Why We Choose Sport bikes ?

If, on the other hand, you are not the laid-back, easy-rider type, you might be interested in something with a little more sporting capability. Well, you are definitely in the right place at the right time; the range of sporting motorcycles available has never been better.

When British bikes began to appear in the United States in appreciable numbers following World War II, it became obvious that while Harleys may be faster in a straight line, the British models could run circles around a Harley when the road began to wind. This gave the British a reputation as producers of highly-sporting motorcycles. The British managed to maintain this reputation until the early 1970s, with bikes like Norton’s 850 Commando.

When the Japanese began producing large, four-cylinder motorcycles, these became the new leaders in straight-line performance. The term Universal Japanese Motorcycles (UJMs) was coined to describe them.

During the 1970s, the Japanese became so identified with fourcylinder, standard-style motorcycles that the term Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM) was coined to describe them.

While they were wicked-fast, most UJMs of the 1970s did not handle all that well, mostly because of inferior suspension components and flimsy frames. They outhandled Harleys (which tended to be about as nimble as a freight train), but they could not keep up with a properly-functioning Norton Commando.

The real breakthrough in the development of sportbikes from Japan was Honda’s 750cc Interceptor, introduced for the 1983-model year. This bike, with its revolutionary V-four engine, was Japan’s first purpose built sporting motorcycle.

The Interceptor revolutionized sportbikes. It started off a technology war between the Japanese manufacturers that still continues to this day. Kawasaki brought out its original 900 Ninja, a bike in many ways as groundbreaking as the Interceptor. Yamaha introduced its five-valve FZ 750, a bike so influential that Ferrari adopted some of its technology for its cars. And Suzuki blew the world away by introducing its GSX-R series, bikes that really were racers with headlights.

The Italians are another prominent force in the sportbike scene. When they started building large-displacement sportbikes in the 1970s, bikes like Moto Guzzi’s V7 Sport and Ducati’s 750SS, the Italians raised the ceiling on riders’ expectations from their machines. While never exported in numbers large enough to become a real presence in the American market, these bikes influenced the direction sporting motorcycles would take.

Today’s sportbikes cover nearly the entire spectrum. Yamaha’s YZF 600, while being a more capable sporting motorcycle than the pure race bikes of just a few years ago, is so comfortable and versatile, it could almost be considered a sport-tourer. Suzuki’s latest generation of GSX-R has such high-performance limits that only a few experienced riders can ever approach them. The razor-sharp handling of Ducati’s 916 is just slightly removed from that of the bike Carl Fogarty won two World Superbike Championships on.

And the newest generation of sportbikes, like the Yamaha YZF R1, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R, or BMW S1000RR, looks like it will raise current standards even higher.

Buying Your First Motorcycle : What to Look For ?

Buying a used motorcycle seems something of a crap shoot to the uninitiated. Judging a dependable bike from a pile of junk may appear difficult to the first-time buyer, but a couple of basic motorcycle characteristics make it easier than you might think.

First, motorcycles have nothing to hide. If a frame has been repaired, you will see welds or cracks in the paint. If the bike leaks fluids, those fluids will ooze out before your eyes.

Second, there’s just not that much to a motorcycle. Compared to cars, they are relatively simple devices.

Further simplifying the buying process is the fact that what you need to check is limited to just a few basic items; luckily, you won’t need to worry about all the parts of a motorcycle covered in Anatomy of a Motorcycle Category (at least on Japanese bikes—European and American machines present a few more challenges). The things to look for when buying can be broken down into two broad categories: condition and completeness.

Critical : Condition

You need to ascertain the mechanical and cosmetic condition of a motorcycle before you make an offer.

Judging a bikes’ cosmetic condition is easy: Just ask yourself how it looks. By looking at the bodywork and such items as mirrors, turn signals, and mufflers, examining those items for scratches, dents, and other deformities, you can usually tell if a bike is in good shape. Pay particular attention to the outside edges of those items, the edges likely to contact pavement in even the most minor tip over.

Usually you will find some evidence of a tipover, even if it’s just microscopic scratches. Finding a machine that hasn’t fallen over at least once is rare. If the scratches are so minor they are difficult to see, you needn’t worry. Often, they can be minimized with some chrome polish and some elbow grease. (Be aware, however, that a dealer will also find these scratches should you someday decide to trade the bike in.)

Even if you find more major evidence of a low-speed spill, that shouldn’t dissuade you from buying the bike; Just reflect the costs of cosmetic restoration in your offer. Often, the owner will have already taken such things into consideration when setting a price.

When purchasing European or American motorcycles, there are a few other things to watch for. Cosmetically, Harleys will more often than not be immaculate, but you need to check things such as the belt-drive system. Fraying or missing teeth indicate future problems, problems that are expensive to correct.

The level of finish on European bikes tends to be lower than that of Japanese motorcycles, and corrosion can be a problem. This is especially true of Italian bikes, but it can even be a problem on BMWs. For example, BMW doesn’t apply a clear finish to exposed aluminum on items such as the fork legs. While this finish tends to yellow with exposure to sunlight, giving the forks on older Japanese motorcycles a dingy appearance, it protects the metal from corrosion. This corrosion becomes more pronounced in coastal areas, because of the salt in sea air. It’s also a problem for machines used during the winter, because of the salt placed on roads in snowy climes.

The outside condition of a bike can help give clues to the condition of internal parts. If a bike looks good and runs well (if it starts easily when both cold and hot, if it idles smoothly without making horrible noises, and accelerates adequately for a bike of its size), the odds are it’s okay inside. The owner has more than likely lavished as much care on the motorcycle’s internals as he or she has on the bike’s appearance.

Notes : Some motorcycles have built-in odd noises. Suzuki’s two-valve GS series, for example, has a camchain guide that allows the chain to slap while idling at low speeds. This causes no damage whatsoever, but the mechanical knocking sound has caused many unnecessary top-end rebuilds because owners didn’t know about the defect and thought something was wrong.

I once went shopping for a Harley-Davidson with a friend of mine who was looking for an Electra Glide. At one dealership, we found two of them. Both bikes were the same model year, both were similarly equipped, and both had around 57,000 miles on them. The price on each bike was identical. One bike was black, the other a hideous dustyrose color. My friend was partial to black motorcycles.

Unfortunately, the black one was in much worse shape, cosmetically. It had spent much of its life sitting outside in the elements, judging by the corrosion on the engine and other aluminum parts. This was a red flag to me: If the previous owner had taken such abysmal care of the outside of the bike, what sort of care had he given the inside?

I advised my friend to buy the rose-colored bike, if he was determined to buy either. But he bought the black one with the pitted aluminum.

The bike was nothing but trouble, right from the start. He’d had it less than a week when the clutch went out and left him stranded on the freeway. The next week, the drive belt went out. After we fixed that, he started having trouble with the carburetor. We took it apart and discovered that someone had tried to repair it using what looked like rubber cement.

My friend had that bike for several years, and he never did get it to run right, even after he overhauled the engine. He spent so much money fixing the thing, he could have painted the rose-colored bike several times over.

Completeness

Along with the condition of a bike, make certain that all the pieces are there. Items such as missing side covers or other body panels can cost as much as a cheap motorcycle. Check a motorcycle to make certain it has the following items :

- Side covers. These are the plastic covers that cover components located behind the engine, under the seat. These can often break and come off the motorcycle, and are very expensive (and in some cases impossible) to replace.

- Emblems and insignias. These are often glued or screwed to the tank or sidecover, and are also difficult to find for older motorcycles.

- If a bike has an aftermarket fairing, make certain all the original lighting and turn-signal brackets and components come with the bike. Should you decide to restore the motorcycle to its original condition, you’ll need these pieces, and on some bikes, they can cost as much as the motorcycle itself.

- Fenders. This will probably only be an issue if someone has tried to build a chopper out of a motorcycle. Generally, such bikes make poor candidates for restoration, and should be avoided.

Costs for individual parts, especially on Japanese motorcycles, run high, partly because of the Japanese manufacturers’ practice of custom designing nearly every part on each individual model. On the other hand, Harley-Davidson, and to a lesser extent the European manufacturers, tend to use many of the same parts on various models. Only minor tweaks, such as different wheels and fenders, differentiate one Harley model from the next. This enables them to spread development costs across the entire line.

Be especially concerned with completeness when buying an older motorcycle. You may find items like side covers and seat covers unavailable for an older bike. These parts usually can be found with a little leg work. Just because a bike is not complete is no reason to reject it outright: Just reflect the potential cost of replacing parts in your offer.

Why We Choose Cruiser Motorcycle ?

Choppers, customs, cruisers - whichever term you use, you are referring to a distinctly American style of motorcycle. The American landscape, both social and geographical, shaped this style of motorcycle into its present form.

As the history of motorcycle, many of the restless soldiers returning from Europe and Asia after World War II chose to explore the United States on motorcycles, but the motorcycles available didn’t suit them all that well. Outlaw bikers called the big Harley-Davidson touring bikes of that time "garbage wagons", because they considered all the accessories and extras mounted on them garbage.

In fact, Bylaw Number 11 of the original Hell’s Angels charter states : An Angel cannot wear the colors (club insignia) while riding on a garbage wagon …. The first thing most outlaws did was chop off all superfluous parts, which to them was anything that didn’t help the bike go faster: fenders, lights, front brakes, whatever. Hence, the term chopper.



Choppers came to symbolize the outlaw motorcycle contingent, the infamous onepercenters. By the 1960s, these bikes had evolved into radical machines far removed from the intent of the original customized bikes, which was improved straight-line performance. Anyone seeking outright performance would ride a Japanese or British bike. Harley had long since given up the pretense of producing sporting motorcycles.

People rode Harleys to look cool, and nothing looked cooler than a Harley chopper. The extended forks and modified frames of these motorcycles made them nearly impossible to ride, but the owners didn’t seem to mind. Riding a motorcycle with unsafe handling characteristics seemed to be another way of letting society know the rider didn’t care if he or she lived or died.

Over the years, such machines gained in popularity - even as they declined in practicality - but manufacturers seemed not to notice. It wasn’t until the 1970s, after decades of watching American riders customize their bikes, that the manufacturers got into the act and began offering custom-styled bikes.

The birth of the factory custom can be in large part attributed to one man: Willie G. Davidson. Willie G., as he is known, worked in Harley’s styling department, but he was also an avid motorcyclist who knew what people were doing to their bikes. One popular customizing technique was to take the fork off of a Sportster and graft it onto a stripped-down big-twin frame, so Willie G. did just that at the factory. The result was the original Super Glide.

The Super Glide model, offered in 1971, was not a screaming success, due in part to a funky boat-like rear fender (known as the Night Train fender). The next year, Harley gave the bike a more conventional rear fender and sold thousands of Super Glides. Harley wasn’t the only company working on a custom-styled bike. The British manufacturer Norton also developed a cruiser in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, its cruiser, the ungainly High Rider, wasn’t well received. The bike only contributed to the company’s eventual demise.

Kawasaki was the first Japanese company to test the factory-chopper waters, introducing its KZ900LTD in 1976. The kawasaki cruiser motorcycles featured pull-back buckhorn handlebars, a teardrop-shaped gas tank, a seat with a pronounced step between the rider and passenger portion, and a liberal dousing of chrome plating. These bikes forced the rider into a backward-leaning riding position (raising unbridled hell with his or her lower back), but otherwise, they were still functional, useful machines. As the decade progressed, the Japanese stuck to this formula. This approach had a limited future; the real future of cruisers was being forged elsewhere, by Willie G.

Two of Willie G.’s creations in particular proved to be the models for today’s cruisers: the Low Rider, introduced in 1977, and the Wide Glide of 1980. Study these bikes, and you’ll see elements of every cruiser now produced. The bobbed fender of the Wide Glide can be found on cruisers from Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki. The kickedout front end and sculpted fenders of the Low Rider hint at the shape of Yamaha’s Virago. These two bikes are arguably the most influential factory customs of all time.


What of the Japanese ? As the 1980s progressed, Japanese manufacturers got closer and closer to building motorcycles that looked like Harley-Davidsons. But they have taken cruiser styling in new directions, too. Honda now builds its Valkyrie, a massive, six-cylinder cruiser. Yamaha cruiser motorcycles Royal Star looks as much like a classic Indian motorcycle as it does a Harley-Davidson. And BMW’s cruiser, the R1200C, doesn’t resemble any other motorcycle on the planet.

This segment of the market is thriving, and for good reason: Cruisers are easy bikes to live with. Many of them are nearly maintenance-free. They look good, and when outfitted with a windshield, are comfortable out on the road. They may not handle as well as sportbikes, nor haul as much gear as touring bikes, but in many ways, they fulfill the role of a standard, all-around motorcycle. Many riders don’t ride a motorcycle to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. They just like to ride. If that describes you, you might be cruiser material.