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.
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.
After taking the wraps off the Mavizen TTX02 at SEMA this year (we of course spoiled the fun a little bit earlier than that), there was a bit of chatter in the EV community as to why the TTX02 was consistently pictured without its Agni motors hooked up to the battery packs and controllers, and why in the bike’s various public showings it was never fired up for the audience (jump to 4:18).
To us and many others, this meant that the TTX02 had yet to be fully developed before it’s unveiling to the public at SEMA. With claims of a 130mph top speed, and specifications that matched or exceeded the TTXGP winning Team Agni motorcycle, we began to wonder how exactly those figures came to be on a motorcycle that wasn’t actually tested drawing table spec-sheets.
Clearly since that time, Mavizen has been busy in the lab making the TTX02 work. At their UK launch in the Bloomberg building this week, the TTX02 for the first time showed up with its motors connected to leads going underneath the bodywork, along with scrub marks on the tires. Now a couple days after that event the company brings us this video of the bike testing at low-speeds. Video and photos after the jump.
Spanish moto manufacturer Derbi appears to have built an all electric race bike based on their GPR 125 (shown above). A mysterious YouTube user uploaded a grainy video of a red cloth being ceremoniously pulled from a Derbi sportbike in front of a Derbi branded backdrop. The bike was then shown not-so-silently navigating the tight switchbacks of Parc Motor De Castelloli in Barcelona, Spain and doing it fairly quickly. Video and more after the jump.
This extended weekend, we Americans sat down for our Thanksgiving meals, joined by family, friends, and hospitable strangers. There are many things to look back on and be thankful for: good health, good friends, good fortune, just to name a few. I, like many others, am thankful for these things as well, but of course proclaiming as such makes for a very boring motorcycle editorial.
Among other things, in motorcycling I am thankful for the recent announcement by the FIM to breakaway from the TTXGP electric motorcycle racing series. While we may never know the FIM’s true reasoning in its resolve to distance itself from Azhar Hussain’s TTXGP series, I suspect a portion of that thought process stems from the now clear and convincing conflict of interest that is unfolding in electric motorcycle racing, and acts of impropriety that are stemming from those competing interests.
Electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo made a huge step in it’s mission of luring the non-motorcycle owning public from the comfort of their cages and onto two wheels. While Jenny Gun and most of the motorcycle press were in Milan documenting the new model intros at EICMA Brammo dropped the price of the $11,995 Enertia electric motorcycle to $7995. A move that stole some of the spotlight from ground breaking internal combustion machines like the Ducati Multistrada 1200.
![SEMA: Mavizen TTX02 Unveiled KTM RC8 Sourced Chassis, 130 MPH Top Speed, & Built in Web Server with WiFi Connection [UPDATED] Mavizen TTX02 KTM RC8 electric motorcycle 560x374](http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Mavizen-TTX02-KTM-RC8-electric-motorcycle.jpg "Mavizen-TTX02-KTM-RC8-electric-motorcycle")
Mavizen has unveiled their TTX02 electric race bike today at SEMA, and as we suspected surrounding the Agni powerplant is a sourced KTM RC8 chassis.
Over-shadowing the 130mph top speed, is the fact that each TTX02 comes with dedicated IP access, on-board web server, and connectivity to a wifi network. A such, each TTX02 can be connected to via a wifi enabled laptop. More on that and videos after the jump.
Brian Wismann and David Schiff are on a mission two Brammo’s riding from Detroit, Michigan to Washington DC, retracing the steps of the Big 3 automakers with an end goal of meeting with President Obama. Brammo feels they have a solution to the transportation crisis and America’s dependence on oil, and they want Obama to see the Brammo Enertia first hand.
![BUB: Mission Motors Officially The Worlds Fastest Production Electric Motorcycle [Updated] Mission Motors Bonneville salt flats LSR 635x438](http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Mission-Motors-Bonneville-salt-flats-LSR.jpg "Mission-Motors-Bonneville-salt-flats-LSR")
When Mission Motors first came out of stealth mode, they used the slogan “The World’s Fastest Electric Production Sportbike”, and quoted a top speed of a 150 mph. It seems only logical then, that the company would have to back that claim up at some point, and apparently that time is now.
Last week we showed you a simple YouTube video entitled: “Electric Motorcycle 160 MPH”, and now we know the story behind that 160 mph run, and can report that the Mission One electric motorcycle is the fastest production electric motorcycle in the world, with an official land speed record of 150.059 mph. Video and more after the jump.
Appalachian State University graduate Tom Miceli put together the ultimate resume when he built his all-electric Ion Sportbike for his Industrial Design graduate project. There are many folks putting together electric motorcycles, but many seem to overlook an important detail of the package. Good looks sell and we enthusiasts demand them. And if you can make it look unique at the same time even better.
Zero Motorcycles recently introduced a 4th model to their electric motorcycle line up. The Zero DS is a dual-sport bike built on the Zero S supermoto platform. The front suspension of the DS gains 2″ of travel over the S for a total of 10”, while rear travel remains unchanged at 9”. A 50/50 street/dirt tire is fitted to the 17″ front rim and a 90/10 street/dirt tire is fitted to the 16″ rear. This is an unusual tire combination for a production dual sport but the semi-aggressive front is a welcomed change from the tires found on most dual-sports, which are more suited to street than dirt use.
