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January 2011

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For kids too old for Santa, the beginning of racing season often brings about more excitement than a jolly man delivering presents. Winter testing often fills the gap for race fans. A long season of private and series-sponsored tests for World Superbikes get underway beginning next week, stretching until just days before the season opener at Phillip Island on February 27th.

The Kawasaki factory team and and satellite Team Pedercini get the season started off with their test, this coming Monday, January 10th through 14th, at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia, while Liberty Racing Ducati will be riding around at Guadix, Spain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ten Kate will be at Motorland Aragon, which was highly praised at its MotoGP inaugural round last season, two weeks from now on January 20th and 21st.

Husqvarna turned more than a few heads at the 2010 EICMA show when it unveiled its Husqvarna Mille 3 Concept. Of course the 993cc asymmetrical v-triple motor was primarily responsible for raising the eyebrows of passers-by, but the idea that Husqvarna would come out with a street-based concept was also more than curious (compounded by the fact that we still can’t quite define what street segment the Mille 3 would fit into). Well the Mille 3 Concept is starting to make a bit more sense now if news from Visordown proves to be correct, as the British publication is reporting that Husqvarna is poised to begin offering true street bikes in 2012.

More of a Friday funny than anything else, but when we saw this matte black Mercedes “E666 AMG” with red accents, we couldn’t help but get the feeling that we’ve seen something like this before. With a paint scheme that looks like it was lifted straight off the 2011 Ducati Diavel, perhaps like some “misguided” newly-made Mercedes AMG owner has really been getting into the the AMG/Ducati Corse partnership vibe, which has seen more than a few photos of AMG’s work standing next to Ducati’s new Diavel power cruiser.

And with the obvious devil overtones being made in this photo, the rest writes itself (Diavel means devil in the Bolognese dialect if you hadn’t already picked up on that)…or some poor bastard joined the occult and wanted to celebrate his initiation to the dark side by murdering a German sedan. Either way, Happy Friday everyone, and thanks for the tip Audrey!

Promotion of the 2011 Honda CBR250R continues as Honda has setup a flash-based game (if you can call it that) for users to play its worldwide website. Touring the world on the 250cc entry-level bike, you can pick your color scheme (we were partial to the Tri-Color paint that will never reach American soil) and you can also select from a bevy of anime style avatars. Once you’ve done that, you’re pretty much done with the game, as the rest of the experience involves watching the animated Honda CBR250R go through landscapes that depict landmark features of various countries.

While you can slowdown and speed up, you can’t really escape from the horde of other animated riders who pelt you with quotes from Twitter that promote the game (an aggravating experience to say the least). Somewhere along the way you start repeating the countries you’ve seen, and the novelty begins to wear off. At this point you’ve lost about 10 minutes of your life, and Honda isn’t going to give them back to you. There seems to be some motivation for playing the game further as other countries appear to be available at a later time, and of course there are goals you can achieve, like riding 100 km, which is approximately a 1hr 40min undertaking.

If you have small children and need a lengthy distraction, you can access the game here.

Source: Honda

To call the Dakar dangerous is probably an understatement, as the rally has been fraught with stories of peril from its very inception. Often alone in some of the most remote terrain in the world, riders rely primarily on themselves for their safety, but the sport is marked with moments where participants put aside competition to help each other.

Stage 5 of the 2011 Dakar Rally had one of those stories yesterday, as KTM rider, and overall race leader Marc Coma found himself as the first person to come across an unconscious Olivier Pain on the race course. Coma, who himself had sustained a fall earlier in the day, stopped at Pain’s crash site and activated the unconscious rider’s emergency beacon. Coma stayed with with the fallen rider until his water carrier, Joan Pedrero, arrived on the scene.

Get ready to pour some peanut sauce on your spaghetti as Bologna Bullets destined for the Southeast Asian markets will soon be produced in Ducati’s newly planned factory in Thailand.

Being called a “final assembly” plant, the move is similar to the one that Harley-Davidson undertook late last year, where the Bar & Shield brand setup an assembly plant in India in order to side-step the extremely high tariffs the country puts on foreign-made motorcycles.

In addition to Harley-Davidson, Ducati will be joining the likes of Honda, Yamaha, KTM, and Brembo, all of whom have increased their presence in the Asian markets within the past year to capitalize on the growing economies of India, China, and Southeast Asia.

Triumph for some time now has had these glaring holes in its model line-up, which it has only begun to address with the launching of bikes like the 2011 Triumph Tiger 800 and 2011 Triumph Tiger 800 XC.

One hole that still remains in this Swiss cheese product offering is a liter class sportbike. Up until the recent release of the 2011 Triumph Daytona 675R, the Daytona 675 has been single-handedly holding down Triumph’s sportbike offering; while the British company’s naked plus-sized Speed Triple has nearly become the Branch Davidian of the street biking cult status, giving Triumph fans plenty of ammo to speculate upon when Triumph would release a fully-faired 1050cc three-cylinder machine that came from the best of these two bikes.

The Canucks are getting into the hybrid scene, as news from up north reveals that BRP, with help from the Canadian government, will develop a hybrid model of its Can-Am Spyder three-wheeler. Working alongside the Université de Sherbrooke, BRP is investing $5.1 million CAD ($5 million USD) into the school’s Centre de Technologies Avancees (CTA), while the Canadian government’s Automotive Partnership Canada program is matching funds to the tune of $6.2 million CAD ($6.1 million USD).

BRP and the researchers at Université de Sherbrooke will be building a ground-up hybrid system, since apparently the systems currently available for cars have proven to be inadequate for the confines of motorcycles and trikes. We guess they missed the product releases from MotoCzsyz (D1g1tal Dr1ve D1) and Mission Motors (MissionEVT), both of whom have developed their drive trains from electric motorcycles. More info after the jump, along with an obnoxiously French-Canadian video.

British transmission gurus Xtrac is better known for its history in Group A rally racing, and more recently for its work with the Lotus, Virgin, and HRT Forumla 1 teams (resume clients also include teams from IndyCar, Touring Car, Rally, GRAND-AM, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans); but with its latest announcement, Xtrac could add a new bullet point to its laundry list of achievements.

Recently pulling out of stealth mode its newest piece of gearbox madness: the Instantaneous Gearchange System (IGS), Xtrac’s race-bred driveline technology promises to be a lighter, cheaper, and less complex alternative to dual-clutch transmissions (DCT), which have popped up on the Honda VFR1200F & Honda Crosstourer Concept, and is rumored to hit the Honda CBR1000RR and Yamaha R1 in the coming models years. The key to IGS resides in the fact that the gearbox can simultaneously select and engage two gears at the same time, while employing only one set of drive gears, thus resulting in gear changes that have zero power loss to the wheels.

Sometimes after the day is done, we lay in bed thinking about the world around us. Will Sarah Palin run for President in 2012? Will the North Korea continue to escalate matters with South Korea and the de-militarized zone? What would the love child from the alien in Predator and an Yamaha R1 look like after the pair had a lurid one night affair fully of empty promises and awkward moments at breakfast the next day?

These are all important questions for the new year, and we’ve set about to find some answers to them. While we’re not quite sure on how things will pan out with Palin (The GOP directors seem to think she can win) and North Korea (multi-lateral negotiations with China and US seem to be par for the course), we do have a pretty good idea on the Predator/Yamaha progeny: behold the Dragon TT Atila 1000 R.

After dipping a toe into the waters at Monza last season, Yoshimura Suzuki will race a wild card entry at Phillip Island for the opening round of WSBK racing in 2011. Riding for the team is 2009 Australian Superbike Champion Josh Waters, who will get to compete in front of a home crowd. There is no word yet as to the team’s entrance in other rounds, despite attempts to do so last season, which saw a lack of funding keeping the team from their previously scheduled racing at Imola and Magny-Cours.