Features

Picture story: Militarisation of police? It started with bike cops

Picture story: Militarisation of police? It started with bike cops

It’s air-cooled, belt-fed and gas-powered – not the bike, that is, but the machine gun this US policeman has mounted to his 990cc Indian v-twin. 1918 was a good time to be a bike cop in New York,...

8 best bits from the go-faster books

8 best bits from the go-faster books

We’ve burned the midnight oil digesting the finest biking bibles so you don’t have to. Read and learn… 1: The need to focus “When you ride you should try to forget everything else. Don’t think...

Picture story: Prepare to fall for Honor Blackman all over again

Picture story: Prepare to fall for Honor Blackman all over again

Goldfinger and Avengers star Honor Blackman wasn’t just completely dishy, she was also a proper biker. Seen here first posing on her own Norton ES2, she volunteered as a dispatch rider during World...

MCN Plus - SIX Bikes with Extremely DAFT names

MCN Plus - SIX Bikes with Extremely DAFT names

They’ve called it what? Neil Murray on biking’s oddest model names and what they mean…     Yamaha Diversion The only explanation is that ‘diversion’, in French, means an amusing pastime, a hobby,...

The bikes of Phil Read's life – after 60 years in the saddle

The bikes of Phil Read's life – after 60 years in the saddle

60 years ago this year, a teenage Phil Read got the keys to his first road bike. It kickstarted a life defined by motorcycles – of thrashing them, racing them, crashing them… And the small matter of...

MCN Plus - The Buyer: ‘Let a cheap bike do the donkey work’

MCN Plus - The Buyer: ‘Let a cheap bike do the donkey work’

So we come to the end of the summer, and people wonder how they’re going to keep their nice shiny bike looking, well, reasonably nice and shiny come spring 2016. Face facts: if you use it every day,...