The Ducati Hypermotard 950 is the third generation of this street-sized supermoto, and in its design, Ducati borrowed heavily from the previous iterations.
As you can see, the mechanics of the 950 machine don’t wander far from the 939 that came before it, and the styling is a modern homage to the lines found on the original 1100 model.
As such, consider the 950 like a greatest hits album from the Hypermotard lineup.
One of the more intriguing story lines we are following in the coming WorldSBK season is the arrival of BMW Motorrad in the superbike paddock. For the 2019 season, BMW has partnered with the Shaun Muir Racing team, with riders Tom Sykes and Markus Reiterberger.
With an all new superbike platform to develop and work with, our attention is on what this machine can do, especially with such a high-level team and duo of riders.
With SMR officially unveiling the team at their preseason test in Portugal, we sent our man Steve English into the pit box to get some up-close photos of the WorldSBK-spec BMW S1000RR for the 2019 season.
As you would expect, the details on this bike are very interesting.
Harley-Davidson continues to push its new electric agenda, releasing this week two videos that show its electric scooter and electric moped models in action, just ahead of the X-Games in Aspen, Colorado.
The videos are interesting for two very important reasons. First, they show the two concepts running, just a few weeks after we saw the concepts in actual photos, not sketches.
Not exactly exciting two-wheeled video porn, nevertheless it shows that Harley-Davidson is hard at work bringing these bikes to market…though they do seem pretty rough and in the early stages of development.
Since 2008, there has been a unique motorcycle nestled into Ducati’s lineup, and it is called the Hypermotard.
Too big and heavy to be considered a proper supermoto, too tall to be considered a true sport bike, and too on-road focused to be considered a capable adventure-tourer, the Ducati Hypermotard has resided in its own category, with few direct competitors.
Instead, the Hypermotard gets compared to a large range of motorcycle models, likely because the Italians have positioned this maxi-moto to have attributes from a large cross-section of two-wheeled fun….and having fun is what the Hypermotard is all about.
The Hypermotard is a two-wheeled hooligan machine that was born to wheelie, jump, and slide, and throughout the model’s history, one maxim has remained true: if you are not having fun a Hypermotard, then you are probably doing it wrong.
And now, 2019 sees Ducati bringing a new iteration to the lineup, the Hypermotard 950. A clean-slate machine, virtually every part of the new Hypermotard has been changed from the pervious 939 model, making this the third generation of the Hypermotard line.
That being said though, the ethos of the Hypermotard 950 is an evolution, not a revolution over the outgoing Hypermotard 939. This is because Borgo Panigale has listened to its customer base while designing the Ducati Hypermotard 950, but also wisely kept the bike close to its roots.
The design is a modern riff on the original Terblanche design for the Hypermotard 1100; the package shares many attributes first seen on the 821/939 generation; and the overall fit and feel has been brought inline with the rest of the Ducati lineup.
All-in-all, when it comes to big liquid-cooled supermotos for the road, the Ducati Hypermotard 950 is at the top of the heap. In fact, it might just be the most fun you can have on the street with two wheels. Let me explain.
I don’t rate the Ducati Monster 821 as a particularly strong motorcycle for the track, but after seeing the latest creation from XTR Pepo, I might rethink that opinion.
The Spanish builder calls this creation “PANTAH” which is an homage to the Ducati Pantah whose form it attempts to replicate.
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Of course though, the styling has that obvious look that Pepo has honed over the years, especially with his Ducati builds, and the effect looks like something that would be perfectly comfortable at a weekday bike night, as it would a weekend track day.
Hello from from the Canary Islands, where we have the curious reality of being in both Europe and Africa at the exact same time (the islands are politically part of Spain, and thus the European Union, but sit on the African continental shelf).
A winter retreat for Europeans, the archipelago provides a temperate climate for the elderly, and year-round riding for motorcyclists. As such, we are here to shred some tires, and we will be doing that the press launch for the new Ducati Hypermotard 950.
Ducati has for us a two-part program: a street ride and a half-day of riding on the track, which should help us to evaluate both the base model Hypermotard 950, as well as the up-spec Hypermotard 950 SP.
A motorcycle that is near and dear to this author’s heart, as the two previous models ended up in my garage as personal bikes, bought with my hard-earned blogging dollars, we will be especially keen to see if Ducati has retained the unique character of this plus-sized supermoto, while also refining some of its gremlins.
There is perhaps no greater tribute in sports than the retiring of an athlete’s number, and that honor will be put upon the late Nicky Hayden at this year’s Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
As such, the iconic number for the Kentucky Kid will forever be his, as no other grand prix racer will be allowed to run the number “69” on their race bikes in competition after the event.
The move is a continuing tribute to Hayden, who tragically passed away in 2017 during a cycling accident.
Nicky Hayden was made a “MotoGP Legend” (the sport’s version of a Hall of Fame) in 2015, and last year the Circuit of the Americas named Turn 18 “Hayden Hill” in his honor.
Episode 90 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Steve English on the mics, as we look towards the 2019 racing season, as well as look back on the big moments of 2018.
The show is short in duration, and the guys’ conversation give us a jumping-off point for the upcoming racing seasons in both the MotoGP and WorldSBK classes.
With the winter doldrums though, we don’t think you will mind a little racing talk in your earbuds, and don’t worry, the Paddock Pass Podcast is now gearing up to bring you more news from the preseason tests, team launches, and first paddock gossip as it comes to us.
When it comes to sales figures for 2018, it is a good news / bad news type of situation for Ducati Motor Holding.
This is because the Italian brand sold 53,004 motorcycles to customers last year, which is a 5% drop from 2017’s figures, and ends an eight-year growth streak for the brand. That’s the bad news.
The good news though is that Ducati claimed the title as the top superbike brand in the world, with 9,700 Panigale models sold in 2018. This marks a 70% increase over the 2017 figures, thanks largely to the new Panigale V4 model.
First it was Ducati Corse in Switzerland, and now it is Repsol Honda in Madrid, as the factory-backed MotoGP team debuted its 2019 team and livery. The bikes look the same, the goal hasn’t changed, but the big news from Sepang was seeing Jorge Lorenzo in Repsol orange.
Lorenzo was wrapped in bandages of course, still fresh from the surgery on his left scaphoid, which he broke while training. This meant his leathers had to be cut along the left arm so he could get in and out of them, and it will also delay some of the press photos of the 2019 Honda RC213V race bike.
As far as debuts go, that is not a great start, but it will have little effect on perhaps the biggest shakeup in the MotoGP paddock over the past few seasons.
“Make Motorcycles Great Again” – that should be the battle cry for the American motorcycle industry for 2019 and onward.
We have talked at great length about the various ways that the motorcycle industry in the United States can revamp itself for life in the 21st century, and while there isn’t a single silver bullet to fix motorcycling in the USA, there are several pillars that such a plan can rest upon.
One of those pillars is getting young riders involved on two-wheels, and on the race track there is no better way to do that than with mini-moto racing. It is cheap and approachable…and most importantly, it is fun.
Getting onto a local cart track with a motorcycle can be done for a fraction of the cost of big bikes on proper road race circuits, and your budget is really only constrained by how good you are at hunting for deals on Craigslist.
Though if you really want to go all out, we present to you the Ohvale GP-0. The pinnacle of the sport, the Daytona 190 model from Ohvale will set you back a solid $6,900 MSRP. Other models from Ohvale are also available, with the 110cc version starting at $4,500 MSRP.