Tag

social media

Browsing

Ex-racers make great analysts for motorcycle racing. This is because they have a keen understanding of how racing a motorcycle works, and thus offer an unparalleled insight into the sport.

This is why so often we see ex-racers as the pitlane reporters in MotoGP, WorldSBK, and MotoAmerica. Moreover, the position is an excellent career path for someone whose days of standing on the podium are over.

How does this work in the 21st century though? Roughly the same, but with social media and YouTube giving rival to the small screen, some great racers are seeing new opportunities.

Take for example, Jorge Lorenzo, who has just started his own YouTube channel, where the five-time world champion is offering his thoughts and analysis for free to his followers.

That Harley-Davidson has an age problem is no secret in the motorcycle community. The Bar & Shield brand is suffering heavily from the decline of baby boomers in the two-wheeled lifestyle, and now it must reinvent itself for a new generation of rider.

In that effort, no stone has been left unturned. Harley-Davidson was the first major motorcycle manufacturer to create a full-sized electric motorcycle, and it is about to debut its first true adventure bike (don’t believe the marketing hype to contrary).

Harley-Davidson has even made an effort to engage with millennials and younger generations in meaningful ways, which has meant deviating from more traditional market-outreach efforts.

Today’s news pounds that point home further, as the Bar & Shield brand has launched a presence on the OnlyFans social media platform.

It is a rarity in marketing to see a brand target a competitor as explicitly as Harley-Davidson just did with Indian and this “unofficial” ad on social media.

The guerrilla social media marketing campaign isn’t officially sanctioned by the Bar & Shield brand, so we are told, but it is hard not to see this as the American motorcycle company’s faithful throwing some shade at its biggest contender.

UPDATE: The Ducati Superleggera V4 has officially debuted.

While there are still roughly 18hrs left (at the time of this writing) until the Ducati Superleggera V4 officially debuts, photos of this $100,000 superbike are already leaking onto social media.

The treasure trove of images are likely coming from would-be buyers who have already seen the bike in person and have had access to its special website, where videos and information have been trickling out.

The fact that this is occurring should surprise no one, but of course these early images already have our mouths watering for the real thing.

Is there anything better than a viral media craze? Remember when people were pouring ice buckets on their heads for ALS? Or how about the second wind that the FaceApp has right now on social media?

Well, the latest one is called the bottle cap challenge, and it is as dumb as all the rest – though, you should donate money to ALS research.

Basically, you find a creative way to spin the cap off a bottle of soda, and put the video on YouTube/Facebook/Instagram/Grindr for all to see. Easy, right?

It is the end of an era, as we get word from Dealer News that Motorcyclist Magazine will cease its print production after its July/August edition.

Going forward, the fabled print publication will shift to a purely digital medium, focusing on its website, social media channels, and video productions.

This move comes just two and a half years after Motorcyclist switched to a six-issue per year format, as the brand tried to re-gear itself as more of a lifestyle offering for two-wheeled enthusiasts.

The message from MV Agsuta was short and sweet on social media, “We feed your desire. The MV Agusta Superveloce. Coming 2020.” Three terse sentences, and with that we have confirmation that the MV Agusta Superveloce 800 will be a 2020 model year bike for the Italian brand.

It makes sense, though, as the Superveloce got a huge response on its debut last year at EICMA – almost eclipsing the company’s new production model, the MV Agusta Brutale 1000 Serie Oro, which we have heard very little about since the Italian trade show, and still doesn’t show up on the brand’s website.

Back to the Superveloce 800 though, the machine is a neo-retro take on the MV Agusta F3 800 sport bike, which it shares a platform with. This makes the MV Agusta Superveloce 800 mostly a styling exercise…but it is quite the design, if we do say so.

For a while now, we have been getting requests for our family of podcasts to be on Spotify, and today your requests have been answered.

That is right, you can now listen to the Brap Talk, Paddock Pass, and Motorcycles on the Record (MOTR) podcasts on Spotify (those links should open your player), and any smart speaker device that can use the audio service. Booyah!

If you do listen to these shows, and you have Spotify, be sure you click the “Follow” button on their profiles, so you get notified when a new show is uploaded.

Triumph has several new motorcycles to debut at the EICMA show in Milan, but ahead of that debut, a Triumph dealer has spoiled the fun, posting photos of the 2019 Triumph Speed Twin to social media.

Spotted first by our friends at NieuwsMotor.nl, the photos come from Triumph’s yearly dealer conference, where the new machines were first shown to the public. Since then, the Triumph Scrambler 1200 has formally debuted, and now we see the Speed Twin that will go alongside it.

The Triumph Speed Twin picks up where the Triumph Street Twin left off, and supposedly shares its 1,200cc parallel-twin engine with the Triumph Thruxton platform. This means a 97hp peak power figure, with 83 lbs•ft of torque.

We have only a month longer to wait until BMW Motorrad debuts its all-new superbike, and the German brand has now begun teasing the new liter-bike on its social media channels.

Showing only a race track, with sounds of an accelerating motorcycle off-screen (and then a quick flash going by), zie Germans are not giving too much away yet, and we are left to our own sources to figure out what is in store for the 2019 BMW S1000RR.

The big news is the arrival of a counter-rotating crankshaft, which should help keep down the front wheel, and improve side-to-side transitions. This means that BMW Motorrad will join Ducati in producing a current superbike engine that uses this race-derived engine setup.

We also expect BMW to bring out several versions/trim levels to the new S1000RR, so as to better take advantage of the changing rules in the World Superbike Championship. This should mean a higher-spec race homologation bike, which could include aerodynamic aids.

Episode 83 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Steve EnglishNeil Morrison & David Emmett on the mics, as they discuss the recent San Marino GP at Misano.

Before we can get to a dissection of the weekend’s racing, the first part of the show covers the Romano Fenati situation, and gets the perspective of these three MotoGP pundits regarding the Moto2 incident.

After a lengthy conversation about Fenati, the show turns to the Ducati MotoGP program, and talks about how the Italian motorcycle is widely held as the best on the grid. Despite having to take on the Ducatis though, Marc Marquez has still been able to fend off Dovizioso and Lorenzo in the Championship results.