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.
That’s pretty cool. It should be interesting to see what Blake Young can do on this thing.
fantastic. can’t wait to see Blake in action in Austin!
Went to the Assen TT this year and I love the sound of the Yamaha.
At low rev’s it is very nice and deep. The sound of the RC213V was really
dirty and hurts the ears. The Ducati also sounded nice but a bit sluggish.
“Listen” to Attack Kawasaki’s Crossplane CRT Bike…
Pardon me, is crossplane crankshaft most notable by it’s (unique) sound?
Afletra, a crossplane cranked four-cylinder does make a unique sound, when compared to standard bike. The real benefit though is smoother power delivery and decreased fuel-economy.
Sweet!!!
I’m rooting for these guys. More wildcards please!
I got judged…. :-(
Silly coworkers don’t know what they’re missing out on!
Sounds great… But I thought CRT bikes were to use production based engines in prototype chassis?… What production Kawasaki has a crossplane crank?
CHEATING or… ATTACK YAMAHA?
@Edward K “Production based” is the catch-all used to allow bikes with various and cheaper production parts, i.e. cases, but still allow heavy mods such as a crossplane cranks. This was to address the Harris-WCM problem from a few years ago when what was essentially a prototype bike (and a quick one at that) was DQ’d because it had production cases and other minor bits. So CRT, unlike say WSBK, can make pretty heavy mods legally. At least that’s my understanding.
@Jensen
“smoother power delivery and decreased fuel-economy…..”
Isn’t decreased fuel economy a bad thing ;)
So Jon, I guess you see what I did there… ;)
Yes, Jensen, it is Friday. I know this to be true because every Friday I crank up that wonderful Friday song from Youtube to torture my employees.
You’re a bad man Mr. X.
Edward, ZX-10R motor with a modified crank. All perfectly legal according to the rules.
Oh,,what was that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,An earthquake or my wALLS JUST SHUTTERING FROM THAT BAD-ASS KAWI………..LOL,,,,Its friday beotches,,,,,,,,,,,feeling good cause were riding tomorrow,,,,,,,,oh yeah..
You have the wrong crank in that picture…….. Seriously.
I don’t think this is a crossplane. Call me crazy, but it sounds like a parallel twin. Given the ZX-RR Big Bang of 2005, and the link back to Kawi’s parallel twin bikes, it makes a lot of sense. Pulling off, it sounded a LOT like the hollow ATV like gurgle of my Ninja 650R, and really nothing like the V8 burble of a V4 or the crossplane R1. Interesting choice Kawi, VERY interesting. Still hoping for the return of the ZX-RR
It’s a crossplane.
Matty, that’s the correct photo, and it’s from Yamaha.
Crossplain have un even firing order causing pulses in engine power thus increasing traction and a smoother power delivery. A virtual V engine in an inline format. Attack made the crank cause Kawi doesn’t currently make one.
I really hope these guys do well this year. If Blake Young can ride that machine anything like he rode the Yoshimura Suzuki at Road Atlanta this last season, he may surprise a few people.
Didn’t Kawasaki have a big bang inline four in 2009 that Marco Melandri rode ( to one podium) in MotoGP?Kawasaki actually pulled out of MotoGP and stopped develpoment but Hayate ran the the one bike team. It sounded like the Yamaha M1.
Sounds ALMOST as sweet as an R1………just almost :)
@Matty: I don’t think this is a crossplane
That’s what I thought too ….
Crossplane:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossplane
Aha:
“Crossplane cranks can be combined with big-bang firing order for improved power delivery.”
So a crossplane crank hasn’t to be bigbang ….
Cool! Good luck for them!
“The real benefit though is smoother power delivery and decreased fuel-economy.”
Jensen? ;)
Yes Jim?
I think Jim is trying to say that “decreased fuel-economy” is not a benefit.
Sweet!
And I’m trying to say it’s this crazy thing called humor, tongue-in-cheek style.
Interesting that someone builds their own Cross plain these days when 5 years ago it was not a conceived idea for production and barely race bikes…
Should be interesting for sure… :)
hummm…. so it’s better to build a ZX10 with a custom crossplane crank than it is to modify an existing +09 R1 engine to be competitive as a CRT engine?
Without it being race proved the idea in itself is awesome and hopefully inspiring to the other CRT teams to think outside the box a little bit. :)
If it works decent I’m sure Colin Edwards II will be the first in line to buy one for his Kawi-FTR. :)
BBQ- a cross plane crank will, by definition be a big bang engine…surely??