You'd think with the overweight Z750 as the starting point, there'd not be much chance of the Z800 impressing. But it certainly does.

The new California 1400 really needs to work for Moto Guzzi. The company's grown by more than 50 per cent in the last two years, but that's from such a low base it wasn't going to be sustainable for much longer, and with the Piaggio Group feeding a £34 million investment into Guzzi, a major turnaround is demanded: the California 1400 is intended to be a key element of that.

Triumph, BMW, Ducati: all three have beaten the bike sales collapse by renewing models even when they were in front. So it is with the best-in-class Street Triple for 2013... but tinkering can be dangerous too.

Yamaha by its own admission has drawn in the horns during the recession. This might have worked with a short, sharp economic downturn, but now it's dragging on, and Yamaha is stuck.

Yamaha has intrigued the bike world with the unveiling of a prototype three-cylinder engine at Cologne, sparking some wild speculation by saying it comes with a cross-plane crankshaft.

No surprise that BMW debuted its all-new liquid-cooled boxer at this year’s Cologne Show, but there was a big surprise at the Yamaha conference, and it wasn’t a new bike!

There are two main technical advances on the 2013 Multistrada. One is a package of upgrades to the engine, but the second is the real headline: Ducati Skyhook Suspension, semi-active electronics have arrived in motorcycles!

Multistrada: for many riders, all the motorcycle they could ever need. Fast, comfortable and versatile like nothing before, a technical and dynamic tour de force, and now Ducati has presumed to make it better.