This little gem, the Nito N4, has been burning a hole in our to-do list for far too long, ever since we saw it at the EICMA show in Milan last year. It’s not a big fancy superbike, and it’s not even a proper supermoto.
Instead, the 15hp Nito N4 is just an attractive people-mover that extends the Italian brand’s offering of urban-use two-wheelers.
On that vein, Nito says that the N4 is good for over 90 miles of range, can reach a top speed of 90 mph (150 km/h), and tips the scales at 385 lbs.
The Moto Guzzi V85 TT motorcycle has been a big hit for the Italian brand, exhibiting the happy merger of Moto Guzzi’s retro flare with the popular ADV bike scene.
Moreover, the Moto Guzzi V85 TT is a solid bike to ride, and we gave it solid reviews when we rode in Sardinia last year. But, what if you want to hit the dirt a bit harder than this 90/10 bike provides?
Italian designer Oberdan Bezzi has been thinking this thought (as have many of you), and he has penned what he calls the Moto Guzzi V90 TTR concept.
I am, and forever will be, a complete sucker for a good rendition of Kaneda’s motorcycle from the cult Japanese anime movie Akira. Growing up as a kid (versus growing up as an adult, which is my current state), Akira‘s portrayal of motorcycles was one of the few things that got me interested in two-wheels.
I was a “car kid” growing up, with pictures of Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche automobiles hanging on my walls. But, Kaneda’s bike was an influence too, and judging from the comments section when we post about this bike, it was a transformative machine for many others as well.
It seems that the MV Agusta Superveloce 800 will have a new choice of liveries for potential owners when it comes to market, as the Italian motorcycle manufacturer has updated the bike’s color choices after getting feedback from the brand’s fans.
“Following the presentation of the Superveloce 800 in Milano, we took onboard feedback from both the public and importers and decided to create two color schemes, both with a gold-finish frame, that accentuate the neo-retro theme, highlight the curvaceous styling, and align the models to our brand values,” said Adrian Morton, Design Director at MV Agusta’s Research Center CRC.
If you want to design motorcycles for a living, the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California is the premier place to begin your studies, and attending the school could very well lead to a position as a designer at a two-wheeled or four-wheeled manufacturer. There is no better proof of that than today’s story.
Partnering with the Ducati Scrambler brand, the ArtCenter had students working on designs that explored the future of the Scrambler lineup, and the winner of the competition was rewarded with a training internship at the Ducati Design Center in Bologna, Italy.
In total, 10 projects were submitted for review, and it was Peter Harkins who took home the winning prize. While many students explored electric concepts for the Scrambler brand, Harkins thought of a more classic approach for Ducati’s heritage-based sub-brand.
Got big plans for the coming weekend? Of course you don’t, you’re probably stuck inside like the rest of us. But, we can help with that and ease your motorcycle cravings at the same time.
On Saturday, May 9th at 10am PDT / 7pm CEST, Asphalt & Rubber will be sitting down with esteemed motorcycle designer, Miguel Galluzzi.
Currently the head of design at the Piaggio Group (Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Piaggio, and Vespa), Miguel has been responsible for a wide range of motorcycles and scooters.
His resumé includes a number of iconic designs and important motorcycles for the industry, from his time at Piaggio, and also during his tenure at Cagiva/Ducati.
Always with a keen eye on the industry, and what is happening in the world at large, Miguel always provides great insights. You have probably passed him a motorcycle show or race, and not realized it, while he soaks up the latest trends coming to the industry.
For our live chat, I will of course have some questions of my own for Miguel, but we want to make the show interactive, so we will be taking questions from the audience as well.
This means you can submit questions ahead of time, here in the comments section or via social media. Or, you can join us on the live stream, and ask questions from the live chat on YouTube.
There are several ways to watch the live stream. The easiest is that the video above will go live on Saturday, but we will also be reminding you on social media as well.
Of course, you can also go straight to YouTube via this link here. We hope to see you on the chat!
Link: YouTube
One of the more lust-worthy motorcycles seen at the 2019 EICMA show may have just gotten closer to coming to reality, as design patents for the Honda CB4X have been spotted.
The patents come from the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and while many are pointing to their filing as a sure sign that the Honda CB4X is headed for production, we reiterate our usual caution about reading too much from a patent application.
That being said, if there was a candidate for motorcycle concepts coming to real life, the Honda CB4X (which is based off the Honda CBR650R), is high on our list.
A little something to get the week headed in the right direction, here is the “Braida” Ducati Monster concept by Paolo Tesio at Tex Motorbike.
The machine exists only as a digital render (for now), but it has some interesting ideas for a futuristic take on this classic motorcycle name.
We especially like the front fairing design, which just blends right into the front wheel and is fitted with a set of perimeter discs.
We always knew that the Aprilia Tuono 660 was coming, ever since last year when the Noale brand took the covers off its RS 660 concept, and started teasing us with the idea of a high-horsepower middleweight twin motorcycle.
From there, it was quick to understand that Aprilia would need to make its “half an RSV4” into a platform, with other models soon to come. The most obvious next step then was a naked “Tuono” model.
That brings us to today, where not only do we see the Aprilia Tuono 660 concept looking basically ready for production at EICMA, but the Italian brand is also coyly showing us its plans for its next middleweight model, the Aprilia Tuareg 660.
Every year at EICMA, we can look forward to some intriguing concepts from Honda’s design team in Europe.
Now in its fifth year of showcasing work, there are two things that we can say about Honda’s Rome R&D work: the concepts will likely be dead sexy, and they will likely be based off the venerable Honda CBR650 platform.
Today is no different, as we can see from the striking lines of this light blue crossover, which is complete with the iconic sweeping four-pipe CB header.
There is this misnomer in motorcycle design that because a machine is powered by electricity, it has to provoke some sort of design aesthetic from the far future – like there is some notion that this next-generation powertrain can only exist if it looks like it fell out of some sort of science-fiction novel.
I suppose, that trap is easy enough to fall into when you consider the great hope that is being placed into electric motorcycles for our industry’s future, but it surprises me that so few electric motorcycle designs are capable of transcending the tastes of several generations of motorcyclists at once.
A rare machine that did this well was the Mission R from the now defunct Mission Motors, and Tim Prentice from Motonium Design crafted the Mission R to look like a real motorcycle, not a science-fiction protagonist, but yet we only have to look at the Mission One prototype to see how even skilled designers can misjudge the conservative nature of motorcyclists.
Today, I offer you another design that can be mentioned alongside the Mission R as “electric done right” as Walt Siegl has once again added a chapter to his ongoing book, entitled “two-wheeled perfection.”
A collaboration with Mike Mayberry, the man behind the stunning Ronin 47 project that used leftover Buell 1125R motorcycles, this drool-worthy performance is simply called PACT.