Mission Motors tweeted out something interesting just a moment ago, a link to a new website for Mission Motorcycles. Teasing there a photo of the Mission R, it would seem that the electric superbike that does competitive AMA Supersport lap times at Laguna Seca, is finally set to come to production. It seems we won’t know everything about the new Mission Motorcycles project until June 3rd, though we can speculate pretty accurately on what the A&R Bothan spy network has been telling us. Expect to see the Mission R electric superbike in street legal trim, honed even further than when we rode the machine back in August last year.
Stefan Pierer’s acquisition of Husqvarna continues to baffle me. You will note I say Pierer, and not KTM, bought Husqvarna, since the Austrian CEO used Pierer Industrie AG in the transaction as a means to help side-step European antitrust issues. After all, we can’t have Europe’s largest dirt bike manufacturer, nay largest total motorcycle manufacturer, gobbling up even more brands in the two-wheeled world. But, I digress. Developing three road bikes (Husqvarna Nuda 900, Husqvarna Strada 650, & Husqvarna Terra 650), with three more concepts waiting in the wings (Husqvarna Moab, Husqvarna Baja, & Husqvarna E-G0), it is with even more confusion that we learn that Pierer & Co. intend to kill the Husqvarna Nuda project and its other street siblings.
In case you missed the story last week, Kevin Schwantz is preparing to race in this year’s Suzuka 8-Hour endurance race. For the race, Schwantz will be riding on a team formed by Yukio Kagayama, who in addition to having raced in the MotoGP, World Superbike, and British Superbike Championships, is also a previous Suzuka 8-Hour winner with the Suzuki Endurance Race Team (also joining the three-rider team Noriyuki “Nitro” Haga). Releasing a Q&A about his team’s Suzuka 8-Hour entry, Kagayama-san walks us through how the team came together, what equipment the riders will use, and his outlook on the team’s competitiveness.
A single-cylinder hooligan-maker, the KTM 690 Duke is 330 lbs (curbside without fuel) and 67hp of two-wheeled fun, and we hope that the Austrians bring the KTM 690 Duke R our way as well. While we are on the topic of things missing from KTM’s American line-up, a decent supersport is painfully obvious, yet we can’t see the folks at KTM following the paths of other brands. That’s where our friend Luca Bar comes to mind with his latest concept: the KTM RC4. Using the KTM 690 Duke platform and its LC4 engine, Bar has designed a super-single full-fairing sport bike that takes the Austrian company’s “Ready to Race” DNA and applies it to an idea that is not all that disimilar to the Ducati Supermono.
When I sat down with Claudio Domenicali at the Ducati 1199 Panigale R launch, the now-CEO of Ducati Motor Holding was still just the General Manager of the Italian motorcycle company. Four weeks after our interview though, Gabriele del Torchio would leave Ducati for Alitalia; and Domenicali, a 21-year veteran of both the racing and production departments of Ducati, would take his place at the top of Italy’s most prestigious motorcycle brand. After reading our interview from Austin, Texas after the jump, I think you will agree too.
That Yamaha is working on a seamless gearbox is no secret, with Yamaha’s test riders currently racking up the kilometers around tracks in Japan. Recently, however, Spanish magazine SoloMoto published an article suggesting that Yamaha has already been using its new seamless gearbox since the beginning of the season. My own enquiries to check whether Yamaha was using a seamless gearbox or not always received the same answer: no, Yamaha is not using the seamless gearbox. To test this denial, I went out to the side of the track on Friday morning at Jerez to record the bikes as they went by.
After a very public father/son break-up between Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr., a steroid-ring scandal involving Paul Sr., and finally a bankruptcy proceeding, it appears that Orange County Choppers is the impossible to kill multi-headed hydra of doom that we all knew it was, as the custom chopper shop is once again headed to the small screen and recruiting some talent, on and off the show. Looking for “someone who will work alongside Paul Senior, running the shop and helping build some of the best custom motorcycles in the world,” OCC says it will be back on television with a new show later this month. Please for the love of god, will someone give this man the attention he craves so dearly??! Or, just shoot us in the face.
We love us some concept bikes here at Asphalt & Rubber, and we have featured more than a few pieces of stunning design and imagination on our pages. Though, we can’t remember the last time one of these works of art were brought to us by a legitimate racing team, but that is what we have here with the Team Alstare Superbike Concept. A nod to the former Suzuki team’s return to the World Superbike Championship as the Ducati factory squad with Carlos Checa and Ayrton Badovini, Alstare has enlisted the help of designer Serge Rusak of Rusak Kreaktive Designworks to ink the shape of its futuristic Superbike concept, while Tryptik Studios handled the 3D modeling prowess.
If you didn’t watch Thursday’s pre-event press conference for MotoGP at Jerez, it is worth a viewing right to the end (assuming you have a MotoGP.com account). Building off the news about the NBA’s Jason Collins coming out as gay in a self-written feature in Sport Illustrated, my good colleague David Emmett had the courage to inquire about the culture and acceptance of the MotoGP paddock for homosexual riders. For the sake of accuracy, after the jump is a full transcript of David’s question, as put to riders Cal Crutchlow, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez, Andrea Dovizioso, Stefan Bradl, and Scott Redding, as well as those riders’ responses to David’s inquiry.
News that Suzuki plans on returning to the MotoGP Championship in 2014 should be old information for dedicated Asphalt & Rubber readers, and the Japanese company’s inline-four race bike was already spotted doing test laps last year by the eager eyes at Cycle World. Well the American print-mag has another set of eyebrow-raising high-quality photos of the 2014 Suzuki GSV-R to mull over from the Motegi race track, along with some technical insights provided by the venerable Kevin Cameron.
Kinda creepy taking pictures of other peoples children then posting them on your website. Just sayin.
Seriously?
Great picts
~ His undivided attention to that bike (like all kids that age don’t suffer from A.D.D.) is priceless, He’s a future biker for sure>> How many people could tell you the first time they were hooked on 2 wheels.. This kids moment if forever documented. I hope that you were able to forwards this to his parents e-mail for future framing.
@Dr. Phil – are you retarded or trolling? There’s nothing creepy about this, it’s a hilarious/touching candid shot of a kid genuinely engrossed in a motorcycle. If you find this creepy, maybe there’s something wrong with YOU. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a picture of a child, especially one where it clearly shows him during what might end up being a formative moment.
Dr. Phil is an idiot. That is my professional opinion. Great shots, and the prose was on the money.
methinks dr. phil protesteth too much.
as for the photos, i think it captures the essence of what many, if not all of us, find in motorcycling, regardless of what we ride. the tech and the racing and the specs are all interesting, but it’s all driven by a sheer visceral fascination both with the machinery and the sensation of being propelled through space on it.
keep it up, beeler…the fact that you haven’t forgotten the intangibles about our sport makes A&R worth reading time and again.
Flip-flops: Check
Shorts: Check
Shirt: Check
Gixxer-ish looking Sport Bike: Check
Future SQUID Material on the making 10-15 years from now: Check
Stereotypes and B.S aside.
Nice pic. I think ENVY took the best of me. At he’s age all the “fast moving objects of desire” i had available to touch and feel was a Chinese made Bicycle (THAT OVERWEIGHT P.O.S)…this most probably is like the stuff that dreams are made of to him.
Dr. Phil: RELAX, this is a clean PG-13 MOTORCYCLE oriented website, not some pedophile ciber-shelter…
Jensen, u did nothing wrong. People have to relax, live is too heptic as it’s already.
Ramdon observation aside:
Are those the same Pirelli tires that the 1199 comes equipped with from factory ?
@MikeD:
The Pirellis on the Panigale have a continuous tread in the shape of a lightning bolt, where these break the shape into two segments. Cheers! ;)
Okay, so there is no way in hell I would have done that when I was a kid. My dad made it very clear that we were likely to lose a hand or worse if we touched someone else’s motorcycle. Now this was back in 70s when that sort of violence against youngins was marginally acceptable in civilised society. He ended up being a patch holder in a small, unknown outlaw club through most of my teens which certainly warped me permanently. Who were your role models?
Here in the 21st century where most parents have their lawyers on speed dial because there is no way in hell THEIR children should ever be held accountable for their own actions, I get really nervous when I see a kid near my bike. The hands, they go exploring. The hot pipes ready to be found. Not to mention that many factory kickstands are a precarious balancing act on less than perfectly smooth and level pavement.
I hate seeing kids get hurt, even more so when liability sharks will try to make it my fault.
So yeah, this makes me nervous in a non-creepy Dr Phil kind of way.
@MotoRandom:
Ok, i see what you are saying here…very true and realistic scenario.
Let’s give it the benefit of the doubt and say his “parents” were “right behind him watching his every moves.”
I did not think this type of kid existed anymore. He has most likely burnt his hand on another bike already.
He has many years of daydreaming ahead!
I love those pics; formative biking fantasies going on right there.
Just imagine if it was an electric bike, his throttle twisting might’ve ended up in an impromptu trip!
This must be the same kid that screws with my mirrors in the parking lot.
Yep that was me thousands of years ago.Maybe a bit older but none the less fascinated by bikes and their riders.Sounds like dad was watching,it does say that dad took a photo with his phone.Dont mind kids looking or touching my bike but will always tell them to be carefull around the hot exhaust and engine.Great photos,I hope the kid will get a copy someday to remind him of his beginning in the world of motorcycles.A magic time.