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.
In case you missed our exhaustive coverage of the Grand Prix of the Americas, those fools at Dorna gave me pit lane access this MotoGP season. So while the whole paddock waits for the Spaniards to come to their senses, I don’t plan on wasting the opportunity to share with our readers our extreme access to motorcycling’s premier racing class. Accordingly, here comes another installment into our ever-continuing “Up-Close” series, featuring the very finest Iwata has to offer: the Yamaha YZR-M1. Thirty 2000px-wide photos are waiting for you after the jump.
I like there work specially R131 Fighter; but i simply don’t understand price justification.
Behold the bastard child of Toecutter and a steam punk.
Two Liter displacement only nets you 132 peak horsepower? Yucko.
I love all motorcycles , and own three, but as a Black American, I would NEVER buy anything with Confederate in it’s title.
and its probably 100% american made..
@ Terry
ya the name is a bit overboard for sure
Confederate has a similar effect, as say, a bike called the Talibanator, no?
Double burn? The lead designer is African American.
One could try to make the argument that ‘confederate’ is supposed to be understood by its dictionary denotation rather than by its historical connotation but, considering that the company is based in Birmingham, Alabama, that’s a mighty big pill to swallow.
My opinion: Awesome bike, lousy brand name.
In fairness to that point Jake, Confederate was started in Louisiana, and spent most of its time in New Orleans, until relocated to ‘bama because of Katrina.
Or like Horex rebranding itself as Nazix?
It kind of looks like some guy got given a CNC machine shop and a CAD/CAM package for christmas…
Looks like they ditched the rather elegant exhaust system of the concept/prototype in exchange for something cheap and easy. It wouldn’t be so bad if they actually had a skilled welder. That exhaust looks like it was welded by someone who got a cheap MIG welder for their birthday. To say nothing of the fact that there’s apparently no muffler on it. Loud pipes does not equal a great exhaust note. Especially with big twins, those things sound like crap. The 1200cc and under sized twins sound great, but the real big ones just sound like a whooshy fart.
I wonder if a more practical approach would be to cast the lower motor casing, after machning the first 2 or 3 prototypes.. unless the point is just to machine it becasue they can!!
Nothing really extordinary about the styling, there have been better looking bobbers on this site.
as for the people who seem to get their panties in a bunch over a name, think it is time to move on and not dwell in the past…
I have a weakness for their bikes even if they heavy and expensive.
One thing I don’t understand, why does the LED headlight have to come in the traditional round headlight bucket. Seems to be a bit of a missed opportunity there.
Cool looking bike. Meh performance.
Im guessing, another candidate for adoption to Brad Pitt’s garage, providing the name is not an Issue…
I agree with statements about the cheap exhaust, but disagree with the name complaints. Maybe you all forget that the entire United States was founded on tobacco trade and slave labor? DON”T BUY ANYTHING MADE IN AMERICA OH NOES! Get over it. Anyways, the bike isn’t supposed to be practical. It’s supposed to be different.
I’m going to go out on a limb and wager that the people that are shouting, “it’s just a name, get over it,” are white. The word confederate is racially charged because of it’s history. Whether you personally have a problem with it or not is irrelevant. But even if we forget the racial element, the word conjures up images of a very negative period of American history, our civil war, and for that reason alone it’s a dumb choice of brand name.
Regardless how one feels personally, the name is not the best idea marketing-wise, obviously some will be offended as evidence on this thread alone. I am inclined to agree with Jake, in that they might as well have had a tagline, “For Whites Only,” as it is going to alienate some from purchase on emotional grounds…
@ Ryan
I don’t think Americans should forget the USA was founded on slave labour, but it is not an aspect to necessarily celebrate either. I have a feeling, a significant number of citizens may object to it…
But what do I know, Americans openly accept a racist moniker for one of it’s most popular sports franchises, The Redskins…
But then again I could be wrong, maybe it is a term of endearment like limey, gook, or raghead. I always get a kick out of the sophisticated way many, and not just americans, refer to certain motorcycles as “Jap Bikes.”
Just because I like stirring the pot, America was a confederacy before it was a republic, which was well before a bunch of tobacco farmers in the south got tired of politicians in the north telling them what to do (1777-1789).
To say the American Civil War was started over slavery is a pretty gross generalization of the conflict, as the issues then were extremely complex and there was tremendous tension between the northern and southern states. That’s not to say that slavery wasn’t a central element, but to call it the only element would be inaccurate.
That being said, I’ve lived in places where the Confederate flag is used as an extension of bigotry, and despite what the concept and flag used to mean, in our modern times its hard not to associate its use with a racist agenda, much as the swastika is associated with the one-race ideology of the Nazi regime, although the symbol itself predates Hitler by hundreds of years and had very different meanings back then.
Violence will never stop violence, killing will never create freedom and what you accede to you can secede from.
Both my grandfathers fought in WWI and my father went to the South Pacific as a private at age 18. He was taken in December, 1941. He didn’t come home until it was over. The Hellcats saved him, and thusly, made me. It seems that we Americans have been fighting ever since.
In the fall of 2008 it all crystalized. Secretary Paulson got to take 1 trillion of our dollars and buy up toxic bank assets. One minute after the ink dried, he declared it would be better to give the money to his Wall Street cronies so they could consolidate their power evermore at record low, fire-sale prices, ironically, making too big to fail American institutions yet bigger. Later, we learned that 7.2 trillion was made available to this small group of elites by the Fed wizards, at a time when you and I couldn’t borrow a penny. That incomprehensibly huge number is five times our annual GDP.
This, gentleman, is the Hamiltonian, Whig, Clay, Lincoln, Republican American system. I don’t like it.
Confederate Motorcycles is inspired by the American Way. Small private ownership of capital, government mandated competition, the right to fail, caveat emptor, laissez les bons temps rouler, pure objective individuality, every man is created equal and, as Jimmy Carter alluded to, what we do, not what we have, is the priority.
We motorcyclists are individualists and individualism mandates e.e. Cummings’ toughest fight you will ever fight and must keep fighting, the fight to be no one but yourself. At the core of this ongoing struggle resonates Thomas Jefferson’s written words in a letter to Madison, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical”. This is what the American motorcycle is all about, rebellion. If you ever have the privilege of sparking up a Confederate and rolling into it, you’ll immediately get it, I promise you!
I gotta say, I think I still like the original Hellcat F131 better.
http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200704/confederate-motor-co-4_460x0w.jpg
Regardless, in my opinion, their bikes are works of art – art I’ll likely never see, much less possess.
I won’t comment on the company name in relation to the “old south” since there isn’t a connection beyond a single word, but I have to comment on the civil war statements, since it was brought up…
If your childhood education was anything like mine then you were most likely told of the various reason the war was started..taxes, State’s rights, sectionalism….Sadly, an actual review of the States’ own “Declaration of Causes” for Secession clearly lists slavery as the driving factor – their declarations partitioned the states into two groups “slave-holding” and “non-slave-holding” states.
From Texas:
“In all the non-slave-holding States…the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, … based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color–a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.” [1][2]
From Mississippi:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization” [2]
[1] https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html
[2] http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#Mississippi
@ Jensen Beeler
Saying slavery is a central element, but not the main issue, marginalizes the overall understanding of an historic event in America… Once the slaves were freed, Souths whole social and economical world view changed dramatically, and politicians still seem to tell people what to do. After the revolutionary war, they should not have become the United States of America, but rather the Confederate Sates of America…
To use an analogy; It’s akin to saying, the reason this wife filed for divorce, is not entirely due to the fact that her husband slept with another woman, that is a central element, but it’s a complex series of actions which includes his checking out other women, and giving them his phone numbers. Maybe they should not have married, but stayed friends with benefits…
Also, calling them tobacco farmers is like calling Apple an electronics store, or Ford a car dealership.
@ Matt Chambers
My man you are all over the place. Just to point out a dichotomy, your quote from Carter, points to the very opposite of what the Confederacy fought for in regards to a race of human beings. As to your quote from Jefferson. Was it not the Confederate state of Virginia that suppressed the rebellion of the abolitionist John Brown, or were they just late in catching his drift…
I like it… whatever it is called.
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; it’s foundations are laid, it’s cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition” Andrew H. Stephens, Vice President of The Confederate States of America, the “Cornerstone Speech” Savannah, GA March 21,1861. I believe the Confederate States of America was an enemy of The United States of America of which I am a citizen.
quoting from the article “Pricing has jumped from the initial $44,550, and now is $49,500, with another price increase of roughly $5,000 expected after July 4th”
This is a joke, right? why would anybody pay this much money for this, this, this – words excape me now. If I saw one of these on the road. I would probably have to pull over to the side of the road, because I would be laughing so hard. I have had to pull over when seeing some fool trying to take a streched out chopper on a entrace ramp to the freeway.
laughing not because of the name – Confederate. Laughing because its a statement on the person riding it. the custom choppers are not foolish enough, but Confederate had to double down on a dumb idea, dumb idea being $50,000 unrideable choppers.
So, how does one register a US factory manufactured, open pipe, no turn signals motorcycle in this country? I thought the US DOT had rules about this sort of thing… or is Confederate so small they are somehow exempt?
If Brad has one, how did he (or does he) get California plates? There is nothing on the Confederate website about registering one…
This bikes is so bad it looks like something taken from Mad Max movie from the 80′s. It looks more like something 2 kids putted together on dad’s garage then a real product. No sense of design, engineering, security, technology, ergonomics or taste. Only in the US. And you wonder why the chineses and Indians are selling more bikes that Harley…