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.
Whether you dig Victory’s style or not, it’s nice to see engineering making a come back in the American cruiser market. Hoping someday that will lead to some Polaris sport models as well.
^ That. As far as cruisers go I suppose the Victory line is probably my favorite, but that isn’t saying much. It’d be awesome to see them make bikes designed more to be ridden first and polished second.
@Matt
I dream of the day when I can walk into my garage and throw a leg over an American sportbike (I don’t have $40,000 for the new EBR, sorry!)
Until then, “Viva Italia!”. lol
If the Japanese segment of the market is seeing massive declines while Triumph, Ducati, and Polaris are seeing increases perhaps they should be asking themselves, “why?” The answer: today’s Japanese bikes are almost without exception fugly. Fire your design departments or at least instruct them to quit pandering to whatever graffiti loving, urban youth demographic you imagine will buy your bikes because it ain’t working. Return to sleek, uncomplicated lines and fairings unencumbered with “cool new graphics” and I bet you’ll start selling some bikes again.
@Jake: EXACTLY! it’s about what speaks to our soul. Not everyone likes the crazy Japanese Anime cartoons and robots and odd “futuristic” shapes they seems to be going with lately. Design, Style, and beautiful lines are probably the biggest draw to the sportbike segment as a whole as well when you consider the torturous ergo’s we live with to ride what we love. It MUST be beautiful to sell to the masses when utility isn’t usually the highest priority (in the U.S.) with motorcycles.
Look at the Buell 1125. Great engineering and mechanically sound, with good reviews too. The stats put it against the big boys. Everyone wanted one when they were rumored to finally be replacing the Harley lump with a new Rotax… That is, until they saw the Huge, ugly fairing and side pods. Would it have really taken that much to style it better when engineering something so complex anyways? Sales flopped even though the performance was finally what so many had begged for.
And look at the Yamaha R1 as an example of something that once had beautiful lines and nice proportions (especially 04-06, imo) without being weird. Beautiful from 1998 through 2008, it now has become quite ugly in comparison. My guess is it’s for the sake of ‘being different’…
My brother-in-law just bought his first bike, a yamaha R6. He liked the engine and suspension, seating position, etc. of every other 600 he tried more than the R6, but he BOUGHT what he found more beautiful.
wow, sorry for the rant…
Jake,
Don’t forget about in the Japanese quest for engineering perfection, their bikes have absolutely no soul. Japanese bikes are seen as disposable commodities in ways that other bikes (especially Italian and yes, even Harleys) simply are not.
Personal taste in motorcycles is subjective, and why something does/doesn’t sell in the States can be hard to understand. I’m not a crusier fan, but Victory definitely makes some pretty cruisers. Likewise, I think that adventure bikes are pretty and many think they’re fugly, so to each their own. Regardless, I’m happy to hear things are going well for Polaris.