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.
well good for them!
And in that two years they have: Sold MV back to it’s original owner for one dollar; screwed Erik Buell; blackmailed the State of Wisconsin for $25 million; begun the process of doing the same to Kansas City; screwed their union (read: customer base) members and blackmailed them into allowing “casual workers” (their term) at $17 an hr with no benefits and… wait for it… introduced zero new products or technologies.
Wait, my bad. There’s several new bandanas available. “Arrrhh.” I will not mourn the demise of HD.
What about the 3.2 billion HD got from Obama? I agree with irksome. Harley seems to spend a lot of money and then still sells the same old outdated motorcycles. I guess they are using the money on there new 2011 line of belt buckles, wall clocks and do rags. I wonder how much HD really owes. HD sold borrow some more money and use it to design a real motorcycle instead of the bar barges they sell now.
Reply to Scooter: See that picture at the top of the page? THAT’S HD’s new model.
To be fair, they do offer the Night Rod Special in dayglo yellow now.
They are paying off these high interest loans using money secretly given to them by our Federal Reserve. That money was literally stolen from the value of every dollar in existence in every bank account and in every wallet. Hopefully, now that Ron Paul has some oversight over the FED, this kind of bullshit will stop happening. Harley Davidson needs to die already. This is the second time the tax payers and the government have bailed them out. The last time the government even levied a protectionist tariff on other “Heavy” bikes so that importers could not compete against Harley on a level playing field. Here is my prediction for Harley’s death:
Since the economy is in disarray thousands of bankers, lawyers and dentists must liquidate some assets and that two wheeled tractor in the garage will be the first to go. This will fill up the showrooms and Ebay with used Harleys for sale. Since Harley has done no innovation in 40 years, the used bikes are the same bike as the new bikes. Nobody will buy a new bike.
The End.
Couple things:
1) These loans were private loans from private lenders.
2) Harley was loaned $2.3 billion, not $3.2 billion, not that it really matters. This was a short-term loan designed to keep the short-term credit markets flowing. Not only have these loans already been paid off with interest, you’d have to chastise just about every major company in the United States, along with Harley-Davidson, for taking these loans.
3) Irksome, Harley-Davidson ultimately didn’t take the $25 million from Wisconsin.
I think Harley-Davidson is a broken company as much as the next guy, but you’re levying unfair criticisms at the brand with these remarks.
agreed, Jensen; though they do have issues, it’s not fair to blow things out of proportion (you don’t even need to, it’s bad enough as it is).
& irksome, the only reason it appears they screwed over their union is because they’d been breastfeeding them for so long. I worked there, saw what was going on. It was unbelievable…time for change
Harley Davidson counts a bike as sold when it leaves the factory. They are the only manufacture to do this and it gives a false impression to the public that there bikes are selling like hell. Really half of there 2010 production is sitting in a warehouse or on a showroom floor. Harley dumped Buell and the tax payers will pay for that huge mistake. The typical Harley buyer is heading for the nursing home or the grave yard. 90% of the young buyers will not have anything to do with a Harley. They are overpriced, over weight and 1960′s tech and young buyers do not want to have to dress up like a pirate to ride one or hang with the other Harley pirates. Every bar in my town has a Harley beached in front of it. Harley lost millions with there HD financial services. They were giving loans to anyone who could prove they were alive and that is the reason for the 600 million loan. It was to bail out HD financial services. I wonder how Harley dealers will do when the playing field is level and there buyers have to get a real loan like everyone else – not a HD financial services loan which are history now.
The problem with Harley is they are a lifestyle accessory. I can’t tell you how many guys I know who have one parked in the garage. They get out for a spin once or twice a summer, and that’s it. People need money now, and for the non-rider, the Harley goes first. With the market flooded with used bikes, how will Harley sell new ones?