FEATURES
32 WHY WE RIDE
Whether it's the excitement, the people, the
bikes, the challenge or something else, we all
have our reasons for riding. A Why We Ride
sampler from Rock Stars, Racers, Readers
and more
ON THE COVER
50 BOEHM: <
DOIN' THE MOMBA
Racing a motorcycle built from swap-meet
parts was challenging enough. But when the
donor bike turned out to be a cruiser, things
got really strange
ON THE COVER
62 CATTERSON
THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST
Colorado Centopassi: 1500 miles, 50
mountain passes and no brakes!
74 CARRITHERS:
TRAIL THERAPY
Rediscovering the cleansing powers of dirt
ON THE COVER
MOTORCYCLES
36 SPORT T0URIN6 COMPARO
BMW K1200GT vs. Honda ST1300 ABS vs.
Yamaha FJR1300AE. High-speed broadband
equals velocity, luxury and gadgetry
45 ELECTRO-TRICKERY
Better living through electronics? Or do we
really need all this stuff?
ON THE COVER
46 ER60S EXPLAINED
How they stack up for riders and passengers
departments
9 LEAN ANGLE
Swapping Saddles: It was bound to happen
some time...
24 BACKFIRES
Readers sound off on our Best of
Motorcycling issue
ON THE COVER
28 ON THE RUN
Dan Walsh, on the most beautiful road
in the world
85 NIC TESTED
Pirelli Diablo Corsa III radials
UP TO SPEED
12 NEW BIKES 2007
Suzuki's all-new GSX-R1000
ON THE COVER
14 2007 SUZUKI BANDIT 1250S
Liquid-cooled, new styling!
18 2007 HONDA
CBRBOORR
Faster, lighter and cooler
ON THE COVER
21 2007 KAWASAKI Z1000
Even wilder than the original
22 EURO NOTES
The Chinese buy Benelli
MC GARAGE
86 25 TOP GSX-R1000
TWEAKS
An ex-factory wrench spills his guts about
what works
88 TURN-KEY SUPERBIKE
Not ready to race-prep your GSX-R1000
yourself? Central Coast Sportbikes will do
it for you
91 SMART MONEY
Kawasaki's '01-05 ZRX1200R
93 DOIN’TIME
Everitt loans out his trusty Ducati Multistrada
95 STREET SAVVY
How to not get sucked in on a group ride
Until recently, manufactur-
ers introduced all-new or
significantly reworked sport-
bikes every four years.
Nowadays, intense competition
for consumers' sportbike dollars
has halved that cycle. Which
means that in order to play in
the serious displacement cate-
gories (600 and 1000) you
have to pay—the tooling used
to produce engine and chassis
parts being hideously expensive.
Suzuki's new-generation GSX-
R1000 highlights the trend per-
fectly. Replacing the world-
beating '05 GSX-R1000 that
debuted just two short years
ago, the 2007-spec machine is
virtually all-new, with a revised
engine and totally new frame,
suspension, _
wheels, brakes and bodywork.
All in the name of quicker, faster
and tricker, donchaknow...
The bike's basic engine archi-
tecture remains as is: 999cc, liq-
uid-cooled, 16 lightweight valves
moved by hollow camshafts,
radically cut pistons mated to
shot-peened chrome-moly rods,
73.4mm x 59.0 bore and stroke,
six stacked transmission gears,
engine counterbalancer for
smoothness, etc...
And much more!
11235 RL- 11236