David Robb, BMW’s high profile Vice President of Motorcycle Design, has left the company under a shroud of secrecy.

Take a fine bike like the Triumph Speed Triple, throw some Öhlins, Brembos and carbon fibre at it and unless you make a horrible mistake, you’re going to create a great bike. But is it a great value bike?

The claims are unequivocal: more power and harder acceleration than any other production bike, and the press launch venue was Europe’s fastest vehicle proving ground. Has Kawasaki forgotten the ZZR1400 is a road bike?

If you like to suffer for your style, you could do worse than consider Harley-Davidson’s new 2011 Blackline.

The difference between Chinese and Taiwanese-built motorcycles amounts to a great deal more than the politics of the two countries.

After you’ve had a ride on the new Kawasaki ER-6n you understand why the factory thoroughly renewed the bike for 2012.

A new model has been announced by Victory with styling features including a helmet based on a scorched coconut, legs too stumpy to be able to retract the sidestand and a long and intensive burger-driven mass centralisation programme.

One bike that’s slipped through my testing net is Triumph’s consistently popular Tiger 1050.