Harley-Davidson has filed designs with the European Union Intellectual Property Office for two more models using the liquid-cooled Revolution Max engine powering the Pan America and Bronx. The two new designs, one a cafe racer and the other a flat track-inspired model, further add to the modular concept promised with the new engine platform.

The title of this story pretty much sums it all, doesn’t it? Today’s flagship literbikes are getting increasingly expensive, putting them out of the realm of all but the most well off among us. So, let’s look at sportbikes at the lower end of the price scale, shall we? Mainly the Ducati Panigale V2. Ducati’s last V-Twin sportbike, the super-mid comes in at 955cc and $16,500 (well, $16,495 at the time I’m writing this). I had lots of good things to say about it when I got to sample it around the Jerez circuit at the end of 2019. Mainly, I was impressed with how easy it was to ride (a refreshing thing after hustling 200 hp beasts around lately. I know, I’m spoiled) and how well the electronics work. 

Honda revealed a new concept model based inspired by the CB900F. The Honda CB-F Concept is based on the Neo Sports Café-styled CB1000R, but with a decidedly more retro vibe. The CB-F Concept was originally intended to be a part of Honda’s display at the Osaka and Tokyo Motorcycle Shows, but due to COVID-19, was instead revealed in an online “Virtual Show” along with other models like the new CT125 Hunter Cub.

Poor Ducati. It seems as though the mystical powers that be simply have something against its new model, the Streetfighter V4. After all the hype surrounding a naked version of the mighty Panigale V4, nothing has gone to plan. First was the death of Carlin Dunne while en route to a commanding victory at the Pikes Peak hill climb, then came the cancellation of the international press intro for the SF V4 at the Ascari Circuit in Spain due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Since the 2021 CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP was announced in November, we’ve been eagerly waiting for  Honda to release horsepower figures for the U.S. market, hoping it wouldn’t be far off the 215 hp claimed for the European-spec model. Thanks to VIN documentation Honda submitted to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, we can now report the American-spec CBR1000RR-R will only produce 188 hp.

Honda officially confirmed the CT125 minibike is going into production as the CT125 Hunter Cub. At the moment, the 2021 Honda CT125 Hunter Cub has only been announced for the Japanese market, where it will be available for 440,000 yen (US$3952).

On Wednesday, March 25 at 10:30 am PST (1:30 pm EST), Ducati will be live-streaming a presentation about the new Streetfighter V4, straight from the designers, engineers, technicians, test riders, and everybody else involved with making it come to life.

My greatest fear was of not taking the chance, of wimping out, of being that half-drunk guy at the bar, many years in the future, mumbling about the special whine of straight-cut gear-driven overhead cams, or staring at the floor in embarrassment, unable to pronounce “homologation” on the third try. Everyone who’s ever had a dream bike can tell you a story about it; most of them end with the words, “I wish I had it back.”

A touring version of the BMW R18 cruiser has been spotted by spy photographers, sporting a fork-mounted windscreen and leather saddlebags. A potential competitor to the Harley-Davidson Heritage Classic, this touring model joins the cruiser and fairing-mounted bagger versions we uncovered in design filings in late February.

At Daytona, Polaris loaned me a Slingshot for a few hours and I’m not even sure the three-wheeled Slingshot should be in Motorcycle.com, but that’s Evans’ problem. I just do the typing. The 2020 Slingshot is mostly new from the brake pedal forward. The driving experience is 80% automotive, 20% ATV Quad, and 100% motorcycle when it rains. It’s going to take me more than a few hours to acclimate to the oddness of this gearbox and the three-wheeler’s handling characteristics.

Harley-Davidson announced it is suspending most of its U.S. production through March 29 after one of its employees tested positive for the coronavirus. The temporary suspension in production affects the company’s York Vehicle Operations in Pennsylvania, and the Tomahawk Operations and Pilgrim Road Powertrain Operations facilities in Wisconsin.

Once in a blue moon, Honda likes to flex its muscle and remind everyone that it’s Honda, and when its team of engineers and designers want to, they can produce cool motorcycles capable of completely blowing your socks off. Bikes like the RC35, RC45, RC51 (arguably), the oval-piston NR750, and who can forget the road going MotoGP bike, the RC213V-S? And though we haven’t ridden it yet, the CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP promises to carry on that tradition, at which point those same designers and engineers can go back to their usual business of coming up with things like the DN-01 and NM4.

Just because they cancelled South by Southwest doesn’t mean MO would let a little thing like a global pandemic keep us from our appointed rounds, and so it was off to Austin, Texas, to ride Yamaha’s new entry-level Master of Torque last week. (Or maybe it should’ve deterred us, since on my day to fly home again, we got word that the US MotoGP round, scheduled for April here in Austin, was also postponed due to coronavirus. Then the IoM TT, then the run on toilet paper… And now my throat’s a little scratchy… maybe this thing is not a Chinese hoax?)

With the whole world largely on hold for the foreseeable future thanks to the Coronavirus, we finally have time to revisit some projects that have been sitting on the back burner. In this case, the Energica Ego Corsa MotoE racer. If you remember, I wrote some words about the bike and my experience riding it, but never got around to posting the video. Several reasons factor into this: the holidays, other projects, procrastination, and just life in general pushing the ball down the road one more day. But the big reason this video comes to you so late is the fact I wasn’t able to get as much footage as I would have liked.

The phrase “Super-Mid” is about as meaningless as they come in motorcycling, but nonetheless, Ducati has used it to label its smaller displacement sportbike; in this case the Panigale V2. Essentially the previous Panigale 959 with a facelift and V4-level electronics, this odd-displacement sportbike not only has a weird engine size – 955cc – but it’s  a V-Twin to boot (and no need to “correct” me about not calling it an L-Twin, because even Ducati calls it a V2 now), putting it in a distinguished field of outliers in the sportbike class, joining the Suzuki GSX-R750, Kawasaki ZX-6R and its 636cc engine, and the now-discontinued Triumph Daytona 675. We’re not counting the Triumph Street Triple 765 since it’s not really a sportbike.

Honda has registered designs for the production version of a new CT125 model. Honda showed off a concept version of the CT125 at the Tokyo Motor Show last fall (pictured below), but the new design contains details indicating a production-ready model.

We first learned about the impending release of the 2020 Harley-Davidson Softail Standard thanks to the excellent sleuthing of MO’s Production Editor, Dennis Chung, who dug the information out of the dark recesses of the CARB website.  Only ten days later, Harley confirmed the Softail Standard, and now, as we take delivery of one for the full MO-review treatment, we thought you might like a little information about the newest member of the Softail family. 

The pie, everyone agrees, is shrinking, and nobody can agree on how to bake a new one. Many, if not most industry people seem to have concluded millennials are just cell phone-addicted slackers, though slackers is not the word many of them use in private conversation. What it’s all about now, then, is conquest sales, and when the Germans start talking conquest, people listen. One way to conquer is by lowering prices, which would seem to suggest the slackification could be a money-related issue, wouldn’t it? I can’t remember the last time BMW admitted to taking aim at a specific competitor, but for the new F 900 XR in our lead image, it’s the Yamaha Tracer 900. For the barer-boned F 900 R, it’s the Kawasaki Z900 – both rich targets and great bargains. 

Harley-Davidson has filed trademark applications for two potential new logos for electric two-wheelers. The two trademarks were filed today with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, for use on either electric bicycles or electric motorcycles (plus “structural parts therefor”). We expect similar filings to pop up on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office any day now. [UPDATE: As expected, Harley-Davidson has filed trademark applications for these two logos with the USPTO. This also gives us a higher-resolution look at the two symbols.)

One score and five years ago, Motorcycle Online was one year old and full o’ beans, broadcasting squawkily but surely to hundreds of early-adopter nerd motorcyclists over the interwebs. Who knew what a monolith it would become? Well, Brent Plummer and his early band of acolytes knew; unfortunately they didn’t have time to hang around while the world caught up, bless their hearts, or to afford a camera. Sounds like Andy Saunders, who wrote this excellent BMW review, packed up and moved back to England. Good on him, and Godspeed to all.

Lately, it’s like time travel around here. A couple years ago we put the then-new Kawasaki Z900RS up against the Suzuki GSX-S1000 in a slightly apples-to-oranges comparo, Retro or Not(ro), which the Kawi won by a hair. Now that Suzuki has their own retro based upon the GSX-S in the Katana, we felt like we had to do it again. Our duty.

While we continue to wait on the slow drip of official news on BMW‘s 1800cc cruisers, we’ve gotten our mitts on design filings for what appears to be the production models of the R18 in cruiser and bagger form. [UPDATE: BMW announced the R18 production model will be revealed on April 3. The announcement suggests just a single bike, a cruiser, will be revealed. No word on when we can expect the bagger version.]

A couple of weeks ago, you had the opportunity to read the book. Now, thanks to the tubes of the internet, you can see what the introduction of the 2020 KTM 1290 Super Duke R looked like in all its HD glory. See the day start in pea soup fog before moving to scenic coastal highways. Later, watch the SDR handle the challenges of the Portimao circuit. Finally, watch Evans tie it all together in the end-of-day briefing in front of a picturesque backdrop. There’s even some talk about this being the film to beat in next year’s Oscar race.

Harley-Davidson officially announced a new Softail Standard model for 2020, confirming news we first broke earlier this month after the cruiser was certified by the California Air Resources Board.

The Honda ADV150 may soon be coming to the U.S., as the California Air Resources Board has certified the scooter for the 2021 model year. [UPDATE: Honda has submitted VIN data for the ADV150 with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, further confirming it will be coming to the U.S. as a 2021 model]

According to various online weather services I looked at prior to jumping on a plane to Bahrain, the desert country only gets about 10 days of rain for the entire year. With those kind of odds it’s no wonder Ducati chose this location to hold the international press launch of its new and improved 2020 Panigale V4 S in the middle of January; with beautiful sunshine, a world-class Formula1 track, and stacks of Pirelli tires at hand, it’s every track rider’s dream, and a perfect venue to test the improvements Ducati have made. 

It’s easy to take for granted the dynamics involved in creating a fairing for a motorcycle. Sure, you could easily mold a piece of plastic or resin and create a shape, but what thought process and research goes into such a mold? We take something like fairings for granted because they’re so commonplace. Big OEMs have the resources to hire big-name designers to create something that’s easy on the eyes, then study the fluid dynamics behind the designer’s sketch to see how different lines bend and shape the wind as it flows through it. Then these big players can utilize finite element analysis to dictate the strength of a part or component and adjust as needed for a given application. But nobody talks about these things anymore because this is simply something we expect. We’re numb to it. But when we stop and think about it, the fit and finish of a motorcycle determines its legitimacy.

As a flat softball-sized boulder flipped up from beneath the rear tire of the Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro I was following, the ringing of the krakebs from the previous night’s festivities grew louder and louder in my ears as I braced for impact. Subconsciously, I rolled off the throttle if only for a brief moment slowing myself enough to not make contact with the hurtling stone. Then back on the gas quickly to launch the 450(+)-pound motorcycle into the air over the rocks embedded in the road. Through bustling city squares, desolate tiny villages, and long barren stretches, our time onboard the Triumph Tiger 900 had been nothing short of an adventure. An experience of a lifetime; one perfectly suited for the Triumph Tiger 900.

And at that time the serpent had told Calvin and Minime that they could have any flavor of horizontally-opposed twin BMW they wanted, but that they were not to even think about a lighter or higher-performance BMW, or they would be cast out of the garden of MO, the World Trade Center would fall down, and the earth would be cast into 20 years of really interesting times. And not in a good way.

Harley-Davidson appears set to add another cruiser model to its lineup, with the addition of a new Softail Standard. This development comes to us thanks to an updated executive order from the California Air Resources Board which certifies a 1746cc 2020 Harley-Davidson Softail Standard, along with a Stage 1 upgrade.

When one thinks about Las Vegas, thoughts naturally tend towards gambling, bright lights, overpriced restaurants (or buffet food), and desert heat – not standing beside the road course at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the temperature on the wrong side of 40° while a 200-hp beast idles its way to operating temperature. This is the type of scenario where having track rubber with tire warmers would be significantly less desirable than the Pirelli Diablo Rosso III street tires the 2020 Kawasaki Z H2 I was about to mount was sporting. The first lap would suck the heat out of those toasty warm sticky track compounds rendering them useless. Street tires, however, have a much broader operational temperature envelope.

Eicher Motors has filed trademark applications for two potential models: “Royal Enfield Flying Flea” and “Royal Enfield Roadster”. The trademark applications were filed yesterday with the European Union Intellectual Property Office for use on “motorcycles; parts and fittings therefore,” as well as for various clothing items.

Updated February 2020

Triumph announced updates for the Street Triple R for 2020, with an updated engine, a up-and-down quickshifter and revised styling, as well as a lower MSRP than the 2019 model.

For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel, who satteth at the right hand of Taglioni. Yea verily, what is a nice original 748 going for these days? The 916 is the collectible Ducati all the collectors want, yet were it I doing the collecting, the higher-winding banana-yellow 748 is the bike I’d want to ride out once or twice a year to forgive all iniquity, heal all  disease, redeem life from the pit,  crown with steadfast love and mercy and satisfy with good so that my youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Is that so much to ask?

Don’t you ever get tired of reading track comparisons from guys that are riding at international race-winning levels? From guys who have been racing their entire lives and who drag elbow like it’s their job (literally)? Me neither, but the guys here at MO and I thought there might be someone out there who could appreciate insight from what a novice track rider might experience when comparing some of the latest 600-class supersports. The two most recently updated of which happen to be the Yamaha R6 and Kawasaki ZX-6R.

How do you top a 221 hp, wing-sprouting beast like the Panigale V4 R? If you’re Ducati, the answer is to add more winglets and replace the V4 R’s fairing and chassis with carbon fiber and reduce the weight by 35 pounds to a claimed dry weight of 351 pounds. Top it off with a paint scheme inspired by the Desmosedici GP19 MotoGP bike’s livery and you get the 2020 Ducati Superleggera V4. A limited edition model (only 500 individually numbered units will be produced), the Superleggera V4 is billed as the “most powerful and technologically advanced production Ducati ever built.”

The KTM 1290 Super Duke R has always been a sledgehammer of a motorcycle. While the blunt instrument approach to producing power has its fans, there is something to be said about using a little finesse when dishing out a gut punch. With the development of the 2020 model, which KTM has dubbed “The Beast 3.0,” the focus was on refining the techniques the Super Duke R uses as it brutalizes the laws of physics. And I think that it will produce even bigger smiles on the hearty souls who choose this mount to beat their local tarmac into submission.

How can any red-blooded American not love Suzuki, the blue-collar working motorcycle so many of us thrashed as youths, left parked in alleys with no loss of sleep, covered in fur for a brief period there in the (I think) ’90s… In spite of all the abuse we dished out, Suzuki’s loyalty was never in question.

For the 2020 model year, Indian is giving its ultimate touring bike, the Roadmaster Elite, a few significant updates – a bigger engine, more powerful audio system, and custom paint sure to stun. Here’s the catch: Indian is only making 225 units. However, if you’re one of the lucky 225 who shell out the $38,999 retail price in time, what you’ll get is the cream of the crop in the Indian Touring lineup. Let’s highlight the major changes.

Indian is preparing to release a 1000cc version of the Scout Bobber, or, to look at it another way, a bobber version of the Scout Sixty. The new variant was recently certified by both the California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the 2020 Indian Scout Bobber Sixty, which, as if it weren’t confusing enough, will have a smaller version of the engine powering the anniversary edition Indian Scout Bobber Twenty.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his Keihin FCR the breath of life (with accelerator pump); and man became a living soul. There was also the street version that first year, the DR-Z400S, but our man Mark Kariya would not have been caught dead on that, not when Suzuki invited him to ride the new “E” at Soboba with Malcolm Smith. Twenty years on, Suzuki still stocks the DR-Z400S and SM; now with the breath of life via Mikuni BSR36. When men were men, amen.

I didn’t like the Ducati Panigale V4 S when I rode the first-generation version a few years ago. Despite the fact the Panigale has been the best selling superbike in the market for two years running, to the tune of one-in-four superbikes sold worldwide is a Panigale, I just never got on with it. In our head-to-head test of the Panigale V4 S and the Aprilia RSV4 RF, I noted how the Desmosedici Stradale 1103cc 90º V4 is an absolute monster of an engine. Unfortunately, it was wrapped in a chassis completely unable to provide any feedback to the rider. Where the RSV4 could carve a racetrack with scalpel-like precision, the Panigale was more like a butcher knife, chopping up swaths of racetrack with brute power instead of agility and precision. Sure it could set a fast lap, but trying to repeat that performance over the course of a 20-lap race would be next to impossible. 

The world has come to grips with saddlebags on Ducatis now, my friends, but that wasn’t always the case. First came the ST2 with the air-cooled motor and it was good. Then a few years later, the ST4 with the liquid-cooled 916 engine: 99.5 horsepower were more than enough then, though frankly we usually preferred the nearly equal torque of the ST2 a couple thousand rpm sooner. Twenty years later, we’re waiting not-so patiently for the 200-hp V-four Multistrada to get here. There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.

Triumph and Indian manufacturer Bajaj formally commenced plans to collaborate on a range of mid-capacity motorcycles. The key word there is “formally,” as the partnership between the two companies was first announced in August 2017, but nothing had come of it in the last 29 months. Today, however, the two companies say their partnership has officially begun, with plans for a new engine and vehicle platform spanning from 200cc to 750cc displacements.

Triumph has brought out another modern classic motorcycle and, once again, hasn’t skimped on the performance. We liked this trend in the Speed Twin, and we applaud its continuance with the Thruxton RS. You get your vintage style, your upright riding position, and your smile-inducing handling. Then add to that the slight bump in horsepower, but more importantly, internal upgrades and weight savings that results in a claimed 20% reduction in rotational inertia. These updates allow the RS to spin more freely throughout the entire rpm range. Oh, and you get a 500-rpm higher redline. Woohoo!

Triumph announced two special edition versions of the Tiger 1200 inspired by desert and mountain landscapes. The Desert Edition and Alpine Edition models are based on the mid-tier Tiger 1200 XCx and XRx, respectively, but add titanium Arrow exhaust, shift assist and, of course, special edition paint and graphics.

This all started with our recent Bagger Battle between the two juggernauts in the field: The Harley-Davidson Road Glide Special and the Indian Challenger Limited. In just nine days, that story garnered enough views on MO to make it our ninth-most read story of 2019 – and it was posted on December 23rd!

The Thruxton namesake is one that has described Triumph’s racing efforts throughout the middle of the past century. Now, the name designates a model that harkens back to those days that’s thoroughly modern while being meticulously designed to look the part of cafe racers from the 1960s. This new Thruxton RS continues to refine and develop Triumph’s factory cafe racer into a machine that will properly haul the mail and look smashing while doing so.

Polaris Industries has updated its Slingshot three-wheeler for 2020, giving it a new 1997cc four-cylinder engine, an automatic transmission, revised suspension and a redesigned cockpit. In all, Polaris says the 2020 Slingshot features “70% new vehicle content” in its first major update since its introduction in 2015.

Is an ebike cheating? Of course. But would I be sitting on the beach now after a strenuous-ish 15-mile ride from my house without it? No. I’d be napping on the couch in my usual after-lunch tradition. I had a regular nice $500 Specialized hybrid bicycle there for a while, until it got stolen, and I did the 30-mile round trip to the Santa Ana River mouth quite a few times on it (and wrote about it here). But it took a lot out of me and the biggest part of a day by the time I was done lying around for a couple hours afterward, recuperating and rehydrating.

You read the review, now see the movie! Filmed in an exotic location in full Technicolor last November, and featuring an all-star cast of one, it shouldn’t be too painful to watch because it’s only barely four minutes long. No animals were harmed, though my right ankle still hurts from being yanked off the Triumph Rocket 3 GT’s forward-set footpeg.

A little over a year ago, Harley-Davidson revealed two electric two-wheeler concepts, an electric mountain bike and a scooter that resembled an old Briggs & Stratton minibike. Today, the European Union Intellectual Property Office published multiple design filings that give us a peek at what the production version of that electric scooter may look like.

Generally speaking, finding bikes to pair up for comparison is a bit more direct; throwing the R6 against the CBR600, or building out our adventure bike shootout is mostly a no-brainer, but sometimes bikes that roll through for testing end up revealing unexpectedly similar personalities. Late this past year, I faced exactly that. Both the Honda CB650R and Husqvarna Svartpilen 701 found their way into my driveway from their respective manufacturers at the same time (due to poor scheduling and limited availability of the Svart, more than anything), and I instantly found myself playing a game of spot the similarities.

Taking this job with Motorcycle.com has opened up an unbelievable set of opportunities for me. I’ve had the chance to ride some amazing motorcycles in some of the most awe-inspiring places. If you’d asked me when I moved from the Midwest ten years ago if I thought I would’ve had the experiences I’ve had so far, even though I’ve always been hopeful, I couldn’t have imagined just how incredible it has been. Not a day goes by, even the long ones in front of a computer, that I’m not truly grateful for this.

So far in this celebration of 2019 on Motorcycle.com, we’ve turned to the staff MOrons for their choices of the best first rides and best shootouts of the year. Now, we gaze into the magic ball of Google Analytics to see what you readers selected with your finger taps, mice, and trackpads. While in the past we’ve typically had to adjust the clicks by the number of months that the articles have been live, I chose not to do that this year because the oldest article that made this list was from August. If it had been January, I would have thought that it had an unfair advantage. The other reason I decided to go with total clicks rather than an adjusted for time number was that the number four article of the year was posted only a week ago. Wrap your head around that. Now, just to really mess with you, that article has a decent amount of comments but nothing terribly eye-opening. So, if you’d asked me, I would have never guessed at the article’s popularity. The rest of the list is an interesting snapshot into the minds of you MOrons.

Hah, I’ve drawn an easy holiday assignment here, since we really barely did any multi-bike comparisons in 2019. Not sure why? Probably because the traditional “shootout” takes up a lot of manpower and man-hours (read, $$$) – things we have less of in the current era than in days gone by. Also, is it just me, or are there a lot more new motorcycles coming out lately than in years’ past? It seems like the whole MO crew is so busy spanning the globe to bring you new model introductions, there’s barely time to gather a bunch of like models to compare back home before the new-model cycle starts all over again. 

I’ve been reviewing BMW’s flat-Twin boxer powered bikes since I started testing motorcycles in the late ’80s and have burbled around on historic versions too, dating back to a beater ’64 R60/S my now ex-husband gave me to ride (quite possibly because it was less traceable then cyanide). Through it all, the boxer, with its punch-punch rhythm and unique seesaw jig always felt like an old friend, no matter the sprinkling of magic German engineering dust, or the ambition of the motorcycle BMW built around it.

When we think of baggers, we think V-Twin engines. Yes, there are some exceptions, the BMW K1600B and the Moto Guzzi MGX-21 (with its unusual transverse V-Twin) come to mind, but aside from those outliers, baggers from all manufacturers are solidly in V-Twin land. However, with the chassis, a couple of choices exist. Do you want a fork-mounted or frame-mounted fairing? In the frame-mounted category, there is one, big-daddy model that dominates the class, the Harley-Davidson Road Glide. For 2020, the grizzled veteran has been called out by a young gun that wants to prove its mettle. The Indian Challenger clearly has its sights on the Road Glide. In a classic battle reminiscent of the Old West, these two gunslingers have stepped onto the street, and the outcome will be determined on Route 66.

OMG, has it really been ten years since the three wise men Duke, Brissette and Fonzie, mounted their modern-day dromedaries to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far? All three have left MO, but their hard work remains in the form of this scripture, and even a recently (this-morningly) unearthed not-bad video. We know if we’ll only be true to their glorious quest, that our hearts will lie peaceful and calm when we’re laid to our rest, and the world will be Better for this. What? Amen.