It was two years ago that I first caught glimpse of the Motus MST at Laguna Seca (actually, I missed seeing the prototype machine at the track, and had to ambush the Motus crew at Alice’s Restaurant the next day), but now the American motorcycle upstart is ready to debut its production sport-tourer.
Another year, and another Pikes Peak race bike from the Falkner Livingston Racing crew to frustrate current Ducati Multistrada 1200 S owners. This gorgeous machine was quick all throughout practice week in the hands of Micky Dymond, but being the first runner out of the gate on race day, with a very green track that had endured two heavy rainstorms, Micky hit the tarmac on several occasions during his Race to the Clouds — a herculean effort in its own right.
Certainly not the result the team deserved, but as Nicky Hayden is found to remind us, that’s why we line-up on the grid on Sunday. Taking the “official” fastest time up the mountain on a motorcycle was Bruno Langlois, with the Frenchman riding a Ducati Multistrada 1200 S as well. Of course, we all know Carlin Dunne was the fastest up the course on his electric superbike from Lightning Motorcycles, but the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb doesn’t count the exhibition class in those results.
Each year I wax on about how gorgeous these Multistradas are, and this year is no different. In the pictures after the jump you will find yet another mouth-watering Ducati, with a new race livery, a custom-built exhaust from Akrapovi? (only six were made), carbon brakes, a dry slipper-clutch conversion, and a bevy of other interesting modifications to the Italian adventure sport-tourer. Enjoy!
BMW Motorrad has just released a bevy of minor changes to its 2014 motorcycle line, and amongst the facelifts and feature changes comes a “new” motorcycle from zie Germans. Unsurprisingly, the 2014 BMW K1600GT Sport is a take on the company’s flagship tourer, the K1600GT, but with a sportier, baggier, feel.
To be honest, we can’t help but think that the folks at BMW Motorrad saw the positive response that Honda had with the Honda Gold Wing F6B bagger conversion, and figured the same would work for them. If you can’t beat them, join them, eh? BMW junkies, we’ll want to hear your thoughts on this one.
David spent some lines of text yesterday talking about the lack of chassis innovation in the Moto2 Championship — a series whose spec-engine rules were supposed to be a playground for chassis engineers. As we know now, Moto2 has become a race of common denominators, with twin-spar aluminum frames ruling the day.
Company’s like Vyrus have threatened to enter Moto2 with their very stylish Vyrus 986 M2 race bike, with its hub-center steering design; but as David pointed out, the work involved to train racers for the new inputs these machines provide is perhaps the bigger boulder to carry when compared to developing the motorcycles themselves.
That doesn’t mean that innovation is lacking though, as we bring you another intriguing design, this time one built right here in sunny California: the Taylormade Carbon2.
Indian’s war machine continues to gain momentum, and the challenger to Harley-Davidson’s throne continues to impress. A new video comes our way, this time building on the heritage of the American brand through Burt Munro. One of just many stories around the historic marques, it probably helps that Burt Munro’s name was vaulted into the public consciousness by Hollywood’s The World’s Fastest Indian.
Building an all-metal tribute to Munro’s streamliner, we can find a few flaws that gnaw away at us as we watch this otherwise perfect video campaign (salt veterans know what we’re talking about). Still, Indian is bringing a good fight to Harley-Davidson’s doorstop with marketing promos like these. If you are in the legacy cruiser market, you might have a tougher decisions to make than usual when picking a favorite ride.
July isn’t getting off to a great start for electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo Inc, as the Ashland, Oregon company suffered a fire in the company’s R&D lab during the start of the month. The fire broke-out over the weekend of June 30th, as the EV company was doing extended testing to a lithium-ion battery pack.
Fortunately, Brammo’s automated sprinkler system was able to put out the blaze caused by the malfunctioning battery pack, but in the process caused roughly $200,000 in water-damage to equipment located in the facility.
While I was lounging at the pool this holiday weekend, getting my bronze on, the A&R Bothan Spy network was hard at work dumpster diving, hacking emails, and subscribing to the NSA’s live PRISM feed.
The fruits of that labor was the alarming realization of how many kitten videos the motorcycle industry collectively watches in a single day, and the fact that Ducati is working on scrambler-style motorcycle.
The project itself dates way back when Pierre Terblanche was still toiling away in Bologna, dodging equal portions of labor strikes and carbonara, and at the time was based around the now defunct Ducati Sport Classic.
Shelved, and thought never to see the light of day, we can only imagine this whole Hipstacyclist™ movement has helped Ducati rethink its position regarding a scrambler.
We forgot to say it to our American readers, but welcome back from the long Fourth of July weekend. We hope you celebrated the birth of our great nation by blowing up a small piece of it. Trapped back in your work cubes now, longing for the five or days off you just came from, we have just the thing for your Munday blues.
Yamaha gave Mark Toia a few Yamaha WR450 dirt bikes, and let the filmmaker do his thing. Shot in Queenstown, New Zealand (yes, it really is that beautiful there), Toia tells a good story about childhood friends reuniting at their favorite meeting spot, many years later. It’s a beautiful short. It’ll make you feel good. Call your mother afterwards. She misses you.
Yamaha Motor Co. recently had its investors meeting, and the Japanese company left a curious item for its second-to-last slide in the presentation: a leaning multi-wheeler. Unfortunately, the proposed machine doesn’t appear to be a production version of the Tesseract concept (shown above), but instead a new sporty three-wheeled scooter, to take on bikes like the unfortunately named Piaggio MP3.
Expected for the 2014 model year, we should see the Yamaha’s Leaning Multi-Wheeler (LMW) at the EICMA and Tokyo Motor Show later this year. No word yet on what will be beneath the fairings, but it is expected that the leaning trike will around 300cc to 400cc in displacement, and go head-to-head with the MP3 on price (insert 99¢ download joke here).
MV Agusta may have its line of “affordable” three-cylinder machines, but the Italian company continues to produce exclusive and exquisite four-cylinders as well, and today is no different.
Debuting the 2013 MV Agusta Brutale Corsa, the company from Varese, Italy has updated its 156 hp (116.5 kW) 1,078cc four-cylinder naked bike, and added a host of add-ons…along with a higher price tag.