#ChurchOfMo

Whoever said size matters clearly doesn’t know what they are talking about. At least when it comes to motorcycles. The case in point is this Polini 910 Carena, the subject of this week’s Church of MO feature. Still in existence today, Polini is an Italian company making miniature sportbikes — commonly referred to as pocketbikes — that even Napoleon would feel cramped on. Although, despite their ergonomic challenges, people of all shapes and sizes have gravitated to these pocketbikes. Maybe it’s a raging curiosity rather than a burning desire that compels grown humans to contort themselves to ride such things, but in 1999 the old MO staff did exactly that. Read on to see what we thought.

With all the hoopla surrounding the Harley-Davidson LiveWire, this Church of MO feature would like to remind everyone about Motorcycle.com‘s long-standing involvement with electric vehicles. Sure this includes the early days of both Zero and Brammo, but our relationship with e-bikes stems even further back: To 1998, and an obscure machine called the EMB Lectra. About the size of a modern day Honda Grom, the Lectra is entirely outdated when compared to modern electric motorcycles. However, in the course of 16 years, electric motorcycles like the Lectra have matured from being considered toys, to becoming embraced by none other than Harley-Davidson. Read on to see just how far we’ve come.

Keith Code and his California Superbike School have taught a countless number of people how to ride a motorcycle to the best of their abilities. Sometimes, however, students can even learn what it’s like to ride beyond those abilities. The ever popular lean/slide bike is the device that will take you, relatively safely, beyond your limits. In this week’s Church of MO feature, Billy Bartels gets his hands on the lean/slide bike during a school he attended in 1998. Read on to see what it is, how it works, and why it applies to all riders, no matter what you ride.

Let’s face it: in 1996 Japanese sport tourers may have been premium performers, but they really weren’t very attractive. Especially when put side-by-side with their Italian counterparts. Andrew Serbinski set out to change that, one Kawasaki GPz1100 at a time. His creation, the MachineArt MK9, is what happens when an industrial designer gets his hands on clay (these were the days before CAD software, remember), to make a Japanese motorcycle easy on the eyes. In this week’s Church of MO, we pay a visit to Serbinski and his masterpiece. MachineArt is still in existence today, though Serbinski never did create a second example.

By the time you read this, the 2014 Summer X-Games will have been well underway. The Olympics of extreme sports, the X-Games is where you go to see what the young crowd is paying attention to. It’s fitting, then, that Harley-Davidson held its press introduction of the new Street 750 platform in conjunction with the X-Games, as the first all-new platform for The Motor Company in 13 years is aimed directly at the youngsters who might be interested in trading their skateboards for a motorcycle. This is relevant because Harley has initiated a movement to gauge whether there is interest in making flat track racing the next X-Games sport. If so, the Street 750 could be the bike of choice.

While Suzuki’s GSX-R750 may be the Godfather of the sportbike category, perhaps the most under appreciated 750 superbike of the time is the Kawasaki ZX-7R. The machine that changed little since 1993 while still managing to win superbike races and titles both here and abroad, many praise it as being one of the best handling sportbikes in existence. In 1997, our own Shawn Higbee (yes, the same Shawn Higbee who was the lead Buell test rider) got his hands on a then-new ZX-7R, for this first ride report. Considering Shawn’s vast experience on two wheels, his ability to evaluate a motorcycle and communicate what it’s doing is top notch. See for yourself in his review below in this week’s Church of MO.

Cruisers don’t always get the attention they deserve here at MO. Part of the reason is the racing background of most of the staff here. So when we sent Mark Miller, professional AMA Formula X-Treme racer, and current Isle of Man TT competitor to evaluate a cruiser — the 1998 Yamaha V-Star 650 Classic — we knew he’d come back with something out of the ordinary. Miller was used to getting his knee down at triple digit speeds aboard his YZF-R1, but while reviewing the 650 Classic he also saw some parallels between the two. Sounds crazy, but considering the breadth of motorcycles, cruisers included, Miller has ridden, the idea didn’t seem so far fetched after all. In this Church of MO edition, let’s take a look at how the 16 year-old V-Star and R1 worlds collide.

In this week’s Church of MO feature, it’s a battle of two bulbous tourers capable of circling laps around the country without breaking a sweat. The year: 2000. The bikes: Honda’s classic GL 1500 Gold Wing and BMW’s K1200LT. The journey: to discover all that Southern California has to offer. It was a closely fought battle with both bikes shining in certain areas and faltering in others. In the end, however, the winner stole the hearts of our then-MO staff. Read on to see the outcome.

This one hits home for me, personally, as the Honda 750 Magna was the very first motorcycle I had ever ridden — and I was a passenger. Sure I had seen and sat on other bikes, but this was the first one to actually transport me somewhere. Both physically and mentally. I eventually gravitated towards sport(y) bikes, but it seems fitting the Magna gave me my start, considering its blending of both sporty and cruiser attributes. It was the safer choice of motorcycle for those who maybe couldn’t decide which spectrum of motorcycling they wanted to play in. The Magna has a cult following among its loyal fans, and hearing Associate Editor, Billy Bartels, talk about his first ride aboard the bike in 1997, it’s easy to see why, after a few modifications, the bike is still popular today.

Moto Guzzi motorcycles have been called many things. Bland is not one of them. From quirky to lovable, unique to downright strange, it’s unlikely you’ll forget riding a Moto Guzzi. For this week’s Church of MO feature, we go back to 1997 and Guzzi’s 75th anniversary. After three-quarters of a century, a celebration is in order and a special motorcycle is a must.

For this week’s CoM feature, we dig deep in the vaults for one of MO’s oldest stories. As Motorcycle Online (the former name of this very site, and where the MO reference comes from) was still relatively young, so too was the Buell Motor Company. When MO got to ride the Buell S2 Thunderbolt for the first time, we came back raving about its performance, but noted a few things we could improve on. Unfortunately, that original ride report has been lost to Father Time, but we do have editor Tom Fortune’s account of life with the T-Bolt and his attempt to add some pep to the S2’s step. In this, secondary review of the  1995 Buell S2 Thunderbolt, read on to see what Fortune thinks of the bike after 20,000 miles and a few upgrades.

In honor of our 2014 Super Streetfighter Smackdown, for this week’s Church of MO feature, we bring you a quick ride on the predecessor to our current Streetfighter king, the 2002 Aprilia Tuono. Penning this piece is none other than our returning duo of MO veterans, the lovable curmudgeon, John Burns and our new Editorial Director, Sean Alexander. Since first writing this piece, Burnsie and Alexander have been around the moto-journo industry. But they’re back now, and their wordsmanship is as sharp as it was all those many moons ago. Sean only got to spend a weekend aboard the Tuono, but it sounds like any longer and he likely would have killed himself from a lack of self-restraint and a nasty bout of pneumonia.  Thanks for making it back, boys! 

In this week’s Church Of MO feature, we pay homage to the legendary Massimo Tamburini, who passed away one week ago due to complications from lung cancer. Those who are familiar with his work need no introduction, but to those who don’t understand the significance of his passing, close your eyes for a moment and think of the most beautiful motorcycles you’ve ever seen. Chances are at least one of those is a Tamburini design. After creating Bimota with two friends, he moved on to Cagiva, then Ducati, and finished his career at MV Agusta. Along the way he designed, or had a say, in bikes like the Bimota SB2, Cagiva Mito, and of course the iconic Ducati 916.

If there’s a motorcycle equivalent to rock crawling in the 4×4 and Jeep world, trials riding would have to be it. These minimal motorcycles barely have any air in the tires, weigh next to nothing, and like to bounce around all day thanks to their super soft suspension. And when it comes to trials riding, one name that’s almost synonymous with the sport is Bultaco. In this edition of Church of MO, we visit the year 2000 and the Bultaco Sherco. What’s it like to ride a trials bike? Read on to find out.

The CBR900RR was perhaps the most mental sportbike Honda had ever produced.  First introduced in 1992, it boasted 893cc of inline-Four power in a package that weighed about the same as Honda’s CBR600F2 from the same era. The next-lightest open-class sportbike, Yamaha’s FZR1000, plunked about 75 extra pounds on the pavement.