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.
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.
photo doesn’t capture enough of Lauren Vickers’ legs
@noch: Lauren sure is a welcome addition to the paddock!
as if it were possible to capture all of her legs in one shot…
Uuuum…I thought Randy de Puniet was supposed to be in this picture?? OOOOOH…there he is. :-)
Photo of the Week: Fast By Any Other Name – http://t.co/eqUd1APD #motorcycle
Who the hell is Lauren Vickers ?
(quickly taps out google image search)
ohhhhhhh……. :)
I was going to say something about Lauren, but, since so many other people have, I won’t.
This is where the genius is in this photo.
The depth leads your eyes directly on the very last point, on this one person with an angel face and a look lost into horizon, when everybody else around has their eyes sharp and focused on something.
Physically, Lauren is in the background, Randy in the foreground, but don’t be fooled by physics; On this picture all is reversed : she is the foreground, and Randy is a “too close” background.
You can spend hours analysing this photo, like always with Scott’s photos, and this is what I love about him.
Green as a frog
That man deserves a better bike, a “no fear” fighter who’s always on the edge and over.. Joy to watch, entourage included.. :P
Sorry, Roy. RDP barely deserves this bike. He’s as quick as he is stupid. No one over the past five years in MotoGP has turned more GP bikes into sand-trap yard sales. The upside is that no one is more likely — save Colin Edwards — to qualify CRT bike in the top 10. And given he’s on the Aprilia, he’s likely got a better shot than Colin. So we’ll watch him for a couple of fast laps. He’ll crash. And best of all, the cameras then will linger on a concerned Ms. Vickers (who, it must be said, is RDP’s finest ride to date). Rinse and repeat.
De Puniet has placed his LCR on the front row on more than a couple of occasion, before being robbed of his seat by Elias and Dorna. If De Puniet were on a factory Yamaha or Honda, he would given Spies, Dovizioso, and Pedrosa a run for their money…
Though like Melandri, the best part of having De Puniet on the grid are the cut-away shots of their girlfriends (Manuela and Lauren)
Stoners wife is a cute girl, but those two are Women in every sense of the word…
Can’t see the bike or the rider mentioned on the article…all i see is a good looking tall Mujer looking PornStar CALIENTE.
@Mike, different people – different manner of appreciating riders.. it’s obvious he’s been overriding the bikes to get good results. crashing a lot yeah.. conservatism would be better for points. Though i’d rather see someone fighting and ride on the edge to advance than accepting a minor position. They always say that it’s easier to learn them to stay seated instead of learning them to ride fast. And it’s no secret that he can be tremendously fast. Grit, guts and spirit, that’s what I like to see..
MikeD…. nice spanish kkkkkk
nice woman, medium pilot.
@Roy I agree. But I wasn’t really responding to your appreciation of Randy. He’s fun to watch. I was responding to “That man deserves a better bike…” The fact is, he doesn’t. Since ’07 no MotoGP rider has crashed out more. (The numbers are on the MotoGP website.) Even Garry McCoy’s crash rate wasn’t this bad. (Another rider who was wonderful to watch.) He’s great for a fast lap and a few interesting moments. And my money would be on him if the races ran three laps. But they don’t. He crashes in the rain, in the dry, when it’s hot, when it’s cold, out front, in the chasing pack and even in the warmup (once). His grit — riding through injuries — are a direct result of his bonehead rides. Maybe a French sandpaper company will want to sponsor his grit. But factory & satellite teams (and their sponsors) like a rider who can finish the races they are supposed to. Really, he’s perfect for a CRT. He’ll put one near the front and make the subclass legit. Then at about lap 12 he’ll provide the track marshals and a few fans with carbon fiber souvenirs.
DePunet TODAY would finish within sight of Stoner, Lorenzo and Dani if he were given a decent mount, Which he NEVER had. He is fast, period. Pushing over the limit in search of speed is far more commendable than accepting 10th place before the lights go out, which is what most other riders on the grid have been doing for years. And, you have to be a major tool to evaluate any rider, save one, based on his results on the verified POS Ducati gp bike for the last 6 years. Randy WAS a habitual crasher, but he always pushed EVERY bike to its limits. Now he’s wasting his talents on a joke CRT bike. Joke because it is nothing but a grid filling half-ass idea from Carmelo to appease the 17 bike minimum rule,,, with nothing but out-classed lapper machines.
http://sharedw.org/va-women-2cd-2011-plan9/
fk me she’s the size of an avatar!!!
Great stuff, I enjoyed reading it!
Ah RDP. He continues to amaze in his ability to hang onto a ride — not literally of course. He has the most remarkable quick/stupid ratio in the paddock. But rather than say it myself, I’ll leave it to longtime MotoGP reporter Julian Ryder on RPD’s home race this weekend: “Unfortunately, Randy managed to crash before crossing the start line, which must be a record. He got on his spare bike and managed to crash that too. Which must be a record.”