Latest Posts:
Asphalt & Rubber
Tag

Ducati

Browsing
Racing

Video: Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13

By 17 Comments

If you like your sport bikes racer-only, your v-twin cylinders over-square, and your livery in carbon and black, then we have got the bike for you: the Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13. Borgo Panigale’s 1199cc race bike is finally headed for World Superbike duty this coming season, and factory riders Carlos Checa and Ayrton Badovini have been busy this off-season testing Ducati’s latest superbike in preparation of the season’s opener at Phillip Island in February.

Shaking things down at Mugello, Ducati Corse has put together a quick little teaser of the RS13 with Checa and Bayliss on-board. With development of the machine said to be “laborious” (to put it mildly), it will be interesting to see how competitive out of the gate the new Ducati superbike will be against the rest of the WSBK field. One thing is known though, the Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13 is wicked light, especially now that WSBK has dropped the weight penalty for v-twins.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Moar Photos of the Pierobon X60R

By 8 Comments

Last year, our Christmas was ruined with the sighting of the Pierobon X60R sport bike. A small Italian company based in Bologna, for those who aren’t in the know, Pierobon has ties to some big projects in MotoGP & WSBK.

Known for their trellis chassis designs, the Pierobon X60R is the company’s two-wheeled flagship (be sure to checkout the Pierobon F042 street bike). We lusted after the X60R last year, you wanted one under your Christmas tree, and we all had to learn how to live our lives with disappointment afterwards.

Discontent to call things done, Pierobon has revised the X60R over the past year, with the most noticeable change being the Ducati Monster 1100 EVO air-cooled v-twin lump. Putting a little bit more pep in the bike’s step, Pierobon has also revised the chassis, namely the X60R’s swingarm.

Derived from the company’s GP designs, the chain-side of the swingarm has been fully enclosed, presumably for increased rigidity. Pierobon has also increased the size of the oil-cooler radiator to help with heat transfer on the more powerful motor.

Keep Reading
By
News

Just How Big of a Sales Hit Was the Ducati 1199 Panigale?

By 23 Comments

It is no secret that Ducati had high hopes for the Ducati 1199 Panigale when it debuted the machine at the 2011 EICMA motorcycle show, and the Italian superbike certainly has proven itself to be popular with new motorcycle buyers in 2012. Selling 7,500 units worldwide so far this year, the Panigale is one of Ducati’s best selling motorcycles ever, and accounts for roughly 17% of the Italian company’s sales for this year (2012 being Ducati’s best sales year ever).

Keep Reading
By
Racing

MotoGP: Andrea Dovizioso to Undergo Surgery

By 2 Comments

Ducati Corse’s newest rider, Andrea Dovizioso, is set to undergo surgery next week and have plate removed from his shoulder. Expected to have the surgery performed on December 4th, Dovi is waiting to do the surgery after the team’s private test at Jerez this week, and the Marco Simoncelli Foundation’s supermoto race this coming weekend. Dovizioso will have two months to recuperate before MotoGP’s next official test at Sepang in February.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Vyrus 984 Ultimate Edition

By 12 Comments

Technically very similar to the Bimota Tesi 3D (there’s a reason for that), the Vyrus 984 C3 2V is that other hub-center steering motorcycle from Italy. Featuring a 992cc Ducati DesmoDue motor at its core, the Vyrus 984 is about as radical as it gets when it comes to modern motorcycles. Upping the ante another notch though is the Vyrus 984 Ultimate Edition, which takes the already light 984 machine, and drops its weight to 144kg (317 lbs) dry.

Helping Vyrus achieve that ludicrous figure is the company’s copious usage of carbon fiber on the Vyrus 984 Ultimate Edition, which drops over 10 lbs from the original design. A large part of this weight savings is the front portion of the machine, which like the Ducati 1199 Panigale, builds directly off the engine cylinder heads, and serves double-duty as the motorcycle’s airbox.

Other goodies include carbon disc brakes, Öhlins TTX shocks for suspension, magnesium case covers, and an upside down aluminum box frame swingarm. Designed with the track in mind, the Vyrus 984 Ultimate Edition also comes with traction control and a full data-logging system. Price? Let’s just say it’s six figures. Expect a water-cooled Vyrus 985 Ultimate Edition to follow shortly.

Keep Reading
By
Racing

Filippo Preziosi Out at Ducati Corse – BMW Motorrad’s Bernhard Gobmeier Takes Over

By 17 Comments

Confirming rumors that Filippo Preziosi would be leaving his role as head of Ducati Corse, the Italian company announces today that the man responsible for BMW Motorrad’s World Superbike program, Bernhard Gobmeier, will be taking over the position at Ducati Corse. Reporting directly to Ducati CEO Gabriele del Torchio, Gobmeier will ultimately be in charge of all the racing projects at Ducati, including MotoGP and World Superbike.

Stepping down from his position, Preziosi will take on the role of Director of Research & Development for Ducati Motor Holding, where he will use his engineering and design talents to help develop Ducati’s next road bikes. He will report directly to Claudio Domenicali, the General Manager of Ducati Motor Holding.

On the Corse side of things, Paolo Ciabatti will oversee Ducati’s MotoGP project, while Ernesto Marinelli will be in charge of Ducati’s WSBK racing efforts with Team Ducati Alstare. Both Ciabatti & Marinelli will report to Gobmeier.

Keep Reading
By
Banter

A Quarter Century of Ducati Superbikes in Photos

By 23 Comments

Ducati superbikes are a legend in their own right, with a racing career the spans much father back in history than just the past two decades. Grabbing press kits for the 2012 EICMA show though, I stumbled across these photos from the Ducati Museum at Borgo Panigale factory.

Starting with the Ducati 851, and going all the way forward in time to the newly released Ducati 1199 Panigale R, it is interesting to see the progression in design and technology among the models (if you are into this sort of thing, be sure to checkout our 33 years of Suzuki endurance road racing bikes post).

Get your history lesson on after the jump with some high-resolution motorcycle goodness, and be sure to mention your favorite Desmo in the comments.

Keep Reading
By
News

Ducati Anticipates 20% Growth by the End of 2012

By 19 Comments

Although Ducati hasn’t closed out the year yet, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding Gabriele Del Torchio was confident when speaking to the press at EICMA that the company would top last year’s record numbers, with a solid 20% grow margin. Expected to take the company to 44,000 units sold worldwide, 2012 is the best sales year by volume in the history of the company, and comes just after the company’s acquisition by Audi AG.

Doubling its marketshare worldwide, the Bologna Brand says it has made a 10% increase in what it calls its “Ducati Relevant Market” – the company’s core demographic of buyers (or what Mitt Romney would call, the brand’s 53%). For fun facts, nine out of ten Ducatis made in Borgo Panigale are destined for foreign markets (read: Italy now accounts for 10% of Ducati’s sales). We already knew that the US is Ducati’s top stronghold, with the American market growing by double-digits this year.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Bimota DB10R – The Last Air-Cooled Hypermotard Standing

By 2 Comments

The big news from Ducati at EICMA has to be the debut of the 2013 Ducati Hypermotard and its more touring focus sibling the 2013 Ducati Hyperstrada. Trading in their two-valve air-cooled lumps for a 110hp 821cc liquid-cooled v-twin engine, we are sure there are some Ducatisti who had there cooling fins ruffled by that move. Never fear, Bimota is here.

Using Ducati 95hp 1,078cc air-cooled engine that was in the original Ducati Hypermotard 1100, the Bimota DB10 debuted last year as a tasteful alternative to the maxi-motard from Bologna. Back again this year, Bimota has up-spec’d the DB10, with the 2013 Bimota DB10R coming with a bevy of more carbon fiber goodness.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

2013 Bimota DB9 Brivido Italia – Now with an Italian Flag

By 1 Comment

The middle child to the Bimota DB8 and Bimota DB11, we showed you the Bimota DB9 Brivido last year with the superlative that it was the best looking Ducati Diavel we had ever seen. Of course, that statement was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the Bimota DB9 does share the Testastretta 11° motor with the Ducati, and Bimota hopes the DB9 Brivido will be a sportster variant to this very crowded area of the company’s model line-up.

Honestly, we don’t know why Bimota didn’t stop with the DB8 and move on, instead of building two more motorcycles off the same motor and chassis (god only knows how many variations stem from the DB8, DB9 DB11, and DB12 combined).

It’s not that we don’t like the Bimota DB9 Brivido (though, the headlights do offend us in an elbows-on-the-table sort of way), it is just that we hate to see the boutique Italian brand run this design for everything it is worth..even if they throw a supercharger on it.

Trotting the Bimota DB9 Brivido back out to EICMA for a second year in a row, the Italian brand calls this 2013 Bimota DB9 Brivido Italia. You know, because they put the Tricolore on it. Beautiful and boring at the same time, there is a reason we have buried this article today in the middle of the brand’s other more intriguing offerings from EICMA.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

2013 Bimota DB11 – The Bitter to Know the Sweet

By 4 Comments

If you were as blown away over the supercharged 2013 Bimota DB11 VLX as we were, you might have not realized that we forgot even to introduce the Bimota DB11 to you in the first place. A fully faired sport bike with a 1198cc Ducati Testastretta 11° engine held in its beautiful steel trellis and aluminum-plate frame, the DB11 puts out a reasonable 160hp and less reasonable 97 lbs•ft of torque.

At 385 lbs dry, the 2013 Bimota DB11 makes a good argument for being a robust sport bike, even if most of them will sit in the garages of collectors. Using the same frame design as the Bimota DB9 Brivido, we must admit that the design aesthetic here is also getting some mileage, which sort of detracts from the “my pants are fitting oddly” problem that Bimotas generally generate.

Keep Reading
By