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Conor Cummins in at Honda TT Legends

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With the news that Michael Dunlop failed to reach an agreement with Honda Europe, and likely would be sitting out the 2014 road racing season, Honda TT Legends has announced its signing of Conor Cummins in Dunlop’s stead. Accordingly, the well-regarded Manx rider will form a two-man team with Mr. Snaefell himself, John McGuinness.

Cummins and McGuinness will race for the Honda TT Legends team at the 2014 Isle of Man TT and North West 200 road racing events. Both McGuinness and Cummins will cover the Superbike and Senior races at the TT, while Cummins will race for the team in the Superstock class as well.

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MotoGP

Moto2: Ant West Loses Appeal in Doping Case

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Ant West has been issued a retroactive ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and has had almost all the results for the last 18 months declared invalid.

All of West’s results between the Le Mans 2012 race and 20th October 2013 have been declared null and void, and will be scrapped from the official Moto2 results.

The retroactive ban goes back to a failed doping test at Le Mans in 2012. West had bought a supplement energy drink without checking the ingredients, and subsequently failed a drug test.

The energy drink (Mesomorph) turned out to contain the banned substance methylhexaneamine, traces of which were found in West’s urine.

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News

MV Agusta Will Debut Two More Motorcycles in 2014

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MV Agusta had only a single new model to show at the 2013 EICMA show, its new sport-touring machine, the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce 800. An important brand extension for the Italian company, CEO Giovanni Castiglioni admitted that MV Agusta scrapped its original design for the Turismo Veloce, simply stating that the produce design didn’t have the same “wow effect” that the MV Agusta motorcycle should evoke. Developing the current iteration of the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce in just eight-months time, time will tell on whether the Turismo Veloce has been rushed to market or not.

MV Agusta has cleverly spun its recent history of releasing half-baked motorcycles to market (the press debut of the MV Agusta F3 675 and its horrible fuel-mapping are still fresh in our memory), by saying the company has adopted a strategy where its machines are in “constant upgrade” from the MV Agusta’s legion of engineers. There is an interesting story there about the sophistication of electronics now, though we would just prefer the bikes work properly in version 1.0, not 1.1.

Now raising its own bar on sophistication, the Castiglioni says that the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce 800 is the most advanced model ever to come from Varese. Time will soon tell how the sport-tourer rides (we hear it was a non-runner in the company’s promotional video), but as for the future of the Italian company, it is still full-speed ahead on other projects, which brings us to where we are today.

Some news that seemingly got lost with all the other announcements at EICMA, Giovanni Castiglioni shared at the Milan show that his road map for the future of MV Agusta includes two more yet unannounced new models, in two new market segments, which will debut in the first-part of 2014.

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Racing

2013 FIM eRoadRacing World Cup Finale Cancelled

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Did you enjoy all our FIM eRoadRacing World Cup coverage this year? No, you didn’t miss our postings, because we didn’t mention any of the rounds on A&R. You see, it is hard to get excited about the newly minted eRoadRacing World Cup, which in the United States has been dominated by a single brand, Brammo.

While the Isle of Man’s TT Zero event continues to make headway, both in competitive entries and close racing, the newly merged racing efforts from the previously competing FIM and TTXGP series has foundered — even in its new cooperative form.

At the center of the problem is probably a variety of issues: too much too soon, not enough commitment from OEMs, and a poor racing spectacle, which is why this week’s latest news on the e-racing front is a bit of a disappointment as well: the 2013 FIM eRoadRacing World Cup finale has been cancelled.

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MotoGP

Husqvarna Enters Moto3 with Rebadged KTM Bike

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A day after the provisional entry lists for the Grand Prix classes were released by the FIM, and there’s one change already. Today, Husqvarna announced that they would be joining the Moto3 world championship, and fielding a factory team.

The Red Bull Husqvarna Factory Racing team will be run by Aki Ajo, and have Danny Kent as rider. Furthermore, Husqvarna will also be providing support for Niklas Ajo in the Avant Tecno team.

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Bikes

Looks Like the Yamaha PES1 Electric Street Bike Is a Runner

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Last week when Yamaha debuted its electric street bike concept, the Yamaha PES1, we thought it looked like a well-though out concept machine that gave the tuning fork brand some street cred for thinking about a future with electric motorcycles. After all, the Japanese company was light on details, and certain parts of the bike seemed a bit more Star Trek than reality. Turns out we were wrong.

Releasing a video of the Yamaha PES1 testing on the track, it’s clear that the concept is fully-functional (just like Data), which means Yamaha has set its phasers to stun with this 100kg machine. From the cuts of this quick YouTube flick, Yamaha seems as serious as a Borg cube with its electric project, which only adds to the intrigue on when they could debut a proper production model.

Maybe with the rumors about Honda being behind the Mugen Shinden project, Yamaha didn’t want Big Red to get too far ahead in the EV game. Whatever the case may be, we like it…even more than Klingon gagh.

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MotoGP

2014 MotoGP Rider Line Up Announced, But The 24 Rider Grid Still Leaves Many Questions Unanswered

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Though most of the contracts were settled some time ago, there were still a few question marks on the 2014 MotoGP grid. The official entry list released by the FIM today answers some of those questions, but the answers it gives may yet turn out to be wrong.

The list features 11 entries to be run under the Factory rules, which means 20 liters of fuel, 5 engines per season and the freedom to use proprietary software on the spec Magneti Marelli ECU. The remain 13 bikes will be run as Open entries, which gives them 24 liters of fuel and 12 engines per season, but forces them to use the Dorna-controlled spec software on the Magneti Marelli ECU.

The 2014 season looks set to follow the pattern established in 2013, with Marc Marquez, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo likely to dominate.

Of interest is the fact that Marc Marquez has been entered with number 93, rather than the number 1 which the world champion is allowed to use, but this may yet change before the start of the season. Marquez would dearly like to retain 93, but Honda is keen to see him run the number 1 plate.

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Bikes

Kawasaki J Concept – A Green Outlook on the Future

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Sometimes we like our concept motorcycles to be funky, and the Kawasaki J Concept certainly delivers in that department. Debuting at the Tokyo Motor Show a vision on what the future of motorcycling could become, the Kawasaki J is an electric trike/quad with a variable riding position/chassis configuration.

Not too dissimilar from the Yamaha Tesseract, the J Concept is an interesting exercise in design and technology proposals, and could be the future of leaning-trikes and similar vehicles. What are your thoughts?

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Bikes

Kawasaki Debuts Supercharged Four-Cylinder Engine

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The start of the Tokyo Motor Show is today, if you haven’t already noticed, and it looks like the Japanese OEMs have saved their best models for the home court advantage this year, with all four of the Big Four having something special for Tokyo.

Yamaha’s big announcement of course is the nearly-ready-for-production Yamaha R25 concept, a 250cc two-cylinder sport bike that Valentino Rossi says “packs quite a punch.” The tuning fork brand also has its more fanciful concepts to show-off, chiefly the Yamaha PES1 electric street bike and the Yamaha PED1 electric dirt bike.

Suzuki is in the mix as well, with its turbocharged Recursion concept, as well as its electric monkey bike, the Extrigger concept. Both of these motorcycles look like a hoot to ride, for very different reasons of course.

Not wanting to be left out on the forced-induction warpath, Kawasaki has its own blower for the two-wheeled world. Showcasing a supercharged four-cylinder engine at its booth, Kawasaki says it developed the turbine and motor in-house, and hints that we will see this in a motorcycle model in the near future.

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Bikes

Yamaha R25 Concept — Your Christmas Has Been Ruined

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Feeling the pressure to develop a 250cc sport bike for developing markets, Yamaha has finally released some details on the upcoming Yamaha R25, and we like what we see so far. A two-cylinder machine with racing in its blood, Yamaha’s concept is like a mini Yamaha YZR-M1 — devoid of lights and mirrors — and features racing livery with an Akrapovic exhaust to match.

The Yamaha R25 concept is an encouraging sign from Yamaha, even if what we are looking is a concept bike rather than a production-ready model.

But still, Yamaha’s approach in styling the Yamaha R25 to visually look like a miniature M1 is going to payoff huge dividends in Southeast Asia, where the bulk of the models are going to be sold, and where Rossi and Lorenzo have massive droves of fans. For us in the western world, well this bike just looks hot. We want one already.

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