#KevinDuke

There are hundreds of clever ways to open a beer bottle – everything from a skateboard to a chainsaw. But for gearheads like us, we have to admire the creativity and execution of this little gem seen in the video below. Bonus points to the guy with the bottle for not breaking eye contact with the camera while the motocross bike does a stoppie and he pops the cap!

Last year at EICMA we got our first glimpse of BMW’s smallest bike, the G310R. This year in Italy we see the roadster G310R get GS-ified, replete with mandatory beak nose, angular side panels and two-tone colorways that make it unmistakable as anything but a BMW adventure bike.

The minute we learned Triumph would be creating a new engine platform for its Bonneville extended family, we knew a Scrambler version would eventually materialize. And here it is, unveiled today in Milan, Italy, at the EICMA show.

It’s impossible to be an editor of a moto publication without being a humongous fan of motorbikes. As such, I derive great pleasure from riding every new motorcycle that presents itself to me, and that attitude holds true even for non-new motorcycles, ones that I’ve never before thrown a leg over.

Triumph’s new generation of Bonneville models gets expanded to four with the introduction of the T100 Bonneville, and we were one of the first publications on the planet to take it for a spin.

This is an unusual Ask MO Anything, as this question was delivered not by a reader but by me. During the presentation for the T100 Bonneville I rode last week, I asked why Triumph chose a 270-degree crank for its new Bonneville parallel-Twins rather than the 360-degree orientation of Triumph’s originals. Miles Perkins, Triumph’s Head Of Brand, attempted to give me a satisfactory answer but admitted I’d be better served by a response from one of Triumph’s powertrain specialists.

Triumph’s new Bonneville platform has already made a significant impact on the moto market in less than a year. Spearheaded by the 900cc Street Twin and followed closely by the 1200cc T120 Bonneville and Thruxton models, the retro-modern roadsters are selling as quickly as Triumph can build them, with strong sales forcing the company to add an extra shift at its factory to meet demand.

Ducati seems to be ready to launch a new version of its limited-edition halo superbike, the Superleggera, and it apparently comes with some staggering numbers: 220 hp and 342 lbs. Oh, and then there’s the purported 66,000 English Pounds it’s rumored to cost in Europe.

The year 2016 marks BMW’s 100th year of existence, and part of its centenary celebrations is unveiling what it believes the future will hold for its library of brands. We’ve previously seen concepts from BMW and its automotive relatives Rolls Royce and Mini as part of what the German company terms its Vision vehicles.

Watching motorcycle-related television programming can be as frustrating as spending an evening at a strip club. Sure, the subject matter is nearly irresistible, but the end result is frequently unsatisfying. And that’s how I felt after watching Biketacular, a show that first aired on August 29 and is being regularly rebroadcasted on the Discovery Channel.

Part of my job at MO involves producing videos, and the cumulative views of the videos I’ve participated in probably totals a pretty big number – perhaps more than 20 million. And yet, despite all that moving-picture glory, there’s still a thrill from being seen on television.

Triumph’s efforts at reinventing the Bonneville platform (which includes the Street Twin and Thruxton along with the T120 Bonneville) deserve huge kudos. It’s one thing to create a terrific new motorcycle that meets contemporary emissions and performance standards, but it’s another to do so while making the bikes look almost like they stepped out of a showroom from 50 years ago. They appear more authentically retro than the previous air-cooled generation, which is a massive accomplishment for bikes with contemporary liquid-cooled motors.

The film and music segments of the entertainment industry use the early months of the year to celebrate themselves with Oscars and Grammys and whatnot. For the moto industry, it’s late summer when we look back at the last 12 months of motorcycling and determine the outstanding products in the two-wheel world.

This category is one of our favorites here at MO, and it proved to be the tightest contest of our 2016 MOBOs – we initially decided to give it the second tie in the eight-year history of MO’s annual Best Of awards. After all, our recent face-off between KTM’s Super Duke R and the Aprilia Tuono 1100 Factory was a virtual tie, with their scores separated in our rankings by just 0.1%! And, in pure subjective terms, our two testers were divided.

The staff here at MO has much in common with you. As motorcycle enthusiasts of the first order, we’re endlessly intrigued by all the new developments in the two-wheeled world. And now it’s time again for our annual rollout of what we believe is the best in motorcycling.