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First Ride: 2004 MV Agusta F4 1000S
By Roland Brown on 30/03/2008 20:30:04
With company finances back on track and production delays a thing of the past (for now...), the long awaited F4 1000S is finally, eventually, here. At last...
transmission gears are lighter despite being stronger. Claimed max output is 166bhp at 11,750rpm, within a few horsepower of its Japanese rivals.The new MV's chassis, like its bodywork, is essentially that of the 750. The frame combines chrome-molybdenum steel
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Motorcycle Radar: 1991
By Roland Brown on 19/11/2010 16:11:30
Journalist Roland Brown has ridden everything that’s walked or crawled in the last 30 years. Here he looks back at the bikes that defined 1991
, thrilled to discover that the British bike really was a match for its Japanese opposition. Acceleration was neck-snappingly strong, despite the bike’s 230kg weight.The Trophy couldn’t match the ZZR1100’s 175mph top speed, but its max of just over 150mph
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First Ride: 2007 Honda CB600F Hornet
By Roland Brown on 02/04/2008 12:56:43
Honda's top-selling naked middleweight gets a top-to-toe revamp, sharp new looks and the world's ugliest exhaust collector box
Japanese bikes don't come much more Italian than the revamped Hornet 600. Despite the name on its tank, the Hornet was shaped by Honda's European design studio in Italy, and built at the factory in Atessa. Given Italian sales were largely
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First Ride: Kawasaki ZX-10R
By Roland Brown on 20/09/2010 14:06:19
Last year Kawasaki bought a race circuit to sharpen up its bikes on. The first to feel the benefit is the occasionally wayward ZX-10R.
upmarket Italian bikes. This is the first to be fitted to a standard Japanese production machine, and it's odd that it should be to a Kawasaki rather than one from Yamaha, which owns Öhlins.Underway and screaming down the half-mile-long main straight
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Motorcycle Radar: 1987
By Roland Brown on 06/12/2010 14:04:17
Roland Brown is a world class swordsman, entertainer, poet, scientist, boxer, ladies' man and motorcycle journalist. Only one of those is true.
to Tokyo to test the all-new CBR600F and CBR1000F at Suzuka in December 1986. The trip itself was a disappointment, as the Japanese work ethic meant we spent most of the time being bussed between hotels, racetrack and factories, with no chance to explore
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Motorcycle Radar: 1982
By Roland Brown on 23/11/2010 12:07:30
1982 was a great year. The year Visordown's founder Ben Cope was born. But what else happened?
to the GSX1100S Katana, which took Japanese superbike styling to a new level (even if it was designed by a German firm) and was also the fastest mass-produced superbike on the road. Having wrecked my own bike, my first experience of the Katana was occupying
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First Ride: Mondial Piega
By Roland Brown on 03/04/2008 19:09:16
It's hard not to be sceptical about the rebirth of another once great Italian manufacturer.
engine the bike would use was resolved when Honda agreed to supply the SP-1 unit. Mighty Honda doesn't usually bother with small-scale deals like this, but the Japanese giant's relationship with Mondial goes back to the 1950s, when Soichiro's boys were
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First Ride: Mondial Piega review
By Roland Brown on 15/09/2010 12:54:12
It's hard not to be sceptical about the rebirth of another once great Italian manufacturer
-scale deals like this, but the Japanese giant's relationship with Mondial goes back to the 1950s, when Soichiro's boys were being thrashed in 125cc racing by Mondial, which had won the first three world titles in the class. Mondial gave Honda a racebike, which
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Motorcycle Radar: 1980
By Roland Brown on 25/11/2010 10:57:20
Wise road tester Roland Brown looks back at the years that changed biking. What happened in 1980?
The start of the 1980s saw the Japanese firms abandon the horsepower race that culminated in the Kawasaki Z1300 six. Air-cooled engines and twin shocks still dominated, and most fairings came from aftermarket firms such as Polaris and Vetter
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Motorcycle Radar: 1986
By Roland Brown on 18/11/2010 15:01:39
The VFR750F. Need we say any more? This was 1986
-R1100...Top of the FlopsThe year’s worst bikes were either Japanese singles or Italian twins, though fortunately both species were avoided by the vast majority of riders. Moto Guzzi’s Le Mans Mk4 was harmless enough; truly disappointing only if you
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