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.
Interesting. I wonder how legit this is though – some street bikes are conspicuously absent. 1290 seems 100cc too big – maybe they stroked the RC8 motor? Maybe they just fibbed a bit on the name? The Freeride 350 is also a head-scratcher. Maybe the 350 refers to battery capacity or something.
In any event, I’d really like an RC8R powered SMT. Ya listening KTM?
Oh, I could also do with some spffy DI two strokes off road bikes!
Hmmm, I see something else missing, a new RC8r for 2012-13. It was a fairly credible rumor I heard about 8 months to a year ago. This was from the same source that had already mentioned the 2013 superduke. The Superduke was originally for 2012 but was pushed because of RC8r development… hmmm, the picture will be alittle clearer 3 months from now
I’m looking into purchasing an RC8R. I do hope they continue its development, its such a beautiful bike!
To me the biggest news on this chart is the EXC 2-stroke. At first I thought, “Oh, this must have been a European or Australian dealer expo,” but, nope, there it says “North America” at the top.
I believe in Europe and Australia they label bikes as EXC that are labeled as XC here in the states. What about Canada? Does Canada have similar naming conventions to the U.S.?
Or is KTM actually going to give us a street legal 2-stroke!? And will they get around the EPA with DFI!?
I am just wondering what this350cc Moto3 bike would be. Will it be a Moto3 chassis with a more standard 350cc engine in it as a cheap training bike for cup riders ? A 350cc wouldn’t have to work as hard and deliver the same amout of BHP . Or will it be, as MCN suggests, a bike like the Aprilia RS 250 and Suzuki RGV 250 ?? I hope for the last.
I’d lay bills on the “Moto3 350″ being nothing more than the Duke 350 with some clothes on–Further supported by the naming of an “Enduro 350″–Platform sharing at it’s most profitable, and a direct competitor to the little ‘prillia
They didn’t actually “lift” the photo from BARF. They asked to use it and were given permission.
Crediting BARF with the story didn’t seem necessary at the time, as the photo has been openly visible on Facebook for over a month.
“the future is orange” … really!? that’s the best launch statement that KTM’s marketing group can come up with?
i guess more folks @ KTM north america other than jon eric are total minchiones.
cXnBxe Good post.
First off let me say that I do love KTM’s. With that out of the way, I would have bought a 690 Duke if it had a color scheme like the orange and white RC8, now that’s beautiful. What I didn’t like was that there was waaaay too much black. No offense but, if “the future is orange”, why are the bikes predominately black? Fire the color coordinator.