Those boys in Southern California are at it again, as Roland Sands Design has taken on building a customer’s Ducati Desmosedici RR into a custom street tracker. According to RSD the lucky owner is Justyn Amstutz, and this zero miles Desmosedici RR is one of three in his stable. With 989cc 200+ hp V4 motor that revs to 16,000 rpm, RSD hopes to take Ducati’s beast of a street bike, and turn it into something that requires a steel boot to ride.
If you are a Ducati owner, Valentino Rossi Fan, Italian, or have more than a passing interest in MotoGP, then today is the day you’ve had marked on your 2011 calendar (with perhaps the Valencia test being the date of 2010). Finally released from his contractual obligations with Yamaha, Valentino Rossi can officially begin his duties working for Ducati Corse this week, and Ducati has already capitalized on the moment by showing off Rossi’s new leathers to great fanfare. Now the pièce de résistance and the end to our torment, Ducati has finally debuted the Ducati Desmosedici GP11 at the 2011 Wrooom media event, a joint launch event between Ferrari and Ducati held in the Dolomite Mountains.
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Somewhere in a locked room, a select number of photographers are snapping photos of the Ducati Desmosedici GP11, the V4 MotoGP racing machine that Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden will ride in the upcoming GP season. Leaked ahead of its unveiling, this photo has made it onto the interwebs showing a glimpse of the GP11 with some frustrating cropping (aww…nuts!). We’ll have to wait a few more hours before we can unveil the new D16 race bike, so this photo will have to suffice until then, but is that a black and yellow tail we see? Interesting, very interesting.
Source: Valentino Rossi (Personal Website) via MotoBlog.it
UPDATE: Well looks like the party is over, as Dorna has sent us a cease and desist.
What was it like watching Valentino Rossi swing his leg over the Ducati Desmosedici for the very first time behind closed garage doors? Well thanks to someone in the Ducati pit box who had either a small camcorder or smartphone with video enabled, we can finally see what that experience was like, and what sort of atmosphere surrounded the moment.
Taking a total of six videos of the historic occasion, we can experience the first reactions of Rossi and crew as he gets ready to complete Italy’s motorcycling wet dream. Videos after the jump, and be sure to check out the first official images of Rossi riding the GP11 at Valencia, and the behind the scenes photos from Rossi’s favorite photographer Gigi Soldano.
While Dani Pedrosa has been spared the surgeon’s knife for his broken collarbone, Valentino Rossi underwent his surgery this weekend for his injured shoulder, which will see the new Ducati rider out of action for 90 days. Rossi’s shoulder, which was a bigger factor in the 2010 season than the rider’s broken leg that saw him miss four races, was injured in April during a motocross cross-training accident, and plagued the Italian throughout the latter half of the 2010 season.
Surgeons at the Cervesi di Cattolica hospital preformed an arthroscopic procedure on Rossi’s supraspinatus tendon and glenoid ligament, encountering no complications in the procedure. Recovery times for this type of surgery typically last 12 weeks, which should mean that Rossi will be fit enough to test early next year at MotoGP’s second testing session.
We’ll be the first to admit that we don’t fully understand why KTM made the X-Box, better known as the go-kart on steroids…but we sure do want one nonetheless. Along that same vein, we’re not sure why a company like Ducati, known for its two-wheeled pieces of art and performance, would want to try its hand in the four-wheeled realm, but if this is the result, we could probably get over that sentiment.
Finishing the end of a limited-production run of 1,500 motorcycles, only eight Ducati Desmosedici RR motorcycles remain in the United States as Pro Italia of Glendale, CA just took delivery of the last Desmo that will hit US shores from Bologna. The venerable GP replica that a common man can own made quite a stir when it was announced, and speculation has already begun about a successor for the RR. Will the next incarnation (if there is one) be an 800cc version? Or well Corsa Rosa wait for MotoGP’s switch back to 1000cc’s?
Oberdan Bezzi has inked another motorcycle sketch, and this time the Italian designer has a modern take on an old school favorite with an Italian twist. Re-imgaging the Martini Ducati design, Obiboi takes the Martini racing theme and has modernized it on a Ducati Desmosedici. True to his roots, Bezzi sees this as being the ideal pairing of brands for the 2011 MotoGP season, and of course only Valentino Rossi himself could be at the helm. The 2011 MotoGP silly season rumor fest is still a ways out; but make no mistake, Italians have some big hopes for next season…despite the fact we still have the entire 2010 season of MotoGP ahead of us first.
Paginas Amarillas Aspar Team, the MotoGP team headed by Jorge “Aspar” Martinez, has just released it’s livery for the 2010 season. Now we’ve seen Ducati’s in yellow racing trim before, and it was no big deal. But for some reason, this goldenrod Ducati Desmosedici just doesn’t look quite right, and unfortunately for Aspar’s rider Hector Barbera, we’re starting the short bus jokes as of right now. Leave your own in the comments section.
Nicolas Petit, a 25 year old Frenchman who lives just outside of Paris, is a motorcycle mechanic by day, and motorcycle sketcher by night. With already an impressive resume of motorcycle design sketches and renders to his name, we think Nicolas can add one more stunning example to the list: the Ducati Desmosedici RR Trike concept. We’re not huge fans of trikes here at A&R, but when you base your concept off one of the most powerful streetbikes ever created, it certainly catches our attention. Photos and more after the jump.
Ducati has officially launched its 2010 MotoGP race bike, the Desmosedici GP10, at its yearly press launch with Ferrari in the Italian Dolomite mountains. The Wrooom event launch comes just two weeks after Nicky Hayden accidently leaked photos of the GP10 from his camera phone, much to the chagrin of Ducati Corse. Click past the jump for more details on the GP10, launch photos and studio shots of the new Desmosedici, and also for Hayden and Stoner’s views on the new bike in a video.