It's starting to feel like I'm finally cracking this wheelie thing. I always knew that the Ducati S4RS would help me get there this year. Carefully spending time building confidence was the key for me I think.

When I was first bought the Ducati S4RS as a secondhand motorcycle, I was clutching up in second, only to roll off as it came up, I won't lie, it took me quite a while to relinquish the fear of flipping it. Like anything though, practice makes perfect and after several accumulated hours of playtime, something clicked.

All of a sudden, I was getting a snippet of the mysterious balance point, and for the first time, I was feeling a type of calmness on the rear wheel. After achieving this a couple of times, two things became apparent: I wanted it more than ever, and it's a little harder to flip than I originally feared. Of course, that's as long as you're not being stupid.

Newly announced 250cc supermoto style motorcycle available in Thailand within two to three months. The Apollo Orion RX250 is powered by a single-cylinder, liquid-cooled 249.4cc four-stroke engine, with a 70m bore and 64.8mm stroke. The Orion RX250 engine is capable of producing 21 horsepower at 7,500rpm.

The manual transmission is a 5-speed constant mesh, and final drive is 16-teeth front, 38-rear sprocket and KMC 530 high quality chain.

The frame is made from high-tensile steel and anthracite powder-coated with a modern matte black finish.

The front suspension superb quality 54mm wide upside-down hydraulic fork with 265mm suspension travel and 910mm in length. The rear suspension is by a single fully adjustable nitrogas shock absorber. Dual piston hydraulic disc brakes, with stainless steel protected hydraulic brake hose.

The Apollo Orion RX250 is approved for Thai exhaust emission, and operational sound 81 dB(A) at 4250rpm (regular speed).

Not so long ago, the imminent death of the two-stroke seemed certain, as advances in four-stroke technology and concerns over the environmental impact of burning pre-mix oil threatened to render the long-serving two-stroke engine obsolete.

Adding weight to the fears was the controversial decision Honda made to cease production of their two-stroke motocross bikes line-up. Recently, however, a wave of exciting new class-rulings have emerged from all around the world, ensuring the preservation of the two-stroke motocross bike in Junior- and several other levels of motocross competition. The world's most extreme off-road races have also been dominated by two-stroke machinery.

Two factors driving this resurgence of interest in the two-stroke are their easy maintenance and affordability, in contrast to the crippling cost and complexity of some modern four-strokes. For the guy on a budget, who pulls his bike out once a month, this is a massive bonus.

The all-new Yamaha FZ8 series that will possibly be available in Thailand mid 2011. Two models make up the Yamaha FZ8 offer, the Yamaha FZ8N “the nakedbike” and the Yamaha FZ8S “half-faired”, and their evolution is a bid to strike middle ground between the popular Yamaha FZ1 and the FZ6.

In deciding upon the 779cc capacity engine, Yamaha threw out all preconceptions about design and size. 'The 1000cc and 600cc categories that largely divide the market are imposed by racing regulations, not road riding considerations,' Yamaha says. 'Many riders find 600cc supersport engines to be hard work on the open road, and 1000cc superbike engines to be overkill'.

Yamaha's engineers selected a 779cc engine displacement to provide the perfect balance between the accessible performance of a 600 and the broad, instant torque and power of a 1000cc. The new Yamaha FZ8 series engine is fuel injected, and uses both a throttle valve and an electronically controlled sub-throttle valve to provide additional control over intake airflow volume. The cylinder bodies have a bore and stroke of 68x53.6mm.

Thai Honda PTT Singha-SAG Moto2 team with rider Ratthapark Wilairot, races with a Bimoto HB4 Moto2 beauty. If you think that the 600cc Moto2's are slower than the 800cc MotoGP machines, think again – on the German Sachsenring both Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi booked a average speed of 159.9km/h, while in the Moto2 Ratthapark Wilairot was doing 150.5km/h as average speed.

So what are the specifications of the Thai Honda PTT Singha-SAG Moto2 motorcycle? The Bimota HB2 used by the Thai Honda PTT Singha-SAG team is powered by a Honda CBR600RR engine which is mounted in a Bimota DB6 Delirio CrMo4 trellis frame incorporating 7075 alloy plates, with the swingarm fabricated from 7020 aluminum alloy.

The idea mixture of fuel to air in a motorcycle engine is around 13.2:1, so one part fuel to 13.2 parts air. In each cylinder when the fuel/air mixture goes bang at high revs the resulting pressure release around 90 to 95 Bar, or 1305 to 1377psi. This is why it's so important to do up cylinder head studs well.

Also in your modern motorcycle engine the spark plug is right in the tick of it all. The spark plug makes the fuel/air combination in the combustion chamber go bang. With todays 600cc sportsbike running at 13,500rpm the plug sparks 6,750 times a minute (half the number of revs as the engine only fires every other revolution), or about 113 times a second. Each spark is 3kV, which is enough to ignite the fuel vapor. Now here is the impressive park, at high revs the plug is constantly running at around 800 degrees centigrade due to the constant explosions, which is very hot. Tin melts at 231, lead at 327, aluminum at 660 and iron at 1538 centigrade.

Why doesn't this melt the aluminum cylinder or piston? Although the temperature reaches 800 the engine's cooling keeps temperatures down. If this cooling fails or the engine runs too hot, bits will burn and melt.

A sun-soaked Laguna Seca welcomed the MotoGP paddock to American soil today, where Jorge Lorenzo looked on good form to finish the opening session in second and his Fiat Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi made a solid start for sixth position. The Fiat Yamaha M1s are running in a special livery here to celebrate the forthcoming launch of the Fiat 500 car in the United States, which features the faces of 500 fans on both bikes and the riders' leathers.

Lorenzo has had an eventful time at this track in his two previous visits here but today was much more routine, as the 23-year-old quickly found a good rhythm and was on the pace from the start. He finished the day just 0.233 seconds off leader Casey Stoner but he admits he needs to make some adjustments to his riding style tomorrow to better suit the peculiar nature of this track.

After his sensational return from injury in Germany, Rossi found he was in a little bit more pain at this track, especially in the braking area before the infamous Corkscrew. Aside from his physical worries the World Champion was happy with his first day's work and is confident that the information he and his team gathered today will help them to climb the order tomorrow.

The Dainese Torque In boots, modern roadracing boots are highly specialized, but some models with their many fancy bells and whistles take longer getting into than the rest of your riding gear combined.

Not so Dainese's Torque In boots. These sleekly styled, Romanian-made numbers go on and off in seconds yet have the Italian company's torsion-reducing, full-wrap, D-Axial system, which offers comparable ankle protection to that of other high-end boots. A single, full-length, rear-entry zipper provides closure. There are no buckles, straps, tabs or other types of fasteners to adjust or slow the process.

About that funny name: 'In' refers to the patented design that lets the boots be worn inside the legs of the Italian company's 'professional' leather suit. Hook-and-loop swatches stitched to the shins of the boots and inside the legs bond boots to leathers securely. Despite drawing criticism from appearance-driven traditionalists, this is a good system that works flawlessly.

A Honda CBR1000RR '04 to '06 as secondhand motorcycle. The first 1000cc Honda Fireblade – which dropped the capital B in its name as a mark of respect when original project leader Tadao Baba left after 12-years. The Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade is sharp, small, makes huge speed very easy and looks so like the MotoGP-winning Honda RC211V we all love. Everything about the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade echoes the RC211V MotoGP race bike, from the underseat exhaust to the tiny fairing.

The Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade may be harder and faster than ever before, but the Fireblade is still user-friendly, being by far the most forgiving of the liter sportsbikes. The HESD electronic steering damper is superb – there's n damping at low speed but it firms up as you go faster, warding off slapper's. The HESD steering damper was a revolution on the '04 Honda CBR1000RR and has now spread to more of the liter bikes.

My Yamaha YZF-R1 has 20,000 varied kilometers in its first year – a mixture of road, track, and touring. The fantastic Yamaha engine has had a little work to make it even more drivable. Graves velocity stacks, Power Commander 3, air-filter and Tadao racing canister add extra horses and midrange torque. 152 horsepower @ 12,700rpm and plenty of torque are the result. A few additional cosmetic enhancements, some non-adjustable rearsets and some raised clip-ons tailor it for everyday use. We've had some amazing times and the Yamaha YZF-R1 has catapulted me to the tropical islands in the South and the mountainous areas of the north more times than fingers I have on one hand.

The Yamaha YZF-R1 was pretty spot-on last years, around this time. Still wheeled out for the occasional ride, rainy tasks consisted of keeping corrosion at bay. After a schoolboy disc-lock error that wiped out my painted front mudguard, I resorted to a spare carbon-fiber item. A month later the disc-lock at the front claimed another victim. How stupid can I be.

My to-do list for the raining season is to get another front mudguard fitted – or better still, to have the while motorcycle re-painted. Again. What else is there to do? My Yamaha R1 goes p erectly, it stops perfectly, it's recently been serviced and nothing is broken besides the mudguard. The GPR rotary steering damper has developed an air leak for the second time and needs a bleed.