FLAT SILVER Honda Other Motorcycles, page #74

Moto blog

V8 Honda motorcycle

Some of the best things happen in Holland - if you know where to look. For such a small country their can-do attitude has allowed them to conquer a great part of the developing World and most of the developed World with their prudent and er, careful attitude towards money. It's no coincidence that some of the most successful banking conglomerates are Dutch.  And then we have people doing this - just because they can - in their sheds.

Top box trauma

I've struggled with my Honda hard luggage over the past few months, I have to admit. To much office hilarity (and piss taking) I managed to lose the top box just a few miles from the office. I thought the locating mechanism was fastened securely but the first rapid getaway from the first set of traffic lights on Upper Street proved me wrong.It was at least a mile before I noticed that my top box was absent.

Start the ultimate project bike

The base for the ultimate project bike have appeared online, a Honda RC211V. The adverts consist of the supposedly the frame from Valentino Rossi's championship dominating machine from 2003 on eBay and a frame that comes complete with the sexy V5 engine. The eBay listing is currently at $510 and is literally an incomplete frame with the ad stating that it is the 'unfinished basis of replacement RC211V frame, all made in aluminium with CNC machined parts & high quality welding', the bidding is still under the reserve set by the user.

Pulling the pin ...

WARNING: Not for the squeamish. You're looking at surgeons removing a pin from Ten Kate Honda man Jonathan Rea's wrist. The World Superbike frontrunner underwent surgery after sustaining fractures during a fall in qualifying at Imola, which hampered the Irish racer's end of season performance.

Glen Richards back with Embassy Racing

One of the unsung heroes of the BSB paddock over the past few seasons, has to be 2010 Superstock 1000 runner up Glen Richards. A nasty tumble in at the Brands Hatch opener lead to four DNFs, but once back on track he pushed the dominant BMWs hard, finishing on the podium eight times. While many were trading their grannies to fund new S1000RRs, Richards kept the faith and rode the wheels off his Padgett’s Honda Fireblade.

Would you pay £115,000 for this?

A HONDA NR750 - one of the most hi-tech production motorcycles ever built - is up for grabs on eBay with an asking price of £115,000.The bike was produced in the early 1990s by Honda to showcase the company's engineering skills; a 32-valve, oval piston V4 engine, Carbon Fibre Composite bodywork and titanium-tinted screen are just some of the revolutionary features that warranted the bike's £37,000 original price tag.This particular 1993 model has covered 5000 miles from new - quite a few for a bike with such a heady price tag. We'd have expected it to come with delivery mileage only. It's being sold by an Essex-based dealer who describes the bike as 'IMMACULATE'.

And it's goodbye to all that ...

WHAT, you may well be asking, is a picture of an upturned helicopter doing on a website dedicated to motorcycles? Chopper fans amongst you may know this isn't any ordinary helicopter, it's an Agusta 109C; an 8-seat twin-turbine multi-million dollar aircraft capable of whisking its occupants across the sky at around 170mph. And my point is?

Stafford Bric-a-Brac. Misery and Sadness in excess

Just got back from the Stafford show. It was packed. Largely with groups of silver-haired men.

GSX-R600 and CBR250R the glass is half full

Suzuki’s GSX-R600 might not look that much different to the outgoing model but I suspect this bike could be very much a dark horse in 2011. I say this because two years ago I was definitely not building my hopes up en route to the K9 GSXR 1000 launch. The leaked pictures suggested the biggest change from the 2007 version would be some fresh graphics but I was so wrong.  As it turned out, I was greeted in Almeria with a brand new bike, built from the tarmac up and it proved to be more than a match in every department for the much hyped 2009 Yamaha R1.

Someone is Takin' the Mick

Pull out the slippers and plant yourself in front of a log fire and let Mick Grant talk you through his racing career. With a foreword from our Whit', the book details Granty's life from his Yorkshire roots through to all of his seven TT wins and the intense rivalry with Barry Sheene in the 1970s. Don't judge the book by it's cover, it's not a disaster like the out-of-focus oval-pistoned Honda NR500 but a good read.