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MotoGP: Randy de Puniet & Davide Brivio Talk About Suzuki Racing Testing at Motegi

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One of the great joys of private testing in the MotoGP class is the lack of media control and censorship placed upon the teams. We know that this seems like a backwards concept, but since Dorna can’t block teams from filming at the track, the private tests the MotoGP squads undertake are ever-becoming media and marketing opportunities, and our latest example comes from Motegi and the Suzuki Racing MotoGP effort.

Perhaps one of the most exciting projects in the MotoGP World Championship right now, Suzuki Racing’s bid to re-enter the premier class in 2015 has been eagerly awaited ever since the Japanese factory left Grand Prix racing at the end of the 2011 season.

Now publicly working its still unnamed race bike, with its inline-four engine and Randy de Puniet at the helm, Suzuki Racing has shown that the squad has the potential to run with the other factories, though still not within the restrictions of the upcoming MotoGP rules.

With a season and a half to go in that endeavor, fans are now getting the treat of watching Suzuki develop in real time. Queue the team videos from Motegi, where Davide Brivio talks about the results of the test, and hired gun Randy de Puniet explains the progress with Suzuki’s new chassis. 2015 can’t come soon enough.

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Racing

Why Crutchlow’s Move to Ducati Is Smarter Than It Looks

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The news that Cal Crutchlow has signed a two-year deal with Ducati led to howls of despair from MotoGP fans, especially among those in the UK. Why, they asked, would Crutchlow willingly leave the Tech 3 Yamaha team and the as-near-factory-as-possible M1 to take on the miserable task of taming the Ducati?

Why throw away another year on a bike which he knows he can score podiums, and perhaps even wins on, in exchange for riding a bike which has been a proven failure since Casey Stoner last climbed off it and headed next door to the Repsol Honda garage?

If Valentino Rossi, the biggest name and most politically powerful rider in motorcycle racing couldn’t make the bike competitive, what chance does Crutchlow stand?

Though only Crutchlow himself fully understands the motives behind his choice, he has left plenty of evidence offering some insight into why he has signed for Ducati. Though fans around the world have tried to point to a single reason – usually either money or having a factory bike – the decision-making process is far, far more complex than that.

It is a case study of the complex thought process that lies behind the decisions a rider must make when steering his career. With so little time spent at their peak, and so many factors outside of their control, the decisions a rider makes are not as clear-cut and simple as the fans would like them to be.

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News

The Fastest Ambulance is a Motorcycle

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What do you do when the medical response times during peak traffic hours can be upwards of 30 minutes? How about when the established healthcare has no interest in bridging the gap of time it takes between when an incident occurs to and proper medical attention arrives?

After the Second Lebanon War, Eli Beer pondered the same questions while living in Israel, and subsequently started United Hatzlah — a motorcycle-based group of emergency first-responders. Doing a TED Talk at TEDMED 2013, Beer speaks about the advantages of two-wheeled first-responders, and the strides his organization has made in bringing stabilizing treatments to injured persons.

The paramedics-on-motorbikes model isn’t unique, and can be found in many European metropolitans, though it is a bit of rarity here in the United States. With United Hatzlah averaging a sub-three minute response time, (the group aims for a 90 second response window), we think TED’s tagline is appropriate: this is an idea worth sharing.

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Racing

WSBK: FIM Confirms Cost-Cutting Rules, Adds EVO Class

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The FIM has confirmed changes to the World Superbike Championship for the 2014 season and onward. Following in the footsteps of the MotoGP Championship, WSBK will go to an eight-engine allocation (per rider, per season), have a limited number of gear ratios, as well as price caps on brake and suspension pieces. Pretty standard fare.

More intriguing though is the announcement by the FIM that World Superbikes will have a sub-category: the EVO class. British motorbike race fans will find the term familiar but for the rest of us, the distinction is simple.

The WSBK EVO class will follow the same rules as the standard WSBK-spec machine in regards to chassis, suspension, and braking components, but will follow the FIM Superstock rules when it comes to engines and electronic systems. The press release is after the jump.

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Racing

eRoadRacing’s Miller Motorsports Park Round Cancelled

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It’s been a while since we reported on the eRoadRacing World Cup series, the love child merger of the TTXGP and FIM e-Power electric motorcycle racing series, and that is for good reason.

While Asphalt & Rubber is a big proponent of the electric motorcycle uprising, and there are a lot of interesting things developing in this space (be sure read to our ride reviews of BRD RedShift SM, Mission RS, and MotoCzysz E1pc) the racing side of the equation has been rather lackluster.

So, it doesn’t surprise to hear that the FIM has cancelled the eRoadRacing event at Miller Motorsports Park, which was supposed to happen August 31st & September 1st.

Instead, the North American part of the eRoadRacing series will consist of only two rounds: last month’s Red Bull US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, and this month’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

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Bikes

Erik Buell Racing Teases Us Some More

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Erik Buell Racing continues to tease its upcoming models on the company’s Facebook page, and to compliment the two-seater ass shot from several weeks ago, EBR has posted up a shot of a bike hiding in the shadows, with its LED marker lights illuminated.

Though Erik Buell Racing has purposefully doctored the photo, so we can’t decipher more of this bike’s details, the big reveal here is the new headlight design for EBR that replaces the very Roehr/MV Agsuta setup found on the EBR 1190RS.

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Racing

MotoGP: Yamaha Debuts Seamless Gearbox at Brno Test – Shift Times 58% Quicker than Conventional Gearbox

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It had been widely rumored that Yamaha would have some important updates to test at its private test being held yesterday and today at Brno.

The biggest expected update to be tested was a seamless gearbox, but though Yamaha Racing Managing Director Lin Jarvis had hinted they might be testing the new gearbox, it was far from certain.

As the test at Brno was a private one, no media were invited who would be able to verify whether the seamless gearbox was being tested or not.

Fortunately, however, the Brno circuit was allowing visitors in to watch the test. And among those was Pavel, who runs the Czech Valentino Rossi fansite http://www.rossi-yamaha.cz/.

Pavel shot some video footage of the private test – thankfully not covered by the blanket ban Dorna has on all coverage of the official tests – and was kind enough to send us the audio from the recordings.

Armed with that audio, we were able to analyze the sound, as we have done previously (on both the Honda and the Yamaha), to try to judge whether Yamaha was indeed testing a seamless gearbox, and if it was, what advantage it was giving the riders.

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Racing

Video: Casey Stoner Rides the Honda RC213V at Motegi

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Completing two days of testing for HRC, Casey Stoner was back in the saddle of a MotoGP machine this week (at Motegi, of all places). The former World Champion only did a handful of laps on Tuesday (six in total) before the rain came in to the Twin Ring Motegi Circuit; but on Wednesday, Mother Nature cooperated a bit. Getting to do 47 laps in total on the 2013 Honda RC213V race bike yesterday, Stoner tested some “small items” for his former employer.

Positive about the test and being back on a bike, Stoner reaffirmed his decision to stay out of MotoGP, and dashed the hopes of any fans that were hoping to see the Australian make a wild card run at Phillip Island. Much to the disappointment of the media, Stoner did not get a chance to swing a leg over Honda’s planned MotoGP Production Racer, though HRC Executive Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto confirmed that a future test of the machine by Stoner is in the works.

A private test, and thus free of Dorna’s video restrictions, the fine folk at HRC have put together a short video of Casey on-board the RC213V in Japan. A far cry from the great material we got from Honda’s private test at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin (at some points  in the video, we wonder if the videographer had some angry scarab beetles in their trousers), GP fans will surely still have an auralgasm as the RC213V goes by in anger.

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Rumors

Rumor: New Honda Africa Twin Coming? To the USA Even?!

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Rumors have long been around that Honda was looking to bring back the Africa Twin model to its line-up; and with a quick scrolling through Honda America’s “Adventure” category, one can see that the less-than-inspiring odd-couple that are the Honda NC700X and Honda CB500X, while fine machines they might be (though we’ve heard the word “soulless” used more than once to describe them), proper adventure-bikes they surely are not.

With the tuning-fork brand putting out the stout Yamaha Super Ténéré, and Suzuki teasing the 2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000, Honda and Kawasaki have been late to the Great American Adventure Bike party  — though at least Team Green fanatics can pretend like the Versys is a viable option for this category.

With Europeans having a variety of adventure motorcycles to chose from in the Honda brand, bikes like the Honda Transalp, Honda Crossrunner, Honda Varadero, and Honda Crosstourer, us Americans have been left out in the cold.

Well, that might be set to change, as our stroll yesterday though the USPTO’s online database (check-out our find on upcoming Ducati Scrambler) has revealed that Honda Motor Co. has registered “Africa Twin” for use in the American market. Could a proper adventure-tourer from Honda be headed our way?

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Banter

Stories of Bike

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“Stories of Bike is simply about the sharing stories of riders and their custom bikes. Motorbikes aren’t only a machine from which we derive a basic pleasure in riding, but rather something which connects us to many things: friends, family and our environment both urban and natural…It is these connections, these stories, I wish to share with your fellow riders,” writes Cam Elkin on the Stories of Bike website.

Based down under in Sydney, Australia and feeding of the area’s café racer scene, Elkin has put together a budding web series that focuses on individual motorcyclists and the unique machines they ride. It won’t take you long to realize that there is a clear moto-hipster vibe that’s going on with the Stories of Bike series, which to be honest gets old pretty quick if it’s not your thing (it’s not ours).

But, at the end of the day the video series is all about motorcyclists talking about their bikes, and the stories thus experienced from the saddle — so, what’s not to like about that? Five episodes deep so far, we have to say that the production and storytelling here is some of the best we’ve seen. Enjoy the episodes after the jump — we did, despite the skinny jeans.

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