shingo furukawa - motorcycle dreaming

2025 Honda RC213V:

1989 Honda NSR500:

2025 Yamaha YZR-M1:

1989 Yamaha YZR500:

I understand function over form, but I wish there's a beauty standard for these machines - new machines are so...ugly:

80's Suzuki RG500Γ 

The above images and text is from Shingo Furukawa. Shingo brings up a good point. I'm trying to decide if I'm just nostalgic about the older designs because I remember going to the dealership and collecting the various brochures on consumer street bikes (which were based on race bikes like these) and then taking them home and dreaming. I've saved those brochures all these years. I probably dreamed more about works motocross bikes and enduros, but the that's probably because I started off riding dirt rather than street. The MX bikes seemed more attainable too. That's not to say that the street bikes didn't peek my interest though. They seemed exotic to me especially when I would see the race versions in Cycle World. I find myself gravitating to these race and street bikes now and it would be fun to do a restoration on something from this era. 

It's true that as an adult you spend your time thinking about the things you couldn't afford when you were a kid. The dreaming continues...