Polaris Industries continues to be the 800 lbs gorilla of corporate M&A in the motorcycle industry, and the American firm reinforced that fact today after it announced the acquisition of KLIM Technical Riding Gear. Known for its superb snow and off-road gear, KLIM is a strong apparel brand that matches up well with the core Polaris’s core business of ATVs and snowmobiles. While terms of the acquisition are not being discussed, KLIM is expected to clear $30 million in revenue in 2012.

In its statement, Polaris says that it will operate the KLIM brand in conjunction with the other existing Polaris apparel brands. Additionally, KLIM will continue operations at its Rigby location, and will retain the company’s current staff members. Planning to invest further in KLIM’s infrastructure, Polaris intends to establish the Rigby facility as its “new apparel Center of Excellence,” thus centralizing the company’s apparel manufacturing efforts.

News

One of the oldest motorcycle brands in the world has changed hands, yet again, as the British marque Matchless has reportedly been sold. Changing hands from Greek to Italian ownership, the Matchless brand is now in the hands of Franco Malenotti, of Belstaff apparel fame. Hoping to revitalize the motorcycle brand in a similar way as he did with Belstaff, Malenotti plans at first to build a limited production series of motorcycles, which will draw their inspiration from the G80, Silver Hawk, and Silver Arrow designs.

News

For some time now, we have known that KTM intended to bring a 300cc-class version of its KTM 125 Duke motorcycle to market, thanks primarily to a leaked product road map that covered the Austrian company’s product line-up clear through the 2014 model year. Slotted to bring the KTM 390 Duke to the US market this coming spring, the leaked road map has so far proven to be accurate, and has two interesting machines listed for 2014: the KTM Moto3 350 & KTM Enduro 350. Now confirmed by KTM’s CEO Stefan Pierer, KTM will debut a “faired” model (the KTM Moto3 350) and a “travel” model (KTM Enduro 350), which are based off the KTM 390 Duke platform, and will share the bike’s 375cc single-cylinder engine.

Banter

Everyone is entitled to a bad day at the office, and for motorcycle journalists, that phrase usually means crashing a press bike during a bike launch or test. You expect to run that risk when you are riding hard at the track, or maybe on a twisty or unfamiliar canyon road, but a solo-crash on a deserted city street? Not so much. Proving that you can never let your guard down, especially when it comes to riding along the water’s edge, our dear colleagues at the esteemed French publication Moto Journal got a quick reminder to mind the panniers.

Bikes

Another model year, and another limited edition Suzuki GSX-R that has been done-up by Yoshimura. We are a little light on official details regard the 2013 Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R Limited Edition series, but from the looks of things the Japanese tuning brand has again slapped on a number of its hard bits to Suzuki’s sport bike line-up, with an appropriately unique paint job as well. If we were to copy and paste-in the highlights from the 2012 series, which is what its seems Yoshimura has done, it seems we get a good start on the description of what we are seeing here, though it looks like a custom saddle, mirror block-off plates, wave brake discs, OZ wheels, and a rear shock linkage kit have been added to the mix as well as optional items.