My road to the new Harley Sport Glide started with a motorcycle safety course in late summer of 2012 and a multi-year tenure on a faded bandanna red 1990 Honda Elite 80cc scooter. It weighed about as much as I did (a little over a buck fifty) and wobbled dangerously if I so much as sneezed or shivered on the cold ride home from the closing shift at our local café. I got used to cracking the throttle on this fully automatic, ridiculously light vehicle, unknowingly letting my motorcycle skills drip away the longer I rode it.

Early August brought ideal weather for riding in the mountains. No rain, little RV traffic, and several happy riders heading east to Sturgis.

Gaz Boulanger

Eventually came my first motorcycle, a black and gold 1982 Suzuki GS650G (500 pounds with a full tank). The clutch felt like pulling back a bowstring and balancing the beast, while trying to park filled my head with visions of horizontal machinery. I had to relearn how to ride, even going so far as to retake the safety course with my dad, who needed to take it to get his California license. It felt like being thrown in the deep end after spending the seasons splashing in the shallows. Engine-braking? Shifting? Friction zone? No wonder they just hand out scooters to tourists in the Mediterranean. No fuss and off you go.

“It sounds like a pipe dream that he’s selling people,” said Raj Rajkumar, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “I think it’s basically overpromising, which is typical of Elon Musk.”

To prove his skeptics wrong, Musk will have to persuade regulators that Tesla’s technology for transforming potentially hundreds of thousands of electric cars into self-driving vehicles will produce robots that are safer and more reliable than humans.

And to do that, Musk will have to be correct in his bet that Tesla has come up with a better way to produce self-driving cars than virtually every other of the more than 60 companies in the U.S. working toward the same goal.

Some of those companies are aiming to have their fully autonomous cars begin carrying passengers in small geographic areas as early as this year, but many experts don’t believe they’ll be in widespread use for a decade or more.

Unlike most of those other companies, Tesla’s cars won’t come with the light beam sensors called Lidar that many industry experts consider to be essential equipment for robotic vehicles to navigate the road.

Musk trashed Lidar as a “fool’s errand” and “frigging stupid” in a putdown of companies such as Google spin-off Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise Automation that are including the light beam sensors in their systems.

“They are going to dump Lidar,” Musk assured investors and analysts gathered at Tesla’s Palo Alto, California, office for the 2 ½ hour presentation.

Musk, widely known for his swagger as much as his smarts, spent much of the time trying to persuade both the investors and consumers that he had figured out a better way to teach robots how to drive.

“It is fundamentally insane to buy anything other than a Tesla,” Musk said at one point, arguing that purchasing a vehicle from any other automaker would be like getting a horse.

Musk’s quasi-sales pitch came two days before Tesla is expected to report a disappointing performance for the first three months of the year. Analysts polled by FactSet predict a $305.5 million first quarter net loss based on disappointing car sales, a setback after Musk pledged heading into the second half of last year that Tesla would be profitable from that point onward.

From Musk’s vantage point, Tesla has a huge advantage over autonomous vehicle competitors because it gathers a massive amount of data in the real world. This quarter, he said Tesla will have 500,000 vehicles on the road, each equipped with eight cameras, ultrasonic sensors and radar gathering data to help build the company’s neural network, which will serve as the digital equivalent of the self-driving cars’ consciousness.

The network allows vehicles to recognize images, determine what objects are and figure out how to deal with them. To become fully self-driving, the cars also need a special computer that fits behind the glove box and is powered by a special chip Musk boasted is better than any other processor in the world “by a huge margin.”

Currently the self-driving computer costs $5,000, but the price rises to $7,000 if it’s installed after delivery.

Finally, Tesla will deliver software updates to those computers to make it possible for its electric cars to be driven by a robot, without a human in position to take over in case something goes awry. There will be a slight chance of some “fender benders,” Musk acknowledged Monday, and indicated Tesla will be liable for accident caused by a vehicle under the control of its robot.

“People will die,” Rajkumar predicted. “I can tell you that right now. Because in the real world, crazy things happen.”

Musk predicted that the technology for fully self-driving Tesla will roll out at some point from April to June next year. Then, Tesla will need to get regulatory approval for the fully autonomous cars to drive on roads, something Musk predicted would happen in a few states by the end of next year. He didn’t specific where Tesla will try to gain approval first.

California, Tesla’s biggest U.S. market, requires proof that fully autonomous cars can drive safely on public roads, but most other states aren’t as stringent. And experts say there’s no federal law requiring preapproval for fully autonomous driving, as long as a vehicle meets federal safety standards, which Teslas already do.

Purity and honesty are what make flat-track motorcycles so appealing. They are beautiful, but not decorative. Purpose drives design, and to strive for perfection in this, only the necessary parts remain. Flat-track bikes are also just damned American.

So it is no surprise that 1) Indian built a street tracker as its first standard-style performance motorcycle and 2) did everything it could to maintain an exceptionally strong link to the company’s dominant flat-track race bike, the FTR750.

There has been a sense of anticipation around an Indian street tracker since the 750 debuted—these shimmering notions stoked by the FTR1200 Custom we put on our cover last year.

There is sometimes an uneasy tension between the “custom” concept bike and the street product that follows, simply because legal, regulatory, and practical concessions must be made. But I have to say, standing next to the 2019 FTR1200S and taking it in, the profile, stance, contour, and detail please the eye looking for purity and honesty.

The feelings are similar while in motion. The FTR1200 is a physically larger bike than we might have hoped for, with a 60-inch wheelbase and 495-pound weight without fuel, but it hits a dynamic sweet spot for this 6-foot-2 inch primate—thanks to its great riding position, wide ProTaper handlebars, and nicely tuned suspension.

Our test unit is the $16,999 Race Replica, featuring an Akrapovic exhaust and a red, white, and black color scheme.

Jeff Allen

Our testbike is the $16,999 Race Replica in red, white, and black, with lighter looking Akrapovic exhaust, along with the same fully-adjustable suspension found on the $15,499 S model, versus the nonadjustable fork and preload/rebound-adjustable-only shock on the $13,499 standard model. After using the excellent owner’s manual to find clear, easy instructions for adjusting the threaded rear spring preload collars for my weight­—with the provided wrench—steering was delightfully neutral. I never would have guessed the steering geometry’s 26.3-degree rake and 5.1 inches of trail, given how easy it is to initiate a turn and how good the bike is at finishing a tight corner. Midcorner stability is also a strong point.

In fact, our first outing on our testbike came at the Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, which we had rented for a magazine event. I also had my wife’s 2011 Harley-Davidson XR1200X there for reference.

Back in January, Triumph wowed us with the announcement of its new Triumph Factory Custom series, a line of ultra-premium limited-edition models that would pack top-shelf components and accessories (and in some instances completely unique one-off bits) available in a limited production run of 750 units worldwide, for each model.

The second model to come from the TFC series (the first is the Thruxton TFC), the Rocket 3 TFC is bigger, lighter, and more powerful than the first Rocket, and will retail for $29,000 (US).

Courtesy Triumph Motorcycles

The first model of that series, the new Triumph Thruxton TFC debuted as a lighter, more powerful, and more exclusive version of the Thruxton R, and we were duly impressed. Then Hinckley teased us with a hot-rodded working concept of the next bike on deck, the Concept Rocket 3 TFC, a full-tilt bored-and-stroked behemoth that claimed an all-new triple-cylinder engine.

With its beastly 2,500cc inline-triple engine, the Rocket 3 TFC claims to have the world’s “largest production motorcycle engine,” and the most torque of any production motorcycle.

Courtesy Triumph Motorcycles

And now comes that bike in all its official production glory, rolling with a massive new 2,500cc Triumph triple engine, a muscular presence, up-spec technology, a refined design, and an impressive level of premium specification equipment.

Are three wheels better than two? One reason for poor motorcycle tire grip is that a cambering vehicle can present only roughly one-third of its tread width to the pavement, while a car can present 100 percent at all times.

Yamaha

Yamaha’s Niken is a motorcycle with zero roll stiffness, meaning that it leans to go around corners, is controlled like a motorcycle, and, unlike Piaggio’s MP3 scooter, cannot stand up by itself when stationary. It just happens to have two front wheels quite close together, permitted by a contrivance of rocking beams and multiple joints to allow the vehicle to lean normally; lock up of the rocking beams is said to occur at 45 degrees of lean. The rear of the machine is based upon the three-cylinder MT-09.

Yamaha calls such machines “leaning multi-wheel” (LMW) vehicles, and its work with such things began in secret in 1977, using its Passol two-wheeled scooter as an experimental base. A photo from that time shows a trike with two front wheels, supporting above them a large wire shopping basket.

For me, the presence of the shopping basket unfortunately brought to mind BSA’s Ariel 3 scooter, a project developed from 1967 and launched in ’70 with two upright rear wheels and a lean-to-turn single front wheel. Planned and tooled for 2,000 units per week, it had sold a few hundred by the time of BSA’s closure in ’73.

On-board instrumentation showed that grip was smoothly transferred from the low-grip wheel to the high-grip wheel without steering upset.

At the 2007 Tokyo Show, Yamaha displayed the Tesseract, described as “four wheels but a motorcycle” because it too displayed the zero-roll rigidity now offered in Niken. Yamaha’s research had shown this four-wheeled vehicle operated just as a motorcycle does, using the same rider skills. The word “tesseract” describes the four-dimensional analog of a cube.

In 2014, Yamaha showed another LMW, this one called Tricity, a 125 billed as a city commuter. During the research behind these projects, Yamaha made an interesting discovery: If its leaning trike ran one of its front wheels over pavement of low grip while the other front wheel ran on pavement with normal grip, on-board instrumentation showed that grip was smoothly transferred from the low-grip wheel to the high-grip wheel without steering upset. This is the research behind the claim that Niken provides superior front grip to that of a conventional single front motorcycle wheel.

Front unsprung weight of the $15,999 Niken and $17,299 Niken GT sport-tourer (shown) is high, but Yamaha has tried to reduce it somewhat by using 15-inch wheels. Racing motorcycles suffer in turning ability by comparison with race cars because they have so little rubber on the ground.

Yamaha

While considerations of unsprung weight—of which Niken has nearly twice as much up front as does a conventional bike, despite its twin 15-inch wheels being notionally lighter individually than a conventional bike’s single 17-incher—would suggest that over unsmooth surfaces the dual front end would offer less grip, Yamaha seems to be saying that by “sampling” the pavement in more than one place, Niken’s dual front end may in a statistical sense find enough grip to remain stable when conventional bikes might not, particularly on rough pavement, in the presence of liquids, or across sand or gravel.

2019 Royal Enfield Continental GT 650

Royal Enfield

Royal Enfield built a number of midsize twins during the 20th century, culminating with the 750 Interceptor of the late 1960s. Unfortunately, the British motorcycle industry wasn’t able to keep up with the manufacturing methods and higher-performing new machines developed during that era by the Japanese, and the company closed its factories in 1970. Present-day Royal Enfield—makers of the vintage-style Classic, Himalayan adventure bike, the retro INT650, and the Continental GT seen here—is a completely different operation based in India as part of the Eicher Motors Limited group. The Continental GT shares its fuel-injected, eight-valve parallel twin with the INT650, a 270-degree crankshaft like that used in the Triumph Bonneville and Yamaha MT-07 churning behind the gleaming aluminum case covers.

Styling recalls café racers of yore, with low-mounted handlebars, a slim saddle (an even sportier single-seat setup is available), and a “breadbox” fuel tank. The steel frame was designed with the help of sportbike chassis experts Harris Performance. Gabriel developed the conventional fork and twin reservoir-equipped shocks, while the ABS-equipped disc brakes are clamped by ByBre (a division of Brembo) calipers. Wire-spoke wheels—with inner tubes!—keep with the classic theme.

Likes: Period styling spot-on, priced for the current market, fun to ride

Dislikes: Accessory solo seat is thinly padded; tubeless rubber, please

Verdict: A modern motorcycle shaped like a classic “ton-up” café racer

2019 Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 Reviews And Comparisons

“A continuing obsession with spec-chart numbers or internet rumors often provokes many to write off a particular model without ever having so much as looking at it in the flesh,” Kent Kunitsugu wrote. “And it’s a mistake that some are likely to make with the new 650cc twins from Royal Enfield.”

There’s a lot of hubbub around Honda’s new-for-2018 Gold Wing. It was redesigned, stem to stern, and has made an impact on the motorcycle touring world. As we learned in our first ride review in Texas, the new G-Wing is as smooth, stable, and friendly to use as any touring bike we’ve ever tested. The whole staff agrees, it’s a treat to ride.

In planning a multi-day, 1,100-mile road trip to really get to know the Gold Wing, it got us wondering what could face off against this touring titan. An American V-twin from Harley-Davidson or Indian might do the trick, or a big metric touring bike like Yamaha’s new Star Venture—they’re high-tech, sure, but conventional forks and lumbering twins don’t quite align with the G-Wing’s ethos. After some arguing and scoping website specs, we found just the machine.

A good way to see how much smaller the Gold Wing has gotten is to pose it next to acres of black BMW bodywork. Even still, the K1600 weighs 810 pounds—28 less than the Gold Wing’s 838 pounds.

Julia Robinson

Robinson Collection

Their Mission: To provide MotoGP fans and other stakeholders with performance benchmarks for every rider on every sector of every circuit.

Their Goal: To educate fans, increase MotoGP’s popularity, and help to promote talent though the series.

How They Do It: The team has created a variety of indexes based on factors that are highly correlated to performance. The indexes take into account a variety of variables including speed, consistency, track/sector difficulty, weather, machinery, and rider history. The methodology is scientific with essential art in execution. It’s not just numbers, it’s the interpretation of those numbers.

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Limitations: There are three swing factors that can’t be accounted for before a race: crashes, penalties (e.g., jump starts), limited rider data on a circuit. This is where science and data meet the human factors; suddenly rider consistency looms large.

This site is fascinating for those of us hooked on GP racing because it goes far beyond the biographies and banal quotes we are currently privy to. The Scout team geeks out on climate and weather per track, the riders’ stats and projected results, their podium picks for upcoming races, how riders train… Getting the idea? As they spread to Moto2 and 3, the Scout team’s stats will become increasingly important to teams searching for the next MotoGP contender.

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