Road Tests

Prices have doubled in less than 10 years and yet there’s never been a better time to buy a Honda RC30 or Yamaha OW01. Steve Rose explains why…

When ‘Father of the Z1’ Ben Inamura designed the Z650 in 1976 he could never have realised that derivatives would still be in production 30 years later. John Nutting tested a number of the original versions at MIRA…

In the 1970s Dave Minton first greeted the idea of a high-speed, high-mileage 750cc parallel twin with suspicion, but he was fast won over. Here’s how, and why…

Still drop dead gorgeous and probably the best looking 250 of the 70s, the Kawasaki S1 inspires many a middle aged man to relive his teens…

Honda’s GB500TT was the coolest of the Japanese big singles. This one’s been tweaked to make it even cooler, and it’s also our competition prize. Steve Rose takes up the story…

Yamaha’s original RD350LC was furious if not as fast as we’d expected. But the two-stroke twin had huge potential which has been explored with a huge range of modifications. John Nutting tested it at MIRA in the early 1980s…

In the early Seventies the world of twins was simple; Ducati produced V-twins, BMWs were horizontally opposed and the British persevered with pushrod parallels… then Yamaha mixed it all up, with the OHC XS1…

Mike Dixon’s rare, tuned example of the BSA B30-4, denoted by a small star red star stamped onto the crankcase, was described to him as being similar to the machine campaigned in competitive trials by Marjorie Cottle during 1930…

This Velocette Special takes the engine from the LE and slots it into the rolling chassis of the Valiant, creating a tidy little lightweight…

Motorcyclists who grew up in the Seventies and had more than hint of fire in their veins would have had to try a Yamaha two stroke twin. In whatever size they came – 125cc, 200cc, 250cc, 350cc or 400cc – they were fast and furious and could punch much more than their weight…