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.
A surprise addition to BMW Motorrad’s 2013 model line-up, zie Germans have announced a new middleweight adventure-tourer, the 2013 BMW F800GS Adventure. Like its larger predecessor, the BMW F800GS Adventure is a more travel-ready and off-road capable build of the recently updated BMW F800GS motorcycle. Featuring a larger windscreen, panniers, and a bigger fuel tank capacity (2.1 gallons larger, for a total of 6.3 gallons of fuel), the BMW F800GS Adventure keeps the same 85 hp, liquid-cooled, 798cc, parallel-twin engine found on the F800GS, as well as the same chassis configuration. Pricing in the US will be $13,550 for the base model BWM F800GS Adventure.
Former 500cc World Champion Kevin Schwantz has certainly been in the news a bit these past few months, mostly for his involvement and falling out with the Circuit of the Americas and the Americas GP, but also more recently for his comments regarding Dani Pedrosa — we also sat down with Mr. Schwantz in Austin, and the Texan gave us some sobering insight into the future of American road racing. As if all that wasn’t enough, Schwantz is making a return to two-wheeled racing, and has entered the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race with Team Kagayama racing alongside Noriyuki Haga and team owner Yukio Kagayama.
An interesting development on the aftermarket side of things has graced our desks, as Öhlins has released a “suspension control unit” (SCU) that upgrades the electronically adjustable suspension on the Ducati Multistrada 1200 S so that it becomes a semi-active suspension system. Whhhaaaat??! So, if you’re the proud owner of a pre-2013 Ducati Multistrada 1200 S, and you think that your electronically controlled Öhlins suspension is no longer boss, now that Ducati has released its Sachs-powered “Skyhook” semi-active suspension pieces on its new batch of Multistrada sport-tourers, there is a remedy for your motolust.
Seeing a low-speed lowside crash on Mulholland isn’t exactly a rare event with so many inexperienced riders taking to the infamous twisty SoCal roadway. Caught on video though, this Kawasaki ZX-6R was surprised to see one of CHP’s finest waiting for him around the apex of a turn. Showing his greeness to trail braking, our protaganist grabs a fistfull of brake, and promptly tucks the front tire in front of the officer. Check out the video after the jump.
DOH! Even for a rookie that pretty bad. It can’t be a total surprise that there might be a cop around every bend. sheesh.. he’d be off a cliff if he’d been at Deals Gap.
I know I’ve done it, grabbing an instant handful when getting suprised by a cop up there, its just your first reaction sometimes (yes even though bad practice). To be honest I think its pretty wrong to be waiting at the end like that. I would think the highway patrol would rather just give a ticket than cause an accident too. There is no doubt in my mind that cop caused that crash by his position and intent.
The cop “caused that crash by his position and intent.” Really? The rider had nothing whatsoever to do with it?
By the way, doesn’t it seem kinda fishy that someone was there, catching this all on video?
Ai… I know the feeling, never grabbed my front brake thought. Just got an OH F*ck feeling inside, also because I know I was speeding. It didn’t look like he was going fast so he didn’t have anything to worry about. I do agree It’s partly do to the position of the cop he went down, on a straight he’d be fine.
Do you remember a few years back there was the video of the sport bike rider crashing on Mulholland? There was a lot of press and it made the national news. A few weeks later it came out that it was staged by insurance company. I think itwas part of a campaign to limit sport bike capabilities. This video makes me wonder who’s behind it and what agenda they might have. The video seems well shot. Not a cheapo handled.
it does look a little staged, good camera quality, sound no sound from the camera guy. the cop is not even parked, he is just on the brakes, and starts moving forward 1sec after the he hits the ground.
if not staged it the cops fault for parking on a tight curve, provoking a driver to react fast.
It’s not staged, this is a curve in Mulholland called “the snake” where a photography studio often plants themselves on sat and sun and takes pics of the riders going by, which are of course available for purchase later. There has been increased CHP activity in recent years and I’m sure the camera crew sees a lot of this sort of thing so they were expecting it to happen.
Personally I know the cop didnt “cause” the accident but it seems unfair of him to sit in the middle of the turn, at a point where the motorcyclist is most prone to crashing. They should sit back a few hundred yards to wait until the bike accelerates out of the turn, i think there would be less chance of a crash in that situation.
guys are up on the hill every weekend filming and taking photos, not staged… Check out one of the dudes flickr account rockstorephotos.com or something pretty close to it
Saying the LEO “caused” this guy to go down is not so far removed from blaming flies for garbage trucks and pencils for spelling mistakes.
Coming around a blind turn like that and seeing a chp cruiser opposite can target fixation. I’m surprised the rider did go straight to the car.
This is the rider’s fault—he either overreacted to the turn, the CHP, or, more likely, both and grabbed a handful of brake. What he should have done is slowed down BEFORE going into the turn, i.e Slow-in, fast-out. If he wanted to speed-racer through the turn he should have stayed off the brake (he’d need to pick a better line to make this work) or applied the tiniest bit of trail braking.
Live and learn.
OUCH! http://bit.ly/cRSOx9 (VIDEO) via @Asphalt_Rubber #crashtestdummy #soundofthepolice
#RT PopSciGuy
OUCH! http://bit.ly/cRSOx9 (VIDEO) via @Asphalt_Rubber #crashtestdummy #soundofthepolice Good show…LOL
Cops suck. Go fight some real crime, you glorified tax collector.
…perhaps the CHP did not cause the accident, but did he/she “precipitate” it? Was that officer culpable? It is reasonable to think that if the CHP vehicle was not there then the crash would not have happened. I’m sure there are lots of places for the officer to set up and lots of speeding riders to write tickets to. I bet CHP officers are well trained about how to pull a vehicle over to minimize potential accidents with road traffic. I know I would not want to do anything that would increase the likely-hood of any motorcycle accident.
rnickeymouse is the videographer. if you check out youtube he has already captured dozens of incident on this corner over the past year.
not staged. not some kind of scam
just lots of squids…