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Marc Marquez Will Miss Phillip Island Test, Return at Qatar

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Marc Marquez will not ride at the Phillip Island test, scheduled for next week, and will only return to riding at the first race of the season at Qatar.

After meeting with Dr. Xavier Mir in Barcelona today, Marquez was told it would be better to rest and recuperate as fully as possible before attempting to ride a MotoGP bike again.

The decision to wait until the race at Qatar also settles a potential argument over testing at Phillip Island and Qatar.

HRC had been contemplating sending Marquez to test with the satellite and Open class riders at Qatar, rather than the factory riders at Phillip Island, where they are testing tires for Bridgestone. Honda asked Race Direction for permission to allow Marquez to test at Qatar, but Yamaha and Ducati lodged an objection.

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Bikes

ADVers, Your 250cc Prayers Have Been Answered

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Five years at this game now, and I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what the reaction to an article will be before it’s published.

With big-displacement ADV bikes, there are invariably those who arrive, deploring the unnecessary weight and size of the machine in question, and who adamantly believe that 450cc is all you will ever need off-road (let’s side-step the whole “two-strokes vs. four-stroke” debate on this one).

This group always seems to miss the point though: that one would not want to travel hundreds (if not the thousands of miles we did on our Broventure) on the wooden saddle of a dirt bike — I already cringe at the thought of the handlebar buzz as well.

As cumbersome as a big ADV bike is off-road compared to its dual-sport brethren, they get the job done well enough, without sacrificing too much on the macadam while loaded to the gills. This is what we call compromise

That doesn’t change the fact that these detractors are somewhat right though, it’s high time that motorcycle manufacturers built smaller, lighter, and more comfortable ADV bikes of the sub-800cc variety. Well, one finally has: China’s Zongshen has just debuted its 250cc Zongshen RX3 adventure machine, for your touring pleasure.

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MotoGP

Nicky Hayden’s Drive M7 Aspar Team MotoGP Livery

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The 2014 season marks a new chapter for American Nicky Hayden, as he switches back to Honda machinery for the upcoming MotoGP Championship. After toiling away at Ducati for the past five seasons, the former World Champion will ride with Team Aspar on HRC’s Open Class race bike, the Honda RCV1000R.

The moves means a switch from red to green livery, though considering the paint scheme chosen by the Drive M7 Aspar Team, we doubt you will have a hard time spotting Nicky on the starting grid. Just in case, we have a few high-resolution photos of Nicky Hayden, and his teammate Hiroshi Aoyama, after the jump.

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Recall

24,000 Yamaha YZF-R1 & Super Ténéré Bikes Recalled

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Yamaha USA has announced that they will be recalling a combined 24,000 units of the 2012-2013 Yamaha Super Ténéré and 2009-2013 Yamaha YZF-R1 models, due to heat expansion in the headlight.

The heat expansion could cause potential failure of the headlight, which would reduce visibility of the motorcycle to oncoming traffic and increasing the risk of a crash.

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MotoGP

Movistar Confirms Sponsorship of Yamaha MotoGP Team

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Movistar is to sponsor Yamaha’s MotoGP effort. At the presentation of Movistar’s broadcast plans for the Grand Prix series in Spain last week, Luis Belo, Content Director for the Spanish telecommunications giant’s digital TV channel Movistar TV, let slip that the company would also be backing the Yamaha Factory team in MotoGP, Spanish magazine Solomoto is reporting.

The announcement confirms rumors of a deal between Movistar and Yamaha, which have been doing the rounds since December. Yamaha have yet to officially confirm the deal, but that is only a matter of time.

The deal mirrors the situation in Italy, where new pay-per-view broadcaster Sky is backing the Moto3 team run in conjunction with Valentino Rossi’s VR46 merchandising brand, fielding Romano Fenati and Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia.

To help promote the pay-per-view channels which MotoGP is being broadcast on in Spain and Italy, Movistar and Sky are backing major teams in the championship.

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Reviews

Ride Review: Ducati Monster 1200 S

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Over the last 20 years Ducati sold more than 275,000 Monsters, and now the Italians introduce an all-new 1,200cc version, which will make it not only the most powerful but also the heaviest Monster of the past couple of decades.

The 461 lbs (wet with a 90% tank of gas) beast will replace the aging Streetfighter 1098, and Ducati hopes it will sell a whole lot better. Mind you, there is currently a fierce competition in the Super-Naked segment so time will tell if they succeed.

We rode the Monster 1200 S model on the press introduction in Tenerife, so it’s worth noting that this bike has $2,500 worth of upgrades over the base model, such as Öhlins suspension, Brembo monoblocs, and lighter aluminum alloy wheels. It also does away with the 10hp restriction of the non-S version, bringing the total output to 145hp.

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Bikes

Photos: Aprilia’s World Superbike “Silver Fireball” Livery

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If you watched this weekend’s World Superbike racing at Phillip Island, you may have noticed that Aprilia Racing is sporting some new paint on the bikes for Sylvain Guintoli and Marco Melandri.

The Italian factory calls the metallic paint job “Silver Fireball” and while some may long for the classic red and black livery scheme, we have to say, we are smitten with the modern look.

While the Aprilia RSV4 Factory SBK is getting a bit long in the tooth, the potent WSBK race bike is still a formidable weapon, especially in the hands of these two talented riders.

We won’t spoil the races at Phillip Island for you (Race 1 here, & Race 2 here), but even with the new rules in place for WSBK this year, Aprilia Racing has coaxed a few more ponies out of the 999cc V4 engine, without compromising reliability.

2014 is shaping up to be a good season in World Superbike, and we can expect to see Aprilia updating its road bike platform in the next year or two.

Until then though, enjoy the high-resolution photos of the 2014 Aprilia RSV4 Factory WSBK race bike.

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Bikes

Lotus C-01 200hp Hyperbike Officially Debuts

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When it comes to writing a Lotus story, it seems that most automotive and motorcycle journalists can’t go two sentences without invoking the name of Charlie Chaplin and his famous words: “In the end, everything is a gag.”

The 200-hp and 400-lb Lotus C-01 is proof that even motorcycle designers can have a sense of humor. Daniel Simon, the designer behind Tron: Legacy light-cycle, penned the C-01’s gorgeous form.

The forward-bias and stretched wheelbase couple with the carbon-fiber tank cuts a futuristic profile that looks entirely uncomfortable, but totally worth the lower-back, groin. and neck pain.

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WSBK

WSBK Homologation Requirement Numbers Halved

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The continuing worldwide decline in sports bike sales has forced the Superbike Commission to reduce the minimum number of motorcycles to be produced for homologation, to be allowed to take part in the World Superbike series.

As of now, manufacturers wishing to race a particular motorcycle must have sold 250 bikes by the end of their first year of racing in WSBK, and 1,000 bikes by the end of the second year, half the requirements previously on the books. But manufacturers will still have to have produced 125 bikes before they can even embark on the homologation procedure.

The sales numbers have been reduced in response to the continuing decline in sales of large and middleweight sports bikes around the world, under pressure from increasing speed restrictions and monitoring on public roads. Even Honda is reportedly having problems selling the required numbers of the CBR1000RR SP, despite the popularity of the bike.

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Columns

motoDNA: Bimota Tesi 3D E Track Test

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The Emilia Romagna region of Italy is a melting pot for the Italian motorcycle industry. Positioned in the middle of this province, also known as the “terra dei motori” or the land of engines, sits the motorcycle company known as Bimota.

In September 1972 the now famous designer Massimo Tamburini crashed his Honda 750 Four at Misano racetrack — the stack left him with three broken ribs. While recovering from his unfortunate incident, he constructed a tubular steel frame to handle the horsepower then being produced by the Japanese bikes.

The frame he constructed lowered the centre of gravity and reduced the weight of the original Honda. Called the HB1, the first Bimota was born. Bimota’s name is derived from its founders’ initials: Bianchi, Morri and Tamburini.

Bimota has a rich racing heritage and has carried such great names as Virginio Ferrari, Davide Tardozzi, and Randy Mamola. Also who could forget Anthony ‘Go Show’ Goberts awesome WSBK victory at a wet Philip island in 2000 aboard the Bimota SB8R!

Born from a young university graduate’s mind, it was Engineer Pierluigi Marconi’s university thesis (Tesi in Italian) that directly led to the Bimota Tesi 1D hub-center steered motorcycle in 1990, the 1, 2 and 3D standing for the various Ducati engines used in the models.

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Bikes

KTM 450 Rally Production Racer Now Available

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KTM has won the last 13 runnings of The Dakar, and to get that thirteenth win for 2014, the Austrians went back to the drawing board, designing and building an all-new 450cc rally racer.

With the previous KTM 450 Rally being essentially the 690cc machine, with a 450cc motor wedged into it, the 2014 KTM 450 Rally race bike was able to make great strides over its venerable, though compromised, predecessor.

The proof in the pudding was Marc Coma claiming his fourth Dakar win, and soldifying KTM’s position against an increasingly more competitive field, which sees both Honda and Yamaha elevating their game.

With the factory team signing off on the design, the Austrians are is now making the KTM 450 Rally available to privateers, with the KTM 450 Rally Production Racer now available for purchase.

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