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.
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.
Hopefully within a year from now we will see a head-to-head shoot-out comparison between the off-road electrics from Brammo, BRD, KTM and Zero. I’m really interested to see how each of these brand’s offerings match-up against one another.
This would have been very exciting news in 2009.
Make it a street legal supermoto at 7 to 8k and I will be there.
“Other” Electric manufacturers, please take note what an electric can look like if you actually have designers worth a damm or at all.
Not to bad for a first although way behind from what is technically feasible.
See also: http://www.evdrive.com/prototypes/category/e-moto-crf250r/
Then again for a price below 10 grand, one cannot expect more than the package offered by KTM (and others…)
October 29 2008 KTM announced this bike as “race ready”. Now just 3 years later it’s been announced (again) with a firm date to possibly consider a limited release of test bikes at some point next year. Following on from that at some undisclosed point in the far flung future there’s a definate possiblity of a chance that you might one day see one from a distance on a podium at a trade show.
Video of it in action here:
http://blog.derestricted.com/motorcycles/ktm-freeride-electric-barcelona/
@Konalight – that projected price by KTM was in euros, not dollars. 10,000 euros is about $13,600 at the current exchange rate.
I like the looks of this bike but wonder about that relatively small battery … and the choice to go with DC Agni motors. One thing we’ve learned from TTXGP is that these motors have “issues.”
I like it a lot! Looks like a very fun backyard toy. I’d really like this power package wrapped up in a trials bike chassis. There the very limited range would be less of an issue, especially if it came with an extra battery pack or two so I could swap out for a fresh one for each loop.
Something is wacky with the hugely different am vs pro figures. By am maybe they mean total noob, not am racer. I race am off road and seem to burn about the same amount of fuel as pros, maybe a little less (in terms of gph, but only ’cause I usually cover less ground in a given amount of time), but certainly not less than half. Racing both harescrambles and desert I’ve found that I make the same pitstops on similar bikes with similar fuel tank sizes as pros. Usually takes me 25% more time to get to the stops, so if you go by time rather than distance maybe I’d use about 25% less fuel. I suspect that on something of this power the difference between an am and pro would be negligible, if any (and might be the other way around as the pro will maintain higher corner speed).
The re-charge would be a heck of a slow pitstop though :D
Game on! Sorry Brammo and ZERO, you had your chance.
If anyone can do it, the off-road heroes at KTM can, BUT it still needs to be cheaper to appeal outside the novelty market.
I think we are in the “leather helmet” era of electric motorcycles currently and thing will only get better and cheaper from here on out.
Remember when a 40inch TV cost $5,ooo USD?
KTM might sell half the dirt bikes in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it certainly doesn’t control 50% of the world market for off-road motorcycles. Where did that statistic come from?
KTM’s EICMA presentation.
how much the bike