While the MotoGP paddock is away, the test teams will play. In the middle of the Asia-Pacific flyaways, back in Europe the test teams are preparing for the start of 2020.
In the coming days, test teams for Aprilia, KTM, and Ducati will all take to the track, while Honda will be testing directly after Sepang.
Here it is, the next installment in Kawasaki’s supercharged future. As predicted, the 2020 Kawasaki Z H2 is a supercharged naked bike, with 200hp (147.1 kW) on tap and 101 lbs•ft of (137 Nm) torque from its 998cc four-cylinder engine.
Unlike the Kawasaki Ninja H2, the Z H2 fills the role of the Z family of bikes, and is a true naked bike. But like its H2 siblings, the Kawasaki Zh2 features a green steel trellis frame.
While we don’t know who the second rider will be at the factory-backed Honda team next year in WorldSBK, we do know who it won’t be…and it won’t be Leon Camier.
This is because Camier is headed to a different red bike, the Ducati Panigale V4 R at Barni Racing, for the 2020 season.
It is finally here! Our favorite time of the year! I am of course talking about the new bike season, where the majority of the new motorcycles for the coming model year are debuted at events around the world.
For this round, the model year is going to be a year filled with new bikes, primarily because of the changes required for the Euro5 homologation. As such, we expect to see virtually every manufacturer coming out with something new, especially at the EICMA show in Italy and the Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.
What is interesting about this year’s edition though is how many bikes we will see before these to stalwart events. This is because the brands are finally catching on that their products get lost in the sea of unveilings that occur in Milan and Tokyo.
Accordingly, we see Ducati setting up its own special event in Rimini for October 23rd. Similarly, other brands have teased late-October and early-November unveiling dates for select models, though we expect more will follow Ducati’s lead in the coming years.
With a number of intriguing models teased and rumored ahead of these events, it will be interesting to see what actually comes true. To get our A&R Pro readers ready for the onslaught, I have put together one big fat awesome guide to the new motorcycle releases for 2020.
This list is as comprehensive as I can make it, and quite frankly a lot more detailed than what I’ve seen elsewhere on the internet, probably because it involves A&R pestering our Bothan spies for info all year.
I will update this story as more rumors surface ahead of the trade shows and unveiling events.
We are one week away from seeing the production form of the upcoming Ducati Streetfighter V4, and this means that the Italian brand is starting its hype machine for this hotly anticipated motorcycle.
Borgo Panigale won’t have to work too hard to get us excited about the Streetfighter V4, however, as the bike’s specs do much of their own talking.
Try this on for size: 208hp @ 12,750 rpm from its 1,103cc Desmosedici Stradale engine; 392 lbs of dry mass, biplane winglets attached to the fairings, and an electronics package straight off the high-tech Panigale V4.
Takaaki Nakagami will be staying with the LCR Honda team for 2020, HRC and the LCR Honda team have officially confirmed.
After a long period of negotiation, Honda and Nakagami have finally reached terms that will see the Japanese rider staying in Lucio Cecchinello’s team for another season.
Confirming the news we already reported on, Alex Lowes will leave the Pata Yamaha team at the end of the 2019 WorldSBK, and move into green colors for next year, as the teammate to Jonathan Rea in the Kawasaki Racing Team.
Lowes replaces Leon Haslam in the factory Kawasaki team, and brings with him a great deal of knowledge on Team Green’s fastest rising competitor: Yamaha.
Kawasaki is already doing a pretty good job of teasing out information on its new supercharged motorcycle, but that hasn’t stopped our colleagues from across the pond from snooping around for more.
As such, the Belgian site MaxxMoto has come across four images that show the 2020 Kawasaki ZH2 in the flesh, giving us our first real glimpse into this blown naked bike.
The new bike season is starting to heat up, and the zenith is only a few weeks away. I am of course talking about the EICMA show in Milan.
As such, the Germans are gearing up for a big show in Italy this year, with an all-new booth design, and more importantly, four new motorcycles to showcase.
We know this, because BMW Motorrad told us so in a press release, but the real information we are craving is which bikes we will see in Milan, and for that, we have some strong guesses.
For American fans of the WorldSBK Championship, there will once again be a fellow countryman to root for next season, as Garrett Gerloff is set to move from the MotoAmerica series to the World Superbike starting grid.
With an official announcement soon to come, our Bothan spies are tipping to us that Gerloff will take Marco Melandri’s seat at the GRT Yamaha squad.
For the past month, Kawasaki has been teasing a new addition to its supercharged motorcycle lineup. We didn’t know too much about the machine as the time, other than it would fall into the company’s “Z” lineup of naked sport bikes.
Most educated guesses then pegged the bike as a 1,000cc supercharged streetfighter, and we have been eagerly waiting for the bike’s October 23rd arrival to see if our assumptions were correct.
Now today, we get our first glimpse of the machine, as well as its name, as Team Green continues its teaser campaign of the 2020 Kawasaki ZH2.