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Jensen Beeler

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Another update from those southern boys at Motus, this time showing off their MST & MST-R American sport-tourers hitting some track time at Barber Motorsports Park. Obviously still in the development phase of their production process, we see that the MST-R has gotten some carbon fiber clothes (yum!), while the MST looks very fit and polished with its touring bags on-board.

We’re still not sure about how the Motus MST and MST-R will fare in free market, as we’ve seen so many American motorcycle companies generate a lot of buzz with little substance. However, one thing is for certain about the Motus project: the company has the right amount of cowbell in that KMV4 1,645cc GDI motor that should make any motorcyclist with a pulse grin ear-to-ear. Check the video out after the jump…yes, it’s ok to watch it several times.

Ducati News Today must have gotten the same news tip as us, as a IT security blog is purporting to have information on how one can steal a Ducati Diavel (and presumably a Ducati Multistrada 1200) via the bike’s keyless ignition system.

It should be stated up-front that the pos referenced is dated April 5th, with the writer of the blog supposedly discovering this information on April 1st…and well all know what sort of Tomfoolery goes on during that time of the year.

According to the post’s author, the Ducati Diavel can be started not only without having the key in the ignition, but without the key at all.

While anyone who has ridden the Diavel knows that you only have to have the key in the proximity of the Diavel while you’re riding, the idea that one can start the bike without the key comes from a default code that comes up when such an act is attempted.

Where things get sticky though is that the author claims that this four-digit PIN is set from the factory to be the last four digits of the Diavel’s VIN, and that few owners know of security feature.

The Motorcycle Industry Council is reporting that US motorcycle sales are up 7% in Q1 of 2011, with 102,547 units being sold in the year’s first three months. Leading the charge were scooter sales, which were up nearly 50% to 6,246 units, while on-road units were up as well, pushing 70,879 units in Q1 (a 6.9% gain).

Despite the strong numbers from on-road and dual-sport models, off-road vehicles did not fare as well, with ATV sales down 16% and off-road motorcycle sales down 5.5% (47,702 & 18,725 units respectively), making 2011 still a mixed bag depending on what side of the industry you are on.

Polaris released some interesting info this past week to its stockholders, perhaps the highlight of which was how the Minnesota-based company views its acquisition of the Indian Motorcycle brand. Disclosing a brief summary of its plans, it’s clear that Polaris aims to go after the heavy-cruiser segment with a two-pronged approach, much in the same manner as we postulated back on Wednesday after news of the acquisition broke.

More important than stroking our own egos, two pieces of interesting insight came from Polaris’s SEC filing 8-K filing. First was a glimpse into what the purchasing price of Indian could be, as a slide to investors shows Indian’s 2010 revenue as being $11 million, which would peg a baseline asking price of about $9 million, though the perceived brand value could raise that price. The second juicy morsel is how Polaris sees Indian fitting in with Victory, showing the potential of tripling Polaris’s motorcycle sales in the future.

While we were busy filing our taxes last week, HRC was busy at the Suzuka circuit shaking out its yet-to-be-named 2012 MotoGP race bike. Details are a bit sparse, but motogp.com is reporting that HRC test riders Kousuke Akiyoshi and Tady Okada were at the helm of the new bike, and the website shows a solitary photo that craftily doesn’t give away too much about the machine. The private test is a prelude to Honda’s factory riders hopping on the machine to likely greater media fanfare, which will most likely happen at the MotoGP test scheduled after the Mugello round.

Jesse James, the man we love to hate, is back in the news today with reports that his Payupsucker Productions, Inc. has teamed-up with Circle King Networks to create El Jefe Entertainment, a motor sports enthusiasts focused production company. While James has always been regarded as a true artisan in the craft of motorcycle fabrication, his true spotlight of fame came from his media savvy in leveraging his name and creating shows like Monster Garage and Jesse James is a Dead Man.

El Jefe Entertainment’s goal is to “develop, produce and distribute exciting, authentic motor-sport based and car enthusiast entertainment,” and will be focusing with movies and products that will be available on DVD, Pay Per View, as well as direct and mobile formats.

If you missed one of the twenty-four hours of the Bol d’Or endurance race held at Magny-Cours this year, don’t fret because the FIM has your back with this short highlight video. The famous French race is the first stop on the 2011 FIM World Endurance Championship, and once again the top podium spot has gone to Suzuki. The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT) completed 814 laps with Vincent Philippe, Freddy Foray, and Anthony Delhalle at the helm of the Suzuki GSX-R1000 race bike.

Endurance races are a special bread of motorsport, with strategy and consistency playing a huge factor in the final outcome. Throw in constantly changing track conditions, the absence of the sun, and rider fatigue, and you’ve got a sport that tests man just as much as machine. As a side note, it is also a little strange to see a race bike with headlights, which just further adds to the mystique of this historic event. Check it out, along with photos and results, after the jump.

Ever since the Great East Japan Earthquake, there’s been a great deal of speculation in the MotoGP paddock about the status of the Japanese GP. Although postponed until October, the reality that the Motegi circuit will be able to safely host a MotoGP event is still dubious in many minds, and accordingly names of alternate venues have been banded about as replacements for the Japanese round. At the top of the list has been Istanbul, which last hosted MotoGP back in 2007.

Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has seemingly put the kibosh on the Turkish GP taking over for the Twin Ring Circuit though, saying that if the Japanese GP cannot be undertaken, the round would be dropped altogether from the MotoGP calendar. Such an action would leave only 17 stops for MotoGP’s racing season, instead of the customary 18 rounds.

It should be apparent by now that we loves us some Radical Ducati here at Asphalt & Rubber. And why shouldn’t we be? Those Spanish desmoholics have put out some really impressive motorcycles the past few years, not only putting their small shop on the map, but Spain as a whole as a budding venue of custom motorcycles (check out the work fro Sbay for more Spanish goodness for instance). The process at Radical Ducati is pretty simple, take parts collected from various Bologna motorcycles, mash them up with some creative flare, add-in some custom fabrication, and presto: you have some unique motorcycles that embody the best of Ducati’s designs.

Now typically if you wanted your own Radical Ducati you’d have to fork over a hefty amount of money, and the figure out how to get your masterpiece back to respective your country of origin. While this technically remains true, you can now at least give your Ducati Monster the Radical treatment, as those crazy Spaniards have come out with the Il Mostro customization kit for the Ducati Monster 696, 796, & 1100.

Normally in our “Caption this Photo” series we just fire up a provoking picture, drop-in a photo credit, and let you the readers haver your way with it in the comments section; but for today’s photo, I thought our selection deserved a little background story, since not everyone is familiar with what Chip Yates and the SWIGZ.com Pro Racing team has been up to this past year.

Having a day of testing in the desert outside of Victorville, California, the SWIGZ crew have been practicing with Larry Kleinschmidt to hone Chip’s dirt-riding skills, as the team is set to compete in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb later this year. Yates is an accomplished road racer, but his dirt racing experience stems from four-wheeled endeavors, not two — hence the coaching from Kleinschmidt to help tackle the 2.6 miles of dirt road that still remain on the Pikes Peak course.

Yesterday we brought you photos of Marc Coma jumping the KTM 450 Rally race bike with some help from freestyle star Ronnie Renner. As you can see in those photos, Renner had a camera on-board his KTM, and today we can bring you the video that ensued from their hooliganery (we’re pretty sure that’s a word). We don’t normally cover the off-road side of the motorcycle industry, but considering we were just in the UAE, and that this video makes jumping sand dunes in the desert even cooler than we previously though, well…how could we resist? Check it out after the jump.