You can bolt on as many go-faster aftermarket goodies as you like to your motorcycle, but the most effective way of making your motorcycle go faster is simply sorting your set-up. When your motorcycle leaves the factory gates the manufacturer has no idea who will be riding the motorcycle. So a motorcycle's suspension has to be set to a average level that can accommodate any weight of rider.

But fear not, the array of anodized adjusters that festoon your fork and shock are there to help you tailor your motorcycle to your individual weight and riding style. That's the good news. The bad news is that as well as improving your motorcycle, fiddling with these adjusters can also bugger up the handling.

But with some assistance, you should be armed with the basics to give you the confidence to approach your suspension and start fiddling as we describe what each adjuster does and what its effect feels like on a motorcycle. When riding your motorcycle, see if it has any of the symptoms we diagnose, this may point you in the right direction when it comes to adjustment. Read what suspension experts say as they explain what's happening inside your suspension – and why – to give you a greater understanding of how your motorcycle's bouncy bits work.

Crescent Suzuki has received its first shipment of performance parts from tuning partner Yoshimura as the World Superbike Championship team continues its preparations for the official tests and first race at Phillip Island in Australia at the end of next month.

The team's first two Yoshimura developed engines and prototype 'Yoshimura R-11' exhaust systems that will be used by John Hopkins and Leon Camier arrived from Japan and the team has lost no time building the bikes and getting them ready for shipment early next month.

Said Team Manager Jack Valentine: "The boys were really excited when the Yoshimura stuff arrived and since then they've been busy completing the GSX-R1000's. The new Yoshimura R-11 exhausts look very trick and I think we're well advanced in getting the bikes built and ready, everything is coming together nicely now and we're really looking forward to getting on the track again.

Ducati have had a string of hits recently with the new – generation Monster, the Multistrada and Diavel. But the original Streetfighter didn't match those models popularity despite the rave reviews that followed its unveiling at the Milan Motorshow three years ago. Its style and performance were unquestioned, but the 1099cc 157 horsepower eight-valve engine was too extreme and expensive for many potential buyers.

Enter the Ducati Streetfighter 848, designed to give the Italian boutique motorcycle manufacturer's naked eight-valve family a model that is more friendly to both rider and wallet. As the name suggests, this motorcycle essentially comprises the eight-valve engine from the Ducati 848 EVO in a Streetfighter chassis. It has the same style and level of technology as the original 'Fighter, but comes with a softer engine and suspension, more comfortable ergonomics and a lower price.

Easy to overlook perhaps but a good battery charger can be worth their weight in gold, or knackered old flat batteries at least.

What can be easier than buying a battery charger, charging up a dead battery and heading off into the sunset of a bright new riding adventure? Well, quite a lot really. A good battery charger isn't just about throwing volts into your motorcycle's battery of charge and forgetting about it, the least versions of battery chargers keep things topped up but do it in a very clever way.

There's reverse polarity protection, pulse cycles and even automatic monitoring of individual battery cells to ensure that the right amount of charge goes where it's needed, when it's needed.

So it's best to keep these key points in mind when buying a battery charger for your motorcycle. You don't want to spend your hard earned money on something that doesn't fit the bill, after all. Especially when a good battery charger can last for years – far outweighing the cost of a motorcycle battery or two.

When the specifications of a new engine first appear, we usually take the specs and claimed power figures with a few grains of salt. So when Ducati calls the 2012 1199 Panigale Superquadro's bore and stroke dimensions 'incredible,' we get skeptical.

The engine of the Ducati 1199 Panigale got a bore of 112mm – a full 6mm wider than the Ducati 1198. That's big, especially relative to the 60.8mm stroke, which is more than 7mm down from the previous Ducati 1198 Superbike. Those dimensions break fresh engineering ground, and the new Ducati engine was literally built around them. The 90-degree V-angle remains, but is rotated back 6 degrees to make the engine shorter. That rotation, along with the shorter stroke, allows the engine to move 32mm closer to the front tire for a more forward weight bias.

Big pistons mean big valves: 3.3mm larger intakes and 3.7mm larger exhausts. Big also means heavy – unless those valves are titanium, so titanium it is. Since big valves also put big stresses on the valve gear, Ducati's desmodromic actuation becomes even more necessary to prevent unwanted motion with aggressive cam timing and high revs. Cam and rocker faces get special finishes and coatings.

At the end of 2011, when the motorcycling world was going crazy over the new Ducati Monster 795, the well-known Italian boutique motorcycle manufacturer gave the Ducati Monster lovers their biggest Christmas gift ever – a amazing chance to win a Ducati Monster 795!

In a photo contest hosted by Ducati at the end of 2011, Ducati enthusiasts from nine Asian countries (Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, India and Vietnam) were given an opportunity to upload pictures on Ducati's website, expressing the way they would love the dream of riding a Ducati Monster 795.

Of around a million entries received, the one to win the maximum votes and the chance to receive a brand-new Ducati Monster 795 came from Vietnam. The second best entry came from India. The first entry from Malaysia came on the fifth place, and the first entry from Thailand ended on the 92th place. The first entry from Indonesia ended on 17th, and best from Singapore was on place 20

If you own a sportsbike, you really owe it to yourself to take it to a racetrack. Trackdays aren't cheap, but also not expensive and they're the best place for getting the most out of your machine and improving your riding skills. Modern race-replica motorcycles are so complete that with equally able tires it's possible to jump straight from the road to the racetrack with only a few changes.

First off, and most important, is your tire set-up. If you're sensible you'll buy a more track focused road legal tire, but even an OE sports tire can just about cut it on track, especially if it's your first time.

Make sure they're in good general condition and that the tire pressures are adjusted to suit the weather and track conditions.

The good thing about trackdays is there are plenty of instructors there to answer specific questions and help with decisions like this. Ideally, when at full temperature you want the pressures to be around the 33psi mark.

Yamaha Factory Racing riders Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies kicked off their one day visit to Jakarta this morning with a special visit to meet potential racing stars of the future. They shared some of their valuable knowledge with up and coming racers in the Indonesian Yamaha R Series Cup as part of a unique Yamaha Coaching Clinic. The MotoGP stars gave tips on rider positioning, cornering and overtaking to the delighted local riders.

Following the morning coaching session Lorenzo went on to help Yamaha Motor Indonesia launch the new Yamaha Byson motorcycle to an audience of over 3000 Indonesian Yamaha Dealers at a special event just outside Jakarta. The 150cc Byson street bike is Yamaha’s star new machine for 2012 in Indonesia. Spies was due to co-host alongside his team mate however a bout of food poisoning unfortunately meant he was unable to participate.

Modern sportsbikes have a penchant for instability due to the aggressive rake and trail numbers needed for quick handling, combined with front tires that are designed to give the sport rider more contact patch when leaned over at the expense of a smaller contact patch when upright. These factors combine to provide us with motorcycles that will change direction in a heartbeat, but may act a little nervous in a straight line.

As technology and design have improved in the last 15 years, manufacturers have come up with stronger frames, swing arms and forks to allow motorcycles to handle more extreme rake angles and cornering loads, without shaking themselves apart in a straight line, which permits them to hit the ever moving target of improved handling with lighter response. Again, the trade off is motorcycles that border on instability under had acceleration.

Along comes the technology band aid – the steering damper. Steering dampers introduce friction between the frame and the front wheel, to dampen unwanted oscillations of the steering stem, forks and wheel. Early steering dampers were integrated into the top steering stem nut allowing the rider to essentially crank down on the steering head bearings, adding, mechanical friction to produce the desired resistance to motion to quell these unwanted oscillations in the weak frames of the day. Steering dampers in their present sealed hydraulic form appeared in the late '80s, simply mounting somewhere between the frame on one end and the steering set (triple clamp and forks) on the other.

Starting at the top; the crown of an aluminum piston in a modern petrol engine is limited to about 350c degree, but this is dependent on the particular alloy used to make the piston. In the past alloys such as Lo-Ex and Y alloy were used, and although they are still available today, the major piston manufacturers have developed their own alloy, with enhanced properties, to give the desired strength and corrosion resistance at operating temperatures.

The crown shape has developed as combustion chambers have evolved and as the move from two to four valves per cylinder has taken place. Popular in the old days was the hemispherical combustion chamber in the cylinder head. This works well enough with a flat top piston, but raising the compression ratio produces a piston with a large come, which exposes more surface to heat and alters the piston stability in the bore as the center of gravity is raised. This is as well as upsetting the hemispherical shape of the combustion chamber.

Most modern pistons generally have flat crowns except for cut-outs to avoid valve contact.