Italian electric motorcycle company Energica is reporting that its Ego sport bike is now ready to be legally sold in the United States, since it has now passed NHTSA accreditation and EPA certification.
This means that the US market now has a new player in the two-wheeled EV world — one that we can confidently say has some well-executed technologies and a powerful on-road presence (read our full review here).
In an interview with Cycle World’s Bruno de Prato, Yan Haimei, the CEO OF Benelli, announced that the historic Italian brand will be returning to American soil.
Haimei says that Benelli will make its US return by the end of 2015, though she was not clear on what models the Chinese-owned brand would make available.
“Returning to a market as competitive and selective as the American one will require that we further refine and increase our efforts, adding more personalized models and looking back to our history,” explained Haimei to Cycle World.
I might be in France right now, but everyone is talking about Austin, Texas. They’re talking about that lap, you know the one I’m talking about…
In case you’re drawing a blank, it’s the one where Marc Marquez’s Honda RC213V throws a warning light and gets abandoned on the front straight as Marquez jumps the pit lane wall, runs back to his #2 bike, and put on a two-lap show for fans.
He was on the wrong bike, with the wrong setup, and the wrong tires. It was not his best lap ever, but it might be his most memorable though.
It shows that you never say die. It shows that the truly great riders overcome the adversity in front of them. It shows that luck is when opportunity meets preparation. As much as Marquez down-played his qualifying result in Austin, it showed the Spaniard’s true grit. I ask the question: are you not entertained?
The above photo is 2000 pixels wide, if you click on it. Feel free to use it as your computer desktop background.
Triumph Motorcycles America is reporting a record setting first quarter, which also included that highest single-day of retails sales ever (March 31st).
Because of this, triumph says that in the 500cc+ on-road & dual-sport categoies the British marque is the top-selling European brand in North America.
Although triumph isn’t talking concrete figures, the company does say that sales for Q1 2015 were up 16% over last year’s numbers.
The brand does say that this most recent quarter’s sales success marks the 13th such quarter, out of the past four years (16 quarters), which year-over-year growth.
Keep Austin Weird is the slogan of the Austin Independent Business Alliance, meant to promote small businesses in the Texan city. The Circuit of the Americas certainly did its bit this weekend.
We had a delay due to marshals and medical support staff not being at their posts. We had a red flag due to a stray dog on the track. We had delays due to fog, we had one day of rain, followed by two days of peering at the skies wondering when the massive rainstorms which had been forecast would arrive. They never did.
We had Keanu Reeves, star of both The Matrix and Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in the paddock, as well Carol Vorderman, British TV’s brainiest beauty, at least for gentlemen of a certain age. You wouldn’t imagine it could get much weirder.
Two races into the start of the 2015 season and The Doctor leads the championship after a win and a third.
25 MotoGP bikes safely make their way through one of the tightest first turns on the MotoGP calendar.
A great day for British fans as they watched Sam Lowes back up Danny Kent’s win in Moto3 with a win of his own. It was also Sam’s first grand prix victory. I have a feeling he’ll have a few more before the season is finished.
Scott Redding was quick in this mornings wet session but couldn’t back that up in FP2.
Valentino Rossi starts another wet lap during FP1.
How low can you go? Around 64º by all accounts.
Did you miss your chance to reserve a Kawasaki Ninja H2 late last year? Don’t worry, Kawasaki is giving riders a second-chance at ordering the supercharged street bike.
According to the Kawasaki, the first-run of the H2 sold out, but since the H2 has since made the rounds on the motorcycle shows, and the press (not us) has had a go at them, there has been more interest coming out of the woodwork for the 200hp machine.
Dani Pedrosa’s announcement after the Qatar Grand Prix that he would be withdrawing from racing to seek urgent treatment for arm pump immediately triggered an explosion of speculation over who might replace the Spaniard during his absence.
Fans and pundits offered a barrage of possible names to take Pedrosa’s place: Casey Stoner, Cal Crutchlow, Michael van der Mark, Jack Miller, Nicky Hayden.
Coming as it did just before April Fool’s day, it even triggered a spate of hoax stories: Casey Stoner, Mick Doohan, Alex Marquez, and Fabio Quartararo were all offered in jest.
Hiroshi Aoyama was always going to be the man to replace Pedrosa, however. For a range of reasons, Aoyama is the only reasonable candidate to take the place of Pedrosa in the short term, all the other names being bandied about subject to sponsor conflicts, race conflicts, contractual obligations or just plain unwillingness.
Here’s a rundown of why Aoayama got the call, and the others didn’t.