One of the great things about Twitter is that it often gives you unfiltered access to people who generally have several layers of public relations officers between them and the fans. No stranger to the interwebs, Jorge Lorenzo is probably one of the most avid Twitter users in the MotoGP paddock, blasting out a steady stream of tweets during a race weekend. So what does the Spanish rider send out to his followers after clinching the MotoGP Championship? Stay classy Jorge.
When we caught our first glimpse of the 2011 Suzuki GSX-R600 & 2011 Suzuki GSX-R 750 motorcycles, one of the things that struck us about the new bikes, besides the redesigned front fairing and 20lbs of missing mass, was the use of Brembo calipers as an OEM part. A premium part that’s usually reserved for premium brand motorcycles, Brembo and Suzuki have signed at three-year agreement that sees the Italian company supplying the Japanese manufacturer with braking bits for its GSX-R line.
Photo: Yamaha Racing
Sometimes if you want to know where something is going, it helps to know where it’s been. That seems to be the case as Ducati News Today has esnagged some photos 2011 Ducati Diavel from way back in May of last year. Caught in the United States being fitted with a new swingarm (according to DNT), this version of the Ducati Diavel shows some interesting lines that depart from the photos we’ve seen earlier of the performance cruiser.
But why does this Diavel look so different from the clay models and spy shots we’ve seen? While some will say it’s an earlier model, our eagle eye spots a few parts from the Roland Sands Design parts bin. When we saw the latest spy shots of the Diavel, the bike had some wheels on it that screamed influences from Performance Machines. It’s no secret that PM and RSD have close ties, so we went digging, and our sources tell us that Roland Sands Design has been helping Ducati kit the Diavel with aftermarket parts (note the Öhlins shock which will surely be a Ducati Performance part for the Diavel). More info and photos after the jump.
Although Jorge Lorenzo may be on the pole position at Sepang where many expect that Spaniard to clinch the World Championship, the talk at the Malaysian GP right now is about Nicky Hayden. The American lead most of qualifying, and will start tomorrow second on the grid, after missing the pole spot by only a tenth of a second.
Hayden had an abysmal time last week at Motegi for the Japanese GP, and looked to be on a similar path this weekend, but the Ducati Corse team went back to a setting from testing last year, and Hayden was able to make up the rest of the distance himself.
Further proof that motorcycle advertising can be a fickle beast. We’re getting a weird Children of the Corn meets Blair With Project vibe from this advertisement from Kawasaki that promotes the 2011 Kawasaki Z1000 street bike. Presumably debuting at Intermot, and just in time for Halloween, it’s actually a pretty well-shot and engaging clip, but damn is it creepy (we prefer slasher flicks). Pardon us while we go bathe in vinegar, and cry in the corner of the A&R office.
Source: Kawasaki
Announced this week, Sepang International Circuit will host MotoGP for three more years, bringing GP racing to Malaysia through 2013. Sepang has hosted MotoGP since 1999, and has become a favorite track for many of the GP riders. The Malaysian GP is an important stop for MotoGP, as it not only services GP fans from Southeast Asia, but also Australian and New Zealand as well. MotoGP has made developing nations and regions an important aspect of its racing calendar, hoping to turn these countries into motorcycle racing havens full of MotoGP fans.
Finally officially debuted at Intermot, KTM took the wraps off its 2011 KTM 125 Duke, a single-cylinder street bike geared towards young riders. While KTM has always included off-road machines in its line-up that are aimed at getting younger riders to ride orange, the company until now has left a gapping hole in its on-road offering for the same demographic. With Bajaj taking a 35% stake in KTM, the Indian company has not only given the Austrian company the capital it needed to expand its line, but is also rumored to be the major driving force behind the 2011 KTM 125 Duke.
While Suzuki didn’t bring any new models to the United States last year, the Japanese company seems set on making up for that cardinal sin this year, and is now confirming that the 2011 Suzuki GSX1250FA, the fully-faired Bandit, is coming to the USA. We had originally speculated that the 2011 Suzuki GSX1250FA would make an appearance eventually in the US, and it turns out we only had to wait 365 days for that to occur. Patience is a virtue, right?
Suzuki announced the American launch of the GSX1250FA at the 2010 Suzuki Dealer Meeting in Las Vegas this week, and expects the full fairing Bandit to hit dealer floors in January 2011. If you prefer your Bandits to have a little bit more modesty, and to be covered up more, we think we have the bike for you.
We just got off the phone with Kawasaki HQ, and it’s official: the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R will inadvertently get a power decrease when it comes to the United States because of the EPA’s regulation of noise pollution, confirming earlier rumors from this week. The issue surrounds the EPA’s new methodology for measuring exhaust noise levels, which now involves taking the measurement at a percentage of the total rev range, instead of a specific rpm value.
The result is that the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R passes the Euro III standards, but fails the EPA standards in its unadulterated form. To come into compliance with the EPA’s Noise Control Act, Kawasaki has lowered the rev-limit on the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R by 750 rpm in order to meet the new criteria. The byproduct of lowering the rev-limiter will reduce the new ZX-10R’s maximum power output, but Kawasaki isn’t saying by how much.
Suzuki seems to be to a single-man team for the next season, despite Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta making the rounds in Japan last week reminding the Japanese manufacturers of their legal obligations. With news that a good portion of the Rizla Suzuki MotoGP crew were told they should start looking for new employment, including long-time Crew Chief Stuart Shenton, Suzuki seems to be culling its ranks for a pull-back in 2011 despite the consequences.
With Dorna already showing that it may be more bark than bite, after letting Kawasaki get away with its 2009 pull-out, the folks at MCN suggest Suzuki may have brokered a deal with Dorna for a larger involvement in 2012, when MotoGP goes back to the 1000cc format, in exchange for an allowance to run a single-bike next year in an effort to cut the company’s racing costs.