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.
News that Suzuki plans on returning to the MotoGP Championship in 2014 should be old information for dedicated Asphalt & Rubber readers, and the Japanese company’s inline-four race bike was already spotted doing test laps last year by the eager eyes at Cycle World. Well the American print-mag has another set of eyebrow-raising high-quality photos of the 2014 Suzuki GSV-R to mull over from the Motegi race track, along with some technical insights provided by the venerable Kevin Cameron.
A surprise addition to BMW Motorrad’s 2013 model line-up, zie Germans have announced a new middleweight adventure-tourer, the 2013 BMW F800GS Adventure. Like its larger predecessor, the BMW F800GS Adventure is a more travel-ready and off-road capable build of the recently updated BMW F800GS motorcycle. Featuring a larger windscreen, panniers, and a bigger fuel tank capacity (2.1 gallons larger, for a total of 6.3 gallons of fuel), the BMW F800GS Adventure keeps the same 85 hp, liquid-cooled, 798cc, parallel-twin engine found on the F800GS, as well as the same chassis configuration. Pricing in the US will be $13,550 for the base model BWM F800GS Adventure.
Former 500cc World Champion Kevin Schwantz has certainly been in the news a bit these past few months, mostly for his involvement and falling out with the Circuit of the Americas and the Americas GP, but also more recently for his comments regarding Dani Pedrosa — we also sat down with Mr. Schwantz in Austin, and the Texan gave us some sobering insight into the future of American road racing. As if all that wasn’t enough, Schwantz is making a return to two-wheeled racing, and has entered the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race with Team Kagayama racing alongside Noriyuki Haga and team owner Yukio Kagayama.
An interesting development on the aftermarket side of things has graced our desks, as Öhlins has released a “suspension control unit” (SCU) that upgrades the electronically adjustable suspension on the Ducati Multistrada 1200 S so that it becomes a semi-active suspension system. Whhhaaaat??! So, if you’re the proud owner of a pre-2013 Ducati Multistrada 1200 S, and you think that your electronically controlled Öhlins suspension is no longer boss, now that Ducati has released its Sachs-powered “Skyhook” semi-active suspension pieces on its new batch of Multistrada sport-tourers, there is a remedy for your motolust.
We hate to see riders going down, but this might be the most creepy awesome thing you see all day. It is a bit surreal to watch a motorcycle crash go from horrible to normal, especially as the rider flies around as if in some sort of Matrix-like kung fu fight, but it all just serves as a reminder to be good, wear gear, and do wheelies. Thanks for the tip Gigi!
Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a supermoto so I can go sliding through corners, launching off jumps, and lofting epic wheelies all-day long with reckless abandon.
You see Santa, sport bike track days here in Northern California are very expensive, and let’s not even begin to talk about how much a “whoopsies” can cost on today’s Yamahonda GXS-R1′s.
I’ve been a good boy this year, and always wear my gear when out riding, so please Santa can you find room on your sleigh for a supermoto for me this year. I promise to feed it fresh racing slicks every weekend.
The title of the post sort of implies what you are getting into here: slow-motion racing footage from Formula One, MotoGP, World Rally, 24 Hours of Le Mans, Isle of Man TT, and various GT Racing series. If you have watched any of the television coverage from MotoGP or the TT (and we’re sure you have), then you know how dramatic watching a motorcycle at 1,000+ frames per second can be, and apparently the same can be said about our four-wheeled compatriots.
What the title of this work doesn’t reveal is how with some masterful editing and a powerful soundtrack, 16 minutes of video footage about bikes and cars can feel more like poetry than racing. We bring you Racing in Slow Motion IV (as well as I-III ). Grab some kleenex before watching, and then share it with your buddies. If they don’t amid to getting a little bit emotional while viewing, they are probably lying. Group hug after the jump.
We should probably just go ahead change our name to Dirt & Rubber already, as A&R is on an off-road kick today. We’ve shown our fair share of slow-motion MotoGP videos from our friends at Red Bull, and today the brand that gives you wings has a treat for you dirt bike enthusiasts. Incorporating some great dirt track shots with James “Bubba” Stewart talking about the basic theories of motorcross racing, Red Bull has a nice little promo video here for Bubba and the Yamaha squad. Learning patented tips like “turn the bike like no other and get it done,” and “the Bubba scrub” we expect our street-leaning selves to be riding at JS7‘s level in no time at all. Video goodness after the jump, and be sure to note the slow-mo exhaust puffs at the 1:50 time marker.
For Hiroshi Aoyama, the perfect lap is unattainable, as motorcycle racers are always looking for a little bit more speed, and thus a better lap. That being said, the Japanese rider has perhaps an unhealthy relationship with velocity, saying that while going 300 km/h is scary, he “likes that feeling.”
With more super slow-mo footage from Catalunya, Red Bull again brings us some 1000 fps video, just in time to promote Sunday’s Indianapolis GP. For those movie continuity buffs, you can tell this video was made earlier in the year, as Aoyama talks about Indy’s four different kind of asphalt types, which have now been paved over for one consistent tarmac throughout the infield. Watch the high-speed camera footage after the jump.
After showing us Casey Stoner at 40x slower than normal, the folks at Red Bull have taken their high-speed cameras to work on another Red Bull sponsored rider: Andrea Dovizioso. Filming the Italian also at the Catalan GP, Red Bull shows us a man at his craft with every gritty detail exposed. It’s really quite interesting to see all the movement that occurs on Dovi’s motorcycle as the camera zooms in on his front wheel.
Imagining how small that contact patch is, and contrast that with Andrea explaining the perfect lap and what cornering a MotoGP machine is like, and you have another compelling clip from the drink that gives you wings. Enough hyperbole, watch Andrea Dovizioso at 1,000 frames per second after the jump. Thanks for the tip Craig!
Stand at any corner during a MotoGP session and in real time you’ll witness a variety of riding styles and lines, not to mention see plenty of body-english that tells you how a rider is coping with his machine. Slow all that down by about 50x speed, and you’ve got something. You’ve got art, and that’s what Red Bull has done here with its Red Bull Moments.
Shooting Casey stoner in 1,000 fps slow-motion video at the Catalan GP, Red Bull brings us every body panel flex, every exhaust pipe wag, and every wheel and dry clutch rotation…and oh, Casey also talks about racing in MotoGP. Bonus points to Red Bull for including the Karel Abraham “look back” shot as well (a personal pet-peev of Stoner’s).
