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.
In case you missed our exhaustive coverage of the Grand Prix of the Americas, those fools at Dorna gave me pit lane access this MotoGP season. So while the whole paddock waits for the Spaniards to come to their senses, I don’t plan on wasting the opportunity to share with our readers our extreme access to motorcycling’s premier racing class. Accordingly, here comes another installment into our ever-continuing “Up-Close” series, featuring the very finest Iwata has to offer: the Yamaha YZR-M1. Thirty 2000px-wide photos are waiting for you after the jump.
Well done. Congratulations to the Lightning Team and Paul Thede. What motor and batteries are used on the bike?
SWEET!
Hats off for this achievement. However, I’m more impressed by road race victories than outright, straight line speed. I.E., build a bike that can beat Mission Motors at laguna seca and I’ll be even more impressed.
Lightning will be tough to beat on the track once they get some development time. I heard at Laguna Seca they had zero track time before the race and had a seized Brembo brake caliber. Development time is all that is needed. No practice, 4 or 5 laps in qualifying and 8 lap race is not much development time.
Congrats to lightning!
Will Yates be in a different class do you know?
Any other electrics going to speed week?
I believe Lightning uses a Remy motor and Ener1 batteries.
Yates is at the BUB Speed Trials in two weeks’ time. You can set AMA and FIM LSRs at that event.
I’ve heard rumblings of other electrics at the salts. I’d probably wake up with a horse head in my bed if I said who though. :)
@elmotomadman Remy motor, Ener1 batts.
Great stuff!!
@elmotomadman – They use a Remy motor with a custom housing and cooling system. They also have Ener1 batteries on board.
A horse head, must be CRP. :D
Haha i guess we are all very knowledgeable posters and very timely :)
So does that mean everyone owes me a Coke?
Mark my words now boys – Electric bikes will change it all. It will start at Pikes Peak where they have an inherent advantage of no loss of power due to altitude. Electric cars will follow there soon; same reason.
I grew up riding dirt bikes..etc. Now own a Ducati with Termis – so I love the sound like everyone else. But its coming!!
Great job guys.
Congratulations! Pretty awesome stuff…
Bonneville: Lightning Motorcycles Becomes the First Electric Motorcycle to Break 200 MPH – http://aspha.lt/ri #motorcycle
@elmotomadman
They had dev time; they went to IOM.
Bonneville: Lightning Motorcycles Becomes the First Electric Motorcycle to Break 200 MPH – http://aspha.lt/ri #motorcycle
I don’t mean to poo-poo this, but high speed is not an issue with electric motors whether car or bike. 200 miles between charges that last less than 10 minutes and battery life for more than 5 years is the holy grail that truly revolutionize the industry. SSC makes the world’s fastest production car, even faster than the Bugatti Veyron, and just how exactly has this car changed the world?
Great. Let them come…get developed, reach the stars and w/e else they aspire to…just don’t try to push them down my throat…i still feel very much at home with my ancient ICE 1.0L 90* Twin.
I’ll run it on moonshine if i have too…lmao.
I don’t think anyone is forcing the electric bikes down anyone’s throat…did the early IC motorcycle companies force their bikes down the throats of horse owners? If it wasn’t for the early IC bike development and years of innovation with this passion we wouldn’t have the great machines we have today. Same with electric…we need pioneers who want to push a new technology. It is about going as fast as you can and still have a choice on how you want to do it. I know this is not original but…the stone age did not end because of a lack of stones…and the oil age won’t end because of a lack of oil. We might not see it but future generations will.
“the stone age did not end because of a lack of stones…and the oil age won’t end because of a lack of oil”.
Yeah…i hope so…in these days and times when u wake up and there’s a new regulation for anything prohibiting everything…yeah…let’s watch and take notes.
The goverment started by imposing those stupidly high fuel standards (that no one has been able to figure out yet how to meet it w/o making cars unsafe or super xpensive) for the future on the car manufacturers and it sure looks to favor more and more the electric vehicles than anything else (diesel who ?)…who says they won’t push their dirty ways in Motorcycles too ?
But w/e… i don’t think fosil fuels will run out before i run out of breath…or bikes. lol.
Congrats to Richard and team! C U in 2 weeks tho! Lightning Becomes the First Electric Motorcycle to Break 200 MPH http://t.co/wl7pA0R
Bonneville: Lightning Motorcycles Becomes the First Electric Motorcycle to Break 200 MPH – http://aspha.lt/ri #motorcycle
And what about sunday result?
I saw the official number going into the record books is 206.049
Our record is 206.079. Our measured best speed through the lights was 208.328. We are working hard now making changes to bump the record.
Richard