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Got big plans for the coming weekend? Of course you don’t, you’re probably stuck inside like the rest of us. But, we can help with that and ease your motorcycle cravings at the same time.

On Saturday, May 9th at 10am PDT / 7pm CEST, Asphalt & Rubber will be sitting down with esteemed motorcycle designer, Miguel Galluzzi.

Currently the head of design at the Piaggio Group (Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Piaggio, and Vespa), Miguel has been responsible for a wide range of motorcycles and scooters.

His resumé includes a number of iconic designs and important motorcycles for the industry, from his time at Piaggio, and also during his tenure at Cagiva/Ducati.

Always with a keen eye on the industry, and what is happening in the world at large, Miguel always provides great insights. You have probably passed him a motorcycle show or race, and not realized it, while he soaks up the latest trends coming to the industry.

For our live chat, I will of course have some questions of my own for Miguel, but we want to make the show interactive, so we will be taking questions from the audience as well.

This means you can submit questions ahead of time, here in the comments section or via social media. Or, you can join us on the live stream, and ask questions from the live chat on YouTube.

There are several ways to watch the live stream. The easiest is that the video above will go live on Saturday, but we will also be reminding you on social media as well.

Of course, you can also go straight to YouTube via this link here. We hope to see you on the chat!

Link: YouTube

While the rest of the industry walks on pins and needles, the Piaggio Group is celebrating a strong first-half to the 2019 sales year, with overall unit sales up 9.2%.

That number isn’t just all Vespa scooters though (however, the Italian brand does sell quite a few of those), as Piaggio reports that its motorcycle sales saw a 14% bump in gross revenue.

The Italian conglomerate pegs the new Moto Guzzi V85 TT for the sales boom over last year, which is quite a feat since 2018 was a strong year for the Piaggio Group as well.

 Today’s headline is all about Moody’s upgrading Piaggio’s credit rating to “Ba3” – up from its previous “B1” rating.

I understand that financial credit rating systems aren’t exactly your typical fare on a motorcycle news site, so stay with me here for a minute.

The basic gist is that moving from a B1 rating to a Ba3 rating takes Piaggio beyond the threshold of being “highly speculative” investment opportunity to “non-investment grade” business in the eyes of investors.

September will be an historic day for the Vespa scooter brand, as next month the Piaggio Group plans to begin finally the production of the Vespa Elettrica electric scooter.

Taking the classic Italian “wasp” design that has warmed the hearts of many owners, the Elettrica adds an electric drive train to the mix, to ensure Vespa’s iconic status endures for many generations to come.

Initially slated to be in production by “late 2017”, it has taken Piaggio a bit longer than expected to get the Vespa Elettrica out the door. But, with production set to start in September, at least the Italians are making good on their promise to make this model a reality.

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Ivano Beggio, the founder of Aprilia, who passed away during the early hours of Tuesday, March 13th. Beggio was 73 years of age, at the time of his passing.

Getting his start in his father’s bicycle shop in post-WWII Italy, Beggio innovated Aprilia from a simple bicycle company into one that sold motorcycles and scooters.

In 1975, Beggio started a small racing team, which quickly rose to success, winning the 125cc and 250cc Italian Motocross Championships in 1977.

From these pursuits, Aprilia became one of the largest motorcycle brands in Italy, entering the large-displacement market in 1998 with the RSV Mille superbike, and its racing pursuits have involved some of the biggest names ever in the sport.

Episode 55 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast is another special show, and it concludes our adventures in Austin, Texas. For this show, we talk a whole lot about some Aprilia motorbikes, as we rode a total of four different machines around the Circuit of the Americas.

In total, we road the new RSV4 RR, RSV4 RF, Tuono V4 1100 RR, and Tuono V4 1100 Factory, and then sat down for a discussion with Piaggio’s head of design, Miguel Galluzzi.

Our talk with Galluzzi covered a host of issues in the motorcycle industry, which we think you will find very interesting, as he provides a unique insight. Similarly, our thoughts on the bikes are also of note, as Aprilia has produced two very potent model ranges with its V4 engine design.

At nearly two hours long, there is a lot to listen to here, but we think you will find our discussion about the new Aprilia models to be pretty interesting, especially if you are in the market for one. 

You can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well.

When you think of the Piaggio Group, in terms of its two-wheeled creations, your thoughts probably conjure up images of motorcycles made by Aprilia or Moto Guzzi, or maybe a scooter with a Vespa badge on it.

Surely, the Gita is not what first comes first to your mind, but it might be the most impactful idea from the Italian brand to-date.

Sure, the brightly colored self-balancing rolling cylinder doesn’t seem like much of a novel creation, even with its ability to follow its owner, or autonomously navigate a prescribed route. But then again, you have probably been carrying stuff around in our arms, or on your back, like a big sucker.

Capable of hauling 40 lbs in what looks like a sizable bin, the Piaggio Gita has huge implications for the disabled or elderly, but it also could change the way the status quo carries and transports things in the future.

There is a lot of fascinating news coming out of this week’s EICMA motorcycle show in Milan: the boom in smaller capacity motorcycles, an upgraded Fireblade, a massive push from MV Agusta, but the show is also making headlines which will affect motorcycle racing as well.

Today at the EICMA, during a presentation on Aprilia’s future plans, Piaggio CEO Roberto Colaninno announced that the Italian manufacturer is aiming to make a return to the MotoGP class as a factory entry in 2016.

Piaggio Group Americas is recalling certain model year 2012-2013 Moto Guzzi Griso, Moto Guzzi Norge, and Moto Guzzi Stelvio motorcycles because of a manufacturing fault in the rear suspension connecting links, which could fracture and collapse the rear suspension.

Affecting 680 units in total, the bikes in question are Stelvio NTX 1200 motorcycles manufactured February 6, 2012 through April 10, 2013, Norge 1200 motorcycles manufactured January 25, 2012 through March 21, 2013, and Griso 1200 motorcycles manufactured January 26, 2012 through April 29, 2013.

It is no easy feat in picking the very “best” from a wide array of motorcycles, like we have to do here with the 2012 EICMA motorcycle show in Milan, Italy. How do you compare an adventure-touring bike to a sport bike, and then declare one better than the other? As you can imagine, the comparison is very much an exercise in measuring apples to oranges.

If our metric of choice was simply based on how much buzz was generated here on Asphalt & Rubber, and on the various social media networks as a whole, then the clear winner would be the KTM 1290 Super Duke R Prototype. With a bored-out RC8 R motor that makes 180hp, the KTM surely performs as good as it look, and it looks quite delectable indeed.

Maybe the best bike of the show should go to the now water-cooled Ducati Hypermotard, or its touring variant the Ducati Hyperstrada. Doing away with the air-cooled DesmoDue design of Pierre Terblanche, the 2013 Hypers are a new chapter for Ducati, and just further proof that there are no sacred cows in the Borgo Panigale factory. Speaking of Panigales, we also have to consider the Ducati 1199 Panigale R, of course if that conversation is to occur, then we have to also include the Aprilia RSV4 Factory ABS.

You see it is no easy feat to pick the “Best in Show” at EICMA, and in even our short thought-process above, there are names that are glaringly omitted. What makes the process possible however is when a new model comes along, and clearly outshines everything else — such is the case with the Vespa 946.