Honda Shadow Motorcycles, page #75

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Moto blog

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.

Hot on-board laps of Cadwell with Josh Brookes

You've got to be reasonably mental to ride a 200bhp Superbike on slicks around the narrow cart track that is Cadwell Park. We've met Josh Brookes a few times and we can vouch that he qualifies highly for the task in hand. That's a compliment, by the way.

Blind car drivers? It's your fault. Really, it is

Be seen, you Making car drivers see you is an art form that you learn from experience and narrow scrapes. It’s a fact of riding a bike that you’re harder to see than a double decker bus, it’s obvious isn’t it? You're small, fast and mostly, totally obscured by the average A-pillar.

Mahindra teaser video revealed

WE GAVE you the heads up last month on Mahindra Motorcycles' plans to enter the lucrative Indian motorcycle market - and here's a teaser video showing one of the company's machines on track in Italy. The Indian company will offer a variety of motorcycles, ranging from low-cost entry models to premium two-wheelers, said Anoop Mathur, the head of Mahindra’s motorcycle wing. The company is already an established scooter, 4x4 and tractor manufacturer.Despite their optimism, Mahindra is aware the company is moving into a competitve market, dominated primarily by Honda.

Get down on your knees and play

This remarkable shot of Eddie Lawson is taken by Rich Chenet. It was August 1980 and Lawson was undergoing a titanic scrap for the AMA title with Wes Cooley and Freddie Spencer here at Pocono Raceway in Philladelphia. The circuit is known as the 'Tricky Triangle' amongst the NASCAR drivers but the superbikes used a mix of infield and sections of the banked circuit.

You want a nice little car, you do.

We ran a couple of stories last week - both, coincidentally, about new Kawasakis. One was the first peek of the new ZX10R – hot stuff you’d imagine – the other, the new W800 retro parallel twin. I suppose it shouldn’t have shocked us, which story was most popular in terms of hits but it really does mark a seismic shifts in British biking attitudes that the W800 story doubled the hits of the ZX10 piece.

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.

We're all doomed...

Went to meet Niall Mackenzie at Donington on Saturday. He was doing some one-on-one instruction at a two-day Focused Events track bash, the first to be held at the newly reopened Leicestershire circuit. I was really interested in what they’d done to the track and the new chicane looks the business.