Triumph Motorcycles America has experienced a shakeup at its top management level, as Matthew Sheahan is out as Chief Operating Officer of the North American subsidiary.
The official line from Triumph is that Matthew Sheahan quit his post, though sources within the company tell Asphalt & Rubber that the American COO was fired from his role with the company.
When the Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled debuted, I said that this was the scrambler model the Bologna should have released first. Built actually to go off-road, it is the real scrambler in Ducati’s Scrambler lineup.
Now, I have a feeling that in a few months’ time I’m going to be saying this phrase again about a different bike, as there are some rumors floating in the Bothan Spy network that an 1,079cc version of the Desert Sled is set to debut for the 2019 model year.
This supposed Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled 1100 (try saying name that three times fast) will add to the Scrambler 1100 lineup from Ducati, adding some off-road prowess to a family of bikes that is really just a reworked Ducati Monster 1100.
Sometimes, it seems like motorcycle manufacturers are intentionally tanking the supersport segment. For proof of this, I look at the electronics available, on this supposedly cutting-edge segment.
Something as ubiquitous as traction control is still slow to come to the supersport space, while it remains a standard feature on virtually every new street bike model. The concept is so foreign in this segment that less than half of the available supersports on the market have a traction control option.
One of those brands is MV Agusta, which was the first motorcycle marque to bring TC to the supersport class. Now, the Italian brand is ready to raise the bar another notch further, bringing the power of an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to supersport riders.
Ever since Triumph was tipped to become the new engine supplier for the Moto2 Championship, there have been rumblings and speculations about what the British brand’s over-arching plan was for the sport biking space.
The engine being used for Moto2 is the same 765cc power plant found in the Triumph Street Triple 765 – lightly massaged for racing duty, of course.
Coupling that to the fact that Triumph quietly killing the Daytona 675 motorcycle earlier this year, the British brand seemingly has all the ingredients it needs in order to make a new middleweight sport bike – something that could give the Suzuki GSX-R750 or MV Agusta F3 800 a run for their money.
In what will surely be an unpopular report, however, we regret to inform you that there will not be a Triumph Daytona 765 motorcycle for the 2019 model year, despite all the dots that seemingly could be connected, and all the speculation made by other publications and online forums.
There will be a new Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R for the 2019 model year, of this much we are certain.
It is a story that has been floating around for over a year now (I thought we had reported it already, but apparently not), but now this rumor is heating up, and we have some details to share.
First off, the confirmation. Making filings with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), we see that Kawasaki has plans for a new ZX-6R. It will have a 636cc (cheater) displacement, and produce roughly half the emissions of the previous model.
Likely ready for the coming wave of Euro5 emission regulations, details from across the pond show a power decrease and weight increase for the 2019 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R, and point to a whole-new motorcycle coming from Team Green.
With Jonathan Rea’s future firmly set at the Kawasaki Racing Team, the focus this past weekend at Laguna Seca was on the future of his teammate, Tom Sykes.
The Yorkshire man had spared few words in the media for his team and teammate in the days ahead of the California round, and he certainly wasn’t holding too much back once he was at Laguna Seca.
You could almost smell the smoke emanating from Sykes, a result of the bridge that was being burned behind him.
Sykes is 99.9% not riding with Kawasaki for the 2019 World Superbike Championship season, and he finds himself as one of the top picks in the paddock in the rider market.
It was four months ago that Alta Motors updated its Redshift lineup with the more potent Redshift MXR electric motocross bike, and from that moment we have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This week it has, as Alta Motors is showing off the Redshift EXR, a road-legal dual-sport for enduro fans, which just became the first electric motorcycle to qualify for the Erzberg Rodeo hard enduro event in Austria.
The formula for the 2019 Alta Motors Redshift EXR is fairly simple, as it takes the current Redshift EX enduro model, and adds the drivetrain upgrades that debuted with Redshift MXR model.
This means more power (50hp), more torque (42 lbs•ft), less weight (273 lbs), and of course the “overclocking” mode for when a trail truly needs to be shredded. The recharge time has also been improved too, down to 1.5hrs on a 240-volt circuit – win, win, win.
…and just tell us that you’re racing in the Erzberg Rodeo. ?
For the last week, Alta Motors has been teasing a big announcement on social media, an announcement that features enduro racers Ty Tremaine and Lyndon Poskitt, along with the hashtag #hardenduro.
The news that we should hear officially tomorrow, as our Bothan spies tell us, is that Alta Motors is going racing in the hardest single-day motorcycle race in the world – the Erzberg Rodeo.
Shut out from more traditional competition avenues – like AMA Supercross and Loretta Lynn’s AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship – Alta Motors is taking a different tack, and going into the belly beast while they’re at it.
Has BMW Motorrad called it quits for its heritage lineup of motorcycles? That is the rumor at least, and there is some good evidence to support the notion.
This is because buried on the 60th turn of BMW’s 260-page annual report for 2017 is the headline: “R nineT family now complete” – a nod that the German brand’s lineup of air-cooled retro-styled motorcycles has reached its zenith and logical conclusion.
That makes sense, since there isn’t really a category left of the R nineT family to explore. It has a roadster, a standard, a scrambler, an adventure bike, and a café racer model all in the lineup. No hipster stone has been left unturned.
The post-authentic styling trend is over. It’s dead. BMW called it, right? Well…Not so fast.
The Aprilia RSV4 RF is one of the best liter-bikes on the market right now, and for 100 lucky people in the USA (25 in Canada), the V4-powered superbike is about to get a bit better.
This is because Aprilia will be bring a limited edition version of the RSV4 RF to North America. Why is this a big deal though? Because the Aprilia RSV4 RF LE will be the first production superbike with winglets.
We know to expect a Suzuki Hayabusa reboot in the coming months, and in a way, that is all that we know. The iconic superbike is in its 20th year of production right now, and an all-new machine is set to take its place, for the 2019 model year.
Will it be turbocharged? Will it have a larger displacement? How about a dual-clutch transmission? That remains to be seen.
Safe bets are that the 2019 Suzuki Hayabusa will have updated electronics, likely powered by an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Euro4 emissions homologation is a must, and Suzuki will presumably be building the new Hayabusa with the Euro5 standard in mind as well.
Beyond these givens though, it seems that every week there is a new rumor regarding the next Hayabusa generation, and this week is no different.