This is the definitive, comprehensive guide to motorcycle design. Tapping a deep well of knowledge and a lifetime of experience, motorcycle racer and historian Mick Walker sheds light on the evolution of one of the world's ultimate status symbols and style icons -- a development owing as much to history, politics, and technology as it does to image, lifestyle, and design. In a survey that ranges from the late nineteenth-century pioneers like Gottlieb Daimler and Hildebrand & Wolfmüller to present-day manufacturers -- Harley Davidson, Ducati, Honda, BMW, Aprilia, and Triumph -- Walker sets each model within its historical context and outlines the main technological and stylistic innovations that make each bike unique.