Ducati North America is recalling certain Ducati Multistrada 1200 Enduro models, because of a defect found with the bike’s a Sachs semi-active rear shock absorber.
According to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the lower shock-end eyelet may crack during heavy off-road use, and possibly detach from the swingarm.
This can obviously collapse the rear-end of the motorcycle, which poses a serious safety hazard, hence a recall being started with the NHTSA.
Spy photos from Austria have caught KTM testing a rather interesting motorcycle – one that does not run on a petroleum-based fuel, but rather it has an electric drivetrain at its core.
This isn’t the first time that KTM has experimented with an electric motorcycle, of course, with the KTM Freeride E being available in select markets. However, the machine seen here is a pretty big step forward for the Austrian brand, from its modest electric dirt bike.
Using the chassis of a KTM 390 Duke to house the battery, inverter, and motor, KTM’s electric street bike (we’ll call it the KTM E-Duke for now) looks like a rolling mess, but is what you would expect from a project in its early stages of development.
I am a solid Star Wars geek, but not in the dress-up and go to a convention sort of way – if you know what I mean.
But, this new lid from HJC might have me singing a different tune, as it mimics Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing “Red 5” fighter helmet, in a DOT legal ¾ helmet format.
That’s just cool…in a really un-cool sort of way.
Based off the budget-friendly HJC IS-5 helmet, this Luke Skywalker replica will cost roughly $180 when it comes out (at a date still to be determined).
Episode 51 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast is out, and covers a variety of interesting subjects for your two-wheeled lifestyle. First up, we talk shop about going to track days, such as the benefits of using tire-warmers and how to slide a motorcycle in and out of a corner.
The conversation then gets more serious, and focuses on the recent financial news about Dorna Sports (media rights holder to MotoGP and WorldSBK), and how its investors are using the media company as a piggy bank.
We finish the show discussing some movements by GoPro in the action camera sector, as the behemoth video company tries to deal with its product increasingly becoming a commodity.
It’s worth pointing out that this show was recorded before our trip to the Circuit of the Americas, so we will be trickling out that content going forward…there’s a lot of it.
You can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Enjoy the show!
For as long as we have covered the Pied Piper dealership rankings, one brand has stood above all others in customer satisfaction, and that brand has been Ducati.
But for the 2016 rankings, we have a new boss in town, as BMW dealerships have taken the top honors in the most recent Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index.
For those readers who aren’t that aren’t familiar with Pied Piper, the company’s Prospect Satisfaction Index is sort of the Consumer Reports of a dealership network experience, and acts as a measuring stick for how a brand is performing when it comes to interacting with potential customers.
As such, the PSI takes into account a mixture of “mystery shopper” experiences, along with actual sales success for each brand, thus giving a mixture of subjective and objective measurement for a company’s dealer network.
Last weekend, the MotoAmerica season was onto its second round of the year, with racing action happening at Road Atlanta. The racing has been good so far in MotoAmerica this year, so if you haven’t been watching it, you have been missing out.
If you haven’t been watching, then you have also been missing-out on the feud that is brewing between Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias and Monster Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier. Exchanging some hand signals on the track, the pair exchange some words as well in Sunday’s post-race press conference.
In short, it looks like the gloves will be coming-off in the future MotoAmerica rounds, as these two riders fight not only for the MotoAmerica Championship title, but also against each other.
