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Asphalt & Rubber typically posts between 20 and 30 stories a week. We are not prolific in the amount of content we produce each week, instead we are selective about what we cover, and always try to frame a single story into a much larger understanding of what is happening in a particular segment or in the industry as whole.

So, this means that not everything we want to cover gets covered. Some stories don't make the cut, some stories fall to the wayside because of time or resources, and some stories just simply get lost in the shuffle.

It is a shame, so I wanted to create a new segment where we touch back on some of those topics, and include a few others that are completely outside the scope of this motorcycle blog.

Part clearinghouse for stories that we will never get our full attention, and part book club for our loyal readers who are doing their best to survive the work day, say hello to the first installment of the "What We're Reading" column series.

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We’ve talked a bit before about the virtues of 3D printing, and how this increasingly affordable technology could change the consumer landscape as far as how we buy basic parts in the motorcycle industry.

For as practical as how 3D printing, or rapid prototyping, can be, it can also be beautiful and used for art. This story is sort of a merger of those two ideas.

Jonathan Brand has hoped to buy a 1972 Honda CB500 motorcycle, but the birth of his son changed that plan. Where there is a will though, there is a way, and Brand came up with the next best thing — he built a life-size model of a CB500 with his 3D printer.

Towards the end of the 800cc era, MotoGP looked to be in dire condition. Grids were dwindling, factories were reducing their participation, and teams were in difficult financial straits indeed. By the end of 2011, there were just 17 full time entries, Suzuki was down to a single rider, and were about to pull out entirely for 2012.

How different the situation looks today. The CRTs have served their purpose – to persuade the factories to help fill the grid, and supply the teams with (relatively) affordable equipment – and the reduction in costs brought about in part by the spec electronics is enticing factories back to MotoGP.

Suzuki is in full testing mode, and getting ready to return to racing full time in 2015, and Aprilia is working towards a full-time return in 2016.

In a recent interview with the official MotoGP.com website, Aprilia Corse’s new boss Romano Albesiano gave a brief outline of their plans. The Italian factory will continue to work with the IODA Racing team for 2014 to collect data on the electronics and tires, which they will use as input on an entirely new project being worked on for 2016.

It’s always nice to get a firm slap in the face from somewhere in the world that contradicts our notions of what motorcycling is all about.

Toeing the line between the hedonistic expressionism of Western culture and the more austere conservatism of traditional Islamic culture, London-based artist Hassan Hajjaj aims to pull-apart the pretentious self-importance of both worlds.

More importantly, by using female subjects as the protagonists in his compositions, Hajjaj challenges numerous Western and Eastern stereotypes about gender roles in this context.

The poses are playful and challenging and the use of scooters and motorcycles cements the subjects in Moroccan two-wheeler culture as well as in the Western two-wheels-as-freedom narrative. A metaphorical straddling, if you will.

Titled “‘Kesh Angles”, Hassan’s compositions are bright, colorful and chock full of cultural references. The subjects embody bravado, aggression, sexuality and even normalcy in high fashion and hip-hop poses.

The Riverside Art Museum is hosting “The Women’s Motorcycle Exhibition,” an exhibit featuring the photography of Lanakila MacNaughton until March 16th.  The Portland-based photographer is also motorcyclist and wanted to capture a female-centric perspective on the colorful and wild side of motorcycling that is either underrepresented or misrepresented in this male-dominant culture.

Lanakila’s portraits show women embodying roles that are typically reserved for male motorcyclists, including images where a male takes on the role of pillion passenger in an obvious gender reversal. Another interesting set of images depicts a desert road scene where two barely dressed ladies (save for the stickers on their breasts) ride missionary (a la Kanye’s “Bound 2” music video).

We were excited by the potential for this exhibit to further the conversation around reimagining the role of women in motorcycling. Although the number of women riders in the U.S. is increasing, in marketing and in product development women are still considered a niche demographic.

There is not much space in the culture for women to stand on their own without being coddled or catered to by patronizing marketing gimmicks or feeling ogled by every dude on the road. Simply developing bikes with lower seat heights and apparel with pink and purple flower schemes is not going far enough to really opening the doors of the industry guys’ club.

Got some time to waste? We have just the thing for you, thanks to our friends at Yamaha. The tuning fork brand has long made papercraft models of its various products — scale models made only out of paper, and not to be confused with origami —  and the different designs have been swirling on the internet for as long as we can remember.

Available for download are patterns for building a range of motorcycles, like the Yamaha MT-01, Yamaha YZF-R1, and Yamaha VMAX, and while Yamaha provides the blueprints, you must supply the sheets of paper, bottles of glue, and buckets of patience — this not an undertaking for the ADD inclined.

Now in time for the new year, Yamaha has released perhaps the mother of all papercraft projects, a diorama of Valentino Rossi’s Corkscrew pass on Casey Stoner at Laguna Seca.

It took papercraft designer Mr. Mukouyama a year to design and create the kit, and the detail shows. Getting a chance to show his masterpiece to The Doctor himself, who praised Mukouyama-san’s hardwork, the young artist will have a hard time topping this.

Whether you are riding out the Northeast’s current Freezepocalypse, or just counting down the months until the racing season begins again, here is a new garage endeavor for your undertaking. If any A&R readers complete this papercraft diorama, you must send us some photos of it. We’ll send you a shirt or something.

A little something to end the week with, Roland Sands Design has put together a video called “Art of the Machine” that is a bit different from the usual fare you find in the motorcycle industry, even from the exceptional creative types at RSD.

Using a kaleidoscope treatment on a series of fabrication and riding clips, the short film has an eerily dark and deep feel to it. You don’t have to be a fan of RSD’s work in order to become enthralled by the mesmerizing visual and audios here, and while we’re not quite sure why we like it…we know that we just do. Obey.

The Power Electronics Aspar team have seized the opportunity offered by the CRT rules with both hands. By teaming up with Aprilia and employing two talented and fast riders, Aspar has helped turn the RSV4-based ART machine into a genuinely competitive machine, in every respect except for horsepower.

At Assen, Aleix Espargaro finished eighth, ahead of two factory Ducatis and three other satellite MotoGP machines. The bike is clearly good.

For 2014, however, Aspar must face a dilemma. With the introduction of the spec-electronics system, teams choosing to race the ART bikes will lose the current advantage those machines have, a highly-developed and very effective electronics package.

Teams running ART machines must choose, either to accept the Magneti Marelli developed software, and keep 24 liters of fuel and 12 engines, or persuade Aprilia to port their software to the spec-ECU Marelli, and try to race with 20 liters of fuel and either 5 or 9 engines, depending on whether the Grand Prix Commission decided Aprilia had already been competing in MotoGP as an MSMA member or not.

There isn’t a enough motorcycle art in the two-wheeled world. I am not talking about a shortage of photos, paintings, or drawings of motorcycles; but instead, I lamenting my desire for more of these pieces that really move me — works of art that strike a chord with my emotions, and then lead my thoughts down to some longing, proposal, or recollection of good times on a motorbike.

For our own part, A&R strives to pair inspiring photographs with our articles, often showing photos that add another dimension to the story, or at least a double entendre. But alas, the seemingly requisite need for visuals to provide an editorial explanation to the words below them can make achieving both goals often a lost endeavor.

Motorcycling in the western world is about passion though (that’s not to say there isn’t passionate motorcyclists all over the world, of course), so we still strive to straddle both sides of that fence anyways. It is for this same reason that we publish intriguing concept sketches & designs, when we find them, since the reality of the still unknown is a powerful one. You do remember what an imagination is, right?

Coming across the work of Adam Nickel, my imagination was again lit-up. Publishing a few of his drawings on his blog, I was drawn to the alliterately titled pieces Dedication, Defeat, Dreams, & Decisions — which portray four events that are sure to feel familiar to any motorcyclist. Enjoy them after the jump, and be sure to stop by Nickel’s site for more pieces of moto-inspiration.

This next article comes to you as a direct biproduct of my Labor Day weekend. While I don’t have any children of my own (none that I know of at least), I did spend the long-weekend around what I hope will be Asphalt & Rubber‘s future generation of readers, as well as motorcycling’s future demographic of riders (their parents may take some more convincing).

Kids seem to be fascinated with motorcycles…along with trains, firetrucks, planes, submarines, etc, so when I saw these line art drawings of some classic motorcycles today on Racing Café, I thought the mothers and fathers who regularly read A&R wouldn’t mind having something moto-related they could print out, and have their children color, shade, or draw all over.

For those of you without kids, well…here are some cool line art drawings of motorcycles. How’s that for a win/win? If you like these drawings there is a bunch more on Flickr, and it looks like the artist who made these drawings is selling them in poster form. Cool, right?

For some time now, Yamaha Japan has had some fun downloadable paper craft sheets that make a variety of paper art motorcycles (if you haven’t made a paper YZR-M1 yet, you are really not living life). Taking that thought a step further, Jack Chen from Australia has made a scale 2007 Yamaha YZF-R1 out of cardboard.

Roughly 60% the size of the genuine road-going version, Chen used Yamaha’s sheets as the basis for his masterpiece, and then super-sized the proportions. Skill, patience, and scissor control…you sir are a cardboard motorcycle Jedi, and we salute you. Photos after the jump.