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Could Golf Balls Be the Answer to Helmet Noise?

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Helmets are a rather stagnant segment of the motorcycle industry, with even the more “innovative” designs being evolutions to the basic principles of crash helmets, rather a revolutions.

Helmets like 6D and Bell’s Moto-9 Carbon Flex use two different variable techniques to lessen hard and soft impact types.

Companies like Skully and Reevu aim to add more visual features to helmets, while major brands like AGV, Arai, and Shoei are ever improving their designs for better customer fit, whether it be through additional helmet models, or rethinking how the helmet fits to the rider’s head.

All of these improvements are good for us motorcyclists, of course, yet they are all based on the same basic principles of a hard protective shell, lined with some sort of impact absorbing material.

In fact, the only truly revolutionary helmet design we have seen, comes from the bicycle sector, and involves advanced airbag technology. In 50 years, we’ll be wearing these helmets (or not wearing them, as the case may be). But until then, the basic design continues to evolve.

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Opinion/Editorial

A Requiem for Kenji Ekuan & The Kando of GK Design

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Industrial design is not a commonly known, much less well understood, profession. To some it suggests arranging equipment inside factories, to others it means some kind of product engineering. In reality it is the search for, and expression of, human satisfaction in inanimate objects that are mass produced.

That’s quite a mouthful, and to the average person it may sound like jiberish written for some pretentious coffee table book, but it is the truth. At least, it is one version of the truth as seen by the GK Design Group of Tokyo, Japan.

If you ride motorcycles, then you are intimately familiar with the work of this large and internationally respected studio. Since only its second production bike, the indigenously designed YA-1, every Yamaha motorcycle since 1958 has been crafted by GK.

At a time when made-in-Japan meant cheap and poorly manufactured imitation, Yamaha endeavoured to build motorcycles that could capture hearts as much as wallets by using a corporate philosophy they call Kando.

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News

Kenji Ekuan, Designer of the Yamaha VMAX Has Died

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Mainstream news is mourning the death of Kenji Ekuan today, as the 85-year-old Japanese industrial designer is one of the most influential artists in Japan’s modern era, and is most well-known for his designing of the iconic Kikkoman soy sauce bottle.

Ekuan’s lesser-known works though include a number of motorcycle designs for Yamaha, including the now 30-year-old Yamaha VMAX motorcycle, which makes his passing even more meaningful to motorcyclists around the world.

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Bikes

Ducati Scrambler Concept by Gannet Design

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The Ducati Scrambler is certainly the talk of the internet right now, no surprise there since Ducati just hosted its international press launch and the bike reviews are starting to roll out from various publications. You can read ours, right here.

All this press, aided by Ducati’s extensive marketing rollout ahead of the launch, has caused the Scrambler to catch the imaginations of many riders. This is of course to design, as Ducati would love to see the Scrambler become a favorite platform for modders and customizers.

The Ducati Scrambler also caught the eye of concept artist Gannet Design, whose work we have shown on a number of occasions.

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News

Pierre Terblanche Leaves Confederate for Royal Enfield

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It’s been 18 months since we reported Pierre Terblanche moving from Norton to Confederate Motorcycles, and now the South African is on the move again. Terblanche’s travels take him this time to India, where he has landed a position at Royal Enfield.

The Indian company is in the middle of a growth spurt, having recently acquired 50 acres of land to host their factory expansion. It’s not clear what sort of projects Terblanche will be working on while at Royal Enfield, but we can get an idea from the designer’s latest work, the Confederate X132 Hellcat Speedster.

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Bikes

More Renders of the Bottpower BOTT XC1 Café Racer

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Forget the Honda CB350 or the old BMW R-Series machines, this is a proper modern café racer. We have brought you the work of Bottpower before, and have even already shown you renders of the BOTT XC1, but the firm has made another twist on its Buell-powered café.

Adding a half-fairing to the front, and reworking the fuel tank and tail into a more modern shapes, this variant of the BOTT XC1 draws from both newer and older thoughts for inspiration. And if your tastes vary day-to-day, Version 3, as it’s being called, can still be easily turned into the BOTT XR1 street track machine, as most of the changes are only skin deep.

Since Bottpower makes bikes to each customer’s personal spec and taste, we imagine we could see all three variants, and more, roaming the streets…or even hitting the track. Looking good fellas!

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Bikes

Bimota BB4 Concepts by Oberdan Bezzi

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I had to check the last time we showed you some of Oberdan Bezzi’s work, and it was over three months ago. The Italian designer has certainly been busy since that time though, as he has produced a number of BMW/Bimota concepts for us to ponder about.

Imagining the Italian company’s current trend of using BMW power plants — as has been seen with the Bimota BB3 — Bezzi’s drawings instead use BMW Motorrad’s popular boxer engine as their base.

The effect is an interesting one, as the BMW’s boxer engine has proven to be the base of the German brands Top 3 selling bikes, and has found interesting applications in the BMW R nineT modular machine, and the BMW Roadster Concept motorcycle.

Here dubbed the “Bimota BB4”, these concepts come in a variety of sporty standard, cafe racer, and streetfighter varieties that Bezzi’s simply calls a “Café Fighter” concept.

It’s hard to pick our favorite from the bunch, but we are enthusiastic about the idea of a boxer-powered Bimota. We doubt we’ll see such a move from the now Swiss-owned brand, but like a good concept sketch, it’s good to dream.

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Banter

Video: The Genesis of the KTM 1290 Super Duke R

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The Austrians refer to the KTM 1290 Super Duke R as “The Beast” whenever possible, and as our trained crash test dummy Iwan found out first hand, the name is appropriate for the 180hp streetfighter. The first motorcycle from KTM with traction control, the new Super Duke R is mighty, but pliable…and for good reason: KTM designed it that way.

It may not have as robust of an electronics package as the Aprilia Tuono V4 R APRC ABS, but the 1290 Super Duke R has unsettled the Italian bike as the sport-naked to have in your garage…that is, if you can afford it.

How did The Beast come to be from its RC8 R roots though? Never fret, KTM has put together a short video, which tells the genesis story of this monster machine.

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Products

Inoveli – A New Way to Throttle?

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There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with the twist-grip throttle design found on motorcycles, after all millions of motorcyclists each year manage to use this simple design with great efficacy.

This, however, does not mean that the current iteration of throttle design is perfect for its application; after all each time you twist the throttle, you are compromising the angle of your wrist in relation to the handlebar. Maybe it is time for another way?

That is the thought process behind the Inoveli throttle concept. Using a rider’s thumb, instead of their wrist, the Inoveli throttle allows one to keep a constant grip on the handlebar throughout the entire throttle range of motion, which translates into less rider fatigue and more rider safety.

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Bikes

Up-Close with the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce 800

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MV Agusta’s big announcement at the 2013 EICMA show was of course its new sport-tourer, the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce 800. Based around the Italian brand’s 800cc three-cylinder engine, the Turismo Veloce is a big step for MV Agusta, though one taken cautiously both in terms of progress and design.

Borrowing heavily from the firm’s F3 and F4 sport bikes, the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce feels like its stuck in the Varese company’s past, though in many ways it is MV Agusta’s future.

We are sure that the sport-tourer is just the first of many line-extensions for MV Agusta that will borrow from the same common elements found in all the current MV Agusta motorcycles, but the real highlight of the Turismo Veloce 800 is that it debuts a number of new technologies for MV Agusta, which have all been packaged into the MVICS 2.0 system.

Despite the impressive advancements made with the MVICS 2.0 system, as with all MV Agusta motorcycles, the real connection with the machine is a visual one, and the MV Agusta Turismo Veloce 800 certainly makes an impression.

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