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LEAKED: Here is the 2016 Indian Chief Dark Horse

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Cruisers aren’t really our forté, here at Asphalt & Rubber, but breaking stories is…so, without all the typical fanfare, we bring you the first full photos of the upcoming 2016 Indian Chief Dark Horse.

The Stead is murdered out and visually appealing, with black engine covers, black fenders, black forks…hell, even the tires are black. Under the hood is Indian’s Thunder Stroke 111 engine, which is an air-cooled 1,811cc v-twin good for 73hp and 100 lbs•ft.

More technical features include ABS as standard, a keyless ignition system, cast wheels, and a solo seat. Our Bothan Spies suggest an MSRP of $17,000, and more accessories (all black, natch) than you can fit into the belly of a Tauntaun.

Expect to see the Indian Chief Dark Horse launch officially on February 13th elsewhere.

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News

Washington State Weighs Pro Lane-Splitting Law

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The Washington State Legislature has a pro lane-splitting bill on its 2015-2016 docket, HB 1515. The law is moderately written, adopting a 10 mph speed differential between the motorcycle and traffic, with a 35 mph speed cap, as acceptable during lane-splitting activities.

Loyal Asphalt & Rubber readers will recognize these provisions as being more restrictive than the California Highway Patrol’s now defunct guidelines.

Lane-splitting is a near-and-dear topic to us here at A&R, as we believe a national effort to legalize the practice should be mission #1 for the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA).

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News

Polaris Trademarks “Victory Charger” – An Electric Cruiser?

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Trademark applications with the USPTO show that Polaris has registered “Victory Charger” as a mark to be used with “electric motorcycles and structural parts therefor.”

The application is a strong hint that we could see an electric cruiser from the Victory brand, which is owned by Polaris, in the coming future.

The news is especially timely, as Polaris just acquired Brammo’s electric motorcycle business, and plans on building electric motorcycles at the company’s facilities in Spirit Lake, IA.

As if there wasn’t already enough fuel for the fire, on a product roadmap for investors, Brammo listed an “eCruiser” as a possible future model — a model that could easily be repurposed for the progressive Victory cruiser brand.

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Racing

2015 FIM Endurance Calendar Down to Four Rounds

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After releasing initially a five-round provisional calendar, with a sixth round yet to be confirmed, the FIM Endurance World Championship will actually go back to a four-round schedule for 2015.

The announcement coincides with Eurosport Events being named as the series’ promoter, and presumably Eurosport Events didn’t see the advantage of adding a 24-Hour Magny-Cours round to the schedule, along with one of three possibilities in Portual (Estoril), Belgium (Zolder), or Slovakia (Slovakia Ring).

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News

Matt Levatich Named The New CEO of Harley-Davidson

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In a surprise press release late-today, Harley-Davidson announced that Matt Levatich will be taking over as the company’s CEO, starting May 1, 2015. Levatich will replace current CEO Keith Wandell, who took on his role in the company on May 1, 2009 — in the middle of the great economic recession.

The news is perhaps less shocking to industry insiders and analysts, who are familiar with the reasons behind Wandell’s tenure as CEO, and where Harley-Davidson stands today.

For sometime now we have been wondering when Harley-Davidson would initiate the next phase of its business plan, and whether Wandell would be a part of the company going forward.

As the symmetry of the tenure shows, today’s news is also a tip by Harley-Davidson that the swap in CEOs is due more to a new company direction than a reflection on performance.

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MotoGP

Photos: Rossi’s “Ugly Xmas Sweater” Helmet at Sepang

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Valentino Rossi is sporting a new winter test helmet design, as is tradition for the nine-time world champion. Looking like a riff on something you would find at an “Ugly Christmas Sweater” party, Rossi’s new lid design is certainly…festive.

Perhaps that’s too harsh of a critique for The Doctor, but you can’t mistake the snowflake’s design as something straight from J.Crew’s yule-log holiday catalog.

Ugly Xmas sweater or not, Rossi put a bow on Wednesday’s lap times — second-fastest overall, and by far the most comfortable looking on a MotoGP bike.

Rossi said at Sepang that he is hunting for his 10th World Championship this season, and we believe him. Only a man with that level of confidence could rock a helmet with a snowflake on it, after all.

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News

Alta Motors Out Testing the RedShift MX

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Every time I check-in with the Alta Motors crew, they’re getting closer and closer to releasing their electric “RedShift” dirt bike and supermoto motorcycles.

I suspect we’ll see the San Franciscan company go public with its wares sometime later this year; but before that happens, I know they want to make the best product possible, and hence a lot of testing has been undertaken these past months.

The above clip was sent to me last night, and it shows the RedShift MX doing its thing at a popular Bay Area motocross track, . “Hooks up like a four-stroke, but rides like a two-stroke,” and it looks that part while doing it, even on some of the bigger hits that would have taco’d the competition.

While that’s nice and all (I’m sure the Dirt & Rubber crew are salivating), the testing video we’re really interested in is the one after the jump. Now that’s a big hit.

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Racing

Aprilia USA Confirms Official Entry in MotoAmerica

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Aprilia USA will be part of MotoAmerica’s inaugural season, as the US subsidiary of the Italian brand confirmed an officially supported entry into the MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 class.

To go racing, Aprilia has partnered with HSBK Racing to form the “Aprilia HSBK Racing” team, which will campaign a two-rider lineup on the 2015 Aprilia RSV4 Factory superbike. The names of the riders have not been released as of yet.

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Bikes

2015 Honda RC213V Livery Mega Gallery

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HRC unveiled its factory MotoGP team this weekend in Bali, Indonesia — giving us our first glimpse of the Repsol Honda livery for the 2015 season.

Both Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa were in attendance, which is no surprise considering how important the Indonesian market is for Honda.

The Indonesian unveil also helps the two GP riders to have only a short hop now to Malaysia, to start the MotoGP season with the first official test a Sepang International Circuit.

As for the 2015-spec RC213V, things remain mostly the same to the layman’s eye. Red Bull’s sponsoring and support of both Pedrosa and Marquez, as well as the Repsol Honda team, is more prominent, and displayed on the belly pan fairing of the bike.

We’ll let you play spot the differences in the photos after the jump, they are super-sized high-resolution shots, so they might take a minute to load. Enjoy!

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Announcement

A&R: Disqus Commenting Enabled

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If you were on Asphalt & Rubber this weekend, you probably noticed that I switched the commenting system from WordPress’ basic system to Disqus’ more advanced commenting engine.

All previous comments should be imported now, and I hope there are relatively few bugs to reports. Hopefully this will mean a more engaged commenting section, since Disqus handles threaded comments more properly, and has already a good community following.

The slight downside is that some of our loyal commenters will have to register with the Disqus service, though that shouldn’t be too much of an issue since it is a very reputable one, and they won’t spam you once you register.

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Racing

Team Mugen Confirms 2015 IOMTT Entry with Shinden Yon

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A bit of a formality, since rider John McGuinness already spilled the beans in December last year, but Team Mugen has confirmed its entry into the 2015 Isle of Man TT.

Mugen will have a new bike at the contest, named the Shinden Yon, “Yon” being “four” in Japanese, and the bike being the company’s fourth TT racer — like its lap times, Mugen’s engineers are very consitent with their naming conventions.

Little is known about the Shinden Yon, and Mugen is saying only that the machine is “newly developed to improve over last year’s model.”

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