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.
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