Shipped up and on its way to the Isle of Man, we can finally now see more than test shots of the Mugen Shinden Ni and get its basic racing specifications. The electric superbike that John McGuinness will ride in the 2013 TT Zero race at the Isle of Man TT, the Mugen Shinden Ni represents that evolution of the Japanese firm’s design, having now a TT race under its belt. Like its main competitor MotoCzysz, Team Mugen is eyeing a 110 mph lap around the Mountain Course, which would be a pretty remarkable one-year advancement for either team. With Mr. McPint at the helm, and seemingly brimming with on-board energy, Mugen is a serious contender.
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.
Another day, another chassis… and so goes the Ducati/Rossi saga…
It’s looking more and more like the long L-twin engine is the issue.
^ugh, the D16′s engine is not of the two-cylinder variety…
Hate the game, not the G.O.A.T. Everyone keeps hating on Rossi because of the lack of immediate results with Ducati. Just wait and see next season when all the hard work pays off and he’s back on top. Then the haters will say he cheated by setting up the 2012 bike during the 2011 season. Whatever! Bottom line Rossi made Honda, Rossi made Yamaha and he will succeed with Ducati.
@ Cpt. Slow: ugh yes, I realize it’s an L-four. There was an extensive article published recently which speculated that the L configuration negatively impacts front end feel. Because of its length, either the front tire must be pushed forward, or the swingarm length reduced (and pivot point pushed back). The result I believe is less of the rider’s weight on the front tire.
Argrgrgrg.
If Ducati have come out and flat out said, “No, the issues are not caused by the L-4 engine at all” then I think it’s fair to say that the engine isnt the issue…
Tyres, tyres, tyres.
Tyres that work well with a beam frame…oh look, Ducati will be using a form of beam frame…
Perhaps the L Ducati can only be ridden by a very light rider who sits very far over the tank. It’s no mystery to close observers that the rider weight is having a huge effect on tire wear, fuel consumption, and finishing position.
I would hate if motogp riders look like the Jockeys at the horse track. Though, even they have weight minimums.
Since when have the rider weights been affecting the tyre wear? I thought fuel usage and top speed were the main disadvantages for the taller riders. They then have the ability to manouver the bike around more and have a greater influence on it. Pretty sure this was talked about a few months back, with the riders not really caring…:P
Stoner did well on the (Old) Ducati, and hes not on the smaller side.
The best Ducati frame for Rossi would be a frame he exits from. Can everyone now see how exceptional a rider Stoner was on the Ducati ? Rossi is quoted as saying ‘I am not going to ride it with my heart in my mouth’ and this is precisely how Stoner won on it.
My heart goes out to the goat though. He is stuck in no mans land, not able to leave – betraying his Italian Heritage would irrevocably tarnish the legend – but staying with them also is doing the same.
The Dream Team has become his worst nightmare, and he will finish his first season in 15 years without a single win. He deserves a lot better than that POC bike.
@Trent – Checa, Bayliss, Haga, etc. had (or are having) major success with the L-twin. Checa has won WSB races this year several times by seconds on a variety of tracks. Former racer comments on how tight he can turn the Ducati while commenting the narrow-angle V4 Aprilia cannot turn as tightly.
So how does adding 2 more cylinders point you to the engine being the culprit of Ducati’s GP struggles overwhelmingly more than the chassis being the culprit when there has been all of that success with a twin?
The GP chassis design has never been used for this type of engine. Could it be that there isn’t enough continuity of feedback of the forces transmitted from the steering neck to the swingarm pivot?
As successful as the Britten was, I’ve heard there was some differences in the front-end feedback. As you probably know, the V1000 Britten was a narrow 60-degree twin. (was that feel all attributable to the Hossack-style fork or did the frameless chassis also have something to do with it?)
…with the “frameless” design, the aluminum or cf airbox structure stops at the engine block. That engine block has 4 pistons raging inside, causing the block metal to resonate in various ways depending on the stroke inside the engine.
The traditional frame has metal portions that connect to the block but also has a fair amount of metal that is a direct link to the swingarm pivot from the steering neck.
Is this difference enough to transmit a better feel to the skilled racer? or…another way – is the new design creating “static” feedback to the racer due to the structure picking up more engine resonating fluctuations?
No matter what, the new streetbike they are working on seems to have not only the L-twin and this new frame structure but a higher price. Good luck
The frame of Jerez is the first real chasis that ducati put on track in the entire season. They delay so much to make this change. This frame they are testing should have been the tested chasis from the first of 8 training days dorna give to teams, but their own stubbornness make this in the 7 day of testing. They waste so much time in a useless concept.
The problem with ducati is that their resist too much to change their “exclusive” concept of frameless bike… But this is the racing world, not the “exclusive” world. You need the stuf that works, not the fancy and good looking ones to enjoy on a friends weekend ride.
@nano: I hardly think its resisting change. Development just takes time, and there is no point rushing with important decisions. It could end up with an even bigger failure and wasted money.
The stuff that works…in this highly restricted “prototype” series…on spec tyres…with 21L of fuel…
They’ll go nowhere and they’ll get nowhere because they are looking for the “quick-fix” instead of investing the TIME into existing versions. Nicky is as fast if not faster on some tracks because he’s been putting time in only the second version (and he was faster on the first version), Barbera is even faster because they have invested the TIME and MILES into the same bike.
So VR will test another version, and naturally start out at the back,, then get impatient and blame the bike for being slow, then try another ,, instead of sticking with it for a while.
If it were easy to create a better bike over the period of a few weekends Honda and Yamaha would have the next 3 years worth of bike already worked out.
“Flex!!” the small carbon airbor stress member doesn’t give the riders the feel or flex they need out of the bike to push.. And when they do push hey end up on the floor from the lack of tire grip.. No enough flex = not enough mechanical grip.. Have friends in the Ducati camp and word is they’re testing a FULL Aluminum frame for feedback only to fab. one from carbon fiber for the GP12!!