Latest Posts:
Asphalt & Rubber
Archive

December 2011

Browsing
News

Fastest in San Francisco is a Sellout

By 2 Comments

We hope you bought your tickets to the San Francisco premiere of Fastest, Mark Neale’s latest MotoGP documentary, because our screening, co-sponsered by the San Francisco Dainese Store, has sold out. If you happen to fall into the group of GP junkies who haven’t purchased tickets to the SF Fastest screening, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve left 20 or so tickets waiting for you at the box office, but you’ll have to pick them up in person, and by pick them up, we mean walk/ride/swim to the Embarcadero Center Cinema right now.

For those of you who already purchased your tickets, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve got a fun evening planned for you. Director Mark Neale will be on-hand to do a Q&A about making Fastest, and we’ve got some nice items to raffle off to attendees, with all proceeds going to Asphalt & Rubber‘s favorite charity: Riders for Health. The official charity of MotoGP, Riders for Health is an international non-profit organization that provides motorcycles (and rider safety and maintenance) to healthcare workers in Africa.

Keep Reading
By
News

Aprilia Tuono V4 R Finally Coming to America – $14,999

By 18 Comments

You wouldn’t know that the Aprilia Tuono V4 R even existed if you went to Aprilia’s USA website, though the fire sale of the older Tuono 1000 should at least raise an eyebrow. That being said, Aprilia USA is set to bring the new, as in debuted at EICMA last year, Aprilia Tuono V4 R to our American shores. Set to hit dealers in March 2012, Aprilia USA has at least gotten one thing right with the 2012 Aprilia Tuono V4 R, and priced the streetfightered RSV4 with $14,999 MSRP.

That puts the base model Aprilia Tuono V4 R a full $4,000 cheaper than the $18,995 MSRP 2012 Ducati Streetfighter S, and $2,000 more than the $12,995 MSRP Ducati Streetfighter 848. With that price point, Aprilia has aggressively positioned the Tuono V4 R against Ducati, its biggest competition in the performance-oriented street-naked segment. With 167hp on tap, there is plenty to get excited about with the Aprilia Tuono V4 R, and true to its ethos, the Tuono V4 R is basically a de-tuned Aprilia RSV4 R superbike without its fairings.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Yamaha Super Ténéré Worldcrosser Becomes a Reality

By 10 Comments

We thoroughly enjoyed the 2012 Yamaha Super Ténéré when we rode it last year (yeah..do the math on those numbers). Properly thrashing the machine through the outskirts of Sedona, Arizona, the big-displacement Super T is fun adventure-tourer that balances Japanese bang-for-the-buck economics with a robust feature set normally reserved only for European machines.

So it is hard to imagine how Yamaha could improve on an already fine motorcycle (we guess the tuning fork brand could give the Super Ténéré away for free), but the Japanese manufacturer did so with its Yamaha Super Ténéré Worldcrosser concept.

A more rugged and off-road oriented variant of the Super T, the 2012 Yamaha Super Ténéré Worldcrosser seemed too-polished, and certainly too well received to avoid going into production, and sure enough, we have gotten word today that Yamaha has green-lit the Worldcrosser for production (we’ll take one in competition white, please).

Keep Reading
By