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Marc Marquez: “I’m Surprised, If I’m Honest”

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This morning, Asphalt & Rubber and other members of the English-speaking press were treated to a teleconference with Marc Marquez, which was hosted by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Currently leading the MotoGP Championship by 16 points, Marquez down-played his chances for carrying that lead to the end of the season, with the same boyish enthusiasm that he has shown throughout the season.

Talking about his success at The Brickyard in the Moto2 class, Marquez could be a dark horse for the upcoming Indianapolis GP, which has been dominated by the Repsol Honda machines the past three years; and if there is one thing that is certain about the young Spaniard, you can’t count him out on race day.

With IMS providing us with a transcript of the teleconference, you can read Marquez’s response to a wide range of subjects, all after the jump.

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Recall

Recall: Moto Guzzi Griso, Norge, & Stelvio

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Piaggio Group Americas is recalling certain model year 2012-2013 Moto Guzzi Griso, Moto Guzzi Norge, and Moto Guzzi Stelvio motorcycles because of a manufacturing fault in the rear suspension connecting links, which could fracture and collapse the rear suspension.

Affecting 680 units in total, the bikes in question are Stelvio NTX 1200 motorcycles manufactured February 6, 2012 through April 10, 2013, Norge 1200 motorcycles manufactured January 25, 2012 through March 21, 2013, and Griso 1200 motorcycles manufactured January 26, 2012 through April 29, 2013.

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News

Erik Buell Racing Patents Hybrid Motorcycle Design

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It seems Erik Buell Racing has been thinking about alternative-fuel vehicles, as the company from East Troy had filed and received a patent for a hybrid drive motorcycle design.

There is nothing particularly astonishing about EBR’s patent, after all with hybrids being all the rage in the four-wheeled world, it was obviously only a matter of time before that same trend transitioned to motorcycles as well.

However, what is interesting about Erik Buell Racing’s patent is that it doesn’t set forth the Prius-inspired setup that you would expect, where an electric motor takes over or assists an internal combustion engine.

Instead, EBR’s setup is more like the Chevy Volt, with a small petrol-fueled generator being on-board to charge the bike’s batteries once they have been depleted by the electric motor, and thus killing the range anxiety that is prevalent in current EV bike designs.

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Racing

MotoGP: Randy de Puniet & Davide Brivio Talk About Suzuki Racing Testing at Motegi

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One of the great joys of private testing in the MotoGP class is the lack of media control and censorship placed upon the teams. We know that this seems like a backwards concept, but since Dorna can’t block teams from filming at the track, the private tests the MotoGP squads undertake are ever-becoming media and marketing opportunities, and our latest example comes from Motegi and the Suzuki Racing MotoGP effort.

Perhaps one of the most exciting projects in the MotoGP World Championship right now, Suzuki Racing’s bid to re-enter the premier class in 2015 has been eagerly awaited ever since the Japanese factory left Grand Prix racing at the end of the 2011 season.

Now publicly working its still unnamed race bike, with its inline-four engine and Randy de Puniet at the helm, Suzuki Racing has shown that the squad has the potential to run with the other factories, though still not within the restrictions of the upcoming MotoGP rules.

With a season and a half to go in that endeavor, fans are now getting the treat of watching Suzuki develop in real time. Queue the team videos from Motegi, where Davide Brivio talks about the results of the test, and hired gun Randy de Puniet explains the progress with Suzuki’s new chassis. 2015 can’t come soon enough.

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News

The Fastest Ambulance is a Motorcycle

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What do you do when the medical response times during peak traffic hours can be upwards of 30 minutes? How about when the established healthcare has no interest in bridging the gap of time it takes between when an incident occurs to and proper medical attention arrives?

After the Second Lebanon War, Eli Beer pondered the same questions while living in Israel, and subsequently started United Hatzlah — a motorcycle-based group of emergency first-responders. Doing a TED Talk at TEDMED 2013, Beer speaks about the advantages of two-wheeled first-responders, and the strides his organization has made in bringing stabilizing treatments to injured persons.

The paramedics-on-motorbikes model isn’t unique, and can be found in many European metropolitans, though it is a bit of rarity here in the United States. With United Hatzlah averaging a sub-three minute response time, (the group aims for a 90 second response window), we think TED’s tagline is appropriate: this is an idea worth sharing.

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Racing

WSBK: FIM Confirms Cost-Cutting Rules, Adds EVO Class

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The FIM has confirmed changes to the World Superbike Championship for the 2014 season and onward. Following in the footsteps of the MotoGP Championship, WSBK will go to an eight-engine allocation (per rider, per season), have a limited number of gear ratios, as well as price caps on brake and suspension pieces. Pretty standard fare.

More intriguing though is the announcement by the FIM that World Superbikes will have a sub-category: the EVO class. British motorbike race fans will find the term familiar but for the rest of us, the distinction is simple.

The WSBK EVO class will follow the same rules as the standard WSBK-spec machine in regards to chassis, suspension, and braking components, but will follow the FIM Superstock rules when it comes to engines and electronic systems. The press release is after the jump.

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Racing

eRoadRacing’s Miller Motorsports Park Round Cancelled

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It’s been a while since we reported on the eRoadRacing World Cup series, the love child merger of the TTXGP and FIM e-Power electric motorcycle racing series, and that is for good reason.

While Asphalt & Rubber is a big proponent of the electric motorcycle uprising, and there are a lot of interesting things developing in this space (be sure read to our ride reviews of BRD RedShift SM, Mission RS, and MotoCzysz E1pc) the racing side of the equation has been rather lackluster.

So, it doesn’t surprise to hear that the FIM has cancelled the eRoadRacing event at Miller Motorsports Park, which was supposed to happen August 31st & September 1st.

Instead, the North American part of the eRoadRacing series will consist of only two rounds: last month’s Red Bull US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, and this month’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

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Bikes

Erik Buell Racing Teases Us Some More

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Erik Buell Racing continues to tease its upcoming models on the company’s Facebook page, and to compliment the two-seater ass shot from several weeks ago, EBR has posted up a shot of a bike hiding in the shadows, with its LED marker lights illuminated.

Though Erik Buell Racing has purposefully doctored the photo, so we can’t decipher more of this bike’s details, the big reveal here is the new headlight design for EBR that replaces the very Roehr/MV Agsuta setup found on the EBR 1190RS.

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Racing

Video: Casey Stoner Rides the Honda RC213V at Motegi

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Completing two days of testing for HRC, Casey Stoner was back in the saddle of a MotoGP machine this week (at Motegi, of all places). The former World Champion only did a handful of laps on Tuesday (six in total) before the rain came in to the Twin Ring Motegi Circuit; but on Wednesday, Mother Nature cooperated a bit. Getting to do 47 laps in total on the 2013 Honda RC213V race bike yesterday, Stoner tested some “small items” for his former employer.

Positive about the test and being back on a bike, Stoner reaffirmed his decision to stay out of MotoGP, and dashed the hopes of any fans that were hoping to see the Australian make a wild card run at Phillip Island. Much to the disappointment of the media, Stoner did not get a chance to swing a leg over Honda’s planned MotoGP Production Racer, though HRC Executive Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto confirmed that a future test of the machine by Stoner is in the works.

A private test, and thus free of Dorna’s video restrictions, the fine folk at HRC have put together a short video of Casey on-board the RC213V in Japan. A far cry from the great material we got from Honda’s private test at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin (at some points  in the video, we wonder if the videographer had some angry scarab beetles in their trousers), GP fans will surely still have an auralgasm as the RC213V goes by in anger.

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Rumors

Rumor: New Honda Africa Twin Coming? To the USA Even?!

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Rumors have long been around that Honda was looking to bring back the Africa Twin model to its line-up; and with a quick scrolling through Honda America’s “Adventure” category, one can see that the less-than-inspiring odd-couple that are the Honda NC700X and Honda CB500X, while fine machines they might be (though we’ve heard the word “soulless” used more than once to describe them), proper adventure-bikes they surely are not.

With the tuning-fork brand putting out the stout Yamaha Super Ténéré, and Suzuki teasing the 2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000, Honda and Kawasaki have been late to the Great American Adventure Bike party  — though at least Team Green fanatics can pretend like the Versys is a viable option for this category.

With Europeans having a variety of adventure motorcycles to chose from in the Honda brand, bikes like the Honda Transalp, Honda Crossrunner, Honda Varadero, and Honda Crosstourer, us Americans have been left out in the cold.

Well, that might be set to change, as our stroll yesterday though the USPTO’s online database (check-out our find on upcoming Ducati Scrambler) has revealed that Honda Motor Co. has registered “Africa Twin” for use in the American market. Could a proper adventure-tourer from Honda be headed our way?

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