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This year’s silly season may have been a bit disappointing, at least when you consider that many of the top riders had contracts up for renewal this year.

Instead, we saw Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, and Dani Pedrosa all stay-put with their current manufacturers, and likely we will add Jorge Lorenzo to that list during the Indianapolis GP, as the Spaniard is said to be close to a one-year contract with Yamaha Racing.

One of the bigger question marks though has been Cal Crutchlow, as the Briton has made no secret about his displeasure with the Desmosedici GP14. Finding the paddock gossip about the Ducati to be true, Crutchlow currently faces a steep learning curve to bring his performance on the GP14 in-line with Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone, both of whom already have a season on the Desmosedici under their belts.

With an option to leave Ducati Corse midway through his two-year contract, rumors about Crutchlow’s departure have been escalating, despite Ducati’s announcement at World Ducati Week 2014 that Crutchlow would remain with the team. Now, the Italian press tipping him to leave for a seat at LCR Honda.

The US economy has been slow to recover, and so too has the US motorcycle market. With first-quarter sales down 0.3% this year though, it looked like the US motorcycle market was about to flatline.

Thankfully, that has not been the case in Q2 of 2014, as the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) is proud to report that US motorcycle sales are up 4.0% in the second quarter of this year.

Selling 169,111 units in Q2 2014 (6,585 more than in 2013), motorcycles sales in the US so far this year are now up 2.6%, with 263,833 units sold so far in 2014.

Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali has made it pretty clear that he has no plans to take Ducati into the realm of small-displacement motorcycles, and he has flat-out squashed the chances Ducati making a scooter.

This could make thigns difficult for the Italian brand, especially as the hot regions for growth in the motorcycle industry are teeming with machines under 500cc in engine displacement — markets like Southeast Asia, India, China, and the countries of South America.

So what are Ducati fans in these countries to do? Well, where there is a will, there is a way…and for some Thai riders, that will manifests itself in a big way. Taking one perfectly good Honda Grom monkey bike, add in some impressively downsized Ducati Monster bodywork, and well…we introduce to you the Gromcati.

Could 2014 be another record year of sales for Ducati? If the first six months are any indication, maybe so, as the Bologna brand has reported a 3% increase in sales thus far for the year.

Ducati has sold 26,740 motorcycles so far this year, worldwide, and is aiming to top its all-time record of 44,287 units by the end of the year. Additionally, orders for the month of June were up 11%, causing Ducati to be optimistic about its performance in 2014.

Ducati has just finished up the desmodromic orgy that is World Ducati Week 2014, where thousands of Ducatisti gather to celebrate all things Ducati. One of the highlights of the festival this year was Borgo Panigale’s showing of the Ducati Scrambler.

A mix of yellow shipping containers, cabanas, and sand, the Scrambler reveals were held for about a dozen Ducati fanatics at at time, in a controlled room where no cellphones were allowed.

It’s hard to say whether Ducati thought it could prevent photos from the event from leaking onto the internet despite these measures, or if the Italian motorcycle company just likes putting up a good front for its marketing buzz. Either way, some images have come out from the event.

UPDATE: The Superleggera has been taken off the market.

Did you miss your chance to get a Ducati 1199 Superleggera? Were you not one of the chosen few Ducatisti who were whisked away to Bologna, wined and dined on carbon fiber, titanium, and magnesium? Did you just not have $65,000 last year to plunk down on Bologna’s ultimate superbike?

Have no fear, despite the Superleggera basically selling out before it was even publicly debuted, there is hope for collectors and enthusiasts to own this magnificient machine…but it’s going to cost you.

Available on eBay is a 0 miles, straight-from-the-crate brand new, corse-painted Superleggera (#123 of 500). The catch? It’s being offered for a cool $85,000 — $20k over MSRP.

The Danish physicist and father of quantum physics Niels Bohr is reputed to have said “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.” Just a few days after our comprehensive silly season update was posted, at the World Ducati Weekend event, Andrea Dovizioso, Andrea Iannone and Cal Crutchlow all confirmed they would be staying at Ducati for next season, throwing our predictions into disarray.

None of the Ducati riders were leaving for Suzuki – or in Cal Crutchlow’s case, a satellite Honda – meaning that the Japanese factory was forced to make a few adjustments to their plans. And not only Suzuki: since the Ducati announcement, more of the pieces of the 2015 MotoGP puzzle have started to fall into place. Time to revisit what we know so far, and what we expect in the next few days.

After all the speculation of massive changes in Ducati’s MotoGP team, all is to remain the same. During the World Ducati Week event held for fans of the Italian marque at Misano, both Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow announced that they would be remaining with Ducati for 2015.

The news means Crutchlow chose not to exercise his option to leave, and Dovizioso was persuaded to sign-on for two more years. In addition, it means that Ducati has exercised its option to extend the contract with Andrea Iannone, with Iannone to be given factory support.

The decisions by all three riders are a both a show of confidence in the ability of Ducati Corse boss Gigi Dall’Igna to build a more competitive MotoGP machine, as well as a lack of alternatives elsewhere.

The only other factory rides available are the two seats at Suzuki, but given the slow pace of the bike during testing and the amount of development work needed, that was a bigger risk than staying at Ducati.

This year’s silly season – the endless speculation about who will end up riding where next year – has not so far lived up to the expectations from the start of the year. With all four factory Honda and Yamaha riders out of contract at the end of 2014, real fireworks were expected in the battle to secure signatures.

That bidding war never unfolded, and with Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa back with Repsol Honda, Valentino Rossi already signed up to Movistar Yamaha, and Jorge Lorenzo looks likely to finalize his deal – a two-year contract with some kind of option to depart after a year – before the season resumes again in Indianapolis.

But the silly season has been far from a disappointment. Over the past couple of weeks, the jostling for the remaining seats in MotoGP has really taken off, with the promise of wholesale changes taking place up and down the grid. With the exception of Pol Espargaro, who is expected to remain at Tech 3 for the second year of his two-year contract with Yamaha, just about every other seat on the grid could see a new occupant.

The arrival of Suzuki and, it now appears, Aprilia offers four new factory seats to vie for, opening up new opportunities for the current crop of riders. The upgrading of Honda’s RCV1000R makes the production Honda a more attractive proposition. And there looks set to be an influx of young talent into the class. The 2015 MotoGP grid could look very different, once you look past the top four.

Last year we brought you the interesting Fluid Ducati Superleggera Concept by Gannet Design, and unsurprisingly our die hard Ducatisti readers had a thing or two to say about the render. Well, Gannet Design is back with another sketch that is sure to pique the ire of some.

Using the Ducati 1199 Panigale once again as a starting point, Gannet incorporates some roadster and café racer elements into the high-revving sport bike. The effect is interesting, and serves as a stark contrast to the lines of the original Panigale, and Gannet’s “Fluid” design.