My List

I was flipping through the latest issue of Cycle World with my usual apathy toward its content when I stumbled upon Kevin Cameron's list of the Five Greatest Motorcycles.  It's an interesting list of influential and great motorcycles.  Unfortunately, it's wrong.

You see, Cameron might be a big, fancy pro writer with an office and a few books under his belt but my opinion is more correct.  Since my opinion is more correct, here are the Five Greatest Motorcycles:

1. Moto Guzzi V8 - It was extremely fast, extremely light, extremely complex and extremely dangerous. It even tried to kill Bill Lomas. In other words, it was totally awesome.

2. Laverda Jota 180 - It vibrated like mad but delivered sonorous noise and tight handling. It also went 140 mph when nothing else did and came in orange, which is a great color.

3. Triumph 6T Thunderbird - Marlon Brando rode one and was the coolest thing to happen to the '50s since the Appalachian Blizzard of 1950. He later sold it and became fat, old and weird. Coincidence?

4. Ducati 916 - This gorgeous machine brought Ducati four Superbike World Championships and made Carl Fogarty a household name. If Monet's Water Lilies were a motorcycle, they would be the 916.

5. BMW R90S - BMW set out to build a superbike and promptly won the inaugural AMA Superbike Championship championship. It also proved that giant Dell'ortos and poor charging systems weren't the sole property of Italian bikes.

And since Cameron included a sixth bike, I will, too.  Here it is:

6. Bimota Tesi 1D, 2D & 3D - The Tesi was the future here now.  It was to be the end of the spindly front fork the motorcycle has been stuck with since the dawn of time.  Unfortunately, like most things that are cutting edge, the Tesi was expensive, complex and a poor seller.  The traditional hydraulic front fork looks like it's here to stay in all its terrible glory.