50 years ago Honda launched the CB750 and I was an eight-year-old kid with my nose pressed to the window of a bike shop, looking at a candy red and chrome dream machine. My dad took me into the shop and got me a brochure and I became a short-trouser’d expert on Honda’s 1969 colour schemes…

The sensations of summer; insects splattering themselves onto the visor of an Arai, the smell of haymaking wafting across the hedgerows, the coolness of a freshly filled fuel tank between your legs, the feel of handlebar grips through lightweight gloves, hot, grippy tarmac, the surprising and satisfying grind of a hero blob on tarmac. It feels like it’s been ages coming…

This is me enjoying the sound of the off-beat engine rhythm with subdued background gear whine of a Honda V4 at tickover…

This is an Ariel Ace. It’s a crazy device, with a frame and forks hewn from solid alloy, bodywork bits in hand laid carbon fibre and a massive leather saddle that’d make sense to The Lone Ranger…

Please excuse the indulgence, but when presented with a photo opportunity that involves an exotically dressed camel herder, a pair of camels and a genuine desert, it’d be rude not to take full advantage…

I’m not expecting sympathy, but making Bike in the middle of winter is a challenge…

We’re dreaming of the great rides that will happen as soon as spring comes along. So, where will you ride to and what to do in 2019? Allow us to give you some suggestions…

Rides of a lifetime? The first one, obviously. Puttering around grandpa’s garden on a smoky moped, getting confused about which direction you twist the throttle to slow down and detouring through a handsome flower bed….

Trends in motorcycle design and engineering for 2019? Based on what was most obvious at the Eicma show you’d think we’ll all be riding electric bikes by next April.

Sunny afternoons spent razzing about on a Honda Monkey bike should be available on prescription. There’s no better way of wasting time than zooming(?) along at 58.4mph (rising to 61.3mph down hills) enjoying the countryside…

Middleweight nakeds are light, fast and fun. It makes them the perfect tools for British roads. But what seperates KTM's new 790 Duke, Yamaha's uprated MT-09, the top-spec Triumph Street Triple and MV Agusta's big-buck Brutale 800? Plus, we ride to the British MotoGP on our collection of oddball 50cc's, find out why Triumph's new Moto2 machine could shake up the class entirely and ask whether the 2018 version of BMW's R1200GS is still the best bike in the world.

Fifty brilliant bikes ridden and ranked by a panel with 270 years’ riding between them. There can only be one winner. All will be revealed in this month’s issue of Bike.

Elsewhere in the mag this month, two superbike riders complete a 12,500-mile lap of Australia on a Kawasaki H2 and a Ducati Panigale, we ride the BMW Grand America K1600, Harley announce a new 18-bike line-up and Honda revive their 1961 monkey bike.  

In this issue of Bike: every New Triumph Ridden - 18 new Triumphs ridden, plus Gary Johnson on Speed and Street Triples and an exclusive Nick Bloor interview. 3500-mile test - This month it’s the turn of We test Harley’s Sport Glide over 3,500 miles, and find out how ex-Army bomb-disposal Aaron Mitchell was saved by a Suzuki DRZ400S. There’s a ride with The Mackenzies - Bike’s TT-winning Mat Oxley on track with Niall and Tarran and Aprilia RSV4 RR - Aprilia down-spec their RSV4 RF, and it works out quite well.

We can surely agree that the 1974 Kawasaki Z1 is one of the finest looking motorcycles ever produced. Handsome air- cooled engine, curvy bodywork with that neat tail piece, great colour scheme and shiny four pipe exhaust system.

The modern sportsbike is a remarkable thing. I went out for a gentle potter on the Ducati Panigale V4, but only after James Haydon, Peter Boast and co. had trashed the rear tyre and covered it in flies during our Sportsbike of the Year test at Rockingham…..

There are astonishing new bikes this year, and astonishing deals too - See our 100 top new bike deals for 2018 in this month's issue.

In the interests of creating high quality photography for this month’s high-mileage test Bike’s art man P. Lang and photographer Jason Critchell spent a February evening in Peterborough city centre.....

In 1993 I was sent on my first major motorcycle launch for Bike, and I was nervous. The ZZ-R1100D was, Kawasaki claimed, the fastest production motorcycle ever, and I had spent most of my time on a Zephyr 550. But the big ZZR was a joy...

32-page 2018 Event guide in this issue for you to plan all your action for 2018 so you don't miss the events that matter to you the most!

This bumper issue of Bike has become an annual event. We add extra pages to the magazine and fill them with extraordinary stories of Bike readers’ rides from around the world, but we’ve still got room for a group test (Bobbers), the first and most authoritative rides on the new bikes (Kawasaki Z900RS, Triumph Tiger 1200),, and there’s also a trip inside the British motorcycle industry.

This month we reveal 79 new bikes for 2018 including all the tests and insights to ensure you know what's ahead for the world of motorcycling. Plus your FREE guide to Wallonia, Belgium - one of biking’s best kept secrets. Explore this hidden treasure on 1300km of great routes.

You can blame the 1980s for lots of things. Shell suits, Chris DeBurgh’s Lady in Red and the Morris Ital, for example. But the ’80s also saw rapid development that shaped today’s bikes...

This issue in Bike we will be reviewing 100 best buys. Whether its a retro, sportsbike or adventurer that rev's your engine we got them all covered!

Find out which machine wins the 2017 Bike magazine Bike of the Year crown!

In the September issue of Bike magazine we get an exclusive test of 2018’s best adventure bike, Yamaha’s top secret T7.

We go racing with some Lincolnshire boys in Belgium, when Guy Martin and Pete Boast race at Spa on a Suzuki Katana and this month’s group test features mid-size nakeds, when find out which has more fun per pound from the Triumph Street Triple R, Kawasaki Z900 and Yamaha MT-09.

Plus free inside this month: 36 pages of our sister custom bike magazine, Built.

In the August issue of Bike magazine we test the two new variants of BMW’s ever successful GS – the Urban GS (an RnineT in disguise) and the R1200GS Rallye. We get our lean fix from the 198bhp Ducati Panigale S whilst the sun was shining on Britain’s B-roads and Bike reader Zac Patsalides takes us with him (or at least via his camera) on his maiden bike adventure on a ridiculously small Honda through Vietnam.

Elsewhere in the mag we thoroughly test Yamaha’s splendid Tracer 700, we take a look inside the Guzzi museum and we take a look back at the original retro racers when they ruled the TT course in the late sixties and early seventies.

This month in Bike, we test the Yamaha R1 vs Honda Fireblade vs Kawasaki ZX-10R vs BMW S1000RR. We celebrate 10 years of the Street Triple and take the new KTM 1090R adventure biking on US trails. 

It’s a wonder that this magazine ever gets to the printer. The team that makes it (including me) are continually distracted by ‘purchasing possibilities’. A productive morning’s work can be derailed by the discovery of a £500 MZ, a £1495 Yamaha TRX850 or a tempting finance offer on a 2017 Honda Fireblade...

This month Bike’s writers and testers have experienced very many events. Life-long Ducati fetishist Rupert Paul went to Spain to ride the new SuperSport, Jonathan Pearson tests KTM’s new Adventure models in Corsica and Martin Fitz-Gibbons took the first new R1200GS Exclusive in the UK for a two-up adventure...

So obviously we’re hugely excited about the new ’Blade and GSX-R1000, especially after having to wait so long to see them. Good? Oh yes. James Haydon has tested the Honda, while JP has ridden the Suzuki. Now we can’t wait to see them in dealer showrooms, ride them on the road and watch them being raced at Donington Park and the Isle of Man...