It would seem reports that John Hopkins will be back in MotoGP with FB Corse were premature. While confirming that Hopper has been talking to the Italian GP team, his manager Bob Moore has denied any news that the American rider has signed with the team. Moore goes on to say that Hopkins is still considering all options at this point in time, including a ride in the AMA Pro Racing series.
Tork India, third place Open Class winner at this year’s TTXGP at the Isle of Man, has posted up a teaser on Facebook announcing the imminent arrival of their new electric motorcycle racer. While the photo being displayed on Facebook is really just a GSX-R cover with the Tork logos superimposed onto it, we’re still excited to see our first glimpse of the new Indian racer after the new year.
An integral part of motorcycling is the desire for riders to personalize their motorcycle to express their individual tastes. For some motorcyclists that means bolting-on an exhuast system, and spraying on some paint, but for others that means a completely custom or one-off build. Celebrating that tradition, we bring you three unique motorcycles that stood-out from the pack as we flipped through our coverage of 2009.
One way of measuring a motorcycle’s reliability is to see how many recalls were made for the model in a given year. Recalls are almost invariably created when a malfunction or design flaw poses potential harm to a rider’s life, or impedes the basic operation of the motorcyce. This past year saw 21 recalls from motorcycle manufacturers, with a few bikes and companies gracing our pages more than they’d care to admit. Check after the jump to see who these repeat offenders are.
Concept motorcycles, with their renders and sketches, captivate our minds with what could be. They are not confined by budgets, resources, or even reality, but instead are only limited by the imagination of their author. Some concepts are purely a work of fantacy, while others explore design and market elements. Because of the varying reasons and goals for a motorcycle concept, there is no single measure that one can apply in judging one concept against another. So instead our benchmark was to try and understand what the author’s intent was with their work, and then merit them on how well that goal was achieved. Asphalt & Rubber’s choices for the best motorcycle concepts of 2009 are after the jump.
Part of being a motorcycle enthusiast in the United States means waking up at odd hours to catch live coverage of your favorite racing series. Whether it be MotoGP, WSBK, or AMA, every racing Sunday is more like Easter Sunday as we hunt through the channel listings looking for our beloved sport on the television, sometimes finding the disappointment that the coverage has been pushed far back into the week as far as Wednesday.
For the motorcycle racing fanatics, this sort of Easter egg hunt is a ritual intrinsically tied to our love of two-wheeled racing. Thankfully, 2009 provided us some worthy racing treasures for all our efforts, and it is in this post we celebrate those moments.
Keeping the theme going, motorcycling in 2009 was sometimes expressed better in a single frame, rather than in full-motion. With so many great photos coming in from a plethora of talented photographers, it’s hard to pick just a few that stand-out from the rest. But still, we gave it our best shot. Click past the jump for our picks.
We saw a lot of great videos this past year. Some were funny, some were clever, and some were the epitome of motorcycle racing. Our top-picks pull from all of these genres, but we have to admit, the selection pool was limited by what was still available at the time of this writing.
Some of the biggest pieces of footage this year came from the WSBK and MotoGP racing series; unfortunately, the rights holders for these videos don’t feel like sharing the clips beyond their original air-dates. We’ll leave the issue about how this hurts the sport and motorcycle racing enthusiasts aside for today, so continue on past the jump for some great videos despite this situation.
2009 was Asphalt & Rubber’s first entire year bringing you a daily-dose of motorcycle news, racing, rumors, and more. As the year winds down, we thought we would re-visit some of the top stories from the motorcycle community this year. It’s the high’s and the low’s, it’s the best and the worst, it’s the 2009 A&R Rubbies, and they’ll be coming at you everyday until 2010.
This is our second holiday season here at Asphalt & Rubber, and while the news will be slow today, we wanted to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Wonderful Winter Solstice, and Kick-ass Kwanza. May your holiday presents be full of titanium exhaust systems, racing slicks, and fresh kneesliders.
We’ve got something special planned for the rest of the month, with full news service ramping back up after the New Year. See you in 2010!
Employing time-lapse photography, the folks at Vyrus show how 750 parts come together to make one finished bad-ass hub-center steered motorcycle in just 3 minutes. Check-out the video after the jump to see how it comes together, and check here to learn more about the Vyrus 987 C3.