Tag

air-cooled

Browsing

Ducati’s media event for the 2017 EIMCA show is just under a day away, but photos of the Italian company’s 2018 model year bikes are starting to leak on social media. As such, here is your first look at the Ducati Scrambler 1100, one of five all-new motorcycles from Borgo Panigale.

As you can see, the Ducati Scrambler 1100 is exactly as our sources said it would be, and it features the air-cooled, 1,087cc, v-twin engine that Ducatisti know and love, wedged into larger chassis and platform than the original Scrambler model.

Ducati says that it has five new models for us at this year’s EICMA show. Yesterday we broke the news that there would be a Multistrada 950 Enduro, as well as the Ducati Multistrada 1260 (powered by the XDiavel’s Testastretta DVT 1262 engine).

We also know from CARB filings that there is a Ducati 959 Panigale Corse in the works; the Italian brand has already shown us the revamped Monster 821; and of course, we know that there will be the not-so-secret Ducati Panigale V4 showing in Milan.

But what about the Scrambler Ducati sub-brand? Well, it too will be seeing an addition to the family, in the guise of a larger machine. Get ready to say hello to the Ducati Scrambler 1100.

With massive motorcycles comes massive photo galleries. As such, we thought we would share with you over 100 high-resolution photos of the new Yamaha Star Eluder, the bagger variant and cousin to the Yamaha Star Venture tourer, in this A&R “mega gallery”.

Fat jokes aside, the Eluder and Venture are interesting bikes, as they straddle features and attributes somewhere between Harley-Davidson’s touring lineup (the Yamaha’s feature a 113ci air-cooled v-twin engine) and the well-selling Honda Gold Wing line (both bikes are rolling living rooms on two wheels).

This positions Yamaha’s to siphon-off riders from two of the best selling lines of motorcycle in the United States, which is surely no accident.

The Yamaha Star Eluder is not exactly our cup of tea, that much is for sure. But, while you can hate the player, you’ve gotta respect that game. Yamaha just upped the ante in the touring space with the Star Venture and Star Eluder.

Take a closer look at the 2018 Yamaha Star Eluder in the photos after the jump.

If the Yamaha Star Venture wasn’t enough motorcycle for you, then you will be happy to hear that Yamaha is doubling down on its massive touring lineup, with the 2018 Yamaha Star Eluder.

The concept behind the Yamaha Star Eluder is pretty simple. It takes the massive Star Venture, does away with the big touring seats, and leaves a bagger in its place.

If this kind of transformation sounds familiar, it should, as it is a page taken straight out of Honda’s playbook, which lead to the creation of the Honda Gold Wing F6B and CTX1300 bagger models.

Our Bothan Spies came through once again this EICMA season, bringing us news that the BMW Lac Rose Concept would enter production as the 2017 BMW R nineT Urban G/S motorcycle.

As the name implies, the Urban G/S is based off the BMW R nineT platform, which means that it uses the iconic 1,170cc, 110hp, air-cooled, boxer-twin engine as its base, and then builds out from there.

As such, the chassis is the same modular frame that powers the rest of the R nineT line, complete with telescoping fork suspension at the front, along with a 19″ wheel wire-spoked wheel in the front, and a 17″ wire-spoked wheel in the rear.

All of this means that the BMW R nineT is mostly an aesthetic exercise – but it is quite the exercise, if you want our opinion.

The third amigo to Ducati’s air-cooled posse debuting at EICMA, the Ducati Monster 797 brings back Bologna’s 803cc two-valve engine to the Monster family.

The return of the Monster 797 also happens to add a third model to Ducati’s iconic street-focused Monster line, offering another affordable entry point into the Ducati brand for those who aren’t interested in the Italian company’s scrambler or café racer models.

In addition to updating the BMW R1200GS for the 2017 model year, our sources tell us that the BMW Lac Rose concept will debut as a production model at the EICMA show next month in Milan, Italy.

Based off the BMW R nineT platform, the Lac Rose (not the name that BMW will use once it debuts) will serve as the Bavarian brand’s heritage ADV bike, keeping its obvious themes to the Dakar Rally in place, with the proper amount of nostalgia for the category.

This should give O.G. airheads a proper air-cooled throwback ADV bike option (say that three times fast), which will serve as a counterpoint to the updates we can expect from the 2017 BMW R1200GS and the revisions we have already seen for the 2017 BMW S1000XR.

We’ve got air-cooled bikes on the brain today, so it seemed appropriate to share one of Oberdan Bezzi’s latest work. The Honda CB1100R concept imagines an air-cooled inline-four engin, wrapped in the bodywork of a sport bike that harkens back to the Honda RC30.

Two classic bikes from Honda’s lineup that make for odd bedfellows, Bezzi’s concept strikes a chord though – especially with more veteran riders who remember when 100hp was more than any street rider could hope for.

Despite the advent of Euro4 emission regulations and crack-downs by the EPA, air-cooled motorcycles are finding their second wind. Free from having to achieve outright performance figures,  less powerful air-cooled motorcycles are filling a niche where more simple and affordable bikes are the most alluring.

Ducati’s 2017 line seems to be getting the full monty this week, with yet again more spy photos emerging of the Italian company’s upcoming motorcycles. Today’s installment sees us looking at the Ducati Monster line, which appears to be getting a third variant for 2017.

As you can see from the photo above, the Ducati Monster lineup will see the addition of an air-cooled model, likely one that shares the same 803cc lump that is found in the Ducati Scrambler.

This so-called Ducati Monster 803 will slot in below the other Monster models, which will likely include a Ducati Monster 939 and an updated Ducati Monster 1200.

That headline is a bit of a misnomer, since the new liquid-cooled Triumph Bonneville has been “spied” for some time now in the media.

Triumph is at least capable of admitting that its hipster machine is getting an update now, releasing this teaser video that hints at “something big” coming our way – if liquid-cooling an engine is something big, then we couldn’t agree more.

It looks like BMW’s new air-cooled café racer has made an early, albeit brief, appearance on the internet. Photos of what we have been calling the BMW NineT appeared today on Italian news site La Repubblica, though the writers there called the machine the BMW R Nine. Unfortunately (for us) however, the article has since been taken down by the Italian publication.

With the NineT set to debut later today in Munich, these photos seem to be of the soon-to-be-released production model, and appear to be still shots for the machine’s upcoming press kit.