Jensen Beeler, Author at Asphalt & Rubber

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Why Can’t All Motorcycle Videos Be Shot This Well?

By Jensen Beeler 08/04/2011 24 Comments

If I didn’t already know that this video was made by some guys in their spare time, I could have sworn that this short film was one of the better efforts by Ducati or Dainese (or anyone in motorcycling for that matter) at some cool videography. The brainchild of , this short video is the work product of several A/V industry professionals who just wanted to mess around with some cameras, a bike, and the open road on their days off from working for the man. Shot around the San Francisco Bay Area, astute eyes will see scenes from San Francisco, Altamont Pass, the Pacific Coast Highway, and other Nor Cal staples.

When you consider how much time, money, and effort went into Ducati’s Diavel ad spot, and the product that came out of that production, it sort of baffles your mind about what’s going on in the motorcycle industry (at least they didn’t hire “a publication of record” to produce it for them). There’s clearly a need in the market for better motorcycle videos, and there’s clearly a market of talented videographers out there to fill the need, Oh, did we mention Barry is looking for a job?

Source: Vimeo

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Honda NSF250R Coming to America

By Jensen Beeler 08/04/2011 11 Comments

HRC’s NSF250R Moto3 race bike was released under much fanfare at the Catalan GP, as the Japanese company singled out Spain as one of the most important markets for the 249cc four-stroke single-cylinder racing machine. The the Iberian peninsula certainly will have more young riders climbing on board the NSF250R than the USA, but that doesn’t mean those Spaniards will get all the fun. Announcing that the Honda NSF250R will be coming stateside, the NSF250R will be race legal in the USGPRU Moto 3 and WERA Motorcycle Road Racing classes.

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Final TTXGP Round to be Held at Miller Motorsports Park

By Jensen Beeler 08/04/2011 3 Comments

After AMA Pro Racing and Virginia International Raceway had their little hubbub over hosting one of the last road racing events on the AMA calendar, the news that the two parties had fallen-out meant that the TTXGP round scheduled to piggyback off the VIR round was by proxy also cancelled. With TTXGP’s New Hampshire round (yes, you read that right…New Hampshire) also cancelled because of worries over competitor attendance, TTXGP’s joint-round with the FIM e-Power Championship at Laguna Seca threatened to be the series’s final running of the 2011 season.

With rumors swirling at the US GP that TTXGP was hard at work securing a final round, we get word tonight that the final round will be held at the venerable Miller Motorsports Park on the weekend of September 3rd & 4th. With MMP hosting Bike Fest (a regional gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts) during that weekend, TTXGP will presumably become a part of the Fests’ festivities. That is of course if anyone actually shows up to the racing event.

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BRD RedShift SM Breaks Cover with Gas Parity

By Jensen Beeler 08/03/2011 15 Comments

We’ve been following the guys at BRD since the beginning of the year, and this scrappy San Francisco company has finally busted out of stealth mode with its first electric motorcycle line: the BRD RedShift. With a goal of meeting or exceeding parity with gasoline-powered two-wheelers, BRD’s first foray into the motorcycle industry is an interesting one, as the RedShift line brings true 250cc four-stroke power to the electric realm. Producing 40hp from the company’s proprietary water-cooled AC motor, the BRD RedShift SM produces more power than a Honda CRF250R while tipping scales at less than 250 lbs in supermoto trim (less than 240 lbs in MX-spec).

The RedShift line is BRD’s first line of motorcycle, and will feature three different purpose-built trims. The Supermoto (SM) model will be BRD’s on-road city bike, while the MX model will be the company’s enduro offering. BRD has also factored fleet sales heavily into its business plan, and will have a vehicle, designated as the RedShift PD, that will be available for government and private fleet usage. Point of sale and warranty work will stem from a standard dealer model, which will be aggressively built out over the coming months, and plays back into the company’s mantra that electric vehicles don’t need to be different from gas bikes, just better than them.

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US Motorcycle Sales Flatten with 1.7% Half-Year Growth

By Jensen Beeler 08/03/2011 5 Comments

Despite showing a rebound for 2011, and several brands posting strong growth over the past six months, industry-wide motorcycle sales in the United States grew only a modest 1.7% over the first six months of 2010. The news comes as Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki report continued sales decreases in 2011, and as the Japanese brands constitute a large portion of sales in the US, those losses have more than offset the record sales posted by smaller unit sellers like Ducati and BMW.

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Ariel Motorcycles Returning in 2012

By Jensen Beeler 08/02/2011 3 Comments

Before the name Ariel was synonymous with the Honda-powered Ariel Atom trackday car, the brand was affixed to vehicles of the two-wheeled variety. After producing great bikes like the Ariel Square Four, the now defunct Ariel Motorcycle company was folded into BSA, which in a roundabout fashion gave birth to the current Triumph brand. Building on that vein, we get word that the makers of the Ariel Atom want to get into the two-wheeled biz, and are planning to launch a new Ariel motorcycle by the end of this year.

Though there may not be any exact ties between the current past Ariel marques beyond their names, the idea of another motorcycle maker entering the treacherous and rarely lucrative motorcycle industry fray is nonetheless exciting to us here at A&R; and since we’re big fans of the Ariel Atom car project, we can only just barely contain our excitment on the idea of a similar movement done on two wheels as the one we’ve seen already on four.

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RotoR Camera System – We Can’t Wait to See a Sportbike Movie with One of These…

By Jensen Beeler 08/02/2011 12 Comments

Asphalt & Rubber was recently up on Pikes Peak to watch the 89th Annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and one of the things we notice there was the proliferation for digital video cameras on the race vehicles. Part of it had to do with the mountain’s fastest man, Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima being sponsored by GoPro HD cameras, but the reality is that affordable high quality consumer video recorders are readily available and come in pint-sized packages. The Contour HD GPS cameras, which shot the great on-board video of the two MotoCzysz motorcycles that we brought to you yesterday, are smaller than your fist, while the GoPro units are even smaller.

With these tools, videographers are getting some great footage from places we never thought possible, and in ways we’ve never seen before. So when we saw footage of the RotoR system, a helmet-mounted, counter-balanaced, camera mount for GoPro cameras, we knew that the bar on how motorcycle videos got shot was just raised significantly higher. Creating what appears to be an exceptionally light rig, we’re still not entirely sure how RotoR achieves its sweeping shots, but the “right over your shoulder” perspective looks fantastic in the skiing and motocross videos that are waiting for you after the jump.

The videos are a bit surreal, and now all we have to do is wait for someone to mount this camera system to the top of a sport bike helmet while having some fun in the canyons. More videos after the jump.

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LEAKED: KTM 2012-2014 Product Road Map

By Jensen Beeler 08/01/2011 11 Comments

The guys at HFL have gotten their hands on what looks like a cameraphone photo of KTM North America’s product road map for the next three model years (actually, it now looks like they just lifted the photo from BARF without giving them credit as having the story first). Showing the bikes that will hit American shores in 2012, 2013, and 2014, we get a glimpse of what new models will grace the showrooms of KTM dealers, as well as which models will be receiving facelifts and revisions. The presentation slide really speaks for itself, but perhaps the most interesting item on the list is what sounds like a 350cc version of the company’s Moto3 race bike (shown above?).

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Yamaha Withdrawing from WSBK at the End of the Season

By Jensen Beeler 08/01/2011 13 Comments

In a shocking statement made today, Yamaha has announced that it will be withdrawing its official presence from FIM Superbike World Championship at the conclusion of the 2011 season. After reviewing its marketing operations within Europe, Yamaha Motor Europe (the driving force behind the company’s WSBK effort) has decided its euros would be better spent on other events that directly engage potential Yamaha customers.

Yamaha says it remains committed to seeing Marco Melandri (3rd) and Eugene Laverty (4th) win the 2011 World Superbike Championship, though with four rounds remaining that would seem a tall order as Carlos Checa leads both Yamaha riders by 71 & 135 points respectively. Checa, of course, is on the “satellite” Althea Ducati team, which is rumored to have more links to Bologna than a sausage cook-off held in Ducati’s factory parking lot.

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Ducati Superbike 1199 Spotted Again

By Jensen Beeler 08/01/2011 9 Comments

The 2012 Ducati Superbike 1199 is shaping up to be the school yard tease, giving us a glimpse of its still unfinished form seemingly on a regular basis now. Spotted with another cameraphone “spy photo” somewhere on the streets of Italy, we get a fairly clear side profile of the new 1199. The underslung exhaust is perhaps the focal point of this unofficial teaser shot, which is interesting as we hear Bologna has recently been having internal meetings about its final design.

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Video: MotoCzysz’s Isle of Man TT Winning Lap(s)

By Jensen Beeler 07/31/2011 9 Comments

One distinction that got overlooked from this year’s Isle of Man TT is the fact that MotoCzysz currently holds the top seven fastest laps ever put down by an electric vehicle around the TT’s Mountain Course. What makes this feat perhaps more noteworthy is that two of those laps have been captured in a single video, due in part by MotoCzysz’s two-bike strategy this year at the TT Zero. With American Mark Miller on the 2010 MotoCzysz E1pc and Michael Rutter on the 2011 MotoCzysz E1pc, the two competitors lapped a thinking man’s race down the course, with each rider trying to conserve power, and get into position for a final-stretch breakaway

Pulling around and ahead of his teammate down the final stretches of the course, Rutter was disappointingly just shy of the 100 mph mark, leaving the Isle of Man’s bounty on the average lap speed to stand until next year. Still, the pair both set the fastest times ever in the TT Zero, and improved on the pace from last year. MotoCzysz has now been kind enough to share their lap records with us in a video that shows not only the race telemetry (Contour cameras for the win!), but also has Mark Miller and Michael Rutter commentating. Watch the 23 minute video of Rutter’s and Miller’s race over on MotoCzysz.com.

Source: MotoCzysz

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