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Harley-Davidson Pan America Riding Review

by Basem Wasef from https://www.rideapart.com Running trails and getting dirty with Pan America. Harley-Davidson has been about as relevant in the big bore adventure segment as a skateboard at the Dakar. Having loafed on the ADV genre for decades, The Motor Company is finally taking a swing at the segment with the 2021 Pan America, a purpose-built adventure bike to battle stalwarts like the BMW R 1250 GS/GS Adventure, KTM 1290 Super Adventure, and Triumph Tiger 1200. The Pan Am boasts familiar H-D visual elements wrapped around some impressively future-forward technology. This new tech is benchmarked against a field that’s seen numerous iterations and refinements over the years. First (and perhaps foremost) in this image-conscious category, the clean-sheet Pan America strikes a look that stands apart from its rugged competitors. Harley says its styling aligned with the brand’s design language. There’s also a prevailing visual sentiment that departs from the familiar with an unapologetically brutalist look: blocky shapes, menacing headlamps with a secondary strip of lean angle-sensitive adaptive drew headlamp inspo from the Fat Bob and fairing cues from Road Glide, keeping the bike’s LEDs positioned above, and an imposing chunkiness that disregards any attempt at being pretty. Of course, the highest-stake component isn’t its looks, but rather the all-new Revolution Max powerplant. The liquid-cooled, 1,252cc, 60-degree V-twin shares the same bore and stroke as the late, great V-Rod, but has next to nothing in common with any existing Harley engine apart from its dimensions. Equipped with dual overhead cams, variable valve timing, and a lofty 13.1:1 compression ratio, the fully counterbalanced engine requires premium fuel but returns a stout 150 horsepower at 9,000 rpm and 94 lb-ft at 6,750 rpm. That’s more horsepower but less twist than BMW’s R 1250 GS’ 136 hp/105 lb-ft, but well below the hot-rodded […]

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Royal Enfield Tops Clean Manufacturing Test

by Arun Prakash from https://www.rushlane.com Royal Enfield Tops Clean Manufacturing Test With BMW, Honda, KTM, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Ducati Japanese motorcycle manufacturers along with their European counterparts are considered clean enough barring those from Italian manufacturers. Ever wondered which bike manufacturer has the cleanest running motors. No, we are not exactly talking about emission standards of a motorcycle which are very much equal thanks to emission standards. We are talking about the preciseness of the company’s manufacturing process which results in minimum quantities of impurities getting through an engine from an assembly line. Test by FortNine FortNine recently collaborated with a laboratory that evaluated similar criteria for various car makers across the world. The lab tests the first service oil from various manufacturers and checks the presence of impurities of different magnitudes and sizes which are a result of less than a perfect manufacturing process. A similar evaluation was conducted for several motorcycle manufacturers. FortNine collected first service engine oil from twelve random brands of motorcycles and sent them to the labs for testing. These brands are Royal Enfield, BMW, KTM, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda, Triumph, Suzuki, Harley Davidson, Aprilia, Ducati and Yin Xiang. The results which arrived recently, around seven months later, might be a little surprising to motorcycle enthusiasts, especially those from India. Royal Enfield has beaten the rest, and managed to top the list in the clean manufacturing process test. Quantity & Nature of Impurities The impurity measured were of various sizes with particles ranging from less than 5 micrometres to 100 micrometres. The laboratory even tried evaluating larger particles but some of the samples were so messed up that they formed alliances with smaller sized impurities which made it hard for scientists to make an accurate reading. However, readings taken were pretty consistent for impurity particles of

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Honda CMX500 Rebel reviewed

by Geoff Hill from https://www.mirror.co.uk The original looked a bit wimpish, but a macho makeover has made this cruiser version of the hugely popular CBR500 a nice alternative for bikers clutching their brand new A2 licences in their gloves A Honda Rebel is a bit of an oxymoron, like Boris Johnson’s hair stylist or Vladimir Putin’s sense of humour. You see, Hondas aren’t really bikes for rebels. They’re bikes for chaps and chapesses who want to get from A to B efficiently and safely on machines which never break down and have fewer vices than Audrey Hepburn in A Nun’s Story. Even their Fireblade superbike has always been a pussycat to ride, although in the hands of 23-times TT winner John McGuinness, a pussycat with very sharp claws. Their cars are the same, as I found doing a lap of Silverstone in a Civic R with British Touring Car champion Gordon Shedden. I thought it was going to be terrifying, but he and the car were so fast and flawless that it was a hoot going around corners sideways at 100mph while he chatted about the weather. The one time Honda took a walk on the wild side was with the 1300cc Fury chopper in 2010. It looked fabulous, but when MCN compared it to the Harley Rocker C, they said the Harley shook and rattled, and engaging first gear was like dropping a hammer in a bucket, but the Fury was too perfect, so they preferred the character of the Rocker. You could just see the row of heartbroken designers at Honda HQ trudging out to the car park to commit seppuku. So I rolled up at Belfast Honda on the Africa Twin with some doubts; particularly since when the Rebel came out in 2017 as a bobber cruiser

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5-BALL RACING SALT TORPEDO TEST AND CRASH

  We had a tough day today. The weather was clear and the roads around the Port of Los Angeles empty as we rolled the Salt Torpedo out of the shop.   I was supposed to be a final test run to determine whether the ignition stumble we discovered in the desert was remedied. We had also experienced a slight shimmy in the handling, so I added more rake for more stability. Today before taking it off the lift we needed to adjust the toe-in and we did. With everything tightened we were ready for a final test run before installing the painted body work and preparations to haul ass to Bonneville. All seemed to be good to go as the Torpedo fired to life and Micah dropped the clutch.   He recently discovered that he had another son, Eddie, who runs E2 Metal Works in Bakersfield, with his wife, Emilia. His business is all about CNC Plasma Metal Design and fabrication. Today, Micah arrived with his new son Eddie and his pal, Mike. We immediately set to work prepping for a pass down the street, which has its pitfalls.     It’s a city street complete with cops, and we aren’t prepped for papers, plates or registration. The torpedo has no lights, no turn-signals, you name it. But since the virus has attacked our lives, the streets were void of traffic, especially on a Sunday as I asked Micah to take it easy and test the handling first. There’s something about the Salt Torpedo that brings out the speed in a man. As soon as he caught a gear he nailed it and felt the rear tire break loose as it acted like a rocket ship that wants to fly into the next atmosphere. Unfortunately that didn’t happen today.

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2019 Harley-Davidson Street Glide Special Review

Wild hogs can’t be broken No name in American motorcycling looms as large as Harley-Davidson, the longest continually operating motorcycle brand in the States. While it’s experienced its share of problems over the last decade or so, it’s continually working on updating and innovating. What is it about the Street Glide that makes it such a special machine? It’s got a massive 114 cubic-inch Milwaukee Eight engine that produces just 90 horsepower. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REVIEW ON BIKERNET.COM

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