Motorcycling review of the year 2012 I've fitted in a few big trips this year, but nothing I've ever done has come close to my Route 66 ride on a Harley Electra Glide back in March. It's the definitive aspirational bike with huge expectations, so I was braced for disappointment. Instead it was far better than I could ever have hoped. Spectacular, breathtaking and an absolute must if you ride bikes. Kawasaki launched the ZZR1400 at the Nardo proving ground in southern Italy, one of the few places where it's possible to hold a bike like that flat out. Tucked in tight behind the screen of a 207bhp motorcycle, speed limiter kicking in at 186mph, and incongruously the fuel computer reading a rather impressive 12.3mpg, was another very special experience. BMW's new R1200GS, the first liquid-cooled BMW boxer since the R32 of 1923, and the world's bestselling big-capacity motorcycle, will be ready for riding. Read our review in January. I'll be putting miles on our long-term Ducati Multistrada GT with its ground-breaking, semiactive "Skyhook" suspension... ...And riding to one of the big-bike gatherings, such as World Ducati Week, BMW Motorbike Days or Triumph's Tridays. I'll also be finding out what's inside Yamaha's radical new, cross-plane crank, three-cylinder engine, teasingly revealed at Cologne in 2012. Can we have a hot summer? Please?