2012 Honda St1300a on 2040-motos

Moto blog

Moriwaki MD250 - the stink wheel eradicator

This beautiful motorcycle is the Moriwaki MD250 road racer, the replacement for 125cc two-strokes in MotoGP come 2012. The alloy beam chassis houses Honda’s diminutive CRF250X uni-cam motor, normally seen wearing long travel suspension and knobbly tyres. The quick revving liquid cooled four-stroke motor offers electric-start convenience and a maintenance schedule that most two-stroke racers can only dream of.

Honda CBR250R top speed run

The Cope Law states that: the capacity of the bike you're riding is inversely proportional to your chances of a crash. Never was it more true than on the launch of Honda's CBR125R and CBR250R where a handful of UK journos were riding elbow to elbow for a couple of hours, with laughter flowing from everyone's lid as we all took turns to back in to roundabouts, burnout through town and wheelie from the lights.. This video shows me chasing Trevor Franklin of MCN fame on a top speed run.

The future. But we can't have it

It's no secret that we motorcyclists are getting older. We're ageing because less people are passing their bike test each year (roughly 30,000 last year compared to 50,000 for the 10 years before the new two-part test) and so not only is the pool not growing it's not even being replenished and so the average age isn't being diluted down by yoof. When the going gets tough in any situation, you really get to see who's got their shit-sorted and who's light enough on their feet to adapt to change.