I’m usually a ponderer, taking weeks mulling over an idea before parting with cash, but after getting stuck in yet another traffic jam om my commute I snapped. Time to get an easy to ride two-wheeler.

I’m usually no fan of scooters following an embarrassing holiday mishap 10 years ago (the usual stupid tourist, never been on a scooter before, almost ending up down a cliff) but I thought I’d give one a shot and a one year old Honda SH150i, in shinny white color, caught my eye. With Givi 30 liter topbox and Honda’s reliability it was the ideal commuter. It even came with a Ermax wind shield.

A quick once-over revealed light scuffing on the fairing plus a crooked front brake lever. I had clearly had a minor spill and I’m pretty sure it was one of the contributing factors to the sale, although the owner denied all knowledge. With its recently fitted Yuasa battery the scooter started first time.

Continue Reading

The first thing that popped into my mind when I first saw the Moto Guzzi V9 Roamer from the Italian manufacturer was Well, another company that tries to woo nostalgic hipsters and baby boomers. Yes another variation of the retro coffee racer theme. A small fuel tank, a beautiful almost rectangular and flat saddle, rolled up handlebar, the whole package.

But I also remembered that Moto Guzzi is a brand that pays an almost obsessive attention to details. They have been building this kind of motorcycles for a long long time.

Sitting on the Moto Guzzi V9 Roamer and lifting it from its side stand, I found myself in front of a simplified cockpit but with an obvious touch of modernism. The different control buttons are… simply beautiful. Funny to say it struck me. The emergency stop switch is not the usual big red button but instead a nice little push button. Everything about the Moto Guzzi V9 Roamer is a modern nod to the past.

First the simple, slightly rolled up and chromed handlebar brings the grips just under the hands naturally. This feels not only natural but also ensures no pressure is felt under the hands. The weight of the rider’s upper body then rests on the buttocks rather than on the shoulders. A big plus for longer rides.

Continue Reading

Sports are one of the best activities a person can indulge in. They are fun, entertaining and a great way to spend time. Regular indulgence in any sport also leads to a healthier and an active lifestyle. It is also a great career as proven by so many people around the world.

It is vital for anybody to start early in life to be a world class player. After all, it can’t be easy to make an impact at a global level.

Motorcycle racing is one such sport which can be one of the best examples to highlight the benefits of starting early. Kids as young as 3 to 4 years old begin training on motorcycles that are specifically meant for children. Just think about the level of skills they would develop by the time they are big enough to ride a proper motorcycle.

As a renowned manufacturer Kawasaki has great involvement in various forms of motorcycle racing. Full of interesting vehicle line-up, one particular motorcycle catches our attention and no, it is not a powerful Ninja or a terrifying Z naked-bike. It is the Kawasaki KLX110.

Continue Reading

The Yamaha Nmax 150 scooter is a urban commuter, with standard antilock brakes (ABS) and variable valve actuation.

The engine uses Yamaha’s ‘Blue Core’ approach – basically, a fancy way that Yamaha has chosen to say it is making compact engines that offer good fuel economy but are fun to ride too.

The 150cc liquid-cooled, four-stroke engine produces near 15 horsepower and just under 12Nm of torque. The Yamaha Nmax 150 is the first Yamaha scooter to feature a four-valve cylinder head with a newly developed variable valve actuation (VVA) for a strong, linear feeling when rolling back the throttle.

The VVA system works via a mechanism that shifts between two different intake cam lobes depending on engine speed. Valve timing normally uses just one lobe that is a compromise between low speed torque and high speed power, but this, says Yamaha, offers the best of both worlds.

Continue Reading

The new Kawasaki Z650 is basically an updated ER-6N. If you compare the ER-6N with the new for 2017 Kawasaki Z650, you can’t help notice the similarities, with both the outgoing and incoming motorcycle using what is fundamentally the same 649cc parallel-twin engine, and obviously filling the same spot in Kawasaki’s model line-up. But you can’t argue with how different the new Kawasaki Z650 is , too – the transformation is total.

The attractive Kawasaki Ninja H2-like green trellis frame is new, and is considerable lighter than its predecessor’s saving a massive 10 kilograms. The swingarm is also new, and contributes a further weight saving of 2.7 kilograms. The shock now has a linkage, and is conventionally-mounted centrally in the swingarm behind the engine, unlike the ER-6N side-positioned, direct-mount unit.

The clocks and instruments are all new; the brakes have been uprated with ABS also being standard, and the engine is now able to pass the latest exhaust emission standards. It may have lost a few horsepower at the top end, but Kawasaki have focused on low to mid-range power – where you want it on a naked-bike – and the new Kawasaki Z650 has a greater spread of torque than the outgoing Kawasaki ER-6N.

Continue Reading

The Moto Guzzi V9 Bobber is as cool as it get. After all, all of history is witness to the Italians knack for making things look good. And when theat natural flair for style comes to bear on an American old-skool of minimalist motorcycle design, you get a modern-retro design with a transverse V-twin twist. A bobber is supposed to be low and short enough to make even its name seem unnecessarily long. And Moto Guzzi’s effort at factory-building a custom style of motorcycle is delightfully stubby to look at. What’s more, even its switchgear look cooler than any combination of sunglasses and beards you’ve ever seen.

Moto Guzzi did get the American aesthetic pretty right. A bit too right, perhaps, because the Moto Guzzi V9 Bobber does manage to make more than a few people with fancy haircuts exclaim, ‘Harley!’ Never mind that the cylinders are pointing the wrong way. Nonetheless, I quite like the way Moto Guzzi engine look, especially how they cylinders rise up to hug the fuel tank. Reminds me how stubbornly horizontal those BMW cylinders are. In any case, whether it’s Italy or Germany, there is something to be said for a company’s insistence on sticking to an engine format until the identities of each merge into the other.

Continue Reading

There’s not doubting the Yamaha M-Slaz visual appeal; at first glance it could easily be mistaken for an up-spec version of the Yamaha MT_03. The sporty single-cylinder, liquid-cooled 150cc engine is, borrowed from the YZF-R15, might only make just over 17 horsepower and 11Nm torque.

The chassis of the Yamaha M-Slaz has a heck of a cast list: upside down front forks, radial four-pot brake caliper, Deltabox-style steel frame, beefy asymmetrical swingarm, Y-shaped thin aluminum-alloy spoke wheels and a fashionable grey primer finish as per the Yamaha MT-10, MT-09 and MT-07.

With the superior exhaust design, a closer-fit belly pan and neater fuel tan, seat and tail unit, the Yamaha M-Slaz looks in a different class to some rivals.

Continue Reading

When I was asked to look at the Lifan KP150 I didn’t have great hopes for the around 59,000 THB 150cc single-cylinder naked-bike. How can they possibly produce a good motorcycle for so little cash?

The liquid-cooled 150cc single-cylinder, four-stroke engine runs a conventional carburetor, which means you have a manual choke and even a fuel tap – just like the motorcycles from yesteryear. In its favor over some other 150 to 200cc motorcycles in the same price range, you have good working disc brakes front and rear, a single rear shock with preload adjustment, and they’ve even tried to make it sporty looking with a small top fairing, and some nice looking aluminum alloy wheels.

The fueling might not be as perfect as some fuel-injected engine, but there is a pleasing bark from the single exhaust pipe. The exhaust note is actual a bit reassuring, with some of the latest small-capacity motorcycles I have a hard time figuring out if the engine is still running, of course I can open the throttle but opening the throttle on a 150 to 250cc motorcycle waiting at the traffic lights being my age would seriously look strange...

Continue Reading

Very eagerly awaited for by many riders, especially a few of our friends, the Yamaha MT-10 is one awesome motorcycle. Your riding skills are more than required for this machine. The Yamaha MT-10 is a very serious bit of machine in the best possible way. Yamaha’s engineers have produced the ‘Big Daddy’ of the MT-Series with brawn and control, it’s the mediator of all below it. Fun to cruise on at a touring pace, very exciting to run at a sports pace and breathtaking to have a crack on, such is its flexibility.

The MotoGP derived engine with the ‘crossplane’ crank technology is simply a brilliant powerplant. It grunts like a V-twin, has linear torque delivery like a triple and can scream like an inline four without sounding like one – it sounds a lot tougher and moves to match that sound. The upright riding position puts you in total control behind the handlebars, which is exactly what you need riding cities like Bangkok where you have to expect the unexpected. Going precisely where you point it encourages you to have a bit more of a go, making for a very fun ride.

Suspension is firm yet compliant, on what were some very ordinary road surfaces we covered on the test. The brakes are brilliant with great power and progressive feel, giving you even more confidence to push it a little harder, and running through the engine maps you really can notice the difference in each of the settings.

Continue Reading

The 2017 BMW S1000R is a formidable contender in the supernaked class, the S1000R features an eye-popping spec sheet, high-performance BMW S1000RR lineage that help make it a serious motorcycle to consider. The BMW S1000R has some competitors to deal with but it remains an extremely attractive package for those with a penchant for performance, a love of technology, and an eye for a detail.

As well as being incredibly civilized – with cruise control and comfort tuned suspension settings at the touch of a button – the BMW S1000R is also extremely well-endowed with the sporty factor. It’s the seamless bringing together of these two worlds that makes the S1000R much more than a superbike without fairings.

Brilliant as it may be, no motorcycle is without glitches, and the BMW has some notable blemishes: a narrow rev band of high frequency vibration – something the engineers appear to have addressed on the new 2017 BMW S1000R and XR models with new rubber handlebar mounts.

Continue Reading