My first month as editor on the newly-combined Practical Sportsbikes/Performance Bikes magazine has been an interesting one…

Issue 100 special edition

When Darren Palmer told us he had a new project on the go we knew it’d be amazing. Having been blown away by his immaculately prepared SRX600 special back in 2013, we couldn’t wait to sling a leg over his latest creation.

We argued a lot. We could have argued more. A lot more. Picking the top 10 best engines from 1970 to the early noughties is not an easy job. The white heat of technological development during those years saw to that…

Nothing comes close to a lap of the infamous TT course. Just ask anyone who’s raced there. Even at normal speeds it’s undeniably special, and in early September we got the chance to do exactly that…

Improving bikes is what we do. From tweaking controls for slicker action, or servicing a top end to a full-on resto. But nothing quite beats building a special…

Some things are simply not up for debate. Like which was motorcycling greatest decade. It was, as you’ll know, the 1980s…..

Life is about making memories. With bikes it’s the long trips, the new experiences and epic challenges that often linger longest and brightest in the mind….

Being outside on your bike with your mates tops everything, as MG, Al and Damo proved when they took to the Welsh hills as Team PS in this year’s Taffy Dakar Rally….

Dealers are struggling to find decent used 2000s era bikes that can turn them a meaningful profit. Alan explains why the modern used market is overheating

Special Build of the Year is go. Out of a sackful of entries, we’ve whittled them down to 10. And what a 10 they are: MotoGP and WSB replicas, a flat tracker, cafe racers, 2T hybrids, a brutal Turbo, and a seriously funky ‘moped’. All very special in their own right.

When is enough, enough? Or indeed too much? Former Florida bike dealer Earl Harrington Jnr became the owner of more than 2000 bikes before he – or more accurately his wife – decided to call time on his commendable but nonetheless unregulated habit. …

World Superbikes has become tediously predictable in the last few years, with only Kawasaki and Ducati having any chance of lifting the title; the former taking the top prize in four of the last five years... Zzzzzzz…..

Kawasaki missed a trick. Had they complemented their excellent 1100 and 1200 ZRX retros with a punchy middleweight, they may well have knocked Suzuki’s Bandit 600 right out of the park.

Mick Jagger may have struggled to get any satisfaction, but here at PS we’re burning it by the tankful. In my case it’s all down to my now much improved DT125R. Having spent a day last month at tuner Mick Abbey’s place fitting a Zeeltronic ignition to my Yamaha, and fine tuning it on his dyno, I’m now basking in the satisfaction of a 19 per cent power increase and 160bhp per litre from my 125. Pleased? Hell no, I’m delighted. See how we achieved it in this issue.

Good and evil. Can something be both? This month I’ve found the proof: Kawasaki’s KR-1R. A what, you say? Less than 200 of these SP two-strokes were built so they may not be familiar but, trust me, it’s a bike you most definitely need on your radar...

Welcome to the newly fettled PS. All the things you love about PS are still here, plus a raft of new stuff too: more in depth resto stories, bigger and better buying guides, new projects and amazing specials, plus more top tech advice and inspiration to help you get the best out of your bikes

In the October issue of Practical Sportsbikes our reader resto is a Suzuki GS750 gets modern makeover with GSX-R hardware. There's a European 40th birthday bash for the Kawasaki Z1000 and we ride a the sharpest Yamaha FZR400 ever. 

Plus there's a head to head between a Bimoto SB4 and a Suzukli GSX11 and 20 pages of workshop wisdom to help you keep your ride alive.

In the September issue of PS, we meet Dave Thompson, a certifiable Kawasaki nutcase and find out why his H2 resto had the potential to drive anyone insane. We find out what the best Aprilia sports tourer is and why the Suzuki GSX11 street bruiser packs monster punch. 

We learn the inside story about the 1907s movie Silver Dream Racer, find out how to restore Hickly/Daytona/Speed Triples and of course there's 20 pages of workshop wisdom.

In the August issue of Practical Sportsbikes, reader Karl Spenceley shows us his immaculate '92 CBR900RR-N Fireblade, that after three years of painstaking work has turned from a bent, bodged streetfighter into a machine that looks like it's popped out fresh from a crate.

Two-time AMA winning rider Wes Cooley tels us how he and Pops Yoshimura made the GS1000 (and Suzuki) into legends in the late 70s and early 80s and we go head to head with the FJ1100 and GSX1100, the old school sports tourers, on a test in Wales.

In this issue we announce our SBOTY winner, our own two-stroke hybrid, Project X7 Gamma has been in a shoot-out against two other takes on the RG-X7 theme. Plus find out how our 2-T trio got on in their head-to-head battle.

Find out how well our two-stroke hybrid performs – or not. Lusting after a 200mph hyperbike or building a one-off special are both completely understandable aims, but why would anyone ever go to the trouble and expense of restoring Kawasaki’s much-maligned GPz305?

Special Build of the Year 2017 is go.This year’s finalists include everything from a 150bhp, 950cc ZX-7R, a Roberts replica RD500LC, and Sanctuary style Z1100R to a Guzzi Le Mans cafe racer, Cooley rep GS1000 for the 21st century and a MotoGP inspired FireBlade. And more.

Not two restos are the same. Our brace of builds this month are as different as our Gary and and an olympic sprinter. Granted both builds are Hondas – a VTR1000F special and a back to standard CX500 – but all similarities end there...

Inside this issue, Alan bites off more than he can chew with dog of a TDR250, see if he thinks all that hard work was really worth it. One thing that was most definitely worth it, is Roy Mayne’s magnificent Z1B/Z1-R hybrid – that thing on the cover that stopped you in your tracks...

For this issue we’ve brought together an original LC and the best YPVS – the 1985 F1 – to see whether Yamaha really did improve on perfection plus we look at Honda’s gem-like CBR400RR, Kawasaki’s ballistic ZZ-R1100 and loads more...

In this issue, Phil West reveals the V-Max’s remarkable story and finally gets to try Japan’s original quarter-mile king for himself. We look at the Kawasaki Z1300; Bandit-powered Z1000; Suzuki GT250 and GSX-R750LE; Honda CBR600F vs ZZ-R600. Sportsbikes of all shapes and sizes…

Last month we gave you our guide to some of the best trail bikes to buy for winter fun and frolics. In this issue  we couldn’t resist taking a couple of likely candidates out for a spot of greenlaning. Neither fellow tester Si Hargreaves nor I had ever tried a Yamaha DT200R or a Honda XL200R. But we’re glad we did. They’re brilliant...

It’s that time again; the newsagents are calling. The new issue of Practical Sportsbikes is packed full of old bike tech, inspiration, info and nostalgia. We look at the Honda VFR400R: Arguably the finest sub-500cc four-stroke sportsbikes ever built and the golden era superbikes. Plus get part 2 of our top 10 must have sportsbikes.

In the October issue we meet Mark Wateridge whose P&M Kawasaki, using one of only two frames of its kind in existence and with an ultra-rare swingarm and wheels, redefines ‘special’, there’s a Honda MBX80 restoration: 2000 miles in a week on rebuilt 2T tiddler and we take a look at the superbike legend that saved Bologna, the Ducati 851/888. Plus, FREE with this issue is part 1 of The Top 10 Must-have Sportsbikes, featuring 48-pages of the best sportsbikes. EVER.