If any bikes of the 1970s defined "scary fast" they were Kawasaki's H1 500cc and H2 750cc two-stroke Triples. They were notoriously fast but also not particularly, uh, confidence inspiring in terms of handling or brakes. But they were incredibly quick and easy to modify for even higher performance. Were they really that bad? Technical Editor Kevin Cameron has a deep familiarity with Kawasaki two-strokes of this era so there is plenty to learn as he and Mark Hoyer discuss these legendary motorcycles of the 1970s.
The legend of Brough Superior is built on it being "The Rolls Royce of motorcycles," a statement George Brough was always careful to attribute to anyone but him. Kevin Cameron and Mark Hoyer dive into the origin of the company and make some surprising discoveries about its innovation during research for the podcast.
It was all glory and light(ness) when two-stroke streetbikes roamed the earth! But man did they make smoke. What would a modern two-stroke streetbike be like? Do we have the technology to make a high-powered two-stroke emissions legal? Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about what a modern two-stroke would need to make it to a road near you. Kevin's conclusions might surprise you!
Mecum's 34th Annual Las Vegas Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Auction will feature 2,000 motorcycles! https://www.mecum.com/auctions/las-vegas-motorcycles-2025/ Bid live at the South Point Hotel & Casino or register to bid online or by phone, January 29-February 1, 2025. Have a bike to sell? Consigning with Mecum is easy. Don't want to go out of pocket on your auction purchase? Mecum offers special financing. Get pre-approved now and bid with confidence! Italian boutique motorcycle maker Bimota got its start in the 1970s, when horsepower was exploding on the road and track, but chassis and brakes still had to catch up--especially on mass-produced machines. It is said that Massimo Tamburini, legendary designer of the Ducati 916, decided to build his own chassis after crashing his own four-cylinder Honda race bike in the early 1970s. Tamburini was the "Ta" in Bimota. Find out about the other two founders and the evolution of this interesting and technically progressive brand that's still building bikes today under part ownership of Kawasaki.
Mecum's 34th Annual Las Vegas Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Auction will feature 2,000 motorcycles! https://www.mecum.com/auctions/las-vegas-motorcycles-2025/ Bid live at the South Point Hotel & Casino or register to bid online or by phone, January 29-February 1, 2025. Have a bike to sell? Consigning with Mecum is easy. Don't want to go out of pocket on your auction purchase? Mecum offers special financing. Get pre-approved now and bid with confidence! Celebrating Year 1 of the Cycle World Podcast, legendary CW Editor-at-Large Peter Egan joins Mark Hoyer and Kevin Cameron to talk about motorcycling riding, racing, first bikes, "recidivism," guitars, music, how he got into the magazine business, and a whole lot more in this nearly 2 hour conversation. Hoyer traveled to Wisconsin to visit with Peter in his office where he wrote so many thousands of words for Cycle World to record this special podcast.
Mecum's 34th Annual Las Vegas Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Auction will feature 2,000 motorcycles! Bid live at the South Point Hotel & Casino or register to bid online or by phone, January 29-February 1, 2025. Check out the auction here: https://www.mecum.com/auctions/las-vegas-motorcycles-2025/ Have a bike to sell? Consigning with Mecum is easy. Don't want to go out of pocket on your auction purchase? Mecum offers special financing. Get pre-approved now and bid with confidence! Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer pick their favorite motorcycles from the Mecum Las Vegas motorcycle auction. Actually, Kevin did a great job choosing historically significant designs, as he would! Mark, meanwhile, followed his heart with some choice four-cylinder two-strokes and an overhead-cam Norton, while completely missing the 1929 Harley-Davidson Model D just like his granddad used to own.
Harley-Davidson's famous racing boss Dick O'Brien was looking in the 1960s to strike back at Triumph and its 500cc twins that were winning Daytona. With the help of star tuners Jerry Branch and Neil Keen, plus some clever work at the Caltech wind-tunnel, Harley came back with a race-winning flat-head 750 AND tested a strange prototype called the Midget that was even faster but is lost to history. Find out about the $60,000 Goodyear tires as Kevin Cameron and Mark Hoyer talk about this amazing story. Lead-spread image from Cycle World's feature on the "Mysterious Midget" by historian and author Don Emde, Issue 1, 2020.
It went from You Meet the Nicest People to You Meet World Champions on a Honda in a very short span of time. In 1959, Honda was selling scooters in the U.S. Ten years later it was the CB750--and Honda's GP racing effort in those intervening years drove this change. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron talks with Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer about Honda's meteoric rise in Grand Prix racing during the 1960s and the technical innovations and revolutions that drove this success. Also, why Honda quit GP racing in the late 1960s. Listen to find out!
MV Agusta four-stroke Grand Prix racers howling through their megaphone exhausts are legendary! Cycle World's Kevin Cameron and Mark Hoyer talk about MV from its first little modest little machine built in post-World War II Italy to world-dominating racing motorcycles that continued to compete into the 1970s. Sometimes slow to change and other times rapidly updating designs to stay competitive with upstart Honda's amazing multis of the 1960s, MV was a dominant force in GP racing until two-strokes took over in the world championship. Looking to buy? Get prequalified https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Rim brakes, under-engine exhausts, extreme frame geometry, Harley-Davidson engines—so much has happened with Erik Buell and the motorcycles he's made, from Buells and its closure by Harley-Davidson in 2009 to reborn EBR and its partnership with Hero Motorcycles only to close again. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about Erik Buell the AMA Expert road racer in the 1970s and his move to build his own two-stroke Formula 750 race bike to take on the mighty Yamaha TZ750 in the 1980s and all the way up to the present day. Buell is responsible for real innovations and ultimately built an American sportbike competitive with the world's best. Looking to buy? Get prequalified https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
The remarkable evolution of slowing down: No brakes to rim brakes to drum brakes to discs, we convert the energy of movement into heat to slow down. But there is so much detail to discuss! Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about braking in detail. Looking to buy? Get prequalified https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Kevin Cameron starts from the beginning of two-stroke exhaust expansion chamber development in the 1950s to the present. What were its origins and how did it explode power output in these simple, lightweight engines? How did we go from 8-hp single-cylinder commuters to 200-hp 500cc Grand Prix four-cylinders? Kevin knows, and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer rides along with him. Looking to buy? Get prequalified https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Honda blew minds with the V3 Concept that uses an electric supercharger to boost intake pressure. Why an electric supercharger? Why a V-3 layout? How much power could it make? How much electric power would the supercharger use? How could perfectly constant boost or instantly variable boost be used to improve the riding experience? So many questions about this incredibly interesting concept—AND Honda says it is headed for production. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about the many possibilities and try to answer all the questions. Kevin even dons a virtual wizard hat... Looking to buy? Get prequalified https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Honda decided to go dirt track racing in the 1980s and it wasn't long before it was winning—a lot! Technical Editor Kevin Cameron was the AMA observer at the resulting dyno tests as restrictor plates were tested to restore "parity" with the XR-750 and he followed the development of the Honda flat track racer from the early "sideways CX500" to the proper built-from-scratch RS750. Of course there is a lot about the Indian FTR750 and Harley-Davidson XR-750 as well, plus we discuss perhaps the most talented dirt tracker who every raced, so swing a leg over and ride with Kevin and Mark on the Cycle World Podcast. Looking to buy? Get prequalified https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
What do Rake, Trail, Wheelbase and Offset mean for your motorcycle and how it turns, stops, accelerates? Are there magic numbers that result in "good" handling? What is good handling anyway? Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about motorcycle handling and the fundamental improvements that have made new bikes so good.
Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief visited Barber Vintage Festival and watched Kenny Roberts ride his world championship winning 0W48 Yamaha on some epic (and great smelling!) demonstration laps. The guys talk about Yamaha two-stroke tech, Hoyer vintage raced a 1972 BMW (and won!), the amazing Barber Museum and so much more about this epic motorcycle cultural event. There were 500 vendors at the swapmeet and the "bike show" put on by attendees just riding around the ring road was mind boggling.
Weird, wonderful, precise, strange, or brutal, these tools shared by Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Mark Hoyer make working on motorcycles easier, more repeatable and more fun. How many do you own? How many have you heard of? Thanks for watching! Shopping for a motorcycle? Get a no-impact credit check and find out about your pre-approved buying power now: https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
How many Yamaha RD350 crankshafts has Kevin Cameron rebuilt? How many cylinders ported? KC and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about Yamaha’s sporty and quick two-stroke twin, from its origins in the 1960s all the way to the RZ350 of 1985. Hoyer’s first streetbike was a 1979 RD400 Daytona Special—lots to cover. Breathe deep!
The Honda NS500 and NSR500 two-stroke four-cylinder grand prix bikes were hotbeds of innovation and showed exceptional dominance in the hands of genius riders such as Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson and, particularly, Mick Doohan, winner of FIVE consecutive world championships in the 1990s. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron has deeply studied the NSR500 and it shows in this podcast—he knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, but two-stroke GP bikes are a strong suit! Listen to him and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer discuss the NSR500, screamer vs. big bang, water injection and lots of other trickery that helped the bike dominate the final seasons of two-stroke GP racing.
75 percent Win Rate! From the first FTR750 engine to the final legal season for the bike and 8 championships, Cycle World was there. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about the origin and development of the motorcycle that dominated American Flat Track since its introductory 2017 season. There is, of course, a deep tech dive, plus all the extras you’ve come to expect! Shopping for a motorcycle? Get pre-approved for that R 1300 GS you always wanted: https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171