Still waiting for an announcement from Ducati that they’ve signed Valentino Rossi? So are we, and as we know now the delay of the worst kept secret in MotoGP is due to a gentleman’s agreement between Ducati & Yamaha. In exchange for delaying the announcement until after the American round at Laguna Seca (now slated for the Monday after racing at Brno), Yamaha is allowing Rossi to test the Ducati Desmosedici GP10 when MotoGP stops at Valencia at the end of the 2010 season.
UPDATE: Ducati will be unveiling to the public its 2011 Ducati 848 Superbike EVO, which will have a $1,000 cheaper “Dark” variant as well.
Get ready Ducatisti, a new Ducati model is coming in two weeks. To be launched at Laguna Seca’s Ducati Island during the GP weekend, Ducati is tight lipped as to what the new model could be. In our invitation to the event, we are told only that the unveiling will be “hosted by four very excited guests to whom this new model means quite a lot.” The unveiling will be at 1pm on Saturday, and we’ll be there with our cameras.
We’ve been expecting an electric sportbike from Brammo for over a month now, getting our first clues from our Bothan spies last week that the bike’s launch was imminent. Now we can officially say that the Brammo Empulse is the latest creation from the Ashland, Portland based Brammo, Inc. Continuing Brammo’s electric motorcycle offering, the Brammo Empulse represents the first production sportbike to be available by consumers. The Empulse comes in three flavors (Brammo Empulse 6.0, Empulse 8.0, & Empulse 10.0) with differing amounts of on-board power each variant.
From the official results of World Superbike’s stop at Brno, the FIM has once again determined that twin-cylinder motorcycles, i.e. Ducatis, will get another minimum weight reduction. Averaging more than a five point deficit over the last three WSBK events (Miller Motorsports Park, Misano, and Brno), WSBK rules require that twins be given another 3kg weight reduction, as the rules have been deemed to “favor” the 1000cc 4-cylinder motorcycles too heavily.
UPDATE: John Paolo Canton, Ducati PR Manager, has responded in the comments that Lock was last spotted slaving away in his office, and it’s business as usual in Ducati North America.
With all the commotion going on today, our last piece of breaking news is the developing shake-up that’s going on at Ducati North America. Presumably involving the departure of Ducati North America CEO Michael Lock, we’ve been told changes at Ducati N.A. are occurring at the highest levels. All day we’ve been unable to reach anyone at Ducati’s Cupertino office, so we cannot confirm the report at this time…hey guys, pick up your phones!
Let’s avoid the the “scoops”, “exclusives”, and “OMG’s”, and just say that Asphalt & Rubber has received word from a trusted source that Valentino Rossi has signed a two-year agreement with Ducati, that’s set to be announced on Monday…and boom goes the dynamite (sorry, we couldn’t resist). The Rossi/Ducati fantasy has been put forth for years, with the fervor on the subject reaching its pinnacle this season, as Ducati reportedly wafted a €15 million salary (almost double Yamaha’s offer) in front of the nine-time World Champion.
It didn’t take long for the other shoe to drop, and now it is official that Casey Stoner will race with HRC in 2011, after it was announced moments ago that the Australian would be leaving the Ducati MotoGP team. Perhaps the most unexpected development in this announcement is HRC’s intentions of keeping both Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso for the 2011 season. The likely result of this will be a two-man Repsol Honda team, and a second single-bike team, which is likely to be sponsored by Red Bull.
There’s a lot of pressure on Kawasaki for 2011. Team Green has exited MotoGP, and is completely un-competitive with its ZX-10R in World Superbike and World Superstock 1000. Looking to rectify the situation, Kawasaki has gone back to the drawing board with it’s liter bike offering, and have been testing the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R at Suzuka for the last two days this week. With test riders Hidemichi Takahashi & Akira Yanagawa on-board, we get our first glimpse at the rumored 190hp/190kg Superbike taking laps. Video confirms that a normal firing order is inside the four-cylinder motor (sorry, no cross-plane here), but traction control is rumored to come as a standard option.
Motorcycle upstart Motus Motorcycles continues to press forward with its MST-01 sport-tourer, and has released a video that talks more about the development of their 1645cc gasoline direct-injection V4 motor: the KVM4. Balking at the advice of others not to build their own powerplant, Motus has teamed up with Katech to design an in-house motor for the Motus MST-01.
There’s so many things going on in this video, we’re not certain where to begin. Filmed on Mulholland Highway by the same fine folks who brought us video footage of the guy who crashed in front of a CHP officer, this new saga takes a different approach to riders exceeding their limits on city streets. Take an unsuspecting white Honda Elite scooter, a pair of Crocs shoes, and some invisible knee pucks, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a bizarre Sunday morning lowside that could have been much, much, much worse. While we’ll give bonus points for good dirt-tracking technique, be sure to check the slow-mo footage for the exact moment the rider’s shoes depart humanity, and dive over the cliff.
What’s going to be mounted on these protruding brackets? So far the 2010 MotoCzysz E1pc has been lapping the Isle of Man without its full fairing on the motorcycle. If history teaches us anything, the presumption, of course, should be that MotoCzysz has something still up its sleeve before the team takes to the Mountain Course tomorrow for the TT Zero event. Last year it was batteries in the tail-section, this year it would seem to be streamlining the E1pc. While Michael Czysz has derided the use of a dustbin style fairings in road racing, he has acknowledged that a course like the Isle of Man creates an opportunity for a race team to find some benefits in the design. As such, Czysz wrote three months ago that he would have a dustbin fairing at the ready, should someone else show up with one as well…and that’s exactly what’s happened.
This weekend France played host to the FIM’s first round of the e-Power Championship, which took place in Le Mans. Starting before the Le Mans 24 Hours Endurance World Championship race, only five riders took to the starting line, with Belgian rider de Ridder not making it to venue. Taking the first win in the FIM’s first zero-emission motorcycle race was Thomas Betti, the son in the father-son duo of Betti Moto.
While the video of MotoCzysz putting their new D1-10 electric motor up on the dyno is not terribly captivating (it’s hard to see anything really moving since all the fun bits are inside the motor’s casings), the performance figures the company quotes surely are impressive. The liquid-cooled IPM motor makes 250lbs•ft of torque, generates over 100hp, and employs a proprietary cooling system to allow a higher percentage of that peak power to be used over extended periods of time. This is particularly important because of the large gap between peak power figures and sustainable power figures in the electric motorcycle world, with the latter being the more important figure to quote.
Today MotoCzysz is announcing its Electric D1g1tal Dr1ve (eDD), better known to us as “the suitcase”, which is essentially the housing for the E1pc’s proprietary controller, motor, and batteries. MotoCzysz will be using the eDD on their 2010 E1pc D1g1tal Superbike, and intends on letting other teams use the suitcase as well, helping fill the grid at electric motorcycle races.
This announcement is important on a variety of levels, and most electric motorcycling enthusiasts will be interested to get their first glimpse at technology beind Michael Czysz’s 2010 E1pc D1g1tal Superbike, which will for sure be at the TT Zero race at the Isle of Man this year. The suitcase contains MotoCzysz proprietary battery, motor, and controller designs, which are setting the bar higher in electric motorcycle racing.
Despite being buried behind a thinly veiled dramatic buildup, this announcement is much more important than just the release of a new motorcycle design, the musings about race in the Isle of Man, the competition with Mavizen for privateer sales, or the battle for electric racing supremacy against Team Agni.
Instead this announcement has everything to do with why electric motorcycles are changing this industry, and the way this industry does business.
Last month a video of the DERBI GPR EV showed up on YouTube. It was posted by someone who appeared to be working with Sevcon and it was hard to tell if DERBI was behind the bike. I recently found the blog of Derbi Project Manager Carles Carrera. And guess what, he has a detailed picture of the Derbi GPR EV front and center.
Carles describes the ground up development methodology DERBI and their partners used in designing and building the bike over the course of 3 months. He cites flaws in Brammo, Zero, Quantya, Vectrix mentioning thier “poorly developed mechanical platform” and saying they fail to deliver an electric motorcycle that has all drive components communicating in an orderly fashion.
For MotoGP fans, Mark Neale’s Faster is probably the pinnacle of portraying two-wheels on the big screen (or in your living room). It chronicles the progression from two-stroke 500cc GP racing to the birth of MotoGP and four-stroke prototypes. Neale’s newest work, Charge, carries on with this same vein, and documents the world’s first electric motorcycle race, the TTXGP, at the Isle of Man TT last year.
Ewan McGregor is back narrating along with plenty of on-bike footage and candids with all your favorite e-moto personalities. Available in Spring 2010, this movie is sure to take up a spot on your DVD rack…we certainly can’t wait to see it. Trailer after the jump.
Lord Drayson, UK Minister of Science and Technology, took the wraps off the TTXGP exclusive CRP Racing eCRP 1.0 today at the 4th Annual Cleaner Racing Conferance. CRP’s goal is to innovate in the world of motorcycle roadracing and the all electric race bike seems to be a good fit for the company. The eCRP 1.0 dual motor electric drive is based on 2009 TTXGP winning Team Agni X01, while the rest of the bike was designed and built in house by CRP and incorporates 30 years of race proven technological know-how.
CRP Racing does not have plans to field an electric race team but will make the bike available to teams who want to race in the TTXGP. The bike will not be available to teams wishing to run races in the competing FIM ePower Series who has yet to announce a race team entry.
Late last year Mavizen announced the TTX02 race bike with the intention of eliminating reasons for teams to pass on electric motorcycle racing. The TTX02 is a fully electric race bike based on the KTM RC8 rolling chassis and TTXGP winning Team Agni drive train. Today Mavizen and TTXGP founder Azhar Hussain rolled out supporting services for teams that still might be on the fence.
For aspiring racers with poor social skills or lack of budget for a team, Mavizen offers a factory support service of your race bike including transporting it from race to race. It sounds like all you have to do is put on your leathers and ride. The race plastic is all you really own with this package and you can put whatever sponsor stickers on it you want.
Tork India, third place Open Class winner at this year’s TTXGP at the Isle of Man, has posted up a teaser on Facebook announcing the imminent arrival of their new electric motorcycle racer. While the photo being displayed on Facebook is really just a GSX-R cover with the Tork logos superimposed onto it, we’re still excited to see our first glimpse of the new Indian racer after the new year.
