#Top10

I love camping. I’ve been doing it my entire life. My family would camp numerous times per year for most of my childhood and as soon as my friends and I had our licenses, we were out in the woods or at a lake in the Midwest enjoying the great outdoors more weekends than not. Once motorcycles took a stranglehold on my life, it was only natural that the two would be intertwined. From solo camping during long motorcycle trips to pitching a tent closer to home with friends, there really aren’t too many things in life I enjoy more than moto-camping.

Picture it: you’re having the motorcycle adventure of a lifetime; you’re somewhere new, traveling down roads and paths you’ve never seen before, and just around every bend is a view more picturesque than the last. The scenery is gorgeous, the roads (or trails) are twisty, and you and your motorcycle are one. By all accounts, this ride qualifies as epic. There’s just one problem: you haven’t documented any of it. Once the ride is over, you’ll only have memories to refer back to, save for the few shots you took on your cell phone camera.

Has it really been 20 years since the world didn’t seize up at the stroke of midnight, as we feared it might? Yes. Every time I walk out into the garage, my 2000 R1 sitting dormant on its stand (the last year of the first-gen R1) reminds me of what a long time ago that was. Next to all the new bikes it sees come and go, the old girl is positively archaic. In a good, Ann-Margret way, but still. While we’re still quarantining seems like a good time to look back upon what bikes have moved the game forward the most since the millennium.

Updated February 2020

Triumph sprang a 3500-word manifesto re: its new Tiger 900 on us just before the press introduction of the new bike last Tuesday in St. Louis, which we ran in its entirety. Now that we’ve had a few days to digest all the newness of the thing (five things really: Tiger 900, Tiger 900 GT and GT Pro, Tiger 900 Rally and Rally Pro) here are our main take-aways.

With Honda being the first of the Japanese to bring a true performance dual-sport bike back to their line, we sincerely hope the trend continues from the Big Four. Times are good and getting better for the category. After taking a look at the current dual-sport offerings from each manufacturer making them, we as consumers have a pretty nice spread to choose from this year. Since we love writing and publishing Top 10 lists here at Motorcycle.com, I thought I would throw together a list of the top 10 dual-sport motorcycles of 2019, the way I see it.

Here at Motorcycle.com, we have a decidedly performance-focused approach to motorcycling. So, it should come as no surprise that we’re huge fans of track days. Yes, track riding is often seen as the gateway drug to becoming a club racer, and that does happen. However, the majority of riders stick with track days as their motorcycle fun time. There are so many measurable benefits to track riding that we can’t see why every sporting motorcyclist doesn’t go to them. So, in an effort to spread the track day religion, we’ve put together this list of reasons why you should sign up for a track day.

It’s been a stellar year for new motorcycles; our frequent flier miles are piling up like crazy as we span the globe to bring you the thrill of victory (Indian now) and the agony of defeat, from the 2019 bumper crop of everything from Nikens to Svartpilens. There’s more to it than new bikes, though. So, let’s take a look at what’s got us excited as we approach the mid-point of 2019.

KTM made a really cool motorcycle in the 390 Duke, but it became even better in 2017 when the folks in Mattighofen gave it some much-needed upgrades. We’ve covered the 390 Duke extensively on the digital pages of MO, but if you’re new around here – or especially new to motorcycles in general – let this be a Cliff Notes guide to why the 390 Duke is a great little bike. The short reason why we like the bike so much is because it punches way above its weight. In the past if you presented us with a 373cc Single, yawns would follow. Not so with the 390 Duke. Fun is the name of the game with this little terror, and below are eight reasons why it should be on your radar if it isn’t already. Don’t get us wrong – it’s not a perfect motorcycle, and we’ve included a couple reasons why.

Austin, Texas, that is, where the annual Handbuilt show coincided with the US MotoGP at Circuit of the Americas. I didn’t make it out to the GP, but I did make it to the unveiling of an exciting new BMW, onto a tour of Revival Cycles and into their shop on Congress St. (above), into the Handbuilt show, and all over some delicious cuts of Texas cow at a couple of swanky restaurants. Austin is everything you’ve heard. If you live in California and are considering the move, I recommend you do it immediately.

It’s that time of year again – that time where it’s my turn to do this week’s Top 10, and I’ve got nothin’. Time to make some predictions about the future, then! Let us prepare a beverage and gaze once again into the crystal ball.

In case you missed it, Ducati boss Claudio Domenicali recently announced the company will be putting an electric motorcycle into production sooner rather than later. If you must know, his exact words were, “The future is electric and we’re not far from beginning production of the series.” He was speaking during the podium celebrations for a student-run racing series in which the Ducati-supported University of Bologna’s UniBo rookie team took third in the electric class.

It’s that time of year again. Old Man Winter has settled in, and you’re faced with the uncomfortable reality of an extended period of not riding your motorcycle. For many of us – and you can ask our significant others for verification – we can get a little difficult to live with during our bike-less months.

Harley-Davidson smartly used the Consumer Electronics Show 2019 as its launch point for the 2020 LiveWire. No, the LiveWire isn’t much of a secret anymore, but at least we’re finally getting more details about the machine H-D is putting a lot of faith into – price and range being the major talking points people want to know about. Of course, no sooner did this information come out that critics and early adopters alike took to the internet to spew their love or hate.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a New Year’s Resolution, probably because I lead so nearly perfect a life. But since it’s my turn to do the “Top 10” list this week, I’ll make an exception. The experts say the best way to stick to resolutions is in small chunks. So bite off a few of these morsels and see if anything sticks, why not?