Road Tests

Latest Road Tests

2012 Harley-Davidson FLS Softail Slim in-action

2012 Harley-Davidson FLS Softail Slim – Road TestThe Motor Company pares down the Softail.

Some words only appear in print; you seldom hear people speak them. “Brandish” is one. Nobody ever says, “Is that a banana you’re brandishing?” or, “Don’t brandish that thing at me!” Another one is “harken.” I’ve only heard the word a couple of times, once at a Renaissance Fair and [...]

2012 Zero S - Road Test

2012 Zero S – Road TestAmping up battery capacity gives the Zero a fresh charge.

The technological path from the Wrights’ powered flight in 1903 to Neil Armstrong hopping off the ladder onto the powdery surface of the moon in 1969 was anything but easy. It would take to the end of the Wright decade before powered flight was beyond purely experimental and World War [...]

2012 Aprilia Tuono V4 headlights

2012 Aprilia Tuono V4 – Road TestTuono V4: Aprilia builds another awesome way to lose your license.

Evidently, there’s a standard method of creating a naked sportbike and then there’s the Italian way. Most manufacturers have done it by producing minimalistic, significantly detuned sportbikes that are just as well-suited to urban commuting as they are to the occasional weekend romp. But the original Tuono, introduced a decade [...]

Ninja ZX-14R sportbike in-action

Kawasaki ZX-14R – Road TestEverything else is officially slow.

Photography by Jeff Allen History will show that Cycle World’s first ride on Kawasaki’s ZX-14R happened at a dragstrip. Think back to the H1 and Z1 of the 1970s, Team Green’s first pacesetters, for the pattern this company has developed: big horsepower, industry-leading acceleration, physics-defying speed. The two-stroke H1 Mach [...]