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IronWorks Magazine Will Stop Publishing in March

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An accomplished 24 year run comes to a close this March as IronWorks Magazine, a publication dedicated to Harley Davidson fans and custom motorcycle enthusiasts alike, prints its last issue.

IronWorks Magazine was started in 1989 by Dennis Stemp and his wife Marilyn, with the intention of producing a publication that would provide information about custom motorcycles that could not be found through other media, word of mouth or at the local shop.

The announcement came as publisher Hatton-Brown, which acquired the magazine in 1995, decided that the medium shift to digital publications combined with the costs for traditional print were not advantageous enough to continue.

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Bikes

Are You The Honda V4 Street Bike? Probably Not

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This weekend, we reported on an interview that CMG Online did with Dave Hancock, Honda Motor Europe’s Head of Product Planning & Business Development, said that the Honda RC213 (unofficial name) street bike was going to cost £70,000-£80,000 ($110,000 to $125,000), which certainly lit up our comments section with enthusiasts who were hoping for a more affordable model from the Japanese manufacturer.

Today, Japanese tuner magazine Young Machine is reporting to have the first images of the “Honda RCV1” street bike, which is already making its way around the internets as we speak, with various forms of information vetting. Is this our first glimpse at the Honda V4 street bike? Probably not.

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News

Cycle World Sold to Bonnier Corporation

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Officially official now, Cycle World has been sold to print media giant Bonnier Corporation, owner of such titles as Popular Science, Parenting, Field & Stream, and other niche-market publications. Acquired from the Hearst Corporation, Cycle World will maintain its current editorial and writing staff as it moves to Bonnier, and from what we’ve gathered talking to CW employees the transition is being viewed favorably, and is in the best interest of the publication. This is the second time Cycle World has changed hands this year, as the publication was sold by Hachette Filipacchi to Hearst this past February.

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News

Cycle News Acquired by Motorsport Aftermarket Group

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After 40 years of covering the motorcycle industry, weekly magazine Cycle News ceased publishing nearly three months ago, survived only its website. It looks like the brand will live on though, as Cycle News has been acquired by the Motorsport Aftermarket Group (MAG), the owner of such brands like Vance & Hines, Renthal, and Performance Machine. MAG will now own and operate the cyclenews.com site, and will bring back former editor Paul Carruthers, who left Cycle News right before it stopped publication. MAG plans on focusing with an online publication strategy, with the possibility of a print edition coming out at some later time.

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Bikes

LEAKED: 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R Details

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Who has two thumbs, $4.99, and no embargo obligations? These guys [holds up thumbs]! Do you want to know every dirty secret about the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R, but don’t want to wait until the big end-of-the-year bike shows? Well don’t worry, we won’t make you wait any longer than these overly-hyperbolized introductory paragraphs.

In what can only be described as another “accidental” story leak by Cycle World, this embargoed information could be bought for $4.99 at the right news stand in Hollywood this evening (by the way, it’s a long drive from San Francisco). Since Asphalt & Rubber isn’t under any obligations to keep this information secret, we’ve waded through the non-copyrightable facts and figures on the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R and printed them here.

The first thing you need to know about the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R is that it comes in the color green. Continue past the jump for other juicy details.

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Rumors

Cycle News Rumored to Have Shut Its Doors

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UPDATE: Cycle News has indeed closed its business doors.

Rumors are rife that Cycle News has closed it’s doors after nearly 50 years of motorcycle print publishing. Once the pinnacle publication of the industry, Cycle News has slowly seen its readership get eaten up by conglomerate driven publications like Cycle World, Motorcyclist, and Sport Rider…and of course web-based motorcycle news sites like yours truly. As Superbike Planet’s Dean Adams puts it, “if true, this is truly the end of an era for the motorcycle publishing industry,” we couldn’t agree more.

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News

Visordown to Go Paperless – Online Only Magazine After September Issue

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British motorcycle magazine Visordown will sell its last hardcopy of its magazine this September, as the publication shifts to a digital-only format. Formerly Two Wheels Only (TWO), the magazine changed its name to Visordown in 2009. The move to an online-only format is result of the dwindling advertising revenue in the print world, which hit the motorcycling industry especially hard in the recession, and reduction in Visordown‘s circulation.

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Opinion/Editorial

Motorcyclist Magazine Steals From Online Motorcycle News Sites – Shows How Completely Incompetent They Are When It Comes to the Internet

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UPDATE 3: Because of our article Motorcyclist Online has further refined their “Buzz” section. Of course they’ve also removed Asphalt & Rubber from their feed. We’re not expecting an apology from them at this point.

UPDATE 2: A small victory, Motorcyclist Online has changed their format to only copy the first 50 words of our text…still no link love though, and still actually copying the wrong text from us.

UPDATE: It looks like Motorcyclist Online is actually copying this story as well. Sweet irony!

I got a strange email today…which isn’t that strange in of itself, because I get strange emails on a regular basis, but the email contained a link to Motorcyclist Online, the internet version of Motorcyclist Magazine, which is owned by Source Interlink Media.

Clicking onto the link I see an article that was written this morning, published in its full text. “That’s funny” I think to myself, because we certainly never gave Motorcyclist permission to use our articles…clicking further I see we’re not the only online motorcycle site whose content is being copied onto the online pages of Motorcyclist Online…we’re just the latest addition to this blatant act of plagiarism and IP theft.

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