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.
Thumbs up on the “over the line” tag. And thanks, as always, for the attribution, kind sir.
There’s always gem or two hidden in the tag lines. ;) Your welcome on the link.
Has to be the best looking ebike of the bunch.
Great looking bike and respectably fast on the track. These things are getting serious. Curious to see them when the batteries get small and they are developed more in the coming years. This is very exciting and I NEVER thought I’d say that. A long way from my old TD2 Yamaha… that’s for sure.
Thunderhill is a track I know well after 7 years of AFM racing. Sadly T-hill looks even bumpier when there’s no screaming engine to distract the viewer. The bike does not look fast. From these brief clips the rider is not taking the best lines so that could be part of it. At about 4:40 we get passed by a 600 rider going into T10. With a bad line, and bad drive off the top of T9 that could be an easy pass for someone, more telling is how we get eclipsed by the same rider coming out of T13 onto the back stretch. We’re always looking for comparisons between existing bikes and electric bikes, and this tells us a little story, but truly we can’t compare unless we are matching equal riders or even the same rider over multiple sessions. It’s still creepy quiet no matter what you think of the bike.
coming along real nicely! 10 years ago, we would never envisioned something like this would ever happen! Kudos to you guys!
Mickey,
You’re correct. I posted these videos in a forum with some comments stating that 1. I’m not a professional (or even amateur) racer and 2. We were out collecting data on the bike with at most 1 hot lap. Many times I was watching those tiny numbers on the display more than I was paying attention to my line. I also edited the video specifically to show that pass you mention to show 1. where gas bikes are inherently faster (on the straights) and 2. that besides racers like yourself, the rider is mostly the limitation on a bike’s performance.
Those aren’t even my worst corners… you should see me screw up turn 14 (and subsequently 15)!
DO WANT!
@BrammonBrian: I WANT TO RIDE IT :)
One of the things that has me the most mentally disturbed is no clutch / shifting action. After years of trying to figure out when to downshift, how to smoothly let out the clutch while braking as stupidly late as my front tire will allow, not shifting just seems wrong. However since you don’t have all that business to distract you then you can focus much more of your attention on braking, and corner entry.
So with that said chassis geometry and weight distribution are going to be huge. Without the distraction I’m going to want to brake beyond stupid late, and really load up the front end on corner entry. Ride height adjustment front and rear will help and during preseason testing having some different sets of triple clamps with different offsets to adjust rake and trail will also be helpful.
I like the bike… Glad i aint a Canadian cuz Brammo thinks they are to stupid to ride one… Or am i mistaken when i read the rules for that sweepstake? “If a Canadian participant qualifies to win this prize, s/he will be asked to return by mail, her/his correct answer to a skill-testing question involving general knowledge, in order to be declared a winner and receive her/his prize.”
So ANY stupid moron from ANYWHERE on this eaerth can win your bike but the Canadian can’t cuz they must answer a question correctly first? WTF???
@Wieso? – I doubt Brammo thinks Canadians are stupid. Rather, Canada is one of the countries with a sweepstakes law that requires winners to solve a math question so that the contest will not be classified as gambling. And I’m pretty sure that the math question won’t require advanced calculus. So yes, any “stupid moron from ANYWHERE on this eaerth [sic]” can win the bike. Even you.
Well Brian, you probably piloted the RR better than I could at TH. Turn 11 was a problem for me… didnt do all that well on 5 either… or the rest of em for that matter… Really I was concentrating on just having fun and not wrecking my brother’s gsxr750. In this case we are talking about a one of a kind machine though, that’s huge pressure there.
Jeremy & Brian:
How do you guys go to T-Hill, and not give me a call? It’s like 30 minutes from A&R.