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July 2012

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MotoCzysz Performance Parts Coming Soon?

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Since the Isle of Man TT, I have been hearing some talk about MotoCzysz developing some performance pieces for mainstream market consumption. Since the MotoCzysz crew is now busy making electrons go faster than the speed of light, the obvious candidate for the rumor would seem to be the company’s 6x-flex fork, which was originally tested on a Honda CBR1000RR and would only need some basic adjustments in order to fit modern dinosaur-burning motorcycles.

While I chalked the rumors up to conjecture, there appears to be some truth to the matter, as MotoCzysz was recently up at Portland International Raceway doing some testing. We assume the testing time was for the 2012 MotoCzysz E1pc, which is set to make its track debut this weekend for the e-Power/TTXGP round at Laguna Seca. Tweeting about the test, MotoCzysz let it drop that “performance parts [for] your bike” would be announced soon. Schwing!

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News

Zero Motorcycles Finds New CEO After 16-Month Search

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It is hard to believe that for over a year now (16 months by our count) that Zero Motorcycles has gone along without a hand on the rudder. Well…that’s not entirely true of course, as we hear that Zero’s COO Karl Wharton has been calling the shots at the Scotts Valley company in the interim, but the duration certainly has been done without a formal leader at the electric motorcycle manufacturer. That all ends today though, as Richard Walker has been appointed as the new CEO of Zero Motorcycles.

Walker comes with references from Hewlett Packard & Control4 (a home automation controller company). At HP, Walker was the VP and General Manager of the Consumer Desktop Business Division, which was responsible for the HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, and HP Touchsmart product lines. While at Control4, Walker was the Executive Vice President of Product Development and Product Operations, so we are guessing he knows a thing or two about bringing a product to market.

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Racing

MotoGP: Ben Spies to Leave Yamaha at End of Season

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In a surprise announcement ahead of the US GP at Laguna Seca, Ben Spies has announced that he intends to leave Yamaha at the end of the 2012 MotoGP Championship season. Revealing the news in an email to Superbikeplanet, Spies chose his words carefully, though the Texan hints at a rift between himself and the Yamaha Racing MotoGP team as being part of the reason for his departure.

Certain to be bombarded with questions during Thursday’s pre-race media scrums, Spies is likely to shed more light on the actual situation, and his plans for the future, at the start of the Laguna Seca round. Until then, read his statement after the jump, and let the conjecture, double-reading, and wishful thinking begin.

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Racing

Where Will Rossi End Up Racing in 2013 and Beyond?

By 15 COMMENTS

It has been an intense week or so for speculation about the next and biggest cog in MotoGP’s Silly Season merry-go-round. The question of Valentino Rossi’s future has filled the media, with multiple, and sometimes conflicting, stories appearing in the international press. So, that Rossi should dominate the headlines is logical.

After all, with Casey Stoner retiring, and the futures of Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez all settled, Rossi’s decision will determine not just where he lands, but also to a massive degree it will determine who will fill the rest of the seats in MotoGP next year.

Rossi’s choice is fairly straightforward: he can elect to stay at Ducati and hope that Filippo Preziosi can soon provide him with a competitive bike; he can take up the offer he is believed to have from Yamaha to join the factory team; or he can accept a ride with a satellite Honda team aboard a full-factory RC213V.

During his daily briefing with the press at each race weekend, Rossi has suggested that his primary focus is to stay with Ducati and make the Desmosedici competitive. Yet all of the news stories in the past 10 days have been suggesting that Rossi is close to signing a deal with Yamaha, with the sponsors backing the deal varying depending on the source.

So what is the truth? Just where will Valentino Rossi end up next season? Is it possible to make any sense of the rumors and conjecture that surround the future of the nine-times World Champion? Let us examine each possibility, and see what we can piece together.

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Racing

Video: Valentino Rossi’s Mugello Helmets, Part 3

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You’d be hard pressed to know that Part 3 of Monster’s little video series on the Mugello helmets of Valentino Rossi featured The Doctor at all (Part 1 & Part 2), as the short video clip watches more like a highlight reel of all of MotoGP’s Monster-sponsored riders. Maybe that’s because Rossi wasn’t fighting for the front at the Italian GP (though it was his best dry-weather outing thus far with the GP12), while Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Andrea Dovizioso found himself sipping the bubbly after the race.

The truth is probably more along the lines of the fact that the energy drink manufacturer had to shell out big bucks for the video rights from Dorna, and a marketing manager at the company needed something to justify that huge expense to his boss. Anyhoo, our big takeaway from this final installment: the view of fans rushing the track post-race is something worth experiencing first-hand, especially when it involves Teletubbies riding pit-bikes. Video after the jump.

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News

KTM Sells 50,000+ Motorcycles in the First-Half of 2012

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KTM has crunched the numbers on it sales for the first half of 2012, and the Austrian company has some very impressive news to share. Selling 50,233 units in the first six months of the year, KTM’s increase in sales is 36% over last year’s figures for the same time period, a gain due mainly to the company’s efforts in emerging markets like India.

Though this is the first time that Bajaj’s selling of the KTM Duke 200 has been included in KTM’s half-year report, the Austrian brand wasn’t fueled solely by its Indian sales, as KTM’s European sales were up 41% as well, giving KTM a total marketshare in the EU of 7%.

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Racing

MotoGP: Barbera Breaks Leg Training — Elias in at Pramac

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Breaking his left leg (fibula & tibia) during a training accident, Pramac Ducati’s Hector Barbera will be unable to ride for the next four to six weeks. Missing MotoGP’s stops at Laguna Seca and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Pramac will replace Barbera with two-time former-MotoGP racer, Toni Elias.

Replacing his fellow countryman at the Laguna Seca round, and likely at the Indianapolis round as well, Elias himself has some interesting news, as the former-Moto2 Champion was ousted from his Moto2 ride on the Mapfre Aspar team. Elias’s results during his return to Moto2 have been anything but impressive so far this season, especially after his dominant Championship win in 2010.

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Racing

WSBK: Interrupted Superpole During Qualifying at Brno

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Not withstanding the drama of Liberty Racing and Sylvain Guintoli’s slightly absurd dustup and parting of ways, along with the news the BMW Motorrad would fold its factory team into the BMW Italia effort, it’s been business as usual at Brno for World Superbike this week. The same could not be said for Saturday’s Superpole event though, which suffered from fluids being dumped on the track, and then a bout of rain caused the qualifying to go to a wet format. With teams having to adapt to the changing format, the grid for Sunday is certainly an interesting one.

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Racing

Hall of Fame Creates Supplemental Ballot for Nobby Clark

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Today, another chapter was written regarding the AMA / Derek “Nobby” Clark inauguration debacle and controversy, as the American Motorcyclist Association announced that it would have all voting members for the Hall of Fame cast votes on a supplemental ballot concerning the induction of Nobby Clark into the organization.

Allowing the entire voting-membership to decided on Mr. Clark’s appointment to the Hall of Fame, the move will not impact other candidates for the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame (AMHF), and comes in response to the organization’s finding that Clark had been inappropriately added to the original Hall of Fame voting ballot.

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Racing

WSBK: Sylvain Guintoli & Liberty Racing Part Ways

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World Superbike in Brno this race-weekend, the home round for the Czech-based Effenbert-Liberty Ducati team. Once again in the spotlight after its dust-up following the Monza round, Effenbert Liberty rider Sylvain Guintoli took to Twitter ahead of WSBK’s stop in Brno, announcing in a string of messages that that Czech team had breached its contract with him by not providing a bike for the Czech round, and as far as the French rider was concerned, the contract had been nullified.

Giving its side of the situation several days later, Liberty Racing first cited an issue with Guintoli’s technical team, but later amended that statement by blaming Guintoli’s lackluster results as the reason for why the French rider had been sacked. This is of course in spite of the fact that Guintoli has been on the podium three times this season so far, including a race win in Holland. Guintoli is currently eighth overall in the Championship, and is the first Liberty Racing rider to have won a race in WSBK.

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Bikes

Spotted: 2013 BMW S1000RR HP4 – 20 lbs Lighter w/ BMW’s Dynamic Damping Control (Semi-Active Suspension)

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After tweaking the BMW S1000RR for the 2012 model year, it is likely that the liter-bike King will remain relatively unchanged for another year. Though according to SoyMotero, BMW is set to milk the current iteration for bit more value with a more premium model. Teasing out the 2013 BMW S1000RR HP4, zie Germans have finally gotten around to doing some “High Performance” treatment to their only true sport bike. Leaving things relatively unchanged underneath the fairings, the Bavarians have some big changes for the BMW S1000RR HP4, part of which is 20 lbs in less mass.

The big weight savings seem to come from the exhaust system and the addition of forged aluminum wheels. Other changes include revised bodywork, a solo seat, launch control, updated traction control, and wait for it…BMW’s Dynamic Damping Control (DDC), which as far as we know is the first application of computer-controlled active electronic suspension in the motorcycle market. No prices yet, though we would expect a hefty price tag to be announced when the BMW S1000RR HP4 officially breaks cover later this year during the Intermot or EICMA shows.

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