Ducatisti: do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news is that the market for motorcycles 500cc and up is down 17% worldwide for the first quarter of this year, which means the “good” news is that Ducati is only down 5% for Q1 2013. Not exactly the start out of the gate that Audi was hoping for its newly acquired two-wheeled brand, but what are you going to do? Western Europe is a mess, with Spain and Italy continuing to go down like a…well, you know. While we don’t enjoy the misery of motorcycle brands, the fact that Ducati Motor Holding is now under the Audi AG umbrella means that we get far more detailed quarterly and yearly reports from the two-wheeled marque, and we’ve got the digits after the jump.
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.
As a former Ducati Monster S4R owner I’m all for it. I know Ducati prefers to keep the monster air cooled, but a power infusion would be most welcome. I’ve never been sold on the Street Fighter. Just looks too much like a stripped down Superbike instead of a bike designed from scratch to be naked.
Not to be picky, because I love the idea, but any “R” or even an “S” would at least have Forged Wheels and not Cast. I know I’m being picky, But I like this and want to do it. To have an “R” motor it needs to be more powerfull than a stock 848 motor… so, I’m thinking 1040 bigbore kit… YEAH BUDDY!!
@Eric,
Funny you post that up as I simply thought newer monsters were water cooled and older ones weren’t. I had no idea that the water-cooled version was just that, a version. . . I was confused while reading this article until I saw your post and then it all made sense.
Obviously I’m not a Ducati expert. Still can’t (actually, won’t) afford one.
Jesse, in ducati-land, all (well except for the ST2) 2-valve motors are air cooled and all 4-valve liquid cooled.
The superbikes of the past decade+ are all 4-valve motors as are monsters with “4″ in the name. All other ducati monsters are air cooled, 2-valve motors.
Ducs aren’t really all that expensive – often they aren’t even any more than similar Japanese bikes. Just bought a lightly used Monster for my wife for less than I could have snagged a Japanese 650 twin of similar vintage and mileage. Upkeep is a little more (a lot more if you don’t do all your own work) though.
As far as the photochop – doesn’t look too bad, looks like what I’d expect an S4* version of the new monster to look like. I think we are far more likely to see a 848 streetfighter than an 848 monster though. The radiators never did mesh with the monster’s styling though and still don’t in that ‘chop.
Now where’s an 848 Hyper when ya need one?
The cluth on an 848 is wet. The photochop is not. Picky picky, I know, but I own an 848 and that’s the first thing I noticed about the pic.
Ducati has a dry slipper clutch for the 848: http://www.ducatiperformance.com/ducati-848-dry-slipper-clutch-conversion-kit-p-4126.html?cPath=22_26_41
A side note on the trelis frame. I meant 0.5mm was shaved off to make it thinner =o)
Now for my next trick, the KTM 690 Supermoto ‘R’.
Thank You A&R you have made my day!!!
beautiful concept; would love to see it make reality, especially after seeing the power of that 848EVO at Daytona… with an increase in power, tho, I’d really rather keep as much stiffness & strength in the frame as possible, unless there was a switch to chromoly intended (Monsters come stock w/ chromoly trellises?)
Photoshop itself is nice, but I think we’d be more likely to see the 848 motor in a Streetfighter body. Afterall, the Monster lineup is all 2V now while the SF is 4V.