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Kawasaki’s Electric Motorcycle Is Named “Endeavor” But It’s Not Ready for Production

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You have to hand it to Team Green, because out of the four Japanese motorcycle brands, it seems only Kawasaki is truly willing to innovate and take risks in the motorcycle industry.

Abandoning the rat race of MotoGP, Kawasaki has won six out of ten WorldSBK Championships in the past decade. They have released a lineup of supercharged sport bikes, with the Kawasaki Ninja H2 R making over 300hp.

Kawasaki has dominated the small-displacement category with its Ninja 250, Ninja 300, and now Ninja 400 offerings, and the company is about to shock the system again, with the 250cc four-cylinder Ninja ZX-25R.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us that Kawasaki is also the first Japanese OEM to show-off a full-sized electric motorcycle project (that’s assuming you believe Honda’s party line that it had no hand in the Mugen electric superbike at the Isle of Man TT).

We got our first glimpse of Kawasaki’s electric sport bike at EICMA last year, with the machine wrapped in Ninja 650 bodywork.

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Bikes

Cleveland Cyclewerks Releases an Electric Falcon

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Cleveland Cyclewerks is known better for its low-cost small-displacement gas motorcycles, but now they have something a bit more electrifying in their lineup.

Say hello the Falcon, an electric motorcycle that continues the Cleveland Cyclewerks focus, but in a new way.

The electric Cleveland Cyclewerks Falcon has a futuristic look to match its modern drivetrain, but it still fills that small-displacement role that the American brand has carved out for itself.

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Dirt

Cake Kalk INK – The Future Just Got a Little Bit More Affordable

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Cake Kalk INK, Cake Kalk INK, Cake Kalk INK…say that three times fast. This Beetlejuice of electric motorcycles is the epitome of the growing “not a motorcycle” segment of the motorcycle industry, which is straddling the divide that sees bicycles on the other side of it.

This is of course nothing new for the Swedish company Cake, which has been working on its e-mopeds since 2016. Now, we have the latest iteration of the Kalk series, the Cake Kalk INK, which tackles perhaps the biggest criticism of the Kalk line: its price tag.

Coming with a price of $9,500 MSRP, the Cake Kalk INK still isn’t as cheap as many would like, but it does fit in the pricing scheme of being just above high-end e-bikes and just under pricing of potent electric dirt bikes.

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Podcast

Brap Talk Podcast #31 – Wash Your Damn Hands

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Episode 31 of the Brap Talk podcast is now out for your two-wheeled audio pleasure, and as always, it is packed with some interesting motorcycle discussions.

Helping you take a break from the coronavirus outbreak, this show comes to you straight after an arrival from Spain, where we got a chance to test the Metzeler Sportec M9 RR tire. We dive deep into this new sport bike tire, and also talk about riding (and crashing) at the Ascari Circuit in Spain.

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Rumors

Here is the Zero SR/S, Before You’re Supposed to See It

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Zero Motorcycles has been actively trying to quash publications and channels from showing you this promo video for their upcoming Zero SR/S sport bike, but since Asphalt & Rubber is still on double-secret probation with Zero, we have no problem sharing this leaked video a week before its launch.

Of note for two-wheeled fans is that this video gives us the full monty on how the new Zero SR/S looks, which mostly means that we get to see what a full fairing looks like on the SR/F platform.

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News

Yamaha Is Offering a 270hp Motor to Electric Vehicle Companies

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Ok that headlines is a slight exaggeration on the truth, as Yamaha Motor is actually offering a range of prototype motors that produce 35kW to 200kW of power, which works out to be a range of 47hp to 268hp. Still, that is a lot of juice.

The prototypes are a range of interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSM), which are scalable in design and suitable for a variety of uses.

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Rumors

Zero SR/S Teased – Here Comes Their Full Fairing Sport Bike?

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It seems Zero Motorcycles is gearing up to bring us another machine for the 2020 model year, as the electric vehicle company is teasing the release of its Zero SR/S.

Officially, the company isn’t saying more than a February 24th release date, but by connecting some obvious dots and a bit of inside information from our Bothan spies, we are pretty certain of what to expect in a month’s time.

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News

Harley-Davidson’s Electric Flat Track Gets a New Look

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When Harley-Davidson showed its design concepts for its future electric motorcycles, we were struck by the Bar & Shield’s plans for a road-going flat track bike…for two reasons.

For starters, the design and vehicle format seemed promising. In fact, it was surprising that it took an electric powertrain to get Harley-Davidson hip to its flat track roots and then apply them to the company’s street-bike offerings.

The second reason our interests were piqued was because of the bike’s very obvious use of Alta’s EV powertrain components, which made sense at the time since Harley-Davidson was a major investor in the electric motorcycle startup.

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Podcast

Brap Talk Podcast #28 – Before the Snow

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Episode 28 of the Brap Talk podcast is now out for your two-wheeled audio pleasure, and as always, it is packed with some interesting motorcycle discussions…and some strong opinions.

Our show starts with news from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where we saw the new Alpinestars Tech-Air 5 airbag vest, and the electric superbike from Damon Motorcycles.

The latter provides quite a bit of fodder for a frank conversation about this motorcycle debut, and the lofty promises the Canadian company is making about its product.

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Bikes

Damon Motorcycles Hypersport HS Officially Debuts at CES

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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) isn’t known for its motorcycle debuts, but that has slowly changed over the years, especially as the motorcycle industry adopts more innovative approaches.

One of the largest trade shows in the United States, it is easy to see why motorcycle brands would want to get in front of the nearly 200,000 attendees that come each – and it helps that mainstream journalists there are fairly naive to the intricacies of the motorcycles industry, and will hype anything with a glossy veneer.

Case in point, the launch of the Damon Motorcycles Hypersport HS electric motorcycle, which just dropped at this year’s CES after much teasing.

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News

BMW Patents Novel Way to Charge Electric Motorcycles

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The question around electric motorcycles does not seem to be “if” they will come but “when” they will come, and from that comes a slew of other questions on how we are going to handle mainstream adoption of this budding two-wheeled segment.

From this momentum comes ideas on how best to charge electric vehicles, and we already see the great debate about the various charging standards available to manufacturers. 

BMW Motorrad is tackling the issue was well, and patent applications show that the German brand has a very smart solution for how to charge motorcycles.

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