Adam's Epic Trips and Bike Tests of 2010

Have you ever envisioned riding a top AMA Motocross team’s pumped-up and highly-tuned race bike on road rubber? Well now you can. And legally in all 50 U.S. states! Say hello to the Aprilia SXV 5.5. The $9499 SXV 5.5 is the Italian motorcycle manufacturer’s top-shelf Supermoto racer cloaked in full street-legal attire and seemingly designed to break every single traffic law in existence. Don’t say we didn’t warn you… 
 
Read the full review in the 2010 Aprilia SXV 5.5 First Ride

After spending considerable time at the controls of Honda’s CRF450R during our 2010 Honda CRF450R First Ride and 2010 450 Motocross Shootout we wished to address some of the troubles we encountered with Big Red’s premier motocrosser. One of the few problems was the unbalanced feel of its chassis. Specifically, the front suspension felt overly soft and the back too stiff. This made it difficult to control on bumpy, high-speed tracks. To solve the problem we enlisted the help of MB1 Suspension... 
 

Read the full review in the Honda CRF450R MB1 Project Bike

For 2010, Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati has released the successor to its tried-and-true motorcycling Swiss Army knife: The 2010 Ducati Multistrada 1200. Despite using the same name as before, the new generation machine expands upon its original concept by utilizing a multitude of imaginative technologies that we’ve never seen on a Ducati, or any other production street bike. This allows it to achieve higher levels of performance, comfort and, above all, practicality. To discover some of its potential, Ducati invited MotoUSA to ride the new machine in one of Mother Nature’s most rugged, diverse, and ultimately magnificent proving grounds: The Canary Island’s Lanzarote, located west of the Moroccan coast...

Read the full review in the 2010 Ducati Multistrada 1200 First Ride

German motorcycle tire producer, Metzeler, has introduced a new street bike tire designed to tackle any and all sport riding situations from the street to the racetrack. Available in an assortment of sizes for all modern street and sportbike motorcycles, the Metzeler Sportec M5 Interact is claimed to be a sport motorcyclist’s sole tire solution... 


 
Read the full review in the Metzeler Sportec M5 Interact Tire Review

Envision accelerating from a standstill to 60 mph in under three seconds, slicing through traffic like you’re behind the stick of an F-16, and achieving a top speed so high that we couldn’t find a road long enough to uncover just how fast these machines are. This is the essence of Superbikes—the fastest, most agile production motorcycles known to man. Sportbikes engineered by the stopwatch but sold for duty on the open road. And this year Motorcycle USA has eight of them for its 2010 Superbike Smackdown VII Street Shootout... 
 
Read the full review in the 2010 Superbike Smackdown VII Street

There are places on our planet so stunning it can be difficult to discern whether what you’re seeing is real or imaginary. Landscapes so grand you can’t help but feel beset by Mother Nature’s magnificence. It’s here where colossal formations of stone, over time too great for any of us to truly comprehend, have been whittled into jagged peaks blanketed with mounds of white powder extending into the sky. Below, the freshly melted snow trickles down the mountainside and into the forested valleys where crystal clear lakes and thick pine trees drink it in creating this divine backdrop known as Mammoth Lakes...
 
Read the full review in the Mammoth Dual-Sport and Motocross Adventure

When it comes to cruiser-style motorcycles it doesn’t get much better than Harley-Davidson’s Custom Vehicle Operations (CVO) collection. These high-end, American-made street bikes blend boutique hardware, sophisticated electronics, and paint with an elevated degree of fit and finish. This gives the rider the best of both worlds: the exclusiveness of a one-off custom with the everyday reliability of a production motorcycle from a prestigious American factory...
 
Read the full review in the 2011 Harley-Davidson CVO First Rides

In the realm of sportbikes and motorcycle road racing, Yoshimura Research and Development is a proven leader. Over the years it has annihilated the competition, having won more U.S. Superbike Championships than any other race team in the history of the series. But as we recently discovered, its tuning wizardry extends beyond the realm of asphalt and onto the dirt. To prove this it teamed up with Noleen J6 Suspension Technologies. Together they worked their magic on Yamaha’s recently redesigned YZ450F dirt bike...

Read the full review in the Yoshimura Yamaha YZ450F Project Bike

Is it a sportbike, or a touring bike?

The 2010 Honda VFR1200F refuses to politely slot into those rigid class structures we enjoy so much. In fact, Honda’s latest VFR baffled the press right from its inception, crashing onto the scene as a concept model at the 2008 Intermot Show. The word concept is a stretch, it was more like a concept of a concept – an interpretive sculpture of a VFR Honda would like to build…one day. We remember. We were there, with all the other journalists, when the curtain raised to reveal red bodywork with an odd, ominous X-shaped headlamp. All looked at one another with furrowed brows wondering, what is this? 
 
 Read the full review in the 2010 Honda VFR1200F Comparison