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After Feedback, The MV Agusta Superveloce 800 Gets a Color Change

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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.

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Bikes

Is This the Future of the Ducati Scrambler Design?

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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.

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News

Kawasaki’s Electric Motorcycle Is Named “Endeavor” But It’s Not Ready for Production

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You have to hand it to Team Green, because out of the four Japanese motorcycle brands, it seems only Kawasaki is truly willing to innovate and take risks in the motorcycle industry.

Abandoning the rat race of MotoGP, Kawasaki has won six out of ten WorldSBK Championships in the past decade. They have released a lineup of supercharged sport bikes, with the Kawasaki Ninja H2 R making over 300hp.

Kawasaki has dominated the small-displacement category with its Ninja 250, Ninja 300, and now Ninja 400 offerings, and the company is about to shock the system again, with the 250cc four-cylinder Ninja ZX-25R.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us that Kawasaki is also the first Japanese OEM to show-off a full-sized electric motorcycle project (that’s assuming you believe Honda’s party line that it had no hand in the Mugen electric superbike at the Isle of Man TT).

We got our first glimpse of Kawasaki’s electric sport bike at EICMA last year, with the machine wrapped in Ninja 650 bodywork.

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News

Jochen Zeitz Appointed President and CEO of Harley-Davidson

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Big moves continue at the Bar & Shield brand, as Jochen Zeitz has been named as the permanent replacement to Matt Levatich, dropping the “interim” part of his title as President and CEO of Harley-Davidson, effective immediately.

The move isn’t too much of a surprise for Harley-Davidson, as Zeitz was always a front-runner for the positions, after he took the temporary assignments over two months ago.

Coming closely after the news that Harley-Davidson would drop the “More Roads” business plan for a new corporate strategy, dubbed “The Rewire”, the American motorcycle maker is returning to a position that more closely follows where it was before Levatich took the helm.

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Rumors

This Week’s Honda CBR600RR-R Rumor – The October Edition

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Another week, and another Honda CBR600RR-R rumor. Well…to be fair, this is only our second rumor concerning the Japanese supersport machine, but if things continue forward, we can expect a lot more coming from the rumor mill on this one. 

This week’s edition sees us still talking Honda working on a CBR600RR-R model, and that it will be ready in time for the 2021 model year (one assumes that the coronavirus has not disrupted this timetable).

But, things have been taken one step further, with an unveiling date being discussed in the far corners of the internet. Namely, the Honda CBR600RR-R is set for an October debut.

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News

Harley-Davidson Drops “More Roads” for “Rewire” Business Plan

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It didn’t last long. Exactly two months after the firing of Matt Levatich as Harley-Davidson’s CEO, the Bar & Shield brand has announced that it is stepping away from the company’s “More Roads Lead to Harley-Davidson” business strategy, for a new plan that is being called “The Rewire”.

As you would expect, the new plan is framed partially by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is gripping the world, but Harley-Davidson sees things further down the path as well, saying that the “The Rewire” will be a five-year strategy for the motorcycle maker.

This move comes after a considerable internal battle for control of the Harley-Davidson board of directors, which saw a proxy fight breaking out with Impala Asset Management – one of Harley-Davidson’s largest shareholders.

The fight ended in a truce, with Impala and Harley-Davidson agreeing to add another board seat, of their mutual choosing. Presumably, a part of that peace offering is the new Rewire plan that we now see. 

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Bikes

The Bimota KB4 Begins to Take Shape with More Classic Lines

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The Bimota story is about to get another chapter added to its pages, this time in the form of the the Bimota KB4 motorcycle.

It seems like a lifetime ago since we first heard about the KB4, though the bike was only briefly talked about at the EICMA show in Milan, just a handful of months ago.

An eventful week for the Italian brand, the headline for EICMA was Kawasaki’s purchasing of 49.9% of Bimota’s stock, and the unveiling of the Bimota Tesi H2.

While the Tesi H2 was on display for all to see, and was very provocative with its hub-center steering layout and supercharged inline-four engine, there was also a very quiet murmur about a second bike that would come from the business acquisition, the Bimota KB4.

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A&R Pro

More Photos (And Thoughts) on the Aprilia RS250 SP

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When I was putting together the story on the pricing for the Aprilia RS 250 SP race bike, I thought I had shared already some photos of the bike from EICMA, but that wasn’t the case.

I am not sure if that oversight comes from the madness of dozens of bikes being released at the same time; a complete lack of sleep for a week coupled to a nine-hour time change; or if simply the paltry number of photos I had taken was the cause of the gallery not going up; but it doesn’t matter. Here we are.

I do want to share these meager photos though (still in hi-def, of course), not so much because of how impressive the Aprilia RS 250 SP is as a race bike (especially now that we know it’s priced at €9,700), but because of the idea behind the machine. Here are some quick thoughts.

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Recall

Get Ready for Another Big Brembo Brake Worldwide Recall

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Our Bothan spy sources are telling us the the Ducati 1299 Superleggera recall from yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg of what is coming from Brembo, as the Italian brake supplier’s affected brake pads are in multiple makes and models throughout the USA and worldwide (editor’s note: we see Triumph now making the same recall today as Ducati).

For those keeping track, this is the second time that Brembo has seen a large recall for its brake pads because the friction material might become separated from the backing plate. And like the Brembo recall for its master cylinder piston failure, this is something that is going to affect a number of motorcycle brands, as Brembo is a large OEM supplier.

Our sources are telling us that thousands of bikes in the United States will be affected by this recall, though thankfully the fix for the brake pad failure is pretty easy – one only has to change out the brake pads for new ones.

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Bikes

Up-Close and Personal with the Ducati Streetfighter V4 S

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If you haven’t read my thoughts on riding the Ducati Streetfighter V4 S already, I suggest you do so before going further. Don’t worry it is a “short” review – only a couple thousand words or so.

For the TL;DR crowd, the Ducati Streetfighter V4 S is an amazing machine. It has all the low-speed manners that its 1098 predecessor lacked, but does so without sacrificing the astounding speed and horsepower found from its Panigale V4 lineage.

“Refinement” is the word that I keep coming back to when I talk about the Streetfighter V4 S, which is both a nod to the differences found from the Streetfighter 1098, but also an acknowledgement of the bar that Ducati is setting with its motorcycle lineup.

At $24,000 a pop – roughly $5,000 more than its closest competition – the Ducati better bring something extra to the table, and frankly buyers expect a more polished machine when they are paying that kind of pricing premium.

Is the Ducati that much better than the Aprilia or KTM? The journalist in me says the jury is still out, primarily because of the testing restrictions we have to deal with concerning the coronavirus outbreak.

But, I can speak about its refinement, which is what I want to do today.

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News

Harley-Davidson Sales Down 17.7% Worldwide in Q1 2020

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Everyone knew that the coronavirus outbreak was going to be hard on sales for the motorcycle industry, but no one was certain on how big of an impact the global lockdown would be…until now.

The first shoe to drop, Harley-Davidson has released its first quarter report for 2020, and the numbers are not good.

The report shows that Harley-Davidson motorcycle unit sales in the USA are down 15.5% (22,732 units sold) compared to this time last year, with international sales taking an even bigger hit, to the tune of a 20.7% drop (16,707 units sold).

This means a total unit sales decline of 17.7% for Harley-Davidson worldwide, with 40,439 units sold around the world in the first three months of 2020, down from the 49,151 units sold last year during the same time period.

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