Some fear the darkness, while others consider it the perfect backdrop for all kinds of satisfying activities. Heavyweight cruiser motorcycles have a certain hard-ass persona regardless of the hue of the paintwork, especially ones with huge V-twin engines like Victory’s 106-cubicinch Freedom V-twin, with its beautiful detail work and classic cooling-fin architecture. When you take a chassis with such a mill at its heart, embrace the darkness with a menacing matte black paint scheme, then add features that make the big bike not only visually striking but versatile to boot, you’re making an in-your-face statement to the world that you mean business. Such attitude is the hallmark of the big-cruiser class, and the lifeblood of Victory’s new Hard-Ball.

Starting with a long, 65.7-inch wheel base and a low 26.25-inch seat height, the all-black Hard-Ball (with red pinstripe accents that Victory says are there so you can find the bike in the dark) is a menacing presence, but in a good way. If Darth Vader had an ebony locomotive and said “Screw it—I want a bike,” that’s pretty much the vibe.

The Hard-Ball arms itself with the aforementioned Freedom V-twin, which offers four-valve heads, electronic fuel injection with 45-mm throttle bodies, and copious amounts of pavement-pounding torque. This is important because the bike is designed to effortlessly do your bidding, whether you’re roaring down the street to announce your arrival or toss ing your partner on the roomy rear seat, loading up the huge standard hard saddlebags, and heading to the hills for an impromptu weekend tour. The rear shock is air-adjustable, so you can tailor its response to whether your cross-country adventure requires you to travel heavy or light. While you’re on the open road, a six-speed trans mission makes for smooth, effortless highway cruising, and a 5.8-gallon tank keeps you rolling by the pumps so you stop when you want to, instead of being bossed around by puny fuel capacity.

One of the most striking aspects of Victory’s new dark knight is immediately evident, for the handlebars soar high above the bike in true apehanger fashion. Victory realizes both apes and men have arms of different lengths (and you may not want to hang your ape-self too high), so the black anodized bars are heightadjustable. Another excellent stan dard feature is the ABS braking system, with big, dual 300-mm discs up front and a single unit in back. The antilock technology helps maximize the stopping grip of the big Dunlop tires, and is always a welcome safety feature.

Bold, powerful, and, above all stylish, Victory’s new Hard-Ball makes the Dark Side more alluring than ever. Odds are, you already own the leather jacket that goes with it, too.

It’s hard to believe, but automotive technology has been changing so rapidly that, these days, even the cheapest econoboxes have more sophisticated electronics (traction control, engine management, etc.) than the exotic cars from just a couple of decades ago. One thing hasn’t changed, though: Formula 1 racing is still where the latest engineering breakthroughs are created and proven, and these costly, cutting-edge, rolling research rockets are where high-performance is expressed in its most advanced form. In this environment, engineering rules the day, and victory in this class owes as much to the power of the technology as it does to the phenomenal skills of the drivers.

If only you could buy a Formula 1 car for the road, right? How cool would it be to translate all that futuristic engineering to your own
personal ride, wrapped in a wicked hot body that looks like it’s blasting through a chicane in Monaco, even when parked?

Naturally, we wouldn’t tempt you with all this if that vision had not come to pass. McLaren, one of the most prestigious names in motor sports, is not only launching a new supercar, but a whole new retail auto company as well. McLaren was started by New Zealander Bruce McLaren in 1966, and the British racing company has become one of the most successful legacies in Formula 1 racing, as well as a name synonymous with high-performance.

The flagship of this new global car company is the street-legal MP4-12C (with a GT3 racing version also available for track-only competition). The 12C is a revelation in that McLaren can literally build the car the way it wants without being limited by what may be available from outside suppliers. This is a group that invents as it goes with its own proprietary engineering, and in the case of the 12C, this starts with the McLaren-designed 3.8-liter Twin Turbo V-8.

“We wanted low weight, low rev-range tractability, potent mid-range performance, and extensive high-rev reach,” explains Powertrain Function Group manager Richard Farquhar. “All that, and a level of refinement and efficiency from a V-8 that perhaps you might not expect.”

The engine uses a dry-sump lubrication system, along with the latest anti-friction advancements, to achieve 592 horsepower. The mid-engine placement is low in the chassis to help optimize handling, and response is tuned to deliver smooth, accessible power throughout the rev range to give the driver supreme control. The transmission is likewise carefully optimized through McLaren’s years of experience in getting thrust to the road as efficiently as possible, and uses a dual-clutch design called a Seamless Shift Gearbox. Normal, Sport, and Track settings (along with Winter, Launch Control, and Automatic modes) help the driver use the fingertip-rocker controls behind the steering wheel to imitate the immediacy of full-on Formula 1 shifting.

Obviously, the drivetrain is spectacular, but the true genius of McLaren’s engineering is in the company’s carbon MonoCell chassis—as unique to a production car as it is strong and light. It can handle all that power and keep you in control, even on the most challenging roads. The primary, one-piece molded carbon-fiber chassis element weighs a mere 165 pounds, and serves as the anchoring point for McLaren’s Proactive Chassis Control with adaptive damping. The double-wishbone suspension aims to deliver not just razor-sharp handling but a luxury car-style ride. These things have typically been mutually exclusive when it came to true, track-ready supercars, but McLaren has strived to raise the bar in every aspect of this masterpiece. Vehicle Dynamic manager Paul Burnam puts it best: “It is not enough just to be fast. The 12C has to innovate in every area.” Given the peerless design and engineering talent the folks at McLaren have thrown into this project, they not only are rewriting the book on how exotic hardware performs, they may well have put a new kind of world champion in their stable.

We can learn much about beer drinking from Ivan Pavlov’s drooling dogs. The Russian physiologist used whistles, tuning forks, and bells to make canines salivate in anticipation of eating. A similar conditioned response occurs on March 17. That day, drinkers wear green and reach for pints of pitch-dark Guinness. Let’s call it pack behavior.

Guinness fever runs so hot on St. Patrick’s Day that tipplers don’t bother diving into the deep pool of unique stouts. From smooth, luscious milk stouts to briny oyster stouts and the supercharged Russian imperial stouts, there are countless ways to drink dark.

Though the Irish invented the dry stout, they hardly have a monopoly on the style. Great American versions are available, from Maine-based Shipyard Brewing’s Blue Fin Stout to the Old No. 38 Stout, from Fort Bragg, California’s, North Coast Brewing.

If you like a slightly sweeter stout, look toward “milk stouts” (sometimes called “sweet” or “cream stouts”). Instead of half-and-half, the milk in question is lactose, an unfermentable sugar. When added to beer, lactose creates a fuller body and imparts a sweetness that can balance out the roasted characteristics. Wet your whistle with Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and the Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro.

Similarly smooth but less sweet is oat meal stout, which is brewed with a small percentage of the breakfast friendly grain. Oats create a silky, creamy brew with a lick of sweetness. Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is a classic British example, but Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout and Rogue’s Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout are worthy brews.

Want to pair some food with your stout? Classically, oysters have proved an ideal pairing with stouts, with the briny salinity complementing the full-bodied, creamy brew. To unite those flavors, brewers have begun tossing freshly shucked oysters into brew kettles, creating complex ales like the Porterhouse Brewing Company’s Oyster Stout.

But if your goal on St. Patrick’s Day is getting pie-eyed, opt for the burly, engine-oil-black Russian imperial stout. It typically registers between 8 to 12 percent alcohol by volume, and dates back to the days of Peter the Great, who opened his nation to the West in the eighteenth century. Seeing a business opportunity, British brewers formulated beers that would appeal to the vodka loving citizens. Since standard porters would not survive the lengthy Arctic sea voyage, extra hops were added and alcohol percentages were elevated, resulting in a darkly potent brew. In recent years, American craft brewers have cottoned to this extreme style, creating winners such as Stone’s Imperial Russian Stout and Victory’s Storm King Stout, even aging them in bourbon or whiskey barrels. Crack open one of Goose Island’s boozy Bourbon County Stouts on St. Patrick’s Day, and your friends will be green with envy.

GOOSE ISLAND: BOURBON COUNTY STOUT
The imperial stout is aged in 12- to 16-year-old oak barrels once filled with Kentucky’s Heaven Hill bourbon. The result is a warming, boozy wallop, calmed by notes of chocolate and vanilla.

ROGUE ALES: SHAKESPEARE OATMEAL STOUT
Tinted like tar, the thespian-themed oatmeal stout has a terrifically luscious, creamy head and a nose of cocoa and caramel. It drinks nice and easy, offering flavors of milk chocolate, toasted oats, and a touch of hoppy bitterness.

SHIPYARD BREW ING COMPANY: BLUE FIN STOUT
The midnight-dark stout, flavored with rich malt and bittersweet chocolate, is capped by a rich beige head. It closes crisp, with a bitter, lingering aftertaste.

THE PORTERHOUSE BREW ING COMPANY: OYSTER STOUT
Ireland’s Porterhouse creates top-flight stouts, such as the dry, assertively bitter Wrasslers XXXX and this bivalve beauty. Brewed with just-shucked oysters, the aromatic stout is silky as all get-out, with a touch of brine on the taste buds.

LEFT HAND BREWING COMPANY: MILK STOUT NITRO
Bottled under pressure with nitrogen (the gas that gives draft Guinness its creaminess), this stout charges from the bottle with tons of tiny bubbles, which cascade into a thick head as sumptuous as an angel’s pillow. Expect a luscious creaminess and flavors of roasted grains and milk chocolate.

For drinkers, morning is a cruel mistress. The sun’s rays are like police-interrogation lights, causing you to crack reddened eyes as crusted as a mustard jar. Your skull recalls a construction site, while your tongue is drier than the Sahara Desert. The symptoms are unmistakable: You have a hangover.

Like the common cold, there’s no ironclad cure for this post drinking affliction. Some people swear by greasy grub. Others reach for aspirin, while Hunter S. Thompson preferred 12 amyl nitrates backed by as many beers as necessary. (I’m partial to a Diet Coke myself.) But lately, a new breed of boozing aids promises to alleviate the morning-after ache. Are they poppycock? A godsend? While on my hard-boozing tour for my beer book, Brewed Awakening, I tested some of the most promising antidotes to too much of a good time.

Bytox
I was set to appear at Manhattan’s 508 gastrobrewery, a brewpub that makes weight-lifter-strength ales. To insulate myself, I turned to Bytox. The patch delivers an onslaught of vitamins to your body, including 4,160 percent of your daily dose of B 12 and 10,000 percent of B1. I pasted the patch to my biceps and chugged potent imperial stouts like water—and the odd pint of agua, too. Like most remedies, Bytox suggests you stay well hydrated, which is excellent advice for any drinker. Nonetheless, when I awoke the next day and peeled off the patch, my head still jackhammered.

Mercy
After you spend all night at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House in Portland, Oregon, sipping endless goblets of sour beers, the hangover gods will likely show you little mercy. But I had an ace up my sleeve: Mercy. The canned, carbonated beverage is crammed with thiamin, niacin, and a proprietary blend including milk-thistle seed, chamomile, and, uh, alpha-ketoglutaric acid. Postbrewery, I popped a can and guzzled the fizzy, lemony nectar. It was plenty tasty, but the next morning I still felt like a steamroller had flattened me.

Drinkwel
I was skeptical about the benefits of Drinkwel, “the multivitamin for people who drink.” Every day for a week, I popped three pills loaded with 30 ingredients, including liver-friendly milk thistle, vitamin B 12, and goji and acai berries. Then I went on a bender at Seattle’s Elysian brewpub, knocking back numerous pints of Avatar Jasmine IPA. Per instructions, I capped the night with three additional capsules and water. Come sunrise, I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, circa 1986.

Last Round
The night before an early-morning flight to New Orleans, I drank my weight in British-style cask ales at Brooklyn’s Pacific Standard. When I returned home to pack, I reached for a Last Round. The all-natural, after-drinking elixir is made with green tea, stevia, ginkgo, kudzu root, and licorice, which gives the light amber liquid a medicinal scent. I swallowed the 2.4-ounce serving, finding it sweetly reminiscent of Robitussin. When I awoke before sunrise, I felt like reheated death. I chugged one more Last Round; surprisingly, it made me feel loopily alert and a little less terrible.

Blowfish
Thanks to bars that never close, New Orleans doles out hangovers like Halloween candy. I spent my eve at the Avenue Pub, sipping hoppy pints of NOLA Brewing’s Hopitoulas IPA, before pounding Miller High Life–and–whiskey combos at the divey R Bar. In the A.M., I felt like a dehydrated turd. I turned to the Alka-Seltzer-like Blowfish, which is packed with aspirin, caffeine, and antacid. I dropped the tablets into a tall glass of water, where they fizzily dissolved. I drank the fluid and, within minutes, felt my headache ease. My eyes opened wider. I wasn’t ready for another beer, but I was ready to face the day.

Sprayology Party Relief
In my opinion, oral sprays are only good for ensuring my breath doesn’t smell like a Dumpster. But instead of mint, this pump canister is packed with capsicum (read: peppers) and—holy radioactivity!—radium brom. The spray is designed to prevent and relieve “alcohol-related discomfort.” You’re supposed to spritz it under your tongue before drinking, after each hour of drinking, when you finish drinking, and the day after drinking. Phew. As I sipped the lagers at Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon, I misted my mouth with the vaguely metallic and slightly spicy Party Relief. I felt like an idiot, and as I grew pie-eyed I forgot to reapply. Perhaps that’s why I felt terrible the next morning. And no amount of A.M. sprays could save me.

Q:
I live in an apartment that has really thin walls, next to a seriously hot girl. How hot? Let’s just say every time I walk behind her on the stairs, I’ve pop ped a full-on chub by the second floor. I’ve never talked to her, though—it’s a classic too-shy-to-say-hi-inthe-hallway situation. The wall I share with her is so thin that I hear every word of her phone conversations. (I also hear her every time she busts out the vibrator—which is so freaking hot that I’ve spackled the wall a few times.) Here’s what I’ve gathered from what I’ve overheard: She’s super-lonely and dying for dick, but she hates when random guys approach her. She complained to a friend about some other dude in the building hitting on her while she was getting her mail, saying it was a “totally creepy move.” So how do I make a move without turning her off?

A:
I hope that with all the money you’re saving living in a glorified cardboard shoe box, you can afford to treat this girl to a nice dinner. First off, ask yourself what she knows about you, thanks to those thin walls. If she’s heard you taking monster dumps or snoring like a buzz saw, you probably don’t stand a chance. But if you’re in the clear, use the walls to your advantage: Have loud phone “conversations” about the charity work you’re doing. (“Those kids are such a handful, but I know it’s my responsibility to keep them off the street.”) Talk to your mom a lot, and make sure you ask her if she got the diamond earrings you sent. Maybe even bang the most orgasmic girl you know. Once you’ve gotten your neighbor’s trust and attention, ask her if she’d be so kind as to water your plants while you’re away for a few days (spend a few nights at a friend’s place, or, better, some other chick’s house). When you’re back, tell her you’d like to treat her to dinner as a thank-you: “I’ve been dying to try the place at the end of our block. Want to check it out with me?” Play your cards right during dinner and you’ll be asking her “My place or yours?” by the end of the night. The best part is, afterward, she can just walk next door.

But be warned: If it doesn’t work out, you might have to listen to her crying herself to sleep or banging some new guy. That’s never fun.

It’s a tired truism, but you really do get what you pay for. That said, there is still such a thing as a bargain, and when Hyundai launched its 2010 Genesis sedan, the company slapped the luxury-car class in the face with a supple, elegantly crafted Korean glove. This feature laden, full-size car was equipped with either V-6 or V-8 rear-drive power trains, and was as pleasant and painless to drive as it was satisfying to gaze at, while undercutting the competition’s pricing by thousands of dollars. The designers at Hyundai decided to deliver a luxury car with everything owners accustomed to being pampered would want, expressed with understated class instead of ostentatious ornamentation. The 2011 models brought expected refinements but no drastic changes in performance, leaving the competition to think that more powerful flagships were safe from this invading interloper.

But Hyundai is full of surprises, and under the cover of darkness the designers have been toiling in the skunk works like the quiet (yet manically focused) mad scientists they are. And now, from out of the fog, bright LED-tinged Xenon headlights announce the arrival of the Genesis R-Spec—low-key in styling yet betrayed by 19-inch machined-alloy wheels and high-performance tires.

Something potent this way comes. Are we seeing the dawn of elegant hooliganism?

The answer, as always, lies in the driv ing. Climb into the roomy cabin, which surrounds you with the delic ious aroma of ultrapremium leather, and push the start button. In place of the old 4.6 V-8, there’s a rompin’, stompin’ 429-horsepower five-liter unit, bolted to an eightspeed Shift ronic automatic trans mission that smoothly doles out power to the rear wheels.

To correctly deploy an earthmover of an engine in such an upscale environ ment, you have to make the man ners match the muscle, so Hyundai has masterfully civilized the most powerful “Tau” V-8 it’s ever put on the road. This marvel is reinforced to reduce vibration and harshness, and sports direct fuel injection for greater power and efficiency. The exhaust note and intake snarl strike that tough balance between class and chaos, in that you know you have the lightning at the ready but the thunder won’t unduly interfere with the Lexicon 17-speaker sound system.

Accelerating under full power produces an elegant rush that blurs the scenery, and while the suspension feels almost big-boat soft, the sport tuning (fortified by Sachs Amplitude Selective Damping shock absorbers) keeps things under control. Both the steering and transmission are calibrated for the R-Spec’s more athletic personality, which sharpens this luxury sedan to a finer edge compared to the standard Genesis. A heavy, fast cruise missile like this also needs substantial braking power, and my numerous aggressive tests revealed rock-solid stopping performance without a loss of dignity through excessive nosediving or other untoward, embarrassing behavior.

This is important not only from a driving-dynamics standpoint, but this is, after all, a representative of the luxury class. And as great as the perform ance side of the R-Spec is, its most satisfying feature is how the styling and design reflect upscale quality and an appreciation of function over frippery. This isn’t to imply this is a spartan luxury/sport automobile, for the latest bells and whistles are well represented. Smart Cruise Control, lane-departure warning, adaptive headlights, heated/cooled seats, and Hyundai’s Ultimate Navigation System keep you safely in the fast lane, and most infotainment and cabin-comfort functions can be guided with a multimedia controller in the center console. No modern convenience is lacking, but unlike a lot of the competition, Hyundai makes the technology simple to access and operate.

Which brings us up to the very attractive bottom line. The R-Spec delivers performance and luxury on par with the famous marques it’s competing with, yet does so for less than $50,000. This not only makes this gate-crasher an attractive alternative to the other guys, but a smart one as well.

By Joshua M. Bernstein

For drinkers, morning is a cruel mistress. The sun’s rays are like police-interrogation lights, causing you to crack reddened eyes as crusted as a mustard jar. Your skull recalls a construction site, while your tongue is drier than the Sahara Desert. The symptoms are unmistakable: You have a hangover.

Like the common cold, there’s no ironclad cure for this post drinking affliction. Some people swear by greasy grub. Others reach for aspirin, while Hunter S. Thompson preferred 12 amyl nitrates backed by as many beers as necessary. (I’m partial to a Diet Coke myself.) But lately, a new breed of boozing aids promises to alleviate the morning-after ache. Are they poppycock? A godsend? While on my hard-boozing tour for my beer book, Brewed Awakening, I tested some of the most promising antidotes to too much of a good time.

Bytox
I was set to appear at Manhattan’s 508 gastrobrewery, a brewpub that makes weight-lifter-strength ales. To insulate myself, I turned to Bytox. The patch delivers an onslaught of vitamins to your body, including 4,160 percent of your daily dose of B 12 and 10,000 percent of B1. I pasted the patch to my biceps and chugged potent imperial stouts like water—and the odd pint of agua, too. Like most remedies, Bytox suggests you stay well hydrated, which is excellent advice for any drinker. Nonetheless, when I awoke the next day and peeled off the patch, my head still jackhammered.

Mercy
After you spend all night at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House in Portland, Oregon, sipping endless goblets of sour beers, the hangover gods will likely show you little mercy. But I had an ace up my sleeve: Mercy. The canned, carbonated beverage is crammed with thiamin, niacin, and a proprietary blend including milk-thistle seed, chamomile, and, uh, alpha-ketoglutaric acid. Postbrewery, I popped a can and guzzled the fizzy, lemony nectar. It was plenty tasty, but the next morning I still felt like a steamroller had flattened me.

Drinkwel
I was skeptical about the benefits of Drinkwel, “the multivitamin for people who drink.” Every day for a week, I popped three pills loaded with 30 ingredients, including liver-friendly milk thistle, vitamin B12, and goji and acai berries. Then I went on a bender at Seattle’s Elysian brewpub, knocking back numerous pints of Avatar Jasmine IPA. Per instructions, I capped the night with three additional capsules and water. Come sunrise, I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, circa 1986.

Last Round
The night before an early-morning flight to New Orleans, I drank my weight in British-style cask ales at Brooklyn’s Pacific Standard. When I returned home to pack, I reached for a Last Round. The all-natural, after-drinking elixir is made with green tea, stevia, ginkgo, kudzu root, and licorice, which gives the light amber liquid a medicinal scent. I swallowed the 2.4-ounce serving, finding it sweetly reminiscent of Robitussin. When I awoke before sunrise, I felt like reheated death. I chugged one more Last Round; surprisingly, it made me feel loopily alert and a little less terrible.

Blowfish
Thanks to bars that never close, New Orleans doles out hangovers like Halloween candy. I spent my eve at the Avenue Pub, sipping hoppy pints of NOLA Brewing’s Hopitoulas IPA, before pounding Miller High Life–and–whiskey combos at the divey R Bar. In the A.M., I felt like a dehydrated turd. I turned to the Alka-Seltzer-like Blowfish, which is packed with aspirin, caffeine, and antacid. I dropped the tablets into a tall glass of water, where they fizzily dissolved. I drank the fluid and, within minutes, felt my headache ease. My eyes opened wider. I wasn’t ready for another beer, but I was ready to face the day.

Sprayology Party Relief
In my opinion, oral sprays are only good for ensuring my breath doesn’t smell like a Dumpster. But instead of mint, this pump canister is packed with capsicum (read: peppers) and—holy radioactivity!—radium brom. The spray is designed to prevent and relieve “alcohol-related discomfort.” You’re supposed to spritz it under your tongue before drinking, after each hour of drinking, when you finish drinking, and the day after drinking. Phew. As I sipped the lagers at Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon, I misted my mouth with the vaguely metallic and slightly spicy Party Relief. I felt like an idiot, and as I grew pie-eyed I forgot to reapply. Perhaps that’s why I felt terrible the next morning. And no amount of A.M. sprays could save me.

Unlike contemporary automobiles, motorcycles not only often have their engines unclothed for the world to appreciate, but you can pick from a vast array of engine types to suit how you roll. Air-cooled, liquid-cooled, Vs, inlines, horizontally opposed, singles, twins, fours, sixes, and more—they’re all out there, powering a dizzying assortment of bikes. And while some manufacturers offer a whole catalog of engine types, some marques are associated with particular designs (like Harley’s V-twins, for example). Triumph has long been famous for its inline triples, and its new 675-cc engine has been very successful in both its Daytona sport bike and Street Triple naked bike. But in 2012, it’s getting some competition from one of the most prestigious names in two-wheeled racing history, for MV Agusta has created a 675-cc Triple of its own, with both sport and naked versions. The F3 race-replica version is tasty, to be sure, but the naked Brutale 675 brings a whole new meaning to the term “performance art.”

These days, MV Agusta is a lowvolume, high-quality manufacturer that focuses on every detail of its machines, from getting every last pony out of the engine to executing drop-dead-beautiful detail work. The Brutale’s Triple features MVICS (Motor & Vehicle Integrated Control System), some black-box magic that “integrates the Full Ride by Wire throttle control with integral multi-maps for the engine and traction control.” This allows the rider to fine-tune the Brutale’s 115 horsepower to the riding conditions, while a MotoGP-inspired counterrotating crankshaft helps smooth the vibes. The engine’s compact external dimensions help with mass centralization, which ultimately makes the chassis easier to both flick through traffic and carve up S-turns in the mountains.

Even with excellent weight distribution, you still need a solid frame and balanced suspension components, so the Brutale gets a steel trellis backbone with aluminum side plates to support the 43- mm male slider front forks and single Sachs rear shock. Brakes are provided by Italy’s Brembo, and consist of radially mounted twin-front calipers with a single disc in back, all using proven racing hardware for the best in easy-to-modulate stopping power. A lack of bodywork, along with judicious use of lightweight materials, keeps the dry weight down to a svelte 358 pounds.

While this is an excellent performance résumé, the real joy of the modern MV Agusta is in the visuals, for the art of the motorcycle is on display in every inch of the Brutale’s architecture. To stimulate your riding juices further, MV is offering three superb color schemes with this surprisingly affordable motorcycle. So a prestigious name that was formerly within the reach of only well-heeled enthusiasts and collectors is now attainable by mere mortals, and riding hangouts the world over will be forever improved with a few of these gorgeous Triples parked outside.