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.
What a waste of some nice parts and pieces…
Fugly and unrideable…
Nobody who buys a bike like this will ride it, but that has more to do with the frame than the cost.
Never has been and never will be my bag. It just baffles me why some body would put that kinda money in to a bike like that but then its what you want I guess…
I like alot of the work done, although choppers and cruisers are not for me, but the can tacked on to the end of the u bend looks wrong it should start lower and have an upswept angle to the can….just that part makes it look fumbled together when the rest looks well thought out. sorry but this is what we have in the off season…it will get better.
It may not be very practical but it is a work of art. Beautiful!
It hurts my lower back just to look at it.
That lower triple clamping surface is downright terrifying. Art is great and all, but human safety should come first on something that may actually roll down a highway someday.
looks cool but I’m still trying to visualize how I would sit on this bike and be able to operate all the controls.
Nice metal work. But come on… €149,900 so I can burn my leg on the right side exhaust? A front “spoiler” that will bash into the first obstacle on the road. This is a styling exercise (and an ergonomic nightmare — unless you have arms like an orangutan.) I’d rather have a Mule Motors custom at 1/10th the cost!!
Yeah… this is beautiful, but just impractical for riding if I had the $$$. That said, today’s BPF (forks) that come on sport bikes would be plenty on this ride since you won’t even hardly use the forks and then it has to be raised up or you will rip that chin fairing right off… at least where I live you will.
But for BLING purposes.. VERY nice lines – WOW!
I want to meet the douchebag who can afford £149k for a bike this ridiculous, punch him, and then take his money. He might as well get robbed from someone who could teach him the idiom, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
What a caricature of a motorcycle – and ridiculously overpriced at that!
Shame that this unridable contraption is such a waste of top-notch
suspension equipment….
To me this “bike”(?) just represents all that is oh so wrong with
the so called “custom builder scene” and their possible customers.
like a solid gold toilet. a complete mismatch of materials/components vs intended usage.
yeesh.
In detail some of the finish looks a bit crude ….
Have you heard of BTR Moto?
Among the R6-powered hill climb bikes & trackday singles, they build a sportbike using an HD Twin Cam motor.
The hot rodding capabilities of the big twin (vs. the air-cooled Buell motor) can yield 120+ ft lbs. of torque. Even more if someone wanted to use a Jim’s 130 c.i. motor.
Anyway, here’s a video of the builder explaining the chassis & his own transmission, which allowed him to build the bike with a geometry that is the same as the current 4-cylinder liter sportbikes. The weight is comparable too. The bottom link is footage at Thunderhill.
Jensen – I bet he would be willing to let you ride it at the next track day for a ride review if you’re interested. He is in the east bay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HGTqWGJyLI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I like all kinds of bikes, but I really do not get this mess at all. Clearly unrideable. As a design exercise it makes to sense to me either.
Almost $200k and the welds look like a blind 6 year old did them.
You would need arm like a monkey to hold the handle bar. Must look so funny! Or maybe the seat is for the co-pilot :-D