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Valentino Rossi completed 26 laps of testing today at Misano, while on-board a World Superbike spec 2010 Yamaha YZF-R1. After being off a motorcycle for nearly a month, Rossi and Fiat-Yamaha hoped to assess today how the Italian rider’s broken right leg has progressed since its injury on June 5th at Mugello. Rossi did an initial run of 11 laps on the R1 late in the afternoon, with a best time of 1’41.00. An hour later, the Champion did a second session of 15 laps, improving on his time by 3 seconds, with a best time of 1’38.200. Although pleased with the test, there’s still some debated on when Rossi will return to MotoGP racing.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…

Happy Independence Day from everyone here at Asphalt & Rubber. As we take the rest of the long weekend to celebrate the founding moments of our country 234 years ago, we’d like to acknowledge a few organizations that have fought for our rights as motorcyclists, journalists, and bloggers:

The American Motorcyclist AssociationThe American Civil Liberties UnionThe Electronic Frontier Foundation

If you wish to acknowledge any other organizations that have fought for your personal freedom, pleas share them with us in the comments.

After getting the nod to use their gear driven camshaft in World Superbike racing (shown above is the Aprilia’s belt driven camshaft), Aprilia has become a tour de force on the WSBK grid. Aprilia first used the gear driven cams in race environment while at the Miller Motorsports Park round, much to the protest of the other teams.

Aprilia and Max Biaggi have been on a bender since the new camshaft’s implementation, with the Aprilia RSV4 going double-double (no, not that Double-Double) and winning every race since the gear driven camshaft was installed on the race bike.

There’s so many things going on in this video, we’re not certain where to begin. Filmed on Mulholland Highway by the same fine folks who brought us video footage of the guy who crashed in front of a CHP officer, this new saga takes a different approach to riders exceeding their limits on city streets.

Take an unsuspecting white Honda Elite scooter, a pair of Crocs shoes, and some invisible knee pucks, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a bizarre Sunday morning lowside that could have been much, much, much worse.

While we’ll give bonus points for good dirt-tracking technique, be sure to check the slow-mo footage for the exact moment the rider’s shoes depart humanity, and dive over the cliff. Video after the jump. Thanks for the tip Jelly!

Being products of the Nintendo generation, Asphalt & Rubber can thank movies like Tron and Akira for piquing our interest in motorcycles at an early age. While there have been several attempts to build Kaneda’s feet-forward steed , replicas of the Tron lightcycle prove to be more elusive.

With Tron Legacy set to come out later this year, some custom bike builders have risen to the challenge to complete our ultimate geek-meets-motorcycling dreams, and are offering 5 custom made road-going Tron lightcycles for purchase on eBay.

Trailing in the World Superbike Championship standings by 37 points, Leon Haslam has called on Suzuki Japan to lend him more support if they want to contend with Max Biaggi and Aprilia for the WSBK title. Losing the World Superbike lead at Miller Motorsports Park, Haslam and Suzuki have found the Aprilia of Biaggi slowly out-classing them at races.

Orginially favorited to win WSBK this year, Haslam says that unless Suzuki allocates more resources to his racing effort, the Japanese manufacturer will miss a golden opportunity to win a World Championship title, which is code for “Hey Suzuki, satellite bikes are beating your factory MotoGP team”.

Car makers BMW and Volkwagen have been teaming up for the past four years on a study funded by the German government that explores vehicle automation and interlinking. Exploring technologies that share traffic conditions not only with drivers, but also with other cars and city infrastructures, the two auto manufacturers have created systems that would help time lights at intersections, and adjust vehicle velocities in order to improve the flow of traffic and safety. While the study focused primarily on car-based systems, there stemmed a couple interesting pieces of technology that could see their way onto motorcycles in the future.

A California State Assembly committee has endorsed legislation that would to require motorcyclists in the Golden State to have an EPA-compliant exhaust system on their 2011 or newer motorcycles. Two days ago the Committee on Transportation approved Senate Bill 435 with an 8-4 vote, which would make it illegal to operate a 2011 or newer motorcycle with an exhaust system that doesn’t have an EPA label that certifies it as meeting noise limit standards. According to the bill, riders would incur a “fix it” ticket if caught without their EPA exhaust sticker if the bill came into law.

Cal Crutchlow was the fastest overall rider at World Superbike’s two-day testing session at Imola this week. Showing marked improvements over the course of the testing sessions, Crutchlow has his best times during Wednesday’s sessions, as did many of the riders.

Leading the pack on Tuesday was Leon Haslam. Haslam crashed twice on Wednesday though, with his last crash involving Shane Byrne. Bryne ended up cutting his hand during the incident, and it is expected that he broke his second metacarpal bone.

Noriyuki Haga looked to have regained his form, and finished fifth from the testing, while his teammate Michel Fabrizio showed impressive times, finishing second. Absent from the leader board tussle was Max Biaggi, who finished in just 9th place after the two days of testing. Full results after the jump.