Sports Tourer

Heading up into the mountains outside the Spanish town of Jerez I got the feeling all was not well ahead.

Moto Guzzi come out swinging with their new Breva V11, and they've got BMW's R1150R boxer twin up against the ropes

A long acknowledged benchmark in the all rounder category, this sports tourer owes much to its sporting heritage and remains a good bet for reliability.

Giles towers above BMW's R1100S

If you want a fast, comfortable tourer it’s ok, but it’s no ‘Busa, ZX-12R or Blackbird beater

Rob Hoyles rides the all-new FZ-1 in South Africa

The extra 47cc transforms the Daytona from a good, but underpowered road bike to an excellent road bike that will flatter any rider on a race track. Triumph, finally, has put the finishing touch on it.

It’s a reliable, good looking workhorse that is comfortable and does the job but it does lack that extra spark to really get the juices flowing

The always enjoyable Mille just got lighter, sexier and handles better than ever. Top stuff!

The last time I rode anything with an MZ badge on the tank, it was a ratty old two-stroke commuter that smoked like a chimney and had the disturbing habit of leaving various parts littered behind it on the road.

Niall, Gus, Jon and Daryll get back to nature and dabble in a bit of group nakedness

No-one in the Visordown office knows who Johnny Daukes is, but presumably he's a relation of Simon Daukes from Haymarket days. Nepotism?

Having resisted the urge to tear down the hotel curtains and make them into a set of lederhosen, Jon Urry braves rain and ice-rink-like Austrian roads to put Yamaha's new emissions-friendly Fazer to the test

Very easy to ride and very unthreatening in her power delivery but as capable of picking up her skirts and tearing into the distance when she feels like it as she is of getting you and your chick on hols

Honda's evergreen tourer remains as capable as ever and is surprisingly nimble at the other end of a relaxed ride hundreds of miles long

...a long term test of the FJR1300 from Giles

We have the real deal from Britain to match the Japs with the Daytona. Going racing for the first time in three decades has underlined the confidence Triumph has in its 600.

The GT is very comfortable in a straight line, comes with colour-coded panniers as standard and is solid at speed. The suspension isn’t the best, ground clearance is limited and acceleration is very poor

The new Fazer is a good bike and is a step forward in some aspects of bike design, but for me some of the bike’s soul has been taken out in the process

The Ducati now looks much more modern, costs less and is close on handling to the class ruler, the VFR

A suped-up ST3 with Ohlins rear suspension and ABS brake system - Ducati's all-new top of the range sports tourer for 2006

Personally I’m a fan of new technology, as long as it works well and enhances my life. But new technology that hinders me really pisses me off. Take digital cameras, which seem to have a 10-second delay between pressing the button and the picture being taken as an example.

Since the dawn of time - well, since the dawn of modern sports 600s - the CBR600 has sat there on or near the top of the pile, like a very old and wise stegosaurus that's beaten off the velociraptors and sits there, gently chewing the cud

Make it bigger and better is the order of pedigree. In 2001 Kawasaki, despite the fact that their bike was probably the oldest on the grid, won the World Supersport Championship - as vindications go, it doesn't get much better than that really!