose not to do that this year because the oldest article that made this list was from August. If it had been January, I would have thought that it had an unfair advantage. The other reason I decided to go with total clicks rather than an adjusted for time number was that the number four article of the year was posted only a week ago. Wrap your head around that. Now, just to really mess with you, that article has a decent amount of comments but nothing terribly eye-opening. So, if you’d asked me, I would have never guessed at the article’s popularity. The rest of the list is an interesting snapshot into the minds of you MOrons.

As the year comes to a close, we MO editors find ourselves wrapped in sweaters, hot beverages in hand while we warm ourselves in front of space heaters cranked on high. SoCal can be bitterly cold this time of year with temps dipping all the way into the high 40s (F)! Since it’s much too cold to ride a motorcycle in this weather, we’ll sit and reminisce. Warm up the kettle, grab your heated blanket and join us won’t you, as we recall the best first rides of all (of 2019).

Ten years ago, it is written, the 600 Supersport class was still hotly contested, bitterly fought over, super-important to the Big Four, etc… Then something happened. The Great Recession, the Boomer Regression, the ADV Expansion? The street portion of 2009’s de rigueur 600 Shootout! has lost the illumination from its manuscript; luckily we unearthed the video, and the Willow Springs racetrack portion of the smackdown. However current sales figures may be, all four of these motorcycles are still available as new models – and the winner of this little comparo retails for a mere $200 more than it did ten years ago. Let us praise and give thanks to Duke, Brissette and Gardiner – and also to the freelance apostle Andrea for some nice photos for a change. Amen, and Happy New Year.

What would you do if you came face to face with your own mortality? For many of us, especially in this sport, it’s a scenario we think about in the abstract; we’re either going to go out in a blaze of glory doing something we love, or Father Time will continue undefeated. We don’t think, much less expect, something like cancer to get in the way of our plans. Peter Starr was one of those people, living comfortably – some would even say successfully – thanks to motorcycles.

Year after year we at Motorcycle.com bring you a video from the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show talking about the bikes we’re excited about. Seeing as the LBIMS is the first chance we in America get to see in the flesh (almost) all of the new models first shown at EICMA earlier in the year, it’s an exciting time for the moto community as a whole. But we’ve come to realize that maybe you’re tired of hearing what we are excited about. Actually, the truth is we’ve found an easier way to bring you a video from the International Motorcycle Show without Evans, Ryan, John, Sean, and I arguing about what’s cool and what’s not. We’re letting you decide. What? How?

It’s exactly like one of the guys in the Alcan 5000 video (embedded below) says about Ernie Vigil (Vee`heel): “His happy place riding a motorcycle, I would consider a crash.”