Motorbike Inspiration

Welcome to MCN's Inspiration section, where you'll be able to read about everything that makes us tick as bikers. Catch our guides to top classic motorcycles, long weekend reads and much more.

Year: ALL

Take control of your own touring destiny | How to undertake a solo motorcycle tour

15 April 2021 by Alison Silcox

With destination set to ‘Home’ the satnav tells me there’s a little over 1000 miles ahead, and just before midnight I’ll be back in moonlit Peterborough. It’s at this point, a lightbulb flickers and a...

Ride your own adventure: It’s time to take your first steps off-road

12 April 2021 by Michael Guy

Leaving the tarmac behind on a £20k fully loaded BMW R1250GSA is the elephant in the adventure bike showroom. Every manufacturer spends millions developing bikes capable of handling the rough stuff,...

Share your biking obsession: Get someone back on two wheels

09 April 2021 by Jon Urry

I’m sure we all know someone who, for one reason or another, holds a motorcycle licence but has given up riding. A dormant biker, just waiting to be gently awoken back to the world of two-wheels. In...

Creating a Monster: Has the 2021 Ducati Monster turned its back on tradition?

03 April 2021 by Phil West

We recently got the chance to ride the all-new 2021 Ducati Monster, almost three decades after the firm took the wraps off the original prototype at the 1992 Cologne Motor Show. Entering production...

MCN legends: Kawasaki Z1

19 March 2021 by Phil West

If the CB750 was Japan’s first large capacity four, the Z1 was the world’s first superbike; raising the performance bar to unforeseen heights; leading a new era of big Japanese multis and setting the...

Why you need to own a two-stroke... or two

12 March 2021 by Emma Franklin

The world is changing. Fossil fuel powered vehicles now have just nine years left before manufacturers stop producing new petrol and diesel four-wheelers. Bikes will follow suit, and in time the...

From Wimbledon to F1 and the Olympics... Suzi Perry has done it all

08 March 2021 by Michael Guy

In a career that has spanned more than 20 years, Suzi Perry has weaved her way into the fabric of motorcycle racing. Having interviewed riders from Carl Fogarty and Mick Doohan to Valentino Rossi,...

The Great Malle Rally offers two-wheeled escapism without a passport

04 March 2021 by Jordan Gibbons

Raindrops on hairpins and cold sandy beaches, bright chrome air cleaners and damp tyre screeches, hiding your smartphone so it never rings, these are a few of my favourite things. Cream-coloured...

Twin peaks: a history of Ducati's iconic V-twin engine

05 February 2021 by Phil West

This year is a milestone for Ducati’s iconic, Desmodromic V-twin – or ‘L-twin’ as the Italian firm call their 90-degree engine layout. Related articles from MCN 75 years of MV Agusta Two tribes go to...

Captain Sir Tom Moore, 1920 – 2021

02 February 2021 by Jordan Gibbons

Former British Army despatch rider, motorcycle racer and charity fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore has died after contracting coronavirus. Capt. Moore burst into the public conscious in April 2020,...

The rise, fall and rise of Aprilia: 50 years of motorbikes from Noale

29 January 2021 by Phil West

Just weeks after its world launch, the most eagerly anticipated bike of 2020, Aprilia’s RS660, is proving to be well worth the wait. The 100bhp twin, complete with mould-breaking, ultralight 169kg...

Bucketlist: Ride a classic banked circuit

03 January 2021 by Phil West

Most bikers have experience of race circuits, either through racing, trackdays or simply spectating. It’s an experience that rings a far greater appreciation of the adrenaline-fuelled thrills and...

Watch: Nick Sanders on the Snowdonia 360

16 December 2020 by Gareth Evans

In this week’s special 5-in-1 MCN we have a supplement about inspirational things you could plan to do in 2021. Among them is Nick Sanders MBE’s trip around the Snowdonia 360 – Wales’s answer to the...

Ohvale UK Cup: How Peter Hickman is nurturing the next generation of UK racing stars

04 December 2020 by Dan Sutherland

Peter Hickman is one of the most versatile British motorcycle racers of the modern age. Having won the National Superstock 1000 Cup championship 16 years ago, he’s since become a multiple British...

Evel Knievel Laverda leaps back into the limelight

25 November 2020 by Phil West

A bike used by Evel Knievel has been discovered, restored and put on public display. Knievel, who died in 2007, is best remembered for using Harley-Davidson XR750s in the 1970s, most notably for his...

Boxer goodies: Polish custom house create stunning café racer BMW R100RT

18 November 2020 by Dan Sutherland

A Polish motorcycle custom house have transformed a 1982 BMW R100RT into a modern café racer. Warsaw-based Eighty Six Gear Motorcycles spent a year-and-a-half turning the 49,700-mile classic into the...

The Tesi H2 marks Bimota's return – but where did it all begin?

13 November 2020 by Phil West

With orders now being taken for the supercharged, hub-centre-steered Bimota Tesi H2, it’s worth revisiting the Italian brand’s glittering, yet chequered, history. Related articles on MCN Bimota KB4...

Our bikes: Richard Newland's Ducati 996

05 November 2020 by Richard Newland

There’s something exceptionally pleasing about big V-twins. The flatness of their delivery, their deceptive speed and gluttonous dollops of torque. The way they build power with a surging tide that...

Dream Ducatis: Michael Neeves tangos with a trio of Superleggeras

04 November 2020 by Michael Neeves

Ducati’s Superleggera is a rare, exotic beast. Only 1500 have ever been built: 500 magnesium-framed 1199s in 2014, 500 carbon-framed 1299s in 2017 and new for this year 500 carbon-framed V4s. They’re...

Celebrating Black History Month: As one of the few mixed race riders in bikesport, Asher Durham hopes he can inspire others

30 October 2020 by MCN

Asher Durham is a BSB Junior Superstock 600 racer who started in motocross and then became the youngest ever rider to compete in the 125cc British championship at the age of 13. He went on to be a...

Celebrating Black History Month: Ex-bike journalist Jane Omorogbe is one motorcycling's rare high-profile black riders

30 October 2020 by MCN

Most people first became aware of Jane Omorogbe as ‘Rio’ in the late-90s TV phenomenon that was Gladiators (she was also in the film epic, Gladiator). She went on to present a wide array of TV...

Zef Eisenberg, 1973-2020

08 October 2020 by Jordan Gibbons

Multiple world and British speed record holder Zef Eisenberg tragically lost his life in an accident during a record attempt at Elvington airfield on Thursday, October 1. Zef, 47, was a businessman,...

Boxing clever: BMW R18's engine was 100 years in the making

05 October 2020 by Jordan Gibbons

The 1802cc air-cooled unit inside the new BMW R18 is the largest and torquiest boxer they’ve ever built. It sets a whole new standard in modern, air-cooled engine design but the basic layout stretches...

30 years on: The story behind Triumph's rebirth

23 September 2020 by Phil West

Thirty years ago this month, in September 1990, Triumph Motorcycles were reborn when, not one, not two, but SIX all-new Hinckley-built bikes were unveiled on the opening day of the Cologne Show in...

Cow herding…on a bike! Ex-Great Escape Triumph TR6 is a firm farm favourite

09 September 2020 by Michael Guy

Nearly 60 years ago Steve McQueen wowed motorcyclists with his riding in the classic movie The Great Escape. Following completion of filming, the Triumph TR6 that was used in the famous jump over the...

Teenage dreams: We ride Allen Millyard's Honda SS50 specials

03 June 2020 by Bruce Dunn

The humble Honda SS50 is iconic. Built and sold in their thousands as the moped craze swept through 1970s UK, the slick-looking four-stroke looked like a miniature motorcycle. Flat bars, upswept...

Forty years of the GS: Original BMW R80 G/S designer tells us the untold story

20 May 2020 by Jordan Gibbons

It’s exactly 40 years since the first ever BMW GS went on sale: the R80 G/S. No one knew it would go on to be the most popular bike in the company’s history and that it would help to change the course...

In the blood: MV Agusta marks 75 years of building soul-stirring motorbikes

08 May 2020 by Jon Urry

Few motorcycle marques have combined racing success with showroom sex-appeal quite like MV Agusta. With 38 Grand Prix World Championship titles, the Italian brand have enjoyed the most on-track...

VE Day celebrations: remembering the Royal Enfield 'Flying Flea'

08 May 2020 by Andy Calton

It’s 75 years since World War II officially finished as the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945. And as VE Day celebrations remember big characters and big machines, there was also one...

Having fun without two wheels Part 4: motorbike-themed things to do during Coronavirus

30 April 2020 by Emma Franklin

Ding dong! Your latest delivery of 10 fresh boredom-busting ideas is here to see you through lockdown. Be it pure entertainment or a bit of self- or bike-improvement, you can indulge your passion for...

Two tribes go to war: The story behind the Honda SP-1

28 April 2020 by Jon Urry

It is not often that the might of HRC gets rattled, but in 2000 this was the case. Despite dominating the premier class of racing with Mick Doohan and the NSR500, Honda were being given a very public...

Clinical trials: Dougie Lampkin trains Riders for Health workers in Lesotho

19 March 2020 by Ben Clarke

The rider ahead is still sitting down, which I find reassuring. If he can navigate the wet clay, loose rocks and increasing gradient without having to leave the saddle, then even a wobbly off-roader...

Video: Joacim Boive riding his KTM enduro bike off-road

07 February 2020 by Jordan Gibbons

A Swedish motorcyclist is aiming to be the first one-legged person to compete in an enduro series after taking up off-road riding. Joacim Boive lost his right leg to cancer when he was 13 but was...

Yamaha RD350LC at 40 - a celebration

28 January 2020 by Phil West

Arguably the most loved and inspirational Japanese bike of all – Yamaha’s RD350LC – went on sale for the first time 40 years ago. And while the abilities of the 47bhp stroker twin are now the stuff of...