Best Cruiser: Ducati Diavel Carbon - Ten Best Bikes 2011

Sure, you can go apehanger, floorboards or any number of more traditional routes in this most traditional of categories. Or you can say, Screw it! and let the focus groups focus on their navels. Ducati did just that, channeling the performance-minded spirit of classic American V-Twins like the Crocker and infusing it with garlic and other more modern powerful Italian spices (such as carbon fiber) to come up with one of the coolest, fastest, most fun motorcycles ever made, one that happens to be a “cruiser.” Yes, the Diavel is just such a big, fat carbon-fiber-and-red bird flipped right at the cruising establishment that it was impossible not to pick it as Best Cruiser.