52 The Perfect Motor?

Inline-Four or V-Twin?

-by Kevin Cameron

54 The Cyclone

Board-track bravura,

-by Michael Dregni

58 Woods Racer

Mike Kiedrowski’s GNCC DR-Z400.

-by Jimmy Lewis

62 Baja Buster

Team Honda’s XR650R.

POU

68 Midsummer Night’s Dream

Inside the Isle of Man TT.

-by Gordon Ritchie

76 The Ride

Welcome to the new millennium.

-bv Kevin Cameron

40 State of the Superbike

Eight bikes, 32 cylinders, one goal.

-bv Mark Hover

78 Questec Bike Slide

Slidin* but not slippin*.

82 Behind the Barrier

The Kocinski comeback.

-by Kevin Cameron

22 Hotshots

28 New Ideas

30 Roundup

74 CW Library

124 Service

129 CW Showcase

138 Slipstream

-JLt’s the memories of the place that never really leave you.

How could they, because the memory is given something of an annual overhaul each time

any motorcyclist, from any of our communal obsession’s many factions, is fortunate enough

to converge on the Isle of Man while the TT is on. The memories only multiply and intensify

with each recollection.

Watching people very publicly risk their lives as they ricochet through narrow villages and

whistle alongside sheer drops at an average speed better than 120 mph is usually a little on the

attention-grabbing side, especially the first time you see it done. Changed my ideas about

what fast meant, first sight of a bike full chat at the bottom of Bray Hill.

Isle of Man speed has special significance when the bikes are powering out of the comers a

mere 2 feet from, well, your own two feet, with the flashing bodywork stealing kisses from

the green earth and old stone that line the entire course.

On a less kinetic and more bacchanalian level, I can also remember boozing myself insensi-

ble on countless occasions with insistent and suicidally hard-drinking buddies-something of a

TT rite of passage for even the soberest of people, and one frequently replayed in every

packed-out bar and heaving nightclub.

Other memories of mine prove that

TT participation is a sport for all, and a

contact sport at that. Being knocked

off my 12-horsepower restricted

Yamaha RZ125LC on the Mountain

section by a loco local driver (about

eight hours after getting off the ferry

for my first-ever TT visit) is a classic

recollection from my personal archive.

Only at the TT have I ever made life-

long friends in one hour, many I’ve

never seen or spoken to since, yet

some of whom would still give me

their last dime. Or at least share the

drink it would buy us.

Memories of the TT? I’ve got a

thousand of ’em, 995 of them good.

But I also remember the multiple

deaths in a 1300cc Production race,

which got big roadbikes banned from

the race calendar until relatively

recently.

And I also hark back to visiting a fel-

low bike journo in a rapidly filling

hospital, after his second big race crash

in a week, a prang that almost finished

the job the first one had started.

The years these events happened?

Can’t remember offhand; and dates

themselves, when applied to a place

with the timeless appeal and anachro-

nistic cruelty of the Isle of Man, are

just grains in the sandstorm of Manx

history.

Nope, there’s nothing at all quite like

the TT. By its very location, history,

atmosphere, 37-mile lap length and its

ability to endure beyond any credible

lifespan, the TT is simply unique.

Especially in the day of the safety-Nazi...