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.
you want me to translate the document?
yea do it i have no clue what’s going on
Looked like good racing to me :-)
If Google Translator is working, the very last box (#14) says:
Jorge: I could have fallen
Vale: I was having fun
HAR-HAR-HAR. Gotta love those Italians.
Mama Mia! Mama Mia!
Childish Antics. Affraid of loosing your “Hot Spot” ? OH WAIT, U ALREADY DID!!! Many races ago.
Who’s the Champion now? The Leg Trickster ? NOPE.
What kind of Bull Sh!t Racing is that, keep ur danm leg up ur A$$ Rossi.
I was having fun……JackA$$. Until someone goes down.
The “banging” part between Rossi & Jorge looked like some good-old aggressive racing to me… I think people these days might be getting to sensitive.
The comment/s about Rossi & his leg hanging out… referring to sort of blocking Jorge… well I’m no Rossi, but I don’t totally buy into that cornering technique yet…
If this had been Stoner & Pedrosa, or even Hayes & T. Hayden… would people even be making a negative issue out of this little bit of contact?
Maybe at 39 years old, I’m already starting to miss the “good-old days” of how racing used to be… is it getting too political, too corporate, too sensitive…
I say there was nothing really wrong, just good aggressive racing.
I like Rossi and enjoy watching him come out on top but this business of sticking the leg way out as a cornering technique seems fishy to me. It seems the timing coincides a little too perfectly with when the guy behind you would be looking to dive down the inside at the corner. Ultimately though the rules dictate what’s fair and what isn’t. If the FIM has no issue with it then all racers are equally able to use the technique. In fact, a few other riders have dabbled with it. I’m believe I’ve seen Pedrosa and Stoner using it from time to time. As the old adage goes, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Just to clarify, my bitchin is strictly about the Leg Blocking BS.
About the small contact they had… i too think is good old fashion racing.
And whats with the ticket looking document? Are they serious? lmao.
Watching the 2nd last lap of Motegi was FANTASTIC, the colliding and racing! I am extremely glad that no-one was hurt and equally excited to see it again!
LOL!! Hahahahaha!
Lorenzo’s address is, more or less, complainers (/moaning) street, Mallorca.
In 11th damages are: moral injuries vs fun
XDDD
Come off it, you Lorenzo whiners. This was the best racing ALL YEAR, between two riders with a fierce rivalry both balls-out fairing-banging each other to the flag. MotoGP came truly alive for one of the first times in the whole $#@%@$# year, and some people want to complain about it ? Go watch boat racing. As for Lorenzo whinging about getting beat up by Rossi – would he have done the same if he’d won ? I doubt it. Hey Lorenzoi, learn from it, don’t whine about it. Oh and while you’re at it, cut out the ridiculous copy-cat post race celebrations. It only shows how much you secretly adore The Doctor.
Great to see that again.
“Leg technique” – I thought that was more of a braking maneuver to slow down than some attempt at blocking. e.g. Stoner hung his leg in the breeze during this race when no one was behind him. In addition, Lorenzo passed Rossi when Rossi’s leg was out on one of those corners so I can’t see it being used as a blocking technique. (maybe blocking the rider’s view of the corner entry a bit)
That is epic racing that is great for the sport, especially considering they were on the same team. When have you see that in this era of corp money?
Well let me be the first to give “whitesmoke reviewed” a big fuck you!!
So you’re saying that anyone of us that wrote a comment to this article is an “idiot”???
Seems to me that if the author didn’t want viewers to leave comments, that they would turn off the option of leaving comments… It is an option that can be turned off with a check-box in the admin interface of WordPress… which is the software used behind the scenes of this site.
relax Bill. It’s just spam.
Yeah, “Jensen Beeler”… your comment made me chuckle… after I wrote my comment, I started to figure it out… oh well… I guess I looked a little dumb, but I’ll accept that :)
aww, poor lorenzo. BEST year of racing he’s EVER had and the only reason he beat Rossi is Rossi’s broken leg. Then he say he wants to really race hard with Rossi. So at Montegi he is given his wish and on ONE LAP only things get a little rough…so he whined to the boss. Watching that race several times it seems to me that he was giving as good as he got. BUT I do credit both of them with settling down and getting back to racing after that lap.
heh, lorenzo is good but he sure needs to not cry as much.
I agree with Chris about Lorenzo copying Rossi during his race win celebration. Its because he actually has no personality. I dont think he will win any more championships. He will sink in the 2011 standings.