Two weeks and two separate rumors about Hero MotoCorp’s acquisition warpath. Last week the Indian motorcycle manufacturer was said to be…
Thought to be a Honda in disguise, the Mugen Shinden (??) broke cover this weekend at the 50th anniversary celebration of…
With John McGuinness set to be at the helm, Mugen’s bid to be the first to break the 100 mph barrier at the 2012 TT Zero is hevily speculated to be a stealth project by Honda (無限 / Mugen was started by Hirotoshi Honda, the son to Honda founder Soichiro Honda), which has of course lead to speculation about what Mugen would be bringing to the Isle of Man TT. Called Shinden (神電), meaning “God of Electricity” in Japanese, the team’s race bike may not have the same exquisite lines of the Honda RC-E, but upon closer inspection, Mugen’s electric race bike seems like a wolf in sheep’s clothing with its 120hp motor, carbon fiber swingarm, and a carbon fiber twin-spar frame design.
Despite the fact that the business side of motorcycling is run by a small close-nit group of curmudgeons, Neanderthals, and Luddites, the world outside of motorcycling continues to press on without us. And while various parts of the motorcycle industry are busy trying to figure out how to adapt to this whole new “internet” technology fad thing (it has only been commercialized for over two decades now guys), the same group of people are busy trying to maintain the same business models and practices that came from the post-World War II economy. In other words, when it comes to technology and the motorcycle industry, we are all pretty much fucked.
You may have already noticed that Valentino Rossi has been sporting a new lid in his off-season tests with the factory Ducati Desmosedici GP12. Said to have a greater field of vision, the prototype helmet has being going by the code name “Project 46” as the helmet has literally been built around Rossi himself. I say literally because AGV’s new helmet is based off what the Italian company is calling AGV Standards, a new philosophy on how the Italian company makes its forthcoming helmets.
When it was announced that Mugen would be racing at the Isle of Man TT in the TT Zero event,…