Somewhere between the tulips and windmills, MotoGP riders assembled in Assen, Netherlands this Saturday for the Dutch GP. Loyal Dutch fans were treated to a race that saw the front-runner break away from the rest of the group, a series of sketchy passes, some key crashes, and a hair-raising battle for 6th place. Continue after the jump for some sizable spoilers.
In Annecy-le-Vieux, France, near the Swiss border resides builder Ludovic Lazareth. This French mechanical artisan has built a number of one off motorcycles, trikes, and cars, and his latest take on the Yamaha FZ1 just recently caught our eye.
The bike design, as you can see for yourself, is all hand done, angular, aggressive, and edgy. But, we especially like the Mini Cooper S supercharger that has been fitted to the FZ1 motor. No word on how much power its putting down, suffice it to say though, it’s enough. The FZR Compressor can be yours, like many of Lazareth’s creations, for only €40,000 ($56,000).
With the Dutch GP a day ahead of the other racing events, today’s Friday qualifying session was not only special because of its weekday time slot, but also because of the close clustering of riders for the top 3 spots. Valentino Rossi had a squeaker of a run, just beating out Dani Pedrosa by under a tenth of a second. Rossi is looking for his 100th win at the Dutch track, and seems to be on-track to achieving that goal.
BMW Motorrad released today that the base MSRP of the S1000RR will cost €15,800, expect the US pricing to be below that (we’re guessing $14,500-ish).
In typical BMW fashion the real fun features will cost more. The BMW Race ABS system will cost €950, while the Race ABS with Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) will cost a combined €1,250. BMW is also offering an electric shifter for €370, and an alarm system for €220.
After the excitement of the TTXGP we were left wondering… What’s next for ? How can you beat electrics racing around the Isle Of Man in the legendary TT? Our answer comes from FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) who in 2010 begins it’s electric motorcycle race series.
The FIM is working with Azhar Hussain, founder of the TTXGP to plan the series which will exist inside Azhar’s Road Racing Grand Prix Commission. Travis Gintz, a consultant to the series informed us there will be multiple laps and all bikes will be required to have hot-swapable batteries similar to what we saw on the MotoCzysz E1PC.
MotoBlog brings us pictures of an interesting example, of an already interesting bike, the Bimota Tesi 3D. As a part of a multi-brand collaboration, Bimota has teamed up with designer Daad Dantone to make this blacked out Testi 3D with gold inserts. The Tesi 3D will match other one-off goods made for Daad’s “Rock Gold” display in Milan.
It would appear we do not need to wait until Fall to see the new VFR in its final, or near final form. MCN lead this morning with an article showing what they reputed to be leaked photos of the 2010 VFR1200 from Honda.
We, like many others, we skeptical of this news, both in part because of the source, but also because the reputed final version so closely matched mock-ups of the new bike that we’ve seen for months now.
Our skeptism may be unfounded this time, as auto news site Left Lane News has simultaneously released spy shots of the VFR testing in the California desert that would appear to rain on MCN’s parade of having “the scoop of the year”.
Based off the air-cooled Ducati 1100cc motor, NCR Corse has made a track bike worthy of multiple droolings. Named the Millona, the bike tips the scales at 275lbs, and puts out 121hp in its 1200cc form (at 1100cc the bike makes 116hp).
Leave it to the French to wheelie past the infamous Google Street View car as it drove around the city streets of Marseille. This R1 rider certainly seized the moment when he saw the Google clad car with cameras on top, old school race livery and all. See for yourself here.
Source: Moto.Caradisiac
Michigan based BlueShift Motorcycles is entering into the electric motorcycle business, but instead of the track bred entries we saw for the TTXGP, BlueShift is focusing on the cruiser end of the market. BlueShift describes the bike as a heavyweight and street fighter. At over 600lbs, we’ll agree with the heavyweight part of that statement.
The folks at MCN have either been playing with Play-doh again, or have managed to sneak a camera into Ducati HQ. Irregardless, the result is this image of what can only be the rumored Ducati Vyper cruiser.