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.
An interesting development on the aftermarket side of things has graced our desks, as Öhlins has released a “suspension control unit” (SCU) that upgrades the electronically adjustable suspension on the Ducati Multistrada 1200 S so that it becomes a semi-active suspension system. Whhhaaaat??! So, if you’re the proud owner of a pre-2013 Ducati Multistrada 1200 S, and you think that your electronically controlled Öhlins suspension is no longer boss, now that Ducati has released its Sachs-powered “Skyhook” semi-active suspension pieces on its new batch of Multistrada sport-tourers, there is a remedy for your motolust.
But i think, they should give the New ZX-6R extra weight :)
they let 848s and 675s race in those classes, so far it hasn’t made a difference.
Does this mean that Suzuki can run the Gixxer 750 in this class? Seems only fair to me.
Sure the GSXR750 could race in that class with inlet restrictors and added weight. As long as the power/weight ratio is the same, who cares.
HA ! U don’t say ! I wonder how the AMA hand was “greased” and how much ?
I doubt the “others” will stay quiet about it if Kawasaki starts a wining streak.
When will the AMA Pro Racing group get their heads out of their Nascar asses and right the ship?!
?, really such BS… Does that mean we can all throw a 3 or 4mm overbore on all inline4 600′s? Such BS, destroying the 600 class is all this is doing, then what? Superbike is already broken…AMA is a fcking joke, I hate to say it but it should die. Fck kawasaki for doing the displacement in the first place and trying to race it….
The AMA has always been a few top level corrupt idiots in control since the inception.
I think a history lesson is in-store for you young fucks.
That’s ridiculous 4 cylinder engines should all be 600cc, triples a maximum of 700cc, and twins 800cc in a supersport class. Ducati was allowed 848 but with restrictors and 25 lbs.. Not mad at Kawi but all year long all the other teams will bitch and complain.. Cut a cylinder off and run a 700cc and make it real interesting fair and square..
Or they could just run to FIM WSB/WSS rules. Or use those basic rules while adding extensions/restrictions the way that BSB/BSS and the European championships do. What exactly is wrong with 600-4,675-3, 750-2 ?
Meanwhile, a 599cc Kawasaki won the first WSS race of the year. Did anything actually need to change?
Guys, seriously its 36 cc, less then a typical whipper snipper, and I’ll bet the HP reading are the same as any of the other AMA bikes. I race honda and welcome the 636, bring it on, I’m not gonna whinge and cry that there’s a competent bike out there that just might beat me if ridden well. I’m used to racing in classes with multiple types of bikes and the outcome really doesn’t have as much to do with the machine as your ego’s think.
“Do you want cries with that?’
AMA/DMG racing lost my respect years ago.
You guys complain too much. You sound like a bunch of old women.
That’s idiotic
sheesh, the france family screws with nascrap all the time…what makes you think that under the guise of DMG they aren’t going to screw up a superior racing series also? Not that it matters, the stuck up jackanapes have effectivly removed AMA racing from televison thus getting nascrap more screen time. meh, a pox on DMG and I hope they go bankrupt.
Let the good times roll!
Jensen, can you confirm that the new ZX-6R is explicitly homologated *without* any restrictor or weight penalties?
@Diesel & Jim:
LMAO. Personally, i think is nothing to make a fuss about but good enough for the other OEMs to start complaining and bitching.
A 36cc jump in displacement is 6% over everyone else’s 600cc engine. Assuming 120HP (very reasonable figure for these bikes) for the true 600s, The Kawasaki basically gets an extra 7.2HP for free. If you’ve never raced at the AMA level I promise an extra 7.2HP would make a substantial difference.
AMA racing has been a joke for years, and this doesn’t help. Have you seen the fan turn-out at an AMA race?–nobody in the stands, and maybe a few hundred people lining the walls next to their motorhomes and travel trailers.
Next, AMA will have the riders wearing microphones in their helmets.
For those asking, the only caveat that AMA Pro Road Racing makes in its rulebook for the 2013 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R is a 375 lbs minimum weight.
Would make it more interesting if they limited all the engines to 120 hp, and removed the minimum weight. If they’re going to come up with stupid homologation rules, at least make things interesting. Who cares about number of cylinders and displacement? It’d be way more interesting if someone took a Wankel rotary engine, which is quite light, and stuck it in a titanium frame, or perhaps a fuel in frame set up. The Norton 588 makes 170hp, so you could go a bit smaller and lighter with the engine to make 120.
Do that for a few years, and see how much different motorcycle design becomes.
As long as there’s a weight penalty it should be ok.. Biggest difference is the smoother torque the additional 36cc will give. But if Kawi wins a couple of races everybody will complain……
There is a penalty everyone… this story didn’t really do justice with the details, but the DUCK 848 is severely penalized at 375 pounds and restrictors… It’s why they don’t do well as well as quick handling of the 600′s.
The new 636 will have the same weight penalty of the 675′s at 20 lbs…
They penalized the Vtwin Aprilia’s so hard that not even Chaz Davies could podium that beast…
I think the 600′s will still do the thing… 675′s close and we’ll see about that 636… ummmmm
I think the majority rules here, Kawi has a 636 to sell street bikes, the AMA needs Kawi because their grasping at shreds of their former slightly more appealing existence and the AMA needs all the $$$ they can get their mits on… None of us can watch any fcking racing at decent times on nascrap tv…. It’s a fcking shame.. Motorcycle road racing is affectivly dead in the US compared to the UK, the general public here wouldn’t know a riders name if they heard it…. Have any of you ordered a AMA season review lately? I did a couple years ago and it totally sucked… I’m on a rant…..
Are we going to see the return of the 650cc motorcycle for the street as well as racing? Old-school :)
Stroked engines are always better for street riding, better torque and low RPM performance particularly in-line four bangers and V4 plants. In general they tend to make more overall peak and across the rev range horsepower. Lower octane fuel required and less timing advance in race applications.
“Are we going to see the return of the 650cc motorcycle for the street as well as racing? Old-school :)”
One can only hope, Aaron. One can only hope. :)
Do people really not understand that everything in Supersport and DSB is performance balanced? If you guys want to complain, you should at least learn how to hate on DMG.
Honda and Kawasaki left b/c they ruined Supersport and DSB is performance balanced. They have no SBK-style rules for 600cc competition so they bailed.
Oh yeah, please fill me in on this performance balance? So the Honda CBR600 thats down on HP in SS by more than 10hp gets what? Oh thats right they get to race with 10 less hp… Such blanket statements reflect the same myopic perspective ass AMA & their rules to make the sport “Cheaper”
Really, 37 additional cc’s, eh? What is the difference in volumetric efficiency? How about bsfc? Displacement is a number, not the ONLY variable driving power. I mean seriously guys, close this web page and pick up a book..
Turning around a racing series and rebuilding public confidence is not an easy task, but the fine men and women working hard at those AMA rounds are trying. Disappointing to see people hating on their efforts without really understanding much about the complex machine that is a racing series.