The 2009 Superbike World Championship is going to be spectacular. BMW is finally in the game with a big literbike, and they should make for an interesting season. This being their first year, I really don’t think they’ll be in contention, but they’ll probably finish well and up the level of competition with the rest of the crowd.
Either way, the most exciting part of BMW entering the race will be the production S1000RR. People have been looking forward to this bike since BMW announced it’ll be entering Superbike. Although, according to BMW Motorrad CEO Hendrik von Kuenheim, there will be only 1,000 S1000RRs built in 2009, meaning they’ll be impossible to find. Plus you know they’re getting snatched up by money men and celebrities first. Check out pictures of the official race version and production version:
Thanks go to HellForLeather for coming through with the official price list for the 2009 Ducati lineup. It looks like they got their hands on a dealer’s order form with all the prices and availability dates. Well done.
Most of the bikes fall in line with expected prices, but the big question was the Streetfighter and the Streetfighter S: turns out they’ll be $14,005 and $18,995, respectively.
Check out the whole price list and the actual order form where they came from:
I have tremendous respect for fabricators, guys who not only build their own cars or bikes, but actually make the parts themselves. The kind of guys that actually bend the tubes for the frames and machine the components out of a solid block of metal to make the parts they need for their custom bikes.
Japanese motorcycle builder Chicara Nagata builds his bikes that way. Everything on his bikes is hand-built except for the antique drivetrains he uses. Even the controls and the throttle are hand crafted. There are almost 500 parts on each bike, fabricating each part and assembling it can take Nagata up to 7,500 hours per bike. In 2006, he won the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building, and three of his bikes are currently featured in an exhibit at New York’s Ippodo Gallery. If you’re interested in getting one, they’re $1 million apiece. Here they are:
MCN has reported that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) wants to ban motorcycles from UK roads. The ACPO’s recommendation was published in a report by the Transport Committee on Road Safety.
The ACPO memo calls for the creation of no-motorcycle zones and points to power caps. It states: “There is a need for radical thinking in respect of motorcycles, including consideration of engine capability and the creation of protection zones where all motorcycles other than those specifically permitted would be prohibited.”
Ironically, the association based its call for a ban on the false claim that production motorcycles are available with top speeds of over 200mph. In fact not a single production motorcycle has ever broken the 200mph barrier.
A lot of beginner riders want to get an advanced bike right away, but what they don’t understand is that a beginner bike is actually more fun to ride when you’re starting out. If you’ve never been on a motorcycle before, and you hop on a racing-tuned Honda Fireblade, you’re going to 1) be turned off from riding because of uncomfortable position, 2) be too concerned with trying to handle this powerhouse machine to really appreciate the act of riding, and 3) probably die. The longer you live, the more riding you can do, so dying isn’t in your best interest as a fan of motorcycles.
There is a huge selection of bikes out there that are nicely suited for beginners, with engines around 250cc, a nice comfortable seating position, and a low price; but there are only two that I ever recommend for younger riders: the Honda Nighthawk 250 and the Kawasaki Ninja 250.
Washington DC native, Theresa Honeywell is a young artist who reproduces tattoos in lace, and knits cozies over manly objects. She has a knit toolbelt, jackhammer, machine gun, etc. This one is acrylic yarn knit over a motorcycle (extra credit: What kind of bike is it?).
From her website: “Provocative imagery and macho icons are rendered into delicate and beautiful pieces of art that seem to question the notion of what art is, and what is “only” a handicraft. Her work is very labor intensive and densely rendered. She takes a craft that is considered to be “pretty” and merely decorative, and creates art that comments on our rigid notions of gender roles and high/low culture.”
Eh, art talk. Check out more pics:
Cafe racers have been making a big comeback in the past decade, although people have been replacing the term cafe racer with streetfighter. Either way, they’re the same thing: a powerful bike that has has it’s fairings removed and been generally stripped down and modified for speed.
For a while, one of most commonly modified streetfighter style bikes was the Ducati Monster, but it’s been losing it’s popularity lately. In an attempt to win back that market niche, Ducati came up with a new model called, appropriately, the Streetfighter.
Check out the pictures and specs:
NCR, the maker of exclusive high-end motorcycles has just come out with a limited edition Mike Hailwood TT replica built in honor of the 30th anniversary of Hailwood’s Isle of Man win on the Ducati 900 NCR. They actually based this bike on the Ducati Sport 1000S, which will make it the second bike NCR has based on the 1000S, the first being the highly tuned, race ready New Blue.
If you’re a Ridelust reader, you’re probably aware of my love for all things Ducati, especially the Ducati Sport 1000S. So I’m really starting to appreciate NCR. This bike is ridiculously light. It features titanium all over the place, which is NCR’s calling card: it has an 11-pound titanium frame, a titanium exhaust system, the engine has billet titanium connecting rods and titanium valves, and all the fasteners are titanium. Plus carbon-fiber wheels and bodywork.
Check out specs and pictures of the NCR Mike Hailwood TT Replica:
Right now, there are over 7-million flex-fuel vehicles on US roads, most of them are fleet cars or trucks that can switch between gasoline and E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline). But there are 0 motorcycles that can run on E85. Yamaha has just filed a patent that may change that.
There is still very little information out about the patent, and Yamaha is far from creating a production flex-bike just yet. But their patent means they at least have something in the works. The patent drawing is of a single cylinder bike, which would probably make this bike fairly inexpensive. It has a normal sized fuel tank presumably for conventional fuel, and a smaller second tank tucked away behind the cylinder below the fuel injector. The second tank is most likely meant to hold the E85. Why it would need two separate tanks is anyone’s guess. I would think, just like flex-fuel cars, the engine sensors would be able to detect the different fuels and alter itself accordingly.
Like I said before, I love the look of open face helmets, but I also love my chin. That’s why I stand by my belief in the supremacy of full-face helmets. As far as I’m concerned, a solid white Arai RX-7 Corsair is the end-all be-all of motorcycle helmets. Arai is simple, good looking, and top quality. For ten years running now, Arai has been at the top of J.D. Power and Associates Motorcycle Helmet Satisfaction Study.
But I also recognize that some people like a little variation, they want to show off some of their personality with their helmet. Understandable. So if I couldn’t have a solid white Arai, here are my second choices:
