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.
Awesome news, hope they can can make the start and become competitive. Would really put the motorcycle world on its head
Hub steering… wow. I had to google that just to educate myself. There are some good youtube vids that show it in action. Seems to make a lot of sense but obviously not in use by many (if any?) major manufacturers.
A couple manufacturers have played around with it, the Yamaha GTS1000 comes to mind. The generally consensus seems to be that the cost outweighs the benefits, but that is also coming from companies that have a financial interest in Öhlins and Showa, so…
Very Nice.
Prototype racing to its “fullest dimension” with a spec engine from 1 OEM? Any word on Moto2 allowing other manufacturers to enter their engines in the coming years?
Hoyt, I would have to say it DOES make sense. As far as drivetrains go and in spite of traction control, instant shift gear boxes and dual clutches there isn’t a whole lot new. Currently our power trains are well ahead of the chassis, suspension and brakes. So what’s wrong with Moto2 providing a competative venue to accelerate research? I like the Vyrus and it’s hubless steering.
Keith, you state there isn’t a whole lot new. How is there going to be anything new with one manufacturer?
accelerate research? Engines and chassis get developed together, not in silos. Your logic suggests engineers will learn everything they need to from the inline 4. It is bad enough motorcycles are primarily developed around one front-end design, the tele.
Yamaha is only into their 3rd retail year of the cross-plane crank engine. What if they combined that with staggered pistons (e.g. Horex’s VR6) so their 4 is the size of a triple? The chassis now has more options.
Aprilia is only into their 3rd racing season with a brand new v4.
Sure, these companies can develop in the GP class but a lot of innovation comes from small companies with smaller engines. Let there be choices across various classes so more players can contribute new designs. Plus, supporting a full-on prototype GP class with a class that uses one engine from one manufacturer doesn’t jive.
I think the Vyrus is great too and hope Martin Wimmer’s team gets their front-end on the grid this year. The more the merrier, so why stop at a CBR 600?
“companies that have a financial interest in Öhlins and Showa”
I am pretty sure that Yamaha sold it’s interest in Ohlins back to the company, although Honda still owns Showa.
Hub center steering is probably still just a gimmicky thing and probably not a real improvement over telescopic forks. Even BMW decided to go with telescopic forks for their s1000rr, even though they had a lot of development in their Telelever and Paralever Systems.
Although it’s good to see companies thinking outside the box, I don’t see a bunch of Moto2 teams jumping on board until it’s proven, which means Vyrus better have a deep war chest to go racing to prove their ideas are better than the norm
I like the different engineering that I’m seeing these days, but I have to take issue with the names. Motus, Vyrus, Motoczysz, etc. None of them roll off the tongue in a “cool” or endearing manner. Maybe someday some with get a Vyrus tattoo to show their devotion, but I’m just not feeling it.
BMW went w/a tele front because the tele is most widely accepted, but it is not necessarily the best engineered solution
DROOL! Might have to sell the Tesi 3D to get this one!
“BMW went w/a tele front because the tele is most widely accepted, but it is not necessarily the best engineered solution”
According to a BMW developer of the S100RR they said they tried the telelever, but for the best lap time, the telescopic fork was best. Also said was that the Duolever system results in too long of a wheelbase for racing. Also said, the natural braking dive of the telescopic fork “changes the steering angle and the trail, and riders find that leads to ease of turning, at race pace” This was from the latest edition of Roadracing World. While there may be other engineering solutions to the front end of the motorcycle, manufacturers have had almost 80 years to develop a new design, but have not. They have chosen to evolve the conventional fork. Probably for good reason
I agree with most of those points but there are other designs in addition to the BMW version of the telelever and duolever. There are other factors at play too:
racers will always prefer the tele because that is all they know & have known (for the time being).
80 yrs ago, the tele was revolutionary and was the best so other designs did not seriously emerge until the 80s. Look at the results of designs like the RADD & 6x Flex with a fraction of the development time compared to the tele. Incidentally, the latter designs do incorporate some telescoping action to include some dive.
…and the duolever and telelevers do not include dive (as far as I know)
oops…telelever does include dive. BMW’s version of that setup has been fairly heavy so that wouldn’t have been included on a bike like the 1000RR anyway