Retro + Vintage Motorcycles
Retro + Vintage Motorcycle reviews and road tests include old (vintage) motorcycles, such as those featured in Clement Salvadori’s Retrospective column each month, as well as motorcycles styled to look like those that rolled off the assembly line decades ago (retro). Cruisers can be considered retro due to their styling, but they’re a more natural fit in the Cruiser + Touring Motorcycles category. Whereas the irrational exuberance of the 2000s brought us overpriced, blinged–out choppers and painful–to–watch TV shows about customizers with short tempers, motorcycle guides suggest that back–to–basics vintage motorcycles have enjoyed a revival since the Great Recession. Harley–Davidson has its Dark Custom line, Victory offers blacked–out 8–Ball versions of several models and DIY builders are snapping up low–cost bikes on Craigslist and eBay for café racer and bobber projects.
The 26th Annual Hansen Dam British Bike Rally in Southern California
Paul Garson
April 28, 2011
story and photography by Paul Garson Last year rain pelted the event, but this year’s 26th Annual Hansen Dam Ride was drenched only in sunshine…and chrome. A record 500-plus bikes of all makes, models, sizes, colors and dispositions showed up for what was ostensibly an all-Brit shindig, as it’s... Read more »
The 2006 Legend of the Motorcycle: International Concours d’Elegance
Clement Salvadori
April 14, 2011
story and photography by Clement Salvadori [This International Concours d Elegance motorcycle travelogue October 2006 issue of Rider Magazine] Nothing like wandering along acres of ocean-front lawn, admiring scores of beautifully turned-out motorcycles parked on the well-mowed grass…. A dozen Crockers... Read more »
Corsa MotoClassica
Paul Garson
April 13, 2011
story and photography by Paul Garson If you’re vintage enough yourself, you’ll remember when Ike was elected President, and after 40 years of rule in the USSR, Stalin signed off. DNA was discovered, Edmund Hillary scaled Mount Everest and Joe DiMaggio wedded Marilyn Monroe. And the Willow Springs... Read more »
EXCLUSIVE! Scrambler RS750 Project Bike
Rider Contributor
December 20, 2010
Story by David Edwards; Photography by Mark Clifford; Action photography by Kevin Wing This beautiful homage to the Scrambler by Denny Berg and Cobra began life as a 2010 Honda Shadow RS750. Nice restoration, right, a classic old Honda Scrambler. Oops, hold on a second—isn’t that a surprisingly... Read more »
2010 Royal Enfield Bullet C5 Classic Road Test
Rider Contributor
May 26, 2010
photography by Rich Cox [This 2010 Royal Enfield Bullet C5 Classic Road Test was originally published in the July 2010 issue of Rider] True classic styling blended with technology that meets today’s reliability standards. All of these bikes are contemporary classics, but only the Royal Enfield gives... Read more »
Retrospective: Yamaha DT400 Enduro: 1975 – 1979
Clement Salvadori
February 18, 2010
Test riders loved this new big-bore 400cc enduro. Go just about anywhere, do just about anything and do it with zip! The DT1 250 had grown up, first to 360 size, and now 400, and had become an extremely seductive machine. Weighing less than 300 pounds, with equal amounts of horsepower and torque, the... Read more »
Suzuki GSX-R750: The First Generation 1986-1987
Clement Salvadori
December 1, 2009
In the mid-1980s the Japanese got deadly serious about their sportbikes. When the 750cc size became the competition class of choice, everybody piled in, with Interceptors, Ninjas, FZs…and Gixxers, the first generation of GSX-R750 models, which have continued to this day, except that what cost $4,499... Read more »
2009 Royal Enfield Bullet 500 Classic C5 Road Test
Rider Contributor
August 18, 2009
Story and photography by James Parchman [This 2009 Royal Enfield Bullet 500 Classic C5 Road Test was originally published in the October 2009 issue of Rider] 2009 Royal Enfield Bullet 500 Classic C5—The retro green paint scheme has gotten the The maroon color is retro, a throwback buzz but the black... Read more »
Retrospective: Norton Electra 400: 1963-1965
Clement Salvadori
July 14, 2009
Anybody who thinks that the British motorcycle industry was blind-sided by the invasion of Japanese motorcycles has not read his or her history. Lots of people in England were working on new ideas in the early ’60s, but the problem was more a lack of investment than any lack of engineering, and secondarily... Read more »
2009 Triumph Bonneville SE Road Test
Bill Stermer
June 22, 2009
photography by Riles & Nelson [This 2009 Triumph Bonneville SE Road Test was originally published in the August 2009 issue of Rider magazine] 2009 Triumph Bonneville SE Just the other day I was lamenting how so many motorcycle companies seem to be playing the bigger/faster/more powerful game, introducing... Read more »
