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It is with a heavy heart that we report the death of legendary stunt rider Chris Pfeiffer, who passed away this past weekend. Speedweek is reporting that the 51-year-old icon’s body was found after he took his own life, ending a months-long bout of serious depression.

A legend in the stunt-riding community, Pfeiffer won multiple motorcycle stunt world championships and brought the niche extreme sport to mainstream attention with his close links to BMW Motorrad and Red Bull.

His shows pushed the boundaries of what could be done on two wheels, paved the way for a countless number of stunters who are in the sport today, and reached a legion of fans around the world. The man was truly impressive.

When Portland-based wunderkind Andy DiBrino isn’t busy putting it on the box in the MotoAmerica Championship, winning the RSD Super Hooligans flat track series, coaching riders, or just kicking my ass up and down a race track in the Pacific Northwest, the 26-year-old can be found looking for speed in all of the wrong places.

This has led to Andy getting slideways in his backyard flat track and TT course, jumping road race bikes off big kickers, and most recently taking up four-wheeled drifting on local kart tracks.

So, it was only a matter of time before those two-wheeled and four-wheeled pursuits found their intersection, and would become Andy’s latest project.

Enter the HooliGhana – an exercise in motorcycle and car tomfoolery at one our region’s great treasures: The Ridge Motorsports Park.

To find out more about this creation, we sat down with the Zebra-loving man to get the scoop from Andy on his latest project, which to our knowledge is the first Gymkhana-styled video where the stunt driver and rider are the same person. Here’s what he had to say.

Is there anything better than a viral media craze? Remember when people were pouring ice buckets on their heads for ALS? Or how about the second wind that the FaceApp has right now on social media?

Well, the latest one is called the bottle cap challenge, and it is as dumb as all the rest – though, you should donate money to ALS research.

Basically, you find a creative way to spin the cap off a bottle of soda, and put the video on YouTube/Facebook/Instagram/Grindr for all to see. Easy, right?

It was 12 years ago that Ruben Xaus became internet-famous for a photo that depicted him sliding a Ducati Hypermotard 1100 into a turn, thumb up in the air triumphantly…like a boss. It was an unbelievable sight, both figuratively and literally.

Back in the day, I would often see comments on the photo that speculated what the next shot looked like. Bike tumbling through the gravel, a yard sale of parts? The rider in a stretcher on the way to the hospital, after it all went horribly wrong?

One would only have to look at the bikes in my garage to know that the KTM 790 Duke is my kind of motorcycle. The “prototype” machine debuted at EICMA last month, teasing a new parallel-twin engine platform that will power a new Duke, and likely a new Adventure model as well.

Rumored to be around 800cc in displacement, the KTM 790 Duke is pretty out there, in terms of design, but it promises to help bring the Duke lineup back to its roots of being full-on hooligan machines.

To help us get in that frame of mind, KTM has made a short teaser video, which shows us the 790 Duke doing its thing. We expect the KTM 790 Duke to be a new model for 2018…which means that the new model year can’t get here soon enough.

Got a case of the Mondays? Don’t worry, that’s what motorcycles are for. Here, Kenan Sofuo?lu demonstrates how to turn that frown upside down, as he makes a massive rolling burnout on his Kawasaki Ninja H2R on city streets.

While we don’t condone Kenan’s choice of attire – though, those boat shoes do look rather fetching – you have to admit that it’s pretty mesmerizing to watch the H2R’s titanium pipes glow with heat, while fire shoots out of its exhaust canister.

When the Honda Grom debuted in 2013, the other Japanese manufacturers took note. The first copycat was Kawasaki, which earlier this year debuted the Kawasaki Z125 Pro, but we shouldn’t forget the fact that Suzuki brought out its EXTRIGGER concept at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, as well.

Listening to our calls, the Suzuki EXTRIGGER coming to market seems to be getting more likely now, as Suzuki has filed for patents in the China, Europe, and the United States for the plucky electric machine. Just in time, to battle with the freshly updated Honda Grom.

Benelli motorcycles will finally be coming back to the American market, with SSR Motorsports taking on the importation and distribution duties for China’s Qinjiang Group – the owner of the Benelli motorcycle brand.

Benelli’s debut model in the USA seems set to be the Benelli TnT25, which looks suspiciously like the Benelli BN251 that we showed you back in November of last year.

If that’s the case, then it will be stark contrast to the Benelli we have been used to seeing in the US, namely an Italian brand that invokes all aspects of the Italian motorcycle heritage: utterly beautiful machines that are also notoriously unreliable.

At EICMA this year, BMW Motorrad is expected to unveil its first of many 300cc motorcycles that it is developing with Indian partner TVS. While we have known about this news for some time, the German company is just now giving us the official nod, showing today the BMW Concept Stunt G 310 in Brazil

At the core of the Stunt G 310 concept is a single-cylinder engine, likely punched out to 310cc in capacity, given the name. Making things interesting, the cylinder head has been reclined back towards the rider, and rotated 180 degrees in order to create a super-short wheelbase, with an extra-long swingarm, for the concept.

Also of note is the placement of the exhaust silencer, which is mounted vertically, right next to the rear shock. BMW says this is to protect the exhaust can from getting damaged in a crash, though we imagine it’s at the expense of suspension fade.

We doubt much that BMW will keep much of the Concept Stunt G 310’s colors and styling when the German brand’s small-displacement bikes arrive, but clearly BMW Motorrad has younger riders on its brain with the design. Having Chris Pfeiffer help one last time hock the company’s wares helps too.

Perhaps one of the most well known names worldwide for motorcycle stunt riding, Chris Pfeiffer has decided to retire from the sport. This marks an end to the 45-years-old’s 20-year career, which has seen him perform around the world at thousands of shows.

Largely responsible for legitimizing stunt riding beyond just hooligan antics, the BMW-sponsored Red Bull rider announced his retirement on his Facebook page yesterday, much to the dismay of 270,000+ followers.

One of the greats in motorcycling, Pfeiffer says he is leaving stunting to the next generation of riders. His message to fans is after the jump.