Yamaha FZ8 review

Got to spend four days riding a low km Yamaha FZ8 in Spain so I want to talk a little about this motorbike. As usual with my motorcycle reviews I am not going to be talking about the specifications or history and the other press release type stocking filler that is the content you will find on commercial motorcycling web site reviews. What I am going to do is chat about how the bike actually

Andalucía Motorcycle Ride

Whilst I more or less decided not to do any more riding in Europe circumstances changed and I unexpectedly found myself flying to Spain for a couple of weeks. I dusted off my plans I once had for riding Andalucía. Spain had been one of the places on my bucket (ride) list so I was happy about the opportunity to ride there.   I arrived in Madrid and immediately was pleased to find the feel of the

Reaching Peak Travel

I do not often write a post to recommend an item but recently I enjoyed reading this book.  Motorcycle Messengers was a nice read of short stories or excerpts like a sample pack from the contributing authors. Very easy to access or read a few stories then put away while boarding a plane on my recent travels. The stories are quite varied, one made me chuckle out loud while one almost had me in

Everything about motorcycle riding in Japan

Few people know how beautiful Japan is. The vision people have is neon illuminated cities and bullet trains which is one aspect but beyond that lies one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my travels around the world. Tourist figures are growing but most come to ski or visit the major tourist cities and never get to see what is at times for me truly jaw dropping scenery. Riding a

Japan Inland Sea Tour

I just completed a motorcycle ride visiting some of the best view points around what is referred to as the Seto Inland sea of Japan. I then went island hopping across these waters to visit some of the islands in the middle where few people travel. If you have a little time then perhaps you might enjoy to see some photos from the tour. I had this ride planned for April, in Spring. But I have

Europe alps remastered

Six years since I did the ride in the Europe alps. I just revisited the post and saw how crappy the photos had been all limited to low resolution. Fortunately I still have all the photos from that ride archived and so just updated them to high resolution versions as well as adding quite a few more never posted originally. Added a little extra text too so now it actually looks how it should have -

Yamaha MT-09 Tracer review

I had the pleasure of being able to ride a near new 2015 Yamaha MT-09 Tracer around New Zealand for 9 days so it seems fitting I put a few words to paper metaphorically.   Ergonomics seemed to work well for me (I am 6’ tall) Seat to peg distance was excellent, I never experienced any cramps in my knees such as I can get with bikes that have higher or rearward pegs. The bars sit a little