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MV Agusta F3 ‘Serie Oro’ Unveiled

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MV Agusta has officially taken the wraps off its collector’s edition MV Agusta F3 ‘Serie Oro’ motorcycle, showing the three-cylinder supersport machine in its final production trim. Producing only 200 units of the Gold Series, MV Agusta is building these bikes to each customer’s specifications, with a price tag upwards of €20,000 being the name of the game. Helping justify that high cost for the MV Agusta F3 Serie Oro, MV Agusta has made Brembo monobloc calipers, Öhlins forks, an Öhlins TTX rear shock, and forged aluminum wheels all stock on the 675cc supersport machine.

The premium F3 also boasts plenty of carbon fiber and a sophisticated electronics package, though some might find the price hard to swallow in the middleweight sport bike category (even if there are nice touches like painted mirrors and intake grills). Accordingly, MV Agusta has also announced the MSRP for the base model MV Agusta F3, with European pricing set at €11,990. Production for the MV Agusta F3 has also been moved up by four months, meaning bikes will be in the hands of dealers by the end of this year. Photos of the 2012 MV Agusta F3 ‘Serie Oro are after the jump.

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The He Said, She Said, But No One is Really Saying Anything about the Virginia International Raceway Snafu

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AMA Pro Racing and the Virginia International Raceway have been having a war of the press releases the past few days, as it was announced that AMA road racing will not be taking place at the fabled mid-Atlantic track later next month. With AMA Pro Racing first announcing on Monday that the event scheduled for August 12th-14th was cancelled, the sentence immediately following that statement must have struck a nerve with VIR, as it read: “Despite AMA Pro Racing’s efforts to preserve the originally scheduled August 12-14 event, VIR staff notified AMA Pro Racing late Monday, July 11, of its final decision not to host or promote the race weekend.”

VIR followed up on Tuesday with a statement of it’s own, lambasting AMA Pro Racing for putting the blame on the Virginia track, and shifted the accusations onto AMA Pro Racing, who according to VIR was tardy in getting the raceway a contract in time to properly promote the event. With each side seemingly telling only part of the story, speculation has been rife as to what really went down between America’s premier road racing series, and one of our most prestigious venues.

Though we have no inside-knowledge of what transpired between the two parties, friction between tracks and promoters typically comes down to pie slices, and who gets the bigger piece. With VIR’s 10-year contract to host AMA Pro Racing in expiration, the renegotiation of the contract apparently fell apart. Reading between the lines on the press releases, it would seem to us that while negotiations have been ongoing, AMA Pro Racing gave VIR its final offer, which the track did not accept. While it is impossible to say who is right or wrong in this blow-out, it’s pretty easy to tell who the big losers are: the fans. Press releases after the jump.

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Confederate P120 Fighter Crashes After Breaking Through Plate Glass Window on the ‘White Collar’ TV Show Set

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I suppose if you have a $77,500 motorcycle doing a stunt through a plate glass window, you’re willing to 1) see that motorcycle get some nicks and dings, and 2) rack up a sizable repair bill if something goes horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. Such was the case on the set for the TV show White Collar, where a Confederate P120 Fighter was involved in a stunt where it breaks through a large window, and jumps out into the city streets.

The outcome of the stunt is perhaps how you want to look at it. Judging from the footage that was used, it looks like the show’s producers got the shot they needed. And judging from someone’s camera phone footage, the stunt rider could have used another 20 feet or so of run-off, as he crashed into a fence on the other side of the street. Looks like the rider was ok, and the bike will ride another day, but the standing lamp rig will be collecting disability for a while. Video of the completed scene, and the behind-the-scenes footage after the jump.

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KTM 350 Duke in 2013 – India Only?

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After first announcing that KTM would build a 200cc model of the new KTM 125 Duke for the Indian market, KTM CEO Stefan Pierer has been quoted as saying that a larger, 350cc, model is in the works, and will debut as a 2013 model year motorcycle. It would seem that the 2012 KTM 350 Duke is also slated as an India-only model, though rumors and plans for a larger displacement Duke for the US market were banded about when the 125cc Duke launched at EICMA last year.

KTM seems set to take the 125 Duke platform as versatile bike for the global markets, matching configurations with localities. Since the 125cc format makes little sense in the United States (do you hear that Aprilia?), expect at least a 250cc version of the Duke to debut later this year, and likely a larger format (450cc?) as well for the US at a later point in time.

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Get Ready for the Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS Price Hike?

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After teasing us for months with talk of a new middleweight adventure-tourer, Suzuki underwhelmed us with the debut of the 2012 Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS. That’s not to say that the new wee-strom is a bad bike (in fact early reports from the European media test reports are quite favorable), it is just for all the hype that surrounded the release, we expected something a bit more than a polished-over version of the previous model.

With that lack of progression, the new Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS feels more like a model refresh than a new motorcycle, but you wouldn’t know it from prices hitting our cousins over the pond, as the V-Strom 650 is getting a considerable price increase in both the British (pounds sterling) and European (Euros) markets. While pricing has yet to be determined for the North American market (USD & CAD), if the European MSRPs are any indication, we can expect a nice 5+% price increase on the previous year’s DL650 ABS’s $8,099 MSRP .

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Racing

Video: Casey Stoner at 1,000 Frames per Second

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Stand at any corner during a MotoGP session and in real time you’ll witness a variety of riding styles and lines, not to mention see plenty of body-english that tells you how a rider is coping with his machine. Slow all that down by about 50x speed, and you’ve got something. You’ve got art, and that’s what Red Bull has done here with its Red Bull Moments.

Shooting Casey stoner in 1,000 fps slow-motion video at the Catalan GP, Red Bull brings us every body panel flex, every exhaust pipe wag, and every wheel and dry clutch rotation…and oh, Casey also talks about racing in MotoGP. Bonus points to Red Bull for including the Karel Abraham “look back” shot as well (a personal pet-peev of Stoner’s).

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Racing

Who Had the Better AMA Superbike Racing Debut: The KTM 1190 RC8 R or the Erik Buell Racing 1190RS?

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Mid-Ohio is a great destination if you’re looking to do a track day (we’d recommend riding with these guys), and Mid-Ohio is an even better place to leave if you don’t have a motorcycle with you. However, once a year, the Buckeye State redeems itself by playing host to an AMA Pro Racing weekend. The AMA Superbike races at Mid-Ohio were extra special this year, as KTM debuted Chris Fillmore on its factory-backed KTM 1190 RC8 R Superbike, bringing the Austrian company into a more active relationship with the American Motorcyclist Association.

Also making its first racing debut was the Erik Buell Racing 1190RS Superbike, the race version of Erik Buell’s latest street machine (or is it the 1190RS the street bike version of Buell’s latest race bike?). However which way you read that development process, this weekend was the first time Geoff May got to flog the EBR 1190RS in anger on a track with other racers present.

The much anticipated bigger horsepower Superbike was supposed to put Erik Buell Racing on an even playing field with the other manufacturers, as the team had previously been cobbled with its 1125cc homologated Buell 1125R, and accordingly the EBR team tent saw it’s fair share of visitors..

With KTM making its first AMA race outing on its otherwise tried and tested RC8 R platform, and Buell banking on several AMA season’s worth of racing experience to launch its previously un-raced 1190RS Superbike, and interesting contrast comes out from AMA Pro Racing’s latest stop at Lexington, Ohio.

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BMW Sales up 2% in June 2011

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BMW Motorrad continues to post improved sales in 2011, as the German manufactuer is showing a 2.1% increase for last month’s sales compared to June 2010. Selling 11,831 motorcycles in June of this year, BMW has sold 141,913 motorcycles in the first half of 2011, which means 6.3% more Bavarian motorcycles have been sold in Q1 & Q2 of 2011 compared to last year. BMW’s Boxer series is unsurprisingly leading sales for the company, fueled by the best selling big-displacement motorcycle in the world: the R1200GS.

BMW is reporting strong sales from the K1600 series as well though, with 1,255 units sold since its Spring 2011 debut. While BMW says that the new six-cylinder tourer is exceeding expectations, Husqvarna’s paltry 450 units sold last month is perhaps a bit of disappointment. Husky sales were down -57.3% for June, while year-to-date sales were down -24.2% with only 3,530 units sold in the first half of 2011.

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First Shot: Erik Buell Racing 1190RS in Race Trim

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This is the first picture we’ve see of the Erik Buell Racing 1190RS in its AMSOIL race livery. On-site for the Mid-Ohio round of AMA Superbike, Geoff May will pilot the EBR 1190RS for the first time in a race, as the team (and the public) have been anxiously waiting to see the debut of the new Superbike and its bounty of extra horsepower. Hopefully the 1190RS will keep all its bits together, and bring home a good result for the Erik Buell Racing team this weekend (May has qualified 12th on the 1190RS as of this writing).

Source: My Little Lotus Blossom

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KTM Freeride Coming 2012 – Cheaper than €10,000

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As we reported back in March, KTM’s electric dirt bike is coming closer and closer to being ready for consumers, and now information has come out that it will be a 2012 model from the Austrian company. This information is in-line with a November EICMA debut that we’ve been hearing, but perhaps the most tantalizing news we’ve heard is the bike’s sub-€10,000 price tag in the EU. This would put the KTM Freeride (oh man, we hope that name gets changed) directly in competition with Swiss electric dirt bike manufacturer Quantya and American electric motorcycle manufacturer Zero Motorcycles, both of whom are in the sub-€10,000 category with their dirt bike offerings.

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Roland Sands Desmo Tracker Begins to Take Form

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We’ve had our fair share of controversial articles here on Asphalt & Rubber, with some posts dealing with hot-button topics, while others were designed to stir the pot a bit. Usually though we know what sort of trouble we’re getting ourselves into, even before the first comment is left by a reader, but no article caught us by surprise more than our initial coverage of Roland Sands’s latest custom project: the RSD Desmo Tracker. A flat track bike with a Desmosedici RR heart, there’s something about taking the MotoGP replica and turning it into a steel-shoe racer that elicits a very visceral response from Ducatisti and flat trackers alike.

Maybe it’s because those two parts of the motorcycle world are just that far apart — one is reserved for dentists having a mid-life crisis, and the other for back-woods hillbillies that can only turn left. Maybe it’s because people think that if you own a $40,000 Desmosedici RR, the last thing you should be doing with the machine is making it something else. There’s no doubt that Desmo is the sort of thing little boys put posters of on their bedroom wall, so does tampering with Bologna’s GP opus change that childhood fantasy?

We could delve into this topic further, but I doubt we’d get very far in the conversation. I will say this though, just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a bike by its build progress. That being said, this post is one of those articles that we see trouble brewing a mile away. A friendly reminder: the comments section is below, near the bottom of the page.

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