Practical Sportsbikes

Practical Sportsbikes magazine is about buying, fixing, restoring and riding sportsbikes from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. Every issue of PS – the magazine home of new-wave Japanese and Italian classics – is packed with: - The most inspiring and ingenious reader restorations - The most in-depth road tests and buyers’ guides - Unmissable workshop tips and how-to features Practical Sportsbikes gets under the skin of the bikes that really matter to our readers and explains how best to maintain, rebuild and enjoy them. So if you’re in to sportsbikes from the 1970-1990s, PS is essential reading.

welcome

The pretenders • All with unrealisitic visions of themselves, all so totally transparent

Contributors this month

SEE GUY’S MARTEK WITH PS • World’s fastest hallway ornament is yours to pore over at September’s MCN Festival

specials we like • From down under in Sydney, and from up top in Canada

Together in electric nightmares • Write a letter to The PS and if it’s Star Letter material you win a full year’s subscription to the very same. Aye

PS social club • Bikes and goings-on from our Facebook group

IN YOUR SHED

DINOSAUR SENIOR • It’s all too easy to forget a time before technology took hold. A time when a tubular steel cradle frame housed a brute of an air-cooled engine. And when brakes were sketchy

FAZER ON STUN • Combining three elements of signature Yamaha styling on one bike could easily be a surefire recipe for unmitigated disaster. Yet Stuart McIntosh has pulled off one of the hardest tricks in the book

SPECIFICATION YAMAHA FZS 1000 FAZER

SELECTOR DAKAR REPLICAS • Street offshoots from the great desert race, these are great to ride on any variety of road. They do two-up with bags well too, and might even handle some easy trails (if you can)

THEY DO MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO • The new Hayabusa has attracted some derision for not moving with the times quite enough. That’s no bad thing, as Old Farmer Chris and owners of both original and second-generation GSX1300s find out

POSTER

24 HOURS IN L • Six ordinary blokes race a 14bhp 125, for 24 hours

HOW TO OVERHAUL A DUCATI DRY CLUTCH • The benefits of a dry clutch come with wear and noise penalties for road bikes. But it’s a simple enough mechanism to inspect and replace when the time comes

HONDA NS400R • While RD and RG prices head for outer space, the NS looks like better value than ever. Here’s why

What’s the problem? • Bike not running right?Our experts have the answers to the toughest questions

THE REAL LONG-TERMERS • Out of Norfolk, now in Ontario, with a big Brit trailie that’s perfect for the wide open spaces

LIVING WITH A TRIUMPH TIGER

PROJECT ZX990 TURBO FAIRING WELL • The everlasting project continues at a pace. Not apace (that would be ridiculous), but moving nonetheless

360º GARAGE • Steve and his old pal dilly-dilly Dave got an LC resto business going after they combined Steve’s hoard of parts with dilly-dilly’s skills on the spanners

5 Steve’s favourite tools... • There’s nothing LC-wise he can’t tackle with this little lot of both stock and specialised equipment

Bandit time as Yam eats itself • FZ engine lunches a big end, so MG throws in the towel, and begins work on a GSF1200

Not another rushed job, please • Pa Newbigging’s Zephyr begins what is most likely to be a long journey back to completeness

It’s only taken seven years • True to form in The PS, Gary takes a leisurely approach to fixing the poor GSX that Chris destroyed

Fool fails to turn tank into junk • KH1F continues on leisurely road to completion. Done right is better than done quick

Young gun gets in the groove • Adam Forsyth...