from the Senior TT to the US Superbike Championship, via Grands Prix and the Dakar Rally.So while it’s fair to say that the Munich lads haven’t scored a top-level title for a long time, their record shows they know how to win (and not only on penalties

rider, and Suzuki and Yamaha launched their first four-stroke superbikes...BEST DEBUTSuzuki’s GS750 four was in many ways a rip-off of Kawasaki’s mighty Z1000, which was still the most powerful Jap superbike in ’77. But boy, did Suzuki’s engineers get

APRILIA RAISES THE BARAprilia had a problem with the launch of the RSV Mille. Not with the 998cc V-twin itself, which was brilliant by any standards and utterly breathtaking as the Italian firm’s first ever large-capacity superbike. The problem

-defining Bandit 600, while Foggy’s second World Superbike title gave British biking a massive boost.BUDGET BRILLIANCEFew people took much notice when Suzuki announced a new 599cc naked in-line four that combined simple styling and a vaguely promising spec with a

industry still had a pulse and World Superbikes was born.FULL-BODIED ITALIANSThe original liquid-cooled, eight-valve 851 gave Ducati new life and was one of Bologna’s most important bikes ever. But although Massimo Bordi’s 100bhp V-twin motor was ace

the 80bhp and almost 50kg in the young gun’s favour — is this: in its day, the GPZ900R wasn’t merely one of the world’s top superbikes. It was the best. By a country mile. In a world of air-cooled, twin-shock monoliths, the original Ninja was a revelation

in gloriously slinky bodywork. It blew away everybody who rode one.SUPPORTING CASTHot new bikes came in a variety of shapes and sizes, from Honda’s sleek but overpriced RC45 to Harley’s deliciously retro Road King. Best budget superbike was Suzuki’s RF900R

under £9000. And the eight-valver’s new-found appeal as a roadster was only part of the story. The 851 also put Ducati back at the top of international racing, as Raymond Roche and Doug Polen dominated World Superbikes in the early Nineties, before

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

1978The magazine article that predicted that “1978 is going to be a hell of a year for biking” was understating the case: it was indisputably one of the best ever. The fierce battle for superbike supremacy saw Japan’s Big Four each launch