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Hello from cold and rainy Southern California, where we will be swinging a leg over the Honda Super Cub in order to find out if you really do meet the nicest people on a Honda.

This iconic motorcycle changed the American motorcycle industry in the 1960s , offering a break from the 1%’er image that dominated the two-wheeled landscape at the time.

Though the model has evolved over the years, Honda has been churning out the Super Cub continuously since 1958, with production spiking in the late-1990s and hitting the 100 million unit mark in 2017.

This makes the Honda Super Cub the best all-time selling motorcycle in the world…and now it is coming back to the United States.

What makes a good motorcycle show? Is it the amazing bikes? Is it the venue? Or is it the spirit of community that makes some of these events more special than others?

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural Golden Bolt Motorcycle Show at The House of Machines (THoM), in the Arts District of Los Angeles, and it was a great mix of bikes, venue, and community.

The brainchild of bike build Kevin Dunworth of Loaded Gun Customs fame, the Golden Bolt offered a change from other motorcycle shows by adding some unique aspects.

Hello from Ventura, California where today I will be riding the two bikes from Noale’s street lineup, the Aprilia Dorsoduro 900 and the Aprilia Shiver 900.

More evolution than revolution, for the 2017 model year Aprilia has revised the Dorsoduro and Shiver them with a 896cc engine – increasing the stroke from the previously 750cc 90° v-twin lump.

This gives both models a modest power bump and torque gain, while bringing the two street bikes into compliance with Euro4 emission standards. While at it, Aprilia has also updated both machines, leaving no stone unturned in the process in making them better motorcycles.

As such, virtually every aspect of the Aprilia Dorsoduro and Aprilia Shiver have been updated, most notably the electronics, which now include a traction control system, along with new ABS and ride-by-wire hardware and software pieces.

Hopefully, this means that these two rather bland machines from Aprilia have become the potent weapons we always hoped they would be.

To test that thought, we will be riding one of my favorite roads in the world, Highway 33, which stretches from Ventura to Ojai, and into Lockwood Valley – ending at Interstate 5. A good set of twisties, it should be the happy hunting ground for these two motorcycles.

Per our new review format, we will be giving you a live assessment of the Dorsoduro 900 and Shiver 900 models right here in this article (down in the comments section), and there we will try to answer any questions you might have.

So, here is your chance to learn what it’s like to ride these affordable street shredders, before even my own proper reviews are posted. As always, if I don’t know an answer, I will try to get a response from the Aprilia personnel. So, pepper away.

You can follow our thoughts on the bike live via FacebookTwitter, and Instagram

Hello from Los Angeles, where today I will be “riding” the Polaris Slingshot three-wheeled “motorcycle” (it says so right next to the driver’s seat). 

Polaris’s three-wheeled car-type thing is a bit of mystery when it comes to definitions and legal distinctions – though we are fond of the autocycle designation – but it competes with motorcycles on the dollars-for-grins category, so here we are.

Polaris has a fun route planned up the California coast line for us today, so we should have a good opportunity to see if you should empty out your garage full of bikes, and fit this Miata-sized three-wheeler into your stable.

Per our new review format, we will be giving you a live assessment of the 2018 Polaris Slingshot models right here in this article (down in the comments section), and there we will try to answer any questions you might have.

So, here is your chance to learn what it’s like to “ride” this interesting vehicle from Polaris, before even my own proper reviews are posted. As always, if I don’t know an answer, I will try to get a response from the Polaris personnel. So, pepper away.

You can follow our thoughts on the bike live via FacebookTwitter, and Instagram

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the idolatry that seems to follow Hollywood’s golden stars. That being said though, Ryan Reynolds seems like a pretty cool dude, and everything I have heard suggests that he is a true two-wheeled enthusiast.

The star of Van Wilder (and more recently Deadpool) has been spotted practicing his powerslides at SoCal Supermoto, and he has more than a couple motorcycles in his garage, one of which is a custom café racer made by Kott Motorcycles, which is the subject of the video after the jump.

Our favorite Ryan Reynolds story though centers around how the Hollywood star was so enthralled with the Mission R electric motorcycle, that he tried to tempt the San Franciscan startup with a blank cheque offer for one of his very own. Mission Motors declined, which seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Even before its launch in Milan last year, the 2011 Ducati Diavel has been the talk of the motorcycle industry since its first spy photo was released. It amuses me that Ducati chose to name the Diavel (say: dee-ahh-vole) after the Bolognese word for the devil. The linguistic foreplay from Ducati is just asking for a response from motorcyclists who feel that Bologna company has over-stepped its prescribed branding boundaries, and sold its soul to the Devil of bottom-line thinking.

While rife with metaphor, there is an important financial reason for the genesis of the Ducati Diavel. As I’ve already explained the business reasons behind Ducati’s choice (or non-choice) to make the Diavel in a previous article. My analysis continues from there, and brings us to the question of: How does the Ducati power cruiser ride, 240mm-wide tire and all?

Setting out to the City of Angels (I seriously couldn’t ask for better fodder from Ducati here), I swung a leg over the Ducati Diavel for a day of riding on some of Los Angeles’s finest and most well know routes. The short answer to how the Diavel fared: damningly well.

Los Angeles County riders may be sad to hear that the famed Angeles Crest Highway will be closed for an unforeseeable duration because of recent fire damage to the roadway.

Because of the Station Fire, more than 40 miles of twisty asphalt heaven have been closed indefinitely because of  burned off road stripping, destroyed guard rails, and charred signs, making the road too hazardous to drivers according to Caltrans officials.