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.
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.
WOOF!
That’s the future right there!
Now all the haters can take back all the dumb statements about the styling.
Looks like a bike worthy of getting rid of the 999s for! The 1098/1198 certainly wasn’t.
I’ll reserve my judgment till I see it on the dealer floor, get my hands on it, may be even get a get test ride… now excuse me while i go change my t-shirt wet from all the drool….
I didn’t like it at first, but wow…that is awesome!
idkkkk guys I dont know if Im feelin it yet.. Theres just so much going on with the bike.. Maybe since its such a radical change.. Ill have to see it in person..
Like a fungus, it’s growing on me.
Even uglier. Cool, awesome in its rawness, but awkward, unthoughtout Angeles ugly.
No electronic suspension on the Superstock version? Note the lack of the wiring tubes on the fork tops.
Now that’s worth getting rid of my 999R for… Daddy needs a new track bike or should I convert the RSV4 into the track bike??? :/ really glad to see Ducati pushing boundries cause the 10976 was just to plain for me nice bike but no game changer….
@ Fazer6. Unthoughtout? Really!? You know you’re saying this about a Ducati correct? All the Italians do is “thinkout”… LOL
Sorry… 10976 should have been 1098…..
Thank you ducati for being relevant. Thank you for not being Honda.
I guess this is what the new face of world domination looks like?
AWESOME (and I don’t use that word often)
Is this version going to be offered for sale or is this how the Superbike\Supersport teams will get it?
No doubt it is technically awesome for a superbike, but none of this tech is so revolutionary EXCEPT the frame. Electronic suspension, traction control, data aquisition have all been around for a while. All on a production superbike at the same time? No. So if that’s why you’re so excited Jensen, that’s justifiable.
She’s still not a beauty.
Indeed part of my excitement is the total package element here with the different technology pieces, but the larger piece of my praise is the chassis design. Give it 10 years, this will replace twin-spar frame designs throughout the industry.
Jensen Beeler says:
November 14, 2011 at 8:25 AM
Indeed part of my excitement is the total package element here with the different technology pieces, but the larger piece of my praise is the chassis design. Give it 10 years, this will replace twin-spar frame designs throughout the industry.
just a guess, but less than 10 years
How can you be so sure that twin spar will be gone??? People have said that about front forks for decades, yet still nothing works better than UDS.
The only time it will replace something is if it’s found to work better. So far it has not on the racing level. Perhaps if it makes the bike significantly less expensive I can see how on the street it would not matter, but then this bike is supoosed to end up in WSBK, right?
Maybe on the sport twins…but…on the I-4, yeah, i would grab popcorn, sit and let them amaze me with some “unseen wild shit tech” arrangement.
I too would love to see what they have up their sleeves when it comes to the I-4 and dumping the Twin Spars Frame.
You,d think at that price they could have painted the tank?Looks a bit unfinished like my old TT500 with the alloy tank
@mxs: They have found better alternatives. Hub center works brilliantly, but when it comes to racing, the riders are all used to the feedback and feeling from USD forks. Most racers start very young, all through their learning years they are riding on bikes using the “traditional” technologys which then seems to set them in their ways of feeling with they bike.
You would have to get someone riding hub centered bikes from the start of their career to have an equal comparison between the two. Till then forks will stay, as noone will invest that much into smaller league racing…
In terms of the frames, just look back 50 years or so, see how the layouts of bikes have changed. It’ll happen someday again…
way to show off that sick termignoni exhaust, ducati. unfortunately, no belly pan = no fluid catch = illegal to most every racing sanctioning body there is.
otherwise, omfg