Earlier this month, it appears Ducati setup a Twitter account to promote the Monster brand, and for the past couple of weeks the tweets have been fairly mundane. However, the latest cropping of 140 character messages reveal that the company is ready to spill some of the secrets of its upcoming water-cooled Monster.
In addition to the turbocharged Suzuki Recursion concept, Suzuki has also teased its electric-powered EXTRIGGER concept ahead of the Tokyo…
We are still a few weeks away from the Tokyo Motor Show, which begins on November 22nd, but that hasn’t stopped Suzuki from teasing a couple of its concept models ahead of time. First up, we have the Suzuki Recursion concept, a striking half-faired street bike. Featuring a new 588cc water-cooled two-cylinder engine, the Recursion at first glance doesn’t seem like much, but what we really think is going to get your motor purring is the machine’s intercooled turbocharging system. Suzuki says the turbo allows for the Recursion to offer big-displacement power in a middleweight bulk, which means the Suzuki Recursion would be a powerful, yet light sport bike with superb handling characteristics.
The role that electronics plays in MotoGP cannot be underestimated. Every aspect of bike performance depends on how well the the systems monitoring the bikes read the data, interpret it, and then modulate the power as it is applied to the road through the rear tire. Despite their performance, the systems which provide that control are kept carefully hidden from the public, and the people behind those systems remain anonymous. Yamaha has sought to change this, producing a video spotlighting the work of Kazutoshi Seki, the engine control engineer for Valentino Rossi. The two have worked together at Yamaha since 2004, when Rossi first joined the factory, and again since Rossi’s return after his two-year hiatus at Ducati.
It has been more than a year since MV Agusta announced the Rivale 800, its Ducati Hypermotard inspired new model. And here it finally is, ready to be delivered for early 2014. The Rivale is the third motorcycle based on MV Agusta’s own 800cc three-cylinder engine, after the naked Brutale and the fully faired F3; and at this moment, it doesn’t look like there will be a 675 or 1090 version for buyers to chose from, as is the case with MV Agusta’s other models. The Rivale 800 looks like a supermoto but the seating position goes more towards an elevated naked bike, with an unhindered view ahead. MV Agusta motorcycles are always very stylish and the Rivale of course is no exception.
The story that surrounds Petronas and its ill-fated Petronas FP1 World Superbike project is one full of intrigue, and was seemingly put to bed long ago when the Malaysian oil giant folded its motorcycle business and racing plans in 2006. The story was brought back to life though when a bunker full of Petronas FP1 street bikes was discovered in the UK. The bikes have their own intriguing story of how the Malays did, or did not, “bend” the homologation rules for WSBK, and how the machines then found their way to be forgotten in a bunker in Essex. With that discovery, new life was spurred into the Petronas FP1, whose fire-breathing three-cylinder engine and powder blue paint scheme has tantalized the fancy of collectors worldwide for some time now.
The Ducati Scrambler work horse has made its way onto the internet again. While the machine hasn’t developed much further than from the last time it broke cover, we do at least get a better view of the Scrambler’s early lines, and can clearly spot the bike’s air-cooled v-twin engine. Absent however is a high-mounted level exhaust, though Ducati’s unit here seems to be anything but finalized. From this angle too we can get a better idea of wheel rim sizes, and a little Photoshop measuring reveals a front rim that’s just over 10% larger than the rear, confirming what our sources have said about a 19″ front wheel. More specific details on the Ducati Scrambler are sketchy at best though, with conflicting information abounding at this point in time.
Ducati has announced its World Superbike lineup for the next two seasons. For 2014 and 2015, Chaz Davies and Davide…
There have been occasions over the past few years when I have asked Nicky Hayden how he manages to find…
If it is connected by a series of tubes, we will find it; and thus here are photos of the still unreleased KTM RC125 & KTM RC200 street bikes — the kid-siblings to the recently leaked KTM RC390. Like the RC390, the RC125 & RC200 are visually similar, and share a common vein in their Made-in-India single-cylinder engines. No word on specs, but we foresee the 125cc and 200cc iterations sharing similar technical listings as their Duke counterparts. We should know more at EICMA, where all three of these street bikes are expect to debut. More photos after the jump.
MotoGP Race Results from the Japanese GP at Motegi, Japan
