The Encyclopedia of Motorcycles

Rating:
Summary: Motorcycles by the Thousands!
Review: I never knew how much I didn't know about motorcycles until I looked through this big, slick book. More than 2,300 motorcycle manufacturers are listed. It is great fun to look through this, checking out the more than 1,200 photos to see old favorite models,odd ducks, plus the hundreds of bikes from manufacturers I never knew existed. (Where in the world are the skeletons of all these old, strange bikes buried? You'd think they must decompose like bodies!) Spans more than 100 years of motorcylce history. I'm not giving this book five stars because there aren't photos of every bike mentioned, and many manufacturers don't get any photos and only a small write up. Even for the bigger name manufacturers, the write-ups are not comprehensive and overlook a lot of models, so don't expect this to be "definitive" or especially technical. But it is still a joy to behold. To have a more comprehensive encyclopedia of motorcycles would take many volumes. This is a nice "coffee-table" overview of motorcycle history with lots of interesting bikes to ponder and a fair amount of information. It is the kind of book that may inspire some people into collecting old bikes. It is hard to imagine any motorcycle afficionado who wouldn't get some kick out of this. A worthy gift.