Category: Background Braps
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The Ninja 400 is here
The king is dead. Long live the King! It had to happen sooner rather than later. The Ninja 300 has had a five year run, and now Kawasaki has thrown another 100CC at the formula (in what is apparently a new engine, not the re-sleeved ER-6 650cc that has been around for a while.) Photo…
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All Engines Great and Small
You Always Want What You Don’t Have I spend all of my riding time on small bore bikes, by US standards. My Ninja 300 at 296cc and the CSC TT250 weighing in at 229cc. The Ninja will – realistically – pull to about 75mph easily, above which there’s a tardy roll-on to about a top…
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Our Friends Electric
With apologies to Gary Numan… I’ll make no bones about it: My dream garage would definitely include a Tesla Model S and a Zero SR. I think they’re brilliant. Electric motorcycles are in the news cycle again, thanks to some YouTube and written reviews. Here’s Motorcyclist Magazine executive editor Zack Courts on the Zero SR.…
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Summer Blues
August 8th, 2017 I’ve been riding a lot, but I haven’t been writing a lot. It’s definitely not been due to a lack of things to say; but time’s played a part. I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my kid, and Summer’s been pretty fun outside of problems with my bête noir,…
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Sebastian Vettel On His Way To Work
Silverstone, England Seb’s a cool bloke. Here he is riding his Suzuki GT750 ‘water buffalo’ to work:
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Be Paranoid
If you think they’re out to kill you, it’s because they behave as if they are. The tunnel monster is real Riding to work this morning on my dual sport, I negotiated this blind corner and came upon a stationary utility truck (the type with the dorsally-mounted crane) head-on smack in the middle of the…
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The Perfume Road
April 28th, 2017. Late Spring’s a glorious time to ride. The sun comes out, mornings are cool and bright, and the olefactory system gets bombarded with a range of pleasant distractions. It’s still cool enough that the asphalt doesn’t get heated to the extent your senses are overpowered by hot tar and exhaust fumes.Cut grass,petrol,…
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A Place, A Time
Kiski Junction Railroad, Pennsylvania, June 26th 2016. I’d taken my family to ride this little railroad just the week before. On the road down I’d noted the last few miles would make a good bike ride, and so one week later I took my Ninja 300 there. It was a boiling hot day, but a…
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The CSC TT250: Smiles per Gallon
The CSC TT250 review. The background to my decision to get a TT250 is here. I’d put on around one-thousand miles on the CSC TT250 as the first green spots started to emerge on the the Pennsylvania woodlands. The bike held up well over Winter, and between the endless rain and salt, winter is a…
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Spring has sprung…
The weather did not get the memo, however. Bollocks It’s just for a couple of days, and it’s not actually been too bad. I took the Ninja out yesterday for the commute and the bike felt really good. I’ve been fighting surface rust on the chain for weeks on the Ninja, largely because the expensive…