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.
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.
Wow, way to fck up a GP bike. Sure a street tracker could be cool, on a GP bike just plain dumb, sorry for that kind of money should have just tracked the thing and had no worries dumping it
Once again, you don’t have to be intelligent to have money. Retards.
To the same end, I think this belongs in the just-because-you-can-doesn’t-mean-you-should file.
BRILLIANT! That’s how it’s done…if something isn’t availble, you find the best you can find and hac^H^H^H^H modifiy it so it can do it. Mind you, I’d have gone for a but nekked cafe’ treatment with parts sourced from bikes of people that can’t ride. ;^)
Roland Sands parents are the owners of Performance Machine. He’s a motorcycling celebutard for bolting billet stuff on sports bikes. Not so hard to do when you have access to unlimited amounts of scrap and machinery supplied by your parents. From the few photos you can tell this foolio is using the stock frame and swingarm. So he basically fabricates a subframe and tank (or has an employee do it), throws on some spoked wheels and headlights off a Triumph Speed Triple. This is news why? Retarded. A&R is a great website. The breakdown in lap times of the Qatar test, “Who Really Was the Fastest,” is absolutely brilliant stuff. Thank you. But c’mon, don’t report this kind of crap. Why not put someone in the spotlight who needs it? Maybe an up and coming bike painter or a small scale fabricator. What about some WERA or AFM guys and the companies that sponsor them. I’d rather read about the local motorcycle scene in Qatar. When you run stuff like this you’re just feeding into the deflating bubble that is/was West Coast Choppers, Orange County Choppers, Alcoholic Monster Truck Driving Murderous Choppers INC., etc. Not what an already hurting industry needs. Use the bandwidth for something useful. Thanks for listening.
Lame.
For the love of God somebody stop Roland Sands and the rest of the hipsters who think that because they can weld, they can design.
Oh, and stop the RSD print ads too. They are just awful.
Easy Solution, Take BOTH RSD and this Justyn guy to the Boonies and shoot them on the back of their heads after making them dig their own graves. The world doesn’t have to know about such Crime (not their deaths but what they’re doing to that poor Desmo).
wow!!!
People with money, can be the stupidest creatures on earth sometimes. It’s like making a dune buggy out of an Enzo, just because you have 3.
RSD and company are tripping over their collective egos obviously since they actually accepted a project like this. Who do they think they are?! Leonardo da Vinci’s they’re not! What’s next? Maybe N.Y. graffiti artists could make over the Mona Lisa.
Ahhhh…A&R looks like you’ve struck a chord with this one. Quick…somebody call Charlie Sheene, maybe he’ll buy one.
Hey Earl Shives…ever think of running for office? I’d vote for you.
Seriously Steve. I thought this bike was WINNING – DUH! I personally like the stuff Roland Sands Design has been rolling out on its custom projects, and think this bike could look tits mcgee when done.
It’s worthy of note that the RSD blog is currently featuring the F1 Tracker by Marcus Moto Design, a story first published here btw, which is another Ducati meets street tracker concept that went over swimmingly well here.
If Roland & Co. are digging that vibe, I think we’ll be digging there’s when this Desmo Tracker is done.
Umm, I’m not a welder by any means (actually a racer, kind of a big deal), but does the welding on the tank in the last pic look a little rough?
Hey, if the guy has the money to do what he wants to the Desmosedici, who are you guys to call him retarded? Do you guys have a Desmosedici? How about a HyperMotard?….. Didn’t think so.
Money, machinery, leverage and contacts doesn’t make u a “designer”… but rather a spoiled half ass bike butcher.
U can’t buy that kind of talent…u either have or u don’t, thats a fact. U can always buy someone’s else tho (a proper talented creative person).
U don’t HAVE to own a Ducati to spot a WACK JOB. I love ur anology… so pointless…just like what he’s doing to that Desmo.
P.S: All of the above is just one man’s opinion…u know whats been said about it (we all have one and they all stink).
Nice job on the tank. What are the holes in the welds for, venting?
WOW all this trash talking and still RSD is quite a reputable company with alot of new and innovative designs. Give me an 80K bike and he’s the one i would take it too. And too sit behind your computers and not know either of these succesful gentlemen….HATERS…. Ridiculous cuz the DESMO will be BADASS when its finished up see what you all have to say about the finished product… enjoi
@DH
LMAO. Go suck on his big toe and hump his leg…lol.