About Goutchen

From a rider, to riders: independent motorcycle coverage in English, French, and Arabic.

Goutchen is an independent motorcycle publication built by riders, for riders. We cover new bikes, brand histories, common problems owners report, electric models, and the practical decisions that come with picking a motorcycle and keeping it on the road.

The site started as a personal notebook: a way to keep track of bikes worth knowing about, prices that kept changing, and the kind of small details (real seat height, real curb weight, real ground clearance) that brochures rarely make easy to compare. That notebook turned into a public site because the same questions kept coming up in forums, comment sections, and WhatsApp groups. If we needed the answers, other riders probably did too.

Today, Goutchen reaches readers in three languages: English, French, and Arabic, with original articles, brand explainers, problem-by-year reports, and two free tools we built and maintain ourselves.

What you'll find here

• Brand and model coverage: Japanese, Italian, American, Chinese, Indian, and electric motorcycles, with deep-dives into the histories that shaped them.
• "10 things to know" explainers: quick, factual primers on a brand or model, with sources cited so you can dig deeper.
• "10 problems by year" owner-experience reports: pulled from owner forums, recall databases, and service bulletins, with model years called out specifically.
• Buying and beginner guides: first-bike checklists, used-motorcycle inspection guides, body-style comparisons.
• News: launches, regulation changes, and industry shifts that matter to everyday riders.

The tools

Two free tools sit at the core of the site, and we maintain them ourselves:

• GoutchenBaBa Motorcycle Finder: a searchable database of 5,000+ motorcycles you can filter by engine size, seat height, weight, price, and use case. Specs are pulled from manufacturer sources and normalized so two bikes from different brands can actually be compared side by side.
• Seat Height Simulator: enter your inseam, pick a bike, and see how the stance compares. Built because "average seat height" tells you almost nothing about whether a specific bike fits a specific rider.

Both tools are free, ad-supported, and require no account.

How we research and write

Every article on Goutchen follows the same process:

1. Primary sources first. We start with manufacturer press releases, official spec sheets, regulator filings (NHTSA, EU type-approval, Transport Canada), and recall databases. Where we cite a number, that number has a source.
2. Owner-experience cross-check. For problem reports, we cross-reference owner forums, known recalls, and service bulletins. We do not invent failure rates; if we say "owners report X," we link where they reported it.
3. One editor, multiple readers. Drafts are written by a single editor, then re-read against the cited sources before publishing. We update articles when new information surfaces, including added recalls, corrected model years, and price changes, and we date the update.
4. No paid placements. Goutchen is not sponsored by, owned by, or affiliated with any motorcycle manufacturer, dealer, or aftermarket brand. We do not accept payment for coverage. The site is supported by display advertising and, occasionally, clearly-marked affiliate links to retailers like Amazon. Affiliate links never change which products we recommend.
5. Corrections are public. If we get something wrong, we fix it in the article and note the correction. The contact form is the fastest way to flag an error.

Why this matters

Motorcycle buying decisions are expensive, and a lot of the information online is either marketing copy or context-free spec dumps. Our job is to sit between those two and give riders something useful: sourced, comparable, and honest about what we don't know.

If a section of the site feels thin, it's because we haven't gotten to it yet, not because we're padding it with filler. We'd rather publish one well-researched article than ten shallow ones.

Who runs Goutchen

Goutchen is run independently by a small team of long-time riders. We publish under the Goutchen name rather than personal bylines, because the work is what matters, not who signed it. For business, press, or correction requests, use the contact form. We read every message and reply to legitimate inquiries within a few business days.

Thanks for reading. Ride safe.