: an Ohlins steering damper, transversely arranged just as on several 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 Ohlins

Falco. He also crashed on the launch, which proves he tests what he designs…And I reckon he’s done a damn good job. Despite the slightly SP-2 look of the new Mille, I love it. The front is much more narrow than the older bike. Under that slimmer frontage

, and doesn't have the class of the Italian designs it echoes. albee: CHEAP FUN. SV650 BEATER? Strengths: Fun, characterful, compact and light. Cheap to buy, run and upgrade.Love the looks: trellis framed, bikini faired exposed mechanics Weaknesses: Fun

permanent resident in my collection - others have come and gone, but on the days when the Italian prima donnas and Japanese sportsbikes decide to have a lie in and refuse to go, the CB500 gets wheeled out and has never let me down. It was my longest

demonstrated with me on the back they are more than up to the job. On the road I really couldn't tell the fact that they weren't four-piston jobbies and after some fairly hard use down a very twisty road they didn't show any signs of fading at all. I did a bit