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If you have read Asphalt & Rubber long enough, then you surely must now our rabid affection for airbag equipped motorcycle gear. I’ve even gotten a little snobby about it.

To reiterate, airbags represent a new generation in safety equipment, and they dramatically reduce the injuries a rider can sustain during a crash or accident.

Right now though, airbag safety technology is limited to motorcycle jackets and racing suits, with protection only available on the torso.

What about south of the belt line though? Truthfully, the current state of airbag technology covers only half of our bodies, leaving out legs (and arms) exposed to harsh impacts.

This is where French upstart CX Air Dynamics hopes to disrupt the space, as they are working on an airbag-equipped set of pants.

Last month, our friend John Shofner (you may have seen some of his work on A&R already) sent us a link to a project he was working on, and we couldn’t wait for it to become a reality.

So finally, we can talk about the full-length documentary, , that Shofner Films hopes to produce, which will tell the story behind America’s two-wheeled petrol racing culture.

To help raise the $400,000 that the It’s Something Inside project will need to produce the film, John has turned to the crowd-sourcing platform of Kickstarter.

If funded (your contributions only get collected if John meets his fundraising goal), and once completed, Shofner Films will then pitch the film to various film festivals, with the hope of ultimately getting a theater or TV deal for the film.

As you can tell from the trailer above, and the stills after the jump, John has a great photographic eye; and his previous work, including a documentary of the karting scene, shows his immense talent in storytelling as well.

We are pretty pumped to see this project go forward, and if you are too, we hope you will contribute some money towards his Kickstarter fund. Count us in for a couple bucks John!

Arizona-based Local Motors is a design and engineering company that fosters and utilizes community-sourced designs and ideas to pursue relevant real world solutions to transportation problems.

By leveraging a community of “co-creators” from around the world, the company is able to bring concepts to life through prototyping and fabrication in their micro-factories, and is best known for its Rally Fighter off-road coupé.

The team’s latest endeavor is the Local Motors Cruiser, an attempt at incorporating the vintage board track aesthetics into a motorized bicycle format. Designed by Romanian designer Ianis Vasilatos the Cruiser comes in two powertrains.

The electric brushless system that gets you about 20 miles of range with the option of adding a second battery to get an additional 20 miles (your mileage my vary, of course); top speed is limited to 27mph. Meanwhile, the gas-powered version uses a 50cc Honda motor and a 0.6 gallon tank to achieve a limited top speed of 34 mph and a theoretical range of 70 miles.

Ever since Harley-Davidson split with its long-time ad agency Carmichael Lynch, I’ve been increasingly impressed with the Bar & Shield’s advertising efforts. Sure there are still some of the old marketing images that make the American in me want to go tortfeasor on the first Harley-Davidson dealership I drive by, but you’ve got to give Harely one thing, its trying. Dipping its toe into the crowdsourcing philosophy of ad creation, Harley-Davidson has already produced some fairly good ads like its “No Cages” campaign, and is hoping to build on that success.

Seeing traction with the “No Cages” campaign, Harley-Davidson has taken things a step further, and will now be able to crowdsource ideas directly from Facebook. Launching a Facebook app for the new social-collaboration, Harley-Davidsons fans on Facebook can now read the company’s advertising brief, submit ideas to Harley-Davidson, and vote on ideas submitted by other community members. While crowdsourcing advertising creative has been called evil (mostly by the people whose jobs are threatened by the collaborative movement), the plan here is pretty ingenious.

Making a new motorcycle is a tricky business. Despite the image that motorcyclists are these rebels without a cause and offshoots from the so-called mainstream of society, the truth of the matter is that as a whole, motorcyclists are just about the most resistant group to change as you can find. When a manufacturer wants to release a new motorcycle, it has to take into account that if it strays too far away from what has been previously proscribed, the motorcycling community is likely going to hate it (or at least say it hates it).

This is why manufacturers now make bikes by committee, consult with focus groups/experts, and tease concepts (or spy shots of actual bikes). These processes give motorcycle manufacturers valuable feedback into how their product will be received in the marketplace, and this concept extends to markets outside of motorcycling. If I was a new manufacturer, and I was about to launch a whole new motorcycle, I’d be very careful on how I introduced the bike to the painfully orthodox members of the Church of Motorcycling.

TTXGP will be getting an added layer of transparency for 2011, as the Azhar “The Czar” Hussain has put his electric motorcycle racing series rule book up in wiki form, and invited competitors and experts to make, modify, and discuss the regulations that TTXGP competitors will have to adhere to in 2011. Acting as arbitrator and moderator over the wiki is lawyer Harry Mallin, which electric motorcycle fans might know better as Brammofan.