Welcome to the RiDE website, the online home of Britain’s most useful motorcycle magazine!

In every issue of RiDE you get a mix of real-world buying and riding advice, all designed to help you get more from motorcycling.Our focus is on big-value used bikes, better riding technique and guides to the best roads in Britain and beyond. And watch out for our green triangles, awarded to the clothing and accessories that perform most effectively in our world-renowned product tests.

Here at www.ride.co.uk you’ll also find links to other useful biking sites, and you can sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or take out a subscription to ensure you get RiDE at the best price, before it’s available in the shops.

RiDE supports RIDERSCAN, the Europe-wide motorcycle safety survey. To take part, click here.

IN THIS ISSUE:

The Honda CBR1100XX Super Blackbird - still hugely popular and much sought after. But how do you find a good one? With the help of our expert buyers' guide, of course. We also get owners to share the secrets of living with - and even improving - the Blackbird... and also consider the current alternatives.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

The year's biggest adventure bikes, ridden: new BMW R1200GS and KTM 1190 Adventure. Plus: new Honda CB1100 retro; motorcycle tracking units, security and you; Ryan Farquhar's kit secrets; touring America in style... and on a shoestring; plus loads of your stories and pictures.

Products of the week!

Motocourse
Edited by Michael Scott
£40 - click to order

MotoGP Season Review 2012
Edited by Julian Ryder
£30 - click to order

Now in its 37th year of publication, Motocourse remains a formidably accomplished motorcycle racing annual, published remarkably quickly after  season’s end.  Its scope is impressively broad – World Superbikes, the TT, US AMA racing,  Irish road racing, British Superbikes, even sidecars are in here.
And that breadth is not at the expense of depth. It’s put together by a bunch of experts who combine a love of the sport with a detailed understanding of how events off the track influenced the outcome of the races.
At 300 pages it’s a hefty, slick, good-quality product. You can see why people collect them all. Editor Michael Scott and his team do a fantastic job.
But they don’t have the field entirely to themselves. The Haynes alternative – an official licensed MotoGP product – is now in its ninth year. It’s edited by Julian Ryder, who as well as being British Eurosport’s voice of MotoGP is also an accomplished editor and writer. Ryder’s race reports are backed up by Neil Spalding’s technical analysis and Andrew Northcott’s photography while the ever excellent Mat Oxley examines the trends and key moments. Its 220 pages include plenty on Moto2 and Moto3.
Go for Motocourse if you want the full monty. The picture selection is better,  coming from a wide variety of photographers, the race reports denser, the analysis sharper, and there’s more of everything. It doesn’t make much sense to buy both, but you might be happy with the less expensive Haynes volume if you’re only interested in MotoGP, and it’s better designed, with easy-to-read results and stats pages.
There’s inevitably some overlap between the two, and some writers contribute to both, but each has a distinct flavour, and they’re both excellent.
(It’s not just out of corporate loyalty that we should mention the current MCN Sport, which looks back at the season in a superb and wide-ranging package, available from newsagents and for the iPad for a fiver.)

Colin Overland, editor