The American International Motorcycle Expo (AIMExpo) was held in Orlando, Florida from October 15th to 18th. It was billed as “the show that changed the powersports industry”; the event included over 560 exhibitors from across the motorcycle world.
Additionally, AIMExpo hosted an outdoor demo area that offered rides on bikes and ATVs from 11 different manufacturers. The question is, with all that it had to offer, did AIMExpo live up to expectations?
Yamaha says it will have a new leaning multi-wheeler (LMW) concept at the Tokyo Motor Show, which is funny because Honda will have a leaning three-wheeler as well at the Japanese trade show as well.
Kawasaki has already shown us the Concept J three-wheeler, back in 2013, and the Yamaha Tesseract has been making the rounds on the internet since 2007.
Add into the mix the popularity of the on-road snowmobile that is the Can-Am Spyder, and the surprising surge of sales with the Polaris Slingshot, and clearly OEMs are considering making unique play toys for public streets.
Like the Spyder or Slingshot, they might not be motorcycles, but these leaning multi-wheelers tap into the same fun-factor that comes with riding a motorcycle.
There has been some talk about how the Yamaha FZ-07 platform is well-suited for flat track racing. The parallel-twin engine produces tractable power, and the FZ-07 (that’s MT-07, to our European readers) is an affordable starting point for would-be racers.
Yamaha Motor USA has heard that chatter, and run with the idea, producing what it calls the Yamaha DT-07 Concept to tackle the American dirt track scene.
The concept is the work of Jeff Palhegyi Design, in conjunction with Yamaha’s US race shop. As you would expect, the Yamaha DT-07 features a race-tuned engine, 19″ wheels, no front brakes, and a custom exhaust system that was created by Graves Motorsports.
The DT-07 features a special race-tuned FZ-07 twin-cylinder engine with an exhaust system created by Graves Motorsports. Debuting at this year’s AIMExpo, the Yamaha DT-07 has Yamaha’s special yellow and black “speedblock” livery design, to commemorate the company’s 60th anniversary.
Has Valentino Rossi finally mastered qualifying? The Italian has struggled since the format changed, from the extended hour of qualifying which started out as free practice and ended up as an all-out time attack, to the frenetic fifteen-minute dash for pole.
His biggest problem, he always explained, was getting up to speed from the start: leaving pit lane and going flat out from the very first meters. He had spent a lifetime slowly sidling up to a blistering lap, rather than getting the hammer down as soon as the lights changed.
The switch from an analog to a binary format had been hard to swallow. Millions of older fans sympathized, as they faced the same struggle in their own lives.
Lorenzo, on the other hand, has thrived in the new format, having learned the skill while doing battle with Casey Stoner. The Australian’s greatest legacy was his ability to go as fast as possible the moment he left the pit lane.
I was once told by Cristian Gabarrini, Stoner’s crew chief, that when they looked at his sector times, they would see that he had set his fastest sector times on his out lap. To beat Stoner, Lorenzo had to learn to emulate him.
It’s only Friday, but already, one championship has been decided. Tito Rabat’s mission to outscore Johann Zarco was tough enough before he crashed at Almeria and broke his wrist, but trying to handle the immense braking stresses of the Japanese circuit with a freshly plated radius proved too much to ask.
Rabat’s attempt was brave, but ultimately doomed to failure. After riding in FP1, Rabat realized that it wasn’t so much the pain, but rather a lack of strength in the arm needed to control the bike safely. Forced to withdraw, Rabat’s title defense came to an end, and Johann Zarco became the 2015 Moto2 World Champion.
It was a rather bewildered Zarco who faced the press later on Friday. His mind was still focused on Sunday’s race, rather than on becoming champion. He could barely comprehend that he had already won the title.
Mentally, he had prepared to celebrate on Sunday, after the race, so the title had come unexpectedly early. It did not put him off his stride, however. Zarco was twelve thousandths slower than Tom Luthi in FP1, and nineteen thousandths faster than Alex Rins in FP2. He remains the man to beat in Moto2, exactly as he has been all year.
Motegi was the stage for a parade of the walking wounded on Thursday. The first question to half of the riders in the press conference was, “How’s the injury?”
The answers mattered quite a lot, given that Jorge Lorenzo is engaged in a battle to the wire with Valentino Rossi for the 2015 MotoGP crown, Marc Márquez has proved to be capable of being the joker in the podium pack, and Andrea Iannone is the dark horse always looking to disrupt proceedings at the front.
If any of those three are severely hampered by their injuries, it could have a major impact on the outcome of the championship.
There is, of course, one minor problem with asking riders how their injuries are, and how much trouble they are causing: you never know just how close to the truth the answer they gave you actually is.
This is not necessarily because they are trying to deceive you, but as Valentino Rossi himself pointed out, often, a rider does not know just how much trouble an injury will cause until they actually get on a bike and ride. “For me, I think it’s impossible to know,” he replied, when asked if he thought Lorenzo might be hampered by his injury at Motegi.
Insert the obvious SkyNet joke here, but the future of two-wheeled transportation is constantly moving ahead of us, to a place previously held only by science-fiction.
We have talked here at Asphalt & Rubber a great deal about connected and autonomous vehicles and its related technologies – insert a massive number of links here – and today we just got a little bit closer to all those concepts becoming realized.
Announcing their latest collaboration, BMW, Honda, and Yamaha have agreed to develop cooperative-intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS) for motorcycles, the first step in adding vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication to motorcycles.
The three companies will work together to establish a a consortium named Connected Motorcycle Consortium (CMC), which aims to have C-ITS devices on the three motorcycle brands from 2020 onwards.
Yamaha is dominating the news today,with the release of the Yamaha YZF-R1S and the 60th Annviersary livery coming to the USA. Our last story featuring the tuning fork brand is about the Yamaha YZF-R3.
Unfortunately, the story deals with a recall, as the 16 units of the R3 have an incorrectly manufactured upper triple clamp that may crack while riding.
The affected bikes were manufactured between January 1, 2015 and August 31, 2015, which is a large date range for such a limited recall.
Never the less, as a fracture of the upper triple clamp can be a serious issue, leading to a loss of steering and possibly a crash, Yamaha filed this recall with the NHTSA.
In addition to the priced-to-own Yamaha YZF-R1S debuting today, Yamaha has also announced that its 60th Anniversary livery will be headed to the USA as well.
Yes, this means that yellow & black “speedblock” Yamaha YZF-R1 that you drooled over a month ago will be available for purchase for a cool $16,990 MSRP, along with the Yamaha YZF-R6 ($11,490 MSRP) and Yamaha Super Ténéré ($15,590 MSRP).
As you can tell, the speedblock paint is commanding a $500 premium from Yamaha; and disappointingly, only only the base model R1 and Super Ténéré will get the special livery.
This means that if you have an R1M, R1S, or Super Ténéré ES you will have to figure out some way to swap the plastics out on your machine, if you want to help Yamaha celebrate its 60th anniversary of being in business, that is.
Still, as always, the yellow and black liveries are fetching and attractive on these three machines. If you don’t believe that statement, we have the proof in the high-resolution photos, found after the jump.
All the conjecture can finally be put aside, as Yamaha has finally pulled back the curtain on its rumored third variant of the current YZF-R1 – we simply know it as the 2016 Yamaha YZF-R1S.
As was rumored, the Yamaha YZF-R1S sits below what we used to call the “base model” R1, offering an even more affordable option for riders who couldn’t quite afford the current R1’s hefty $16,490 price tag.
Yamaha made no qualms about saying that the current YZF-R1 was a track bike first, a street bike second. Now replacing some of the more exotic parts on the R1, the R1S keeps much of the R1’s track-oriented DNA, but offers it in a more paltry $14,990 price tag, on a bike that is directed at more price-conscious street riders.
The end result is a machine that loses many of its magnesium parts for aluminum ones (oil pan, engine covers, wheels), as well as its titanium ones for steel ones (connecting rods and exhaust headers), which cause the YZF-R1S to gain 9 lbs over the YZF-R1.
Furthering the watering-down trend, the Yamaha R1S loses some power too, thanks in part to the steel con-rods, as well as a revised valve design.
We couldn’t make this story up if we tried, but Yamaha Motor Corporation is using the internet meme “LOLcats” to promote its product launches at the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show, complete with a kitten-written speech and internet-generated cat-meme photos.
Apparently this all started because in Japan, cats say “nya” instead of “meow” – this of course lead to the name “NYA-maha”…a ham-fisted bit of word play that should have never evolved beyond witty water cooler banter, or the best scene from stoner-favorite Supertroopers.
We seriously don’t know who pitched this idea, or how they fit their giant cojones in that conference room, but they must have been the voodoo master of marketing pitches, because here we are. You win Yamaha. You’ve robbed us of our innocence, but you win.
You cannot un-see this dedicated website, which has a prominent link on Yamaha’s global website. You also can’t un-read this “President’s Address”, or un-see the “product descriptions” for the Tokyo Motor Show, shown after the jump.
It’s all like looking at a solar eclipse of catnip, while getting Rickrolled by a giant multi-national motorcycle corporation that also happens to sell pianos.