After updating their company logo last year at EICMA, Ducati felt it was time to get the Ducati Corse logo in-line with the new company branding. As such, at Milan this week the company announced a new racing logo, which has already begun to show up in the United States, and will work its way into Europe and other markets as they deplete current usage of the old mark.
Blasphemy, heresy, stupidity, sacrilege, un-American, and downright irreverence. Go ahead, get all those words out of your system. I’ll wait. The default opinion of marketers, analysts, and the general population is that Harley-Davidson has one of the strongest brands in the United States, this being confirmed by the fact that every business student in America has studied Harley’s marketing efforts if they’ve ever taken a brand management course. So why would I start a three-part series on how to fix Harley-Davidson by arguing to change one of the most revered marketing houses in the motorcycle industry? Giving credit where credit is due, Harley-Davidson, or I should say its admirers in business school academia, wrote the book on demand generation marketing geared towards the baby-boomer generation. However, in defending this market position, Harley-Davidson has painted itself into a corner by only engaging a very small segment of the population with its product. Unless they redefine and reposition their company image and who it resonates with, Harley-Davidson is going to watch the continued erosion of its footing in the motorcycle industry, and also the continued deterioration of its only industry leading quality: its brand.
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Rumors are circulating that Suzuki is about unveil its 2010 motorcycle line-up, which will reportedly feature an all new 1,250cc Bandit, new GSX-F, and an updated GSX1000R. With the Gixxer 1000 being completely revamped just last year, we’re not sure if that means just new colors for 2010, or if Suzuki will be making modest performance enhancements, like we saw with the 2010 Honda CBR1000RR and 2010 Yamaha YZF-R6.
Those are all the details we know now, more as it comes to us. Remember to always tip your waiter, and your daily motorcycle blog.
After being cancelled as a stop for this year’s World Championship, the Hungarian GP is back on for 2010 at the Balatonring. The new track has been plagued with development problems in acquiring the land and necessary permits for its construction, leaving its planned September debut to be scrapped.
Hungary will be MotoGP’s second stop in Eastern Europe once the Balatonring is finished. When completed the new course will be 2.8 miles long, have 16 turns, and a straightaway where riders can expect speeds of 195 mph.

Mac Motorcycles is entering into the fray as Britain’s latest motorcycle manufacturer. With a cafe-racer/chopper design, Mac is planning to have 4 models: the Spud, Ruby, Peashooter, and Roarer. All four bikes will be lightweight street cruisers, with no plastic, and nothing you don’t need except to just ride for the hell of riding.

Asphalt & Rubber is pleased to announce that John Boyed will now be a regular contributing author to our daily news mix. John will cover general motorcycle news with a focus on the rising electric motorcycle scene. John has been a long time motorcycle enthusiast, and spends “far too much time digging around on the internet.” He has followed the electric motorcycle scene closely, and has a particular interest in the niche markets that occur in our sport. Our kind of guy for sure.
John owns and operates The Electric Motorcycle Forum, Hyosung Riders Forum, and the Other Makes Motorcycle blog. You can follow him on twitter @ skadamo.

The addition of the new Moto2 class, which is set to replace the 250cc 2-stroke GP class, has caused a number of interested parties to begin work on their entry into the mini-MotoGP. While we expect the Hondas, Suzukis, etc to be in the new series, some of these companies are outside the list of the usual suspects, such as the possible Triumph entry, and now news comes that Bimota may be working on a Moto2 contender. Bimota is focusing their interest specifically on the chassis development side of the 600cc prototypes, and supposedly the boutique firm is ready to produce key components for the inception of the new class.
A return to the World Championship would see Bimota come full circle in their focus as a company. In the early 1970’s, Bimota was focused solely on producing parts for Grand Prix bikes. Renowned for their work with frames, shock absorbers, and chassis development, Bimota worked in collaboration with most of the top motorcycle producers of their time, sourcing power plants from them. We can’t wait to see what they come up with now, its about time we saw Bimota on the premiere circuits again.
Bimota will be revealing more details on their intended Moto2 involvement on their website, www.bimota.it.
Source: MotoGP
Along with the line of 2009 motorcycles presented at EICMA, Ducati CEO, Gabriele Del Torchio gave the world a glimpse of the new company logo.
It is an evolution of the historic brand name, which now includes a new red shield featuring a graphic symbol alongside the classic Ducati script, making this motorcycling logo even more eye-catching and unique and communicating passion, competition and performance.
To accompany the launch of this new logo, Ducati has produced a video to highlight its distinguishing features – including the fun and passion that have always been part of the Ducati spirit.
Source: Ducati
What’s Italian for “Holy Crap! It looks like we know what we’re doing!”?

Ducati has added a flash intro to their site telling of a “Streetfighter” to be released this Monday, November 3rd. We can only speculate on what this bike could be, considering the wraps on the new Monster 1100 is already out. Could this be the rumored 1098 streetfighter to help stave off the likes of the Aprilia Tuono, Benelli TnT, and other naked sportbikes?
UPDATED: Only time will tell what the real bike looks like, but read more to see some artistic “opinions” of what the naked livery could look like.






