#JohnBurns

The new 2021 Harley-Davidson Sportster S that was unveiled this morning looks so much like the earlier prototype we dubbed Custom 1250 and already closely examined, most of the conjecture is already over except for the how much and when. And that’s $14,999 and this fall.

We last performed this public service in 2017, when your Yamaha FZ-07 prevailed over the Kawasaki Z650, Suzuki SV650, the new Harley-Davidson Street Rod, and the new and indeterminate Benelli TnT 600, in that order. The FZ-07 has since morphed into the MT-07 amidst a host of well thought-out upgrades in 2018, and then again for 2021. The Z650 got a modern instrument pod in 2020 with a few other tasteful refinements, and the SV650 hasn’t changed a bit (God bless it). The Benelli is still around but didn’t get the call this time, and the H-D Street Rod has been withdrawn from the market under a hail of ridicule. Sad.

Another cool deal about getting old is you’re allowed to forget things, which can be really convenient. In the present case, I knew there was a new Triumph Trident for 2021, but I didn’t really remember any of the details when I hopped on it in Ryan Adams’ driveway one morning. Immediately, it felt really light and small, a lot like the Ducati Monster we just reviewed last month. And what size is the 3-cylinder engine in this one? It definitely feels revvier than the one in the Tiger 850 GT we rode a couple months ago, but not much slower at all…

Updated May, 2021

Bell has got four new Star helmets: Pro Star, custom-fit Star Carbon, Race Star, and the one under review here, the plain old Star. They range in price all the way from $1299.95 for the most expensive Pro Star to $499.95 for the Pace Orange/Black Star pictured. Compared to the others, the Star’s eye port is more oriented to upright riding than to peering out the top while tucked-in behind the bubble at Daytona. Though it’s of course a tad heavier than the more expensive Stars, it seems no heavier than a comparable premium helmet.

Ok, I’m old, so what? When I was young, the first Monster M900 (1994) spoke to me. A basic, naked, standard Ducati that was perfect for rumbling round the urban maze back when we all had a downtown office to go to… a svelte Italian Sportster that bounced its mating call off the concrete canyons all the way to 9000 rpm. It really was a radical departure since, before then, Ducati had only built fully-faired assume-the-position sportbikes, and not many of them. They were great on the Futa Pass and Angeles Crest but not so much anywhere else. Later, when we grew power-hungry in the ’oughts, there came the 996-powered S4R, then the Monster 1200s…

Harley’s been teasing us with this one since the end of its 2021 model launch presentation and now the dream is real – a limited edition Electra Glide Revival model will be the first in Harley’s new “Icons Collection.” And the Motor Co. says it will build one or two more Icons based on historic models annually in the years to come. The first celebrates the 1969 Electra Glide, which was the first Hog to wear the now iconic batwing fairing. The Electra Glide Revival model will be limited to a one-time build of 1,500 serialized examples, scheduled to reach dealers in late April, and floating an MSRP of $29,199.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, so Triumph didn’t. They’ve sold over 10,000 modern Scramblers since the XC and XE were new in 2018, and Scrambler 1200 XC even won MO’s revered Best Standard Motorcycle award last year. But they did have to make the bikes Euro 5-compliant for 2022, and with that came a few tweaks and the gaining of a few pounds – about 13 of them in fact. But hey look! There’s a new Steve McQueen Limited Edition! 

It’s all about the SPT says Brandon Kraemer, who’s spent the last three years of his life working on the new 2022 Indian Chiefs as Senior Product Director. People want Style, they want Performance, and they want Technology (even if many of them don’t quite realize they want that last one).

What Tiger 850? When I went to St. Louis to learn all about the new Triumph 900 family way back in December 2019, there were five Tiger 900s – two 900 GTs, two Rallys, and a base model Tiger 900. Sometime between then and now, Triumph decided to distinguish the base model by calling it Tiger 850 Sport, but in fact, it has the same 888 cc Triple as the other four bikes, supposedly slightly detuned.

For a couple of years there’ve been rumors suggesting there’s a new Hayabusa on the way, and with that old warhorse currently MIA from Suzuki’s list of returning 2021 models, the buzz has grown a bit louder that Suzuki’s fixing to spring a new World’s Fastest Production Motorcycle on the world. This time we’ll be a bit less unsuspecting than we were in 1999, and this time, it won’t be so easy a feat for Suzuki to pull off, given the existence of the Kawasaki H2 Carbon, which made an honest 206-rear-wheel horsepower on our dyno last November.

Just as our man in Toronto, Dennis Chung, surmised at the beginning of December when Honda Europe announced these, Honda’s new and improved small dual-sports will be coming to America. Matter of fact, Honda says the CRF is the motorcycle industry’s top-selling dual-sport.

I wondered out loud the other day, during a MO conference call, how many new motorcycles still have carburetors? Not much more than a day later, Dennis Chung shared an Excel spreadsheet with all of them. It’s about what you’d expect: Three Rokon Rangers, Suzuki and Yamaha DS and TW200s, Honda’s XR650L soldiers on alongside Suzuki’s DR-Z400s and DR-650s… the Honda Ruckus still has a carburetor. Beyond that, there are a bunch of Kymco and lesser-known small-displacement scooters you’ve never heard of. I have never had the pleasure of seeing, much less riding, Taizhou Handa Engine Science Co., Ltd.’s Adonis, Defender, Discovery, Excursion, Falcon, Falcon R, Super, Super R, Vestalian, or Wasp.

It’s all relative. How good or bad a thing is all depends on the competition, doesn’t it – a thing that’s kept us employed and entertained for more than a few years now. Competition is good for business; MO comparison tests usually always draw in more eyeballs than single-bike reviews. In a perfect world, we’d gather up all five or six contenders in a given class for a week-long flog over hill and dale and racetrack. But in the real world of today, well shoot – it looks like our Top Five most-read comparisons of 2020 are only two bikes each.

Every year, we are faced with the task of choosing Motorcycle.com’s Motorcycle of the Year (MOTY), and typically, the debate is heated – and lengthy. This year, we reached agreement remarkably quickly – a rarity with any decision made by this crew of misfits. As we say each year, however, the MOTY is not about choosing the best motorcycle of 2020. While the choice needs to be one of the best by winning one of our MO Best Of categories (MOBO), the bike needs to be something more; it needs to say something about or do something for motorcycling. Looking back at the last five years, you’ll see that we’ve spread the MO love around, choosing an adventure bike, a sportbike, a sport-touring bike, an entire motorcycle platform, and a cruiser. Each choice has been an exemplary motorcycle, but each has expanded the way we think about motorcycling. The KTM 890 Duke R, MO’s Motorcycle of the Year 2020, is a great example of this characteristic.