#rs

Being the sole engine supplier to a race series has its benefits. The big one being able to incorporate changes into the harshest environment possible and get feedback from 30 of the best test riders in the world. And when you get a general consensus that whatever you’ve done was a step in the right direction, it’s easy enough to incorporate those changes (or versions of it) into the motorcycles you and I can buy at the dealership.

A Multistrada for the race track

Aprilia has posted teasers across its official international websites and various social media channels for a new sportbike. Based on what little can be seen from the teaser image, it looks to be a smaller-displacement version of the RS 660 to compete against the likes of the KTM RC 390, Yamaha YZF-R3 or Kawasaki Ninja 400. While many are assuming it will be called the RS 440, Motorcycle.com can confirm it will actually be called the Aprilia RS 457.

For the previous week, I’d anxiously checked the weather reports for updates. Sandwiched in between swaths of little sun icons were two little black clouds spewing raindrops. Naturally, those were the scheduled dates for the US press to ride the 2024 Triumph Street Triple 765 R and RS on the Andalusian backroads and the famed Circuito de Jerez Angel Nieto in southern Spain. 

Barreling down the back straight at triple digit speeds on the 2022 Triumph Speed Triple 1200 RS feels surprisingly comfortable. It could be the reminiscent nostalgic comfort in having owned two of this machine’s predecessors – one of which, the Speed Triple 955i, was my first street bike. Or perhaps it’s the fact the Speed Triple has always been an upright street bike first with its performance refined and enhanced over the decades (nearly three, at this point). Or maybe still, it’s the high-level componentry working in harmony with the 2022 Triumph Speed Triple 1200 RS keeping the chassis composed as I’m hard on the brakes, trailing off as I dip into the second gear left-hander.

As of 2015, the sport of boxing has a total of 17 different weight classes. For a while before that there were only eight, and during the sport’s early days there was only one – heavyweight. These two machines certainly aren’t heavyweights, and as I looked down the weight categories, cruiserweight sounded more apt for a future test of American iron, and light heavyweight is an oxymoron. After that, there’s super middleweight, a class slightly heavier than your regular middleweights. Perfect.

How about giving incremental updates a little love? So many riders seem to immediately dismiss mid-cycle revisions of motorcycles as being BNG (bold, new graphics) or, as with one comment this week, BNH (bold, new headlights). In the case of the 2020 Triumph Street Triple 765 RS, the comment completely misses the point. Sure it would be great if every model year was a complete makeover year after year, but there’s something to be said for incremental refinement. Model year 2020 is one of those fine-tuning times, and Triumph has delivered a Street Triple that is better in two very practical ways. Additionally, there have been some appearance changes that are bound to appeal to many riders. And all this comes at no increase in cost to the buyer. Sounds like pretty good news to me. 

Our love affair with Triumph’s three-cylinder engines is no secret. The Speed Triple has long been a favorite of ours, as has the smaller-displacing 675cc Street Triple. Last year saw the first major revamp of the Street Triple since 2013, with the biggest change being the dyslexia-inducing increase in engine size to 765cc. It’s always a worry when a manufacturer changes a model we love, but our worries were swept away the moment we rode the new 765 S-T – it takes everything we adore about the outgoing model and amplifies it some more. It’s so good, in fact, that Brent damn near cried man tears when he finally had to part with it.

Bombardier Recreational Products has filed for patent designs for what appears to be a new Can-Am Spyder. The patents, at least five in all, show various aspects of the vehicle’s bodywork. They were filed on March 20 with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, but only published and fully registered today.

Year after year, we gush about liter-plus-sized streetfighters that offer ultra-sport performance with agreeable street ergonomics. Our expert riders love Super Dukes and Tuonos, and also appreciate S1000Rs and Ducati’s big Monsters. And yet, even we can agree that machines that pound out 140+ horsepower to a rear tire approach the area of overkill for streetbikes.

When Content Editor Tom Roderick tested Polaris’ new three-wheeled  Slingshot, he noted how it would surely offer the  Can-Am Spyder some competition. The two brands are, after all, big competitors in the off-road utility vehicle business, and the Slingshot takes their rivalry to a three-wheeled street battleground. Can-Am, and its parent company, Bombardier Recreational Products, aren’t just going to stand pat with its seven-year-old Spyder platform however, as new spy photos reveal a brand new model is on the way.

Back in 2008, Can-Am shook up the motorcycling world by introducing its intriguing, not-a-trike, not-a-bike Spyder RS line of V-Twin-powered, three-wheeled sport riding vehicles. Solid initial sales of the RS encouraged the Bombardier-owned Canadian company to produce an encore, and in 2009 the Spyder RT luxury liner was introduced. It was an instant hit among touring riders who were advancing in age but didn’t want to give up the freedom of the open road.