Category
Opinion stories from the LatestNewBike magazine.
Buying the cheapest 125 on the forecourt feels like the smart move — until the insurance quote, the fuel bill and the resale offer arrive and quietly prove you wrong. Here is the three-year maths that should change your mind before you sign anything.
Hana Kobayashi · Jun 22, 2026
Forget the autobahn fantasies and the trackday spec sheets — on a damp, tight British B-road at low average speed, only one engine configuration actually makes sense, and after testing all four back to back, I'm naming it.
Marcus Vale · Jun 13, 2026
Legal tread depth is not the same thing as safe wet grip — and the gap between the two has put more riders on the ground than most will ever admit.
Sam Whitlock · Jun 8, 2026
The BMW GS is sold as the one motorcycle that does everything. After a year running an R1300GS through UK traffic, tyres and dealer invoices, I can tell you which parts of that promise are true — and which ones cost a great deal more than the brochure lets on.
Diego Marroquín · May 18, 2026
Everyone still repeats the same tired line about CFMoto — cheap, Chinese, unreliable — as if nothing has changed since 2015. I went looking for the evidence behind that assumption, and what I found was a lot less damning than the reputation suggests.
Marcus Vale · May 11, 2026
Corrugations, forty-degree heat and three hundred kilometres between fuel stops have a habit of separating adventure bikes that are actually built for the job from ones merely dressed for it — and after testing most of the current crop out here, I have strong opinions about which is which.
Diego Marroquín · May 10, 2026
Every part-exchange number a dealer writes on a whiteboard is a starting position dressed up to look final, and once you know how it's built — and which used Triumphs the market has quietly turned against — you hold most of the leverage in that room.
Hana Kobayashi · May 10, 2026
The Yamaha MT-07 built its reputation years before the Suzuki GSX-8S, Honda CB750 Hornet and a sharpened Kawasaki Z650 turned up to challenge it. After riding all four back to back, I can tell you whether that reputation still holds — and it isn't quite the open-and-shut case nostalgia suggests.
Marcus Vale · May 8, 2026
Everyone wants to talk about how a 208-hp naked bike rides on an empty mountain road. Almost nobody talks about what it costs to own one in real traffic, on a real budget, every ordinary day in between — so I did.
Marcus Vale · Apr 1, 2026
Chasing the lowest sticker price on a LAMS-legal bike feels like the smart move — right up until the resale numbers land. After watching new riders make this mistake on repeat, I'm convinced the cheapest bike in an Australian showroom is nearly always the most expensive one you'll ever own.
Hana Kobayashi · Feb 11, 2026
In a market obsessed with fairings, screens and adventure-bike posturing, the humble naked bike quietly does everything better — and I am increasingly convinced it is the only motorcycle most of us actually need.
Elena Rossi · Apr 30, 2025
Everyone keeps asking when I will upgrade to something with riding modes and a colour screen, and my answer never changes — the simplest bike I own is the one that makes me feel most alive.
Diego Marroquín · Apr 21, 2025
After thirty years of testing bikes for a living, I can tell you the number on the spec sheet almost never predicts which machine puts the biggest grin on your face — and I have the evidence.
Marcus Vale · Apr 12, 2025
The industry has sold us the fantasy of a single machine that conquers commutes, canyons and continents equally well, and after a lifetime chasing it across four continents I am here to tell you it does not exist.
Diego Marroquín · Apr 3, 2025