Shipped up and on its way to the Isle of Man, we can finally now see more than test shots of the Mugen Shinden Ni and get its basic racing specifications. The electric superbike that John McGuinness will ride in the 2013 TT Zero race at the Isle of Man TT, the Mugen Shinden Ni represents that evolution of the Japanese firm’s design, having now a TT race under its belt. Like its main competitor MotoCzysz, Team Mugen is eyeing a 110 mph lap around the Mountain Course, which would be a pretty remarkable one-year advancement for either team. With Mr. McPint at the helm, and seemingly brimming with on-board energy, Mugen is a serious contender.
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.
While I know that the Varese factory has (judging by sales over the last couple of years) been working well under capacity, I’m not sure that launching a range of bargain basement hacks in the middle of a pan – European financial crisis is the greatest idea ever. There’s never much money to be made in a race to the bottom, unless Beemer are letting the Italians have those Rotax engines for serious cheap…
But what else can Husky do? It’s worth noting that here in Europe the 450 thumper competition dirtbike is getting irrelevant – may prefer the smaller thumpers or strokers and the residual value of a 450 is pretty much zero. Likewise the supermoto scene is contracting and buying a SMR449 or 511 for road use is pretty impractical as major engine components are life rated in a few dozen hours. Perhaps the American and Australian markets are big enough to justify the 449 / 511 model range, but are the bikes making any money?
So, the roadbikes. Who is designing the aesthetics on these things? The Strada (and the Nuda for that matter) are an incoherent mess of random curves, angles and textures. Anonymous piles of parts, with no motif or signature. The Terra has a little of the 449 / 511 about it, but that’s not necessarily a good thing either. 400-odd lbs kerb weight is just too heavy for a single cylinder plodder too and screams of corner cutting in design. Why no 630 style chassis? Or something that apes the drop-dead gorgeous 250 / 310 dirtbikes?
I guess that there are some people who will buy a bike solely on price, regardless of how fugly it is, but does that generate brand loyalty, or even much cash?
if there was an award for Fugliest motorcycle of the year, then the 2012 Husqvarna TR 650 Terra would have no competition for first place. this bike a truly ugly
Sincerely,
A rider who is desperate to see a new bike that looks good from HusqHideous.
from North Haven, CT
Depending on the price and the seat height, I could be interested in the Strada. It looks like it could possibly fill the sort of niche the Aprilia Pegaso left, though with admittedly a . . . different style.
Some people will buy a bike based solely on a price, regardless of its looks, and if the bike shows character and fun beyond the visual, that can generate some loyalty. This one appears to me midway between the dirt bikes and the Nuda’s aggressive, Transformer-like lines, and compromises rarely look striking.
Mitch: “…and compromises rarely look striking.”
Everything is a compromise – that’s why you hire talented designers! Getting the basic proportions right, tidying the details and giving the whole an identity needn’t cost the earth and makes all the difference. As it stands I’m seeing parts bin specials thrown together by accountants and covered with fit-where-they-touch cosmetic parts that don’t complement each other at all.
The Nuda is IMO nearly there and just needs a few cosmetic detail tweaks: maybe a bronze frame and some attention to the mess of pipes and plastic around the motor – which itself is no thing of beauty and would look better in simple gloss black. A bit of tweaking to the comedy front mudguard and exhaust wouldn’t go amiss either. Did any of the designers of the individual parts actually talk to each other, or even do a mockup before they slung it all together? It doesn’t look like it.
The 650s are a bit more of a task admittedly – the engine and apallingly naff perimeter frame are not a great starting point. But the designers have somehow managed to give the front end a “wheel on a stick” look, which appears cheap, awkward and unbalanced. No two lines on the body complement each other and close-ups of the engine / footrest area scream “utility”. The tank and lower rad cover don’t even appear to fit together. FFS! It costs nothing to get this stuff right! I’ve seen generators with more design aesthetic.
And put the Husky crown on the fuel tank!
The “Rotax” 650 has been made in China since the X bikes, which is why BMW is trying to push it into so many bikes–Much more profitable now–But I like that Husky was able to coax another 10hp.
What an unappealing piece of industrial-design plastic afterbirth that abomination is.
I do like the red valve covers though…they should keep that.
It’s the right bike for Husky and I’ll buy a Terra. It’s not a dirt bike but it will do 95% what I would do with a dirt bike plus it’s got luggage carrying capacity, ho hack-job welding, gusset nonsense and reinforcements needed. The engines built proof and simple, very efficient, has 200+ mile legs and way more comfort, people need to look at this differently then a dirt bike……because it’s not. It’s much higher quality then a KLR, and it’s low maintenance, not an oil changing problem like most dirt bikes…….perfect if you ask me.
It is a dashing motorcycle and definitely has an impressive design. I think I can splurge on this if I ever get a bonus.