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Details on the Victory’s Electric Race Bike for the IOMTT

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News that Victory Motorcycles will be racing at the 2015 Isle of Man TT, in the TT Zero event no less, is still taking time to process. It’s a big deal for the Manx road race, and an even bigger deal to the American brand.

If you have been following the electric motorcycle scene, Victory’s race bike should look familiar, as its based off the Brammo Empulse RR.

Exactly what changes Victory will have at the Isle of Man have been a mystery, but our sources have given us some insight into the progress Brammo has made in its extended off-season.

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Racing

Tooele County Aims to Keep Motorsports Park Running

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The Tooele County Commission is searching for a new operator of the Miller Motorsports Park, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

With the Miller family set to stop operating the track and its facilities at the end of October this year, the county is keen to find a new business partner to lease the 500 acres of land to.

“Our major interest is to enter into a partnership, whether that be an outright sale or a lease” with an entity whose “core competency” is running a facility like the one the Millers are abandoning, said County Commissioner Sean Milne, while speaking to the The Salt Lake Tribune.

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Bikes

Honda RC213V-S To Be Officially Official on June 11th?

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French-speaking publications are letting slip that Honda has a media event planned June 11th for the Honda RC213V-S — where it is expected that the MotoGP-derived street bike will be finally put forth in its production form.

Readers will remember that Honda unveiled the RC213V-S as a “prototype” at the 2014 EICMA show. Honda made the same move with the “True Adventure” prototype, which we knew at the time to be the new Honda Africa Twin adventure-touring machine.

With the Africa Twin now officially a 2016 model according to Honda, we wait for Big Red to do the same with the RC213V-S.

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News

Oregon Kills Lane-Splitting Law in House Committee

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It’s bad news for Oregonian motorcyclists who were hoping to join the 21st century with the lane-filtering privileges that most of the world enjoys, as the Oregon House of Representatives has killed bill SB 694, in committee.

The bill, which had passed through the Senate Judiciary committee with an unanimous vote and the Oregon Senate with a two-thirds majority, was denied access to a general vote, by the bi-partisan Oregon House Committee on Transportation and Economic Development.

SB 694 had faced strong opposition from the Oregon Department of Transportation and law enforcement agencies because of perceived added danger to motorists if motorcycles were to filter through stopped traffic, and the opinions of the organizations carried weight with the House Committee, fueling its decision to kill the bill.

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Bikes

BMW Motorrad Concept 101 – Six Cylinders of Bagger

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Released today at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Lake Como, Italy, the BMW Motorrad Concept 101 is a six-cylinder bagger aimed at the American market. Using the K1600 platform as a base, BMW once again enlisted the help of Roland Sands to build a concept, this time one that was suitable for touring on America’s highways.

The name “Concept 101” comes from the 1,649cc displacement, which clocks in at roughly 101 cubic inches. BMW says that the name is also an homage to Highway 101, which isn’t far from BMW’s design studio in Southern California, where this bike was conceived.

“The Concept 101 opens up a new chapter in the history of our concept bikes. It is the BMW Motorrad interpretation of endless highways and the dream of freedom and independence – the perfect embodiment of ‘American touring’. Designing this big touring bike study was amazingly exciting for us because we haven’t been involved with a motorcycle concept like this before. To me, the Concept 101 is the epitome of elegance, power and luxury on two wheels,” says Edgar Heinrich, Head of BMW Motorrad Design.

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Bikes

BMW R nineT Concepts by Iban Domigo & Xavier Vairai

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We have already talked about how important, from a customizer’s perspective, the BMW R nineT is with its modular design. The tragically named, yet intelligently built motorcycle can be the foundation for a multitude of different ideas, styles, and trends.

Nothing illustrates that more than the concepts put together by Iban Domigo (of Ruleshaker) and Xavier Vairai (of Dream Machines), as they take the German café racer and apply streamline moderne and art deco lines to them.

The result is beautifully smooth machines that give the impression that motorcycle design evolved purely from a baseline rooted in the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s. There is something distinctly modern about the bikes, but the air-cooled heads and aerodynamic fairings tell another older story.

There’s something very visually pleasing here, and so we thought we would share it. More examples await you, after the jump.

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News

Skully Helmets Pushes Back Delivery to December 2015

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Helmet startup Skully Helmets, the San Francisco based company that is building a helmet with an integrated heads-up-display system, has quietly pushed back its delivery to customers to December 2015.

Initial hopes from the company were to have product in the hands of consumers by the end of 2014, with that date being solidified to May 2015 once the company started its Indiegogo-powered pre-order campaign.

Anyone in the industry could have told you that was pie-in-the-sky forecasting though, as finished models were not even available at the start of the campaign, let alone other factors like certification, production, and distribution.

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Dirt

Gas Gas Files for Bankruptcy

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Perhaps already a reflection on the waning popularity of the brand, but the slow-to-break news this week is that Spanish motorcycle brand Gas Gas has filed for bankruptcy.

The news comes after an earlier effort by the Spanish company to try and reconcile its debt of roughly €30 million, and to restructure its business to be more profitable.

With a last-minute deal between the shareholders falling through, Gas Gas had no choice but to file with the Spanish courts.

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Racing

Lee Johnston Talks Electrics & The IOMTT with Victory

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Victory Motorcycles will be at the 2015 Isle of Man TT, and while that brand name is certainly a shocking one, no matter what class the American motorcycle manufacturer enters, and the fact that it will be in the electric TT Zero race at least makes for a good use of the word “shocking” in a punny sort of way.

Jokes aside, it’s a big announcement for the IOMTT, electric racing, and Victory Motorcycles itself. The evolved Brammo Empulse RR race bike that Victory will be using is certainly a well-sorted race machine, capable of giving Mugen a run for its money — not mention,William Dunlop and Lee Johnston are certainly some of the top riders around the Manx road course.

Testing with Brammo Victory at what looks like Thunderhill Raceway, Lee Johnston gives his first thoughts on riding an electric race bike, and what competing in the TT Zero class will be like at the 2015 Isle of Man TT.

We will be excited to see what Victory can accomplish this year at the TT. Hopefully this is what reignites the interest in electric motorcycle racing, and electric motorcycles in general.

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News

Motorcyclist Fatalities to Drop for Second Straight Year

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According to the Governors Highway Safety Association’s (GHSA) projections, motorcycle fatalities are set to fall for the second year in a row.

The GHSA report projections come from data set in 2014, and it suggests that once tallied, we will know that 4,584 fatalities occurred in 2014.

That figure is 1.8% less than 2013’s fatality count of 4,668. This is the second year in a row that motorcycle fatalities have dropped, and only the third decrease in fatalities since 1997.

While this trend is good news, the GHSA is quick to point out that motorcycle fatalities are still 26% higher than they were 10 years ago, a staggering figure since other motor vehicle fatalities are 28% lower.

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Bikes

BMW Getting Closer to a Single-Cylinder 300cc Bike

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Continued reports suggest that BMW is getting closer and closer to releasing a small-displacement motorcycle single-cylinder motorcycle (codenamed the K03), which is being co-developed with Indian brand TVS.

The machine is expected to be in the 250cc to 300cc range, be engineered by BMW Motorrad in Germany, but built by TVS in India.

Pictures of the test mule have been on the internet (see above), but the final design is said to be similar to the TVS Draken concept that we saw this time last year.

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