Generation Ten Best

Generation Ten Best

UP FRONT

David Edwards

TIMES THEY CHANGE AND TIMES THEY stay the same, eh? It’s been 30 years, three full decades, since Cycle World started its annual tally of each selling season’s outstanding motorcycles. A generation ago, 1976, eight different manufacturers made the Ten Best Bikes list; this year, 2005, eight different manufacturers made the Ten Best Bikes list.

But the motorcycling landscape has definitely been altered since that inaugural year. Back then, the Best Touring Bike, a BMW R75/6, had to be outfitted with a Windjammer fairing and accessory saddlebags before it could be declared a winner-it would be another four years before Honda unleashed the definitive turnkey luxury-tourer in the GL 1100 Gold Wing Interstate (protestations duly noted from the Harley-Davidson FLH contingent).

The Best 350-400cc Streetbike of 1976 was a two-stroke, since declared evil and oily by the EPA. We loved Yamaha’s RD400, though, calling it “the closest thing to a perfect motorcycle,” affordable, easy to work on, suitable for commuting, backroad blitzes or box-stock roadracing, your choice. The spirit of the RD lives on today in Suzuki’s SV650, sort of, but without that burbling, popcorn-machine exhaust note.

Also no longer among the extant is Maico, maker of 1976’s Best Open-Class MXer. The Adolf Weil Replica, named after the factory’s lead racer, was at the forefront of the move to long-travel suspension, with 9 inches of quality damping up front and moved-up shocks that gave 8.5 inches out back. “When tracks are bad, the Maico is at its best,” we said. Monoshocks and travel measured in feet were just around the bend.

It says something about Maico ’s goodness that the German firm took home four Ten Best medallions before its sad, self-inflicted demise in 1984, the same number as Ducati and one better than Triumph’s tally.

In all, 301 Ten Best awards have been handed out in 30 years (the editors wussed out in 1977, declaring a tie between the Yamaha YZ and Suzuki RM for Best 250cc Motocrosser). A mndown of the recipient companies-ffom nine different countries, even Canada!-is illuminating. With almost one-third of all trophies given, Honda by far has the most gold, as you’d expect from the world’s largest motorcycle maker, a company that at times has been the leader both in terms of numbers and technology. In 1986 alone, Soichiro’s Boys made six acceptance speechesthough it should be noted that Honda’s haul has decreased in the new millennium, averaging less than two per year.

Big Red’s franchise players have been the Gold Wing with 15 wins, the most of any individual bike in Ten Best history, and in a close second the Interceptor with 13. Early in the Wing’s run the editors said, “We haven’t seen anything better when it comes to rolling out of the showroom and pointing the front wheel toward the other coast.” That would hold true for many years. The first Interceptor, the 1983 VF750F, with a liquid-cooled V-Four motor, perimeter frame and racy styling, ushered in the age of the sportbike. “No contest,” we said about the 750’s unanimous pick. “Who would have dreamed of such an incredible bike a year ago?” Japan’s “Other Three” each have less than half of Honda’s overall total, with Kawasaki just edging out Yamaha and Suzuki. Those three brands usually duke it out for the prestigious Best Superbike honors, though on the strength of its GSX-R series, Suzuki has double the wins. “You’re talking about light weight and racetrack-caliber handling in a nocompromise performance machine,” we said of the winning 1987 GSX-R1100. A Superbike formula that works to this day, as you’ll see starting on page 74.

Coming in a surprisingly strong fifth overall is KTM, with 22 trophies taken back to the tiny headquarters in Mattighofen, Austria. The outfit’s first win came in Ten Best’s initial year when the 400 Six Day, still called a Penton, was named Best Enduro. “All the bugs have been worked out in actual competition, not on the drawing board,” we reasoned. Wins followed in the enduro, motocross and dual-purpose categories, and now that KTM is getting serious about streetbikes-and MotoGP-who knows how many trophies are in the offing?

Bavarian neighbor BMW has also been a consistent winner, with 14 trophies spanning all 30 years. And how’s this for versatility? The GS model in its various iterations has been a Best Standard, a Best Sport-Tourer and a Best OpenClass Streetbike! “Get past the GS’s lunar-rover aesthetics and you’ll discover perhaps the best sightseeing platform ever to roll on two wheels,” we said of the R1150GS.

It wasn’t until 1984 that Harley-Davidson was invited to the Ten Best party. Emerging from its AMF malaise and bootstrapping itself back into prominence with the Evolution motor (to be fair, developed with AMF money), Milwaukee rolled out the FXRDG Disc Glide, odd name courtesy of its solid rear wheel. “The prototypal American cruiser, the machine with the magic all the others are trying to master,” we said in naming the Disc Glide as Best Cruiser of ’84, the first year for that category, acknowledging a type of motorcycle that would come to dominate U.S. sales charts.

Looking back across a generation of Ten Best Bikes with 20/20 hindsight, I have to say CW got it right almost every time-the chosen 301 really did/do represent the very best of motorcycling. Sorry, I can’t explain the late, unlamented Yamaha 550 Vision as Best Middleweight in 1983. Before my time. □