At the start of the summer break, Repsol and HRC announced they will be extending their sponsorship agreement for the next three seasons.
The Spanish oil giant will continue to back the factory Honda team until the end of the 2017 season, continuing a partnership which first started in 1995, the year after Mick Doohan won his first title for Honda. The press release of the deal is after the jump.
We first caught wind of the 2015 Honda CB300F back in March, and at the time we didn’t expect to see the naked small-displacement machine until the autumn trade shows. Well, Honda has proven itself full of surprises, because not only has Big Red debuted the Honda CB300F to the world, but American Honda has also confirmed the model for the United States.
Basically a Honda CBR300R without all of its fairings, the Honda CB300F offers a more upright sitting position, and a little bit less racer flair. At the heart of the CB300F is the same fuel-injected 286cc single-cylinder thumper, which has a longer 8mm stroke than the venerable Honda CBR250R, and thus accounts for its 37cc advantage in displacement.
Perhaps the best part about the 2015 Honda CB300F though is the price tag, which is downright affordable at $3,999 MSRP ($400 less than the CBR300R).
American Honda hasn’t locked down a delivery date for the USA, simply saying that the new model will be hitting Honda dealers in the fall of this year. From what we understand, that’s when you can expect to see the Honda CBR300R as well.
The 2014 MotoGP Silly Season is rapidly closing, as HRC has announced the re-signing of Dani Pedrosa through the 2016 season in the MotoGP Championship. This means that Pedrosa will have at least 16 consecutive seasons with the factory Honda team to his name, where thus far he has been three-times the bridesmaid (once behind Casey Stoner, and twice behind Jorge Lorenzo).
HRC’s move solidifies the Repsol Honda team’s all-Spanish rider lineup, and quells any rumors of Pedrosa making a move to the Suzuki Racing project, which will reemerge into GP racing for the 2015 season. Pedrosa was never a likely candidate for Suzuki, though the Spanish rider’s presence surely would have signalled the level of seriousness that the Japanese OEM was giving the MotoGP World Championship.
The current status of MotoGP’s silly season? Two down, plenty still to go. Valentino Rossi may have joined Marc Marquez as the only other factory rider to have put pen to paper for 2015 and 2016, the rest of the grid is still in the middle of negotiating their riders for next year. Even Cal Crutchlow, who has a contract to race with Ducati in 2015, but more of that later.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is a risky proposition, especially for the competitors in the motorcycle classes. A course where instead of run-off, sheer drops and rock-filled inclines abound, the joke is that if you go down at any one of the 156 turns that comprise the race course, it’s likely that you won’t die from the impact…you’ll die from starvation during the drop.
That is certainly hyperbole (except for the turn aptly named “Bottomless Pit”), as the danger is very real. We can give no better example than the footage from yesterday’s motorcycle session, at the top of the mountain.
During the practice days, competitors go full-tilt up the mountain road, are collected, and then as a group descend to the starting point for another run. That day for supermoto rider Tom Specht, in the Pikes Peak Middleweight class, the mountain showed why you can never let your guard down.
Taking a tumblefew miles from the summit, Specht was “lucky” in the sense that he only suffered shoulder injuries from his rapid descent. This could have been way worse.
For Jeff Grace, who “caught” Specht’s Honda CRF450 as it landed in the road in front him — well, at least he only has some scuffs and scrapes, not to mention a great video to show everyone. No crash is ever a good crash, but at Pikes Peak, this might be as “good” as it gets, since everyone involved will ride another day.
The 92nd running of the “Race to the Clouds” goes off Sunday morning. We’ll be bringing you more pictures and report throughout the rest of the week. Stay tuned right here to A&R.
The wait is over to see the return to two-wheels by British marque Ariel, as the firm has debuted its very exclusive Ariel Ace motorcycle. Built around a clever modular design, something we have talked about at length here, the Ace is really more than just one motorcycle, and Ariel plans on making each bike bespoke to its customer’s wishes.
At the center of every machine is the 1,237cc V4 engine from the Honda VFR1200F, which is good for 170hp, with 95 lbs•ft of peak torque. Because the VFR’s engine is being utilized by Ariel, the British brand offers a dual-clutch transmission as one of the Ace’s many available options.
Would-be owners will have to decide a number of other options as well, most importantly what kind front-end suspension they wish to run. Ariel offers a traditional upside down Öhlins fork setup, but to be truly unique on the road, the Ariel Ace has an available custom girder suspension setup with an Öhlins TTX at its core. Rear suspension is supplied by Öhlins as well.
Holding everything together is a beautiful aluminum trellis frame, comprised of six sections that are machined to life from billet. Anodized to fit a customer’s tastes, the modular chassis design also has mounting points for a variety of options and accessories, such as different bodywork, fenders, fuel tanks, handlebars, rearsets, seats, and wheels.
The 2015 MotoGP grid is shaping up to look even stronger than this season. There are increasing signs that the weaker teams on the grid are set to disappear, with the strongest teams in Moto2 moving up to take their place. In addition, there is a chance that some of the stronger existing MotoGP teams could expand their participation as well.
It is an open secret that the Marc VDS Racing team is weighing up a switch to MotoGP. Team boss Michael Bartholemy has had initial talks with the team owner Marc van der Straten about adding a MotoGP entry to their line up, but they are still a long way from making a decision.
Bartholemy told us that a decision on their participation would come at Assen at the earliest, but admitted that it was still a very serious option.
As we expected, the Honda CBR300R will be coming to the North American market, as American Honda has confirmed today that the single-cylinder machine as a 2015 model.
Though available in August later this year, Americans shouldn’t feel too bad about the 286cc machine coming late to the US, as even European markets have had a delay on receiving the machine, which officially debuted for that market at EICMA last year.
The paradox of the motorcycle racer is that every race is a big race, yet no race is more important than any other. The pressure on the MotoGP elite is so great that they have to perform at their maximum at every circuit, every weekend.
Every race is like a championship decider, not just the race which decides the championship. There may be extra pressure at a home race, or on a special occasion, or when a title is at stake, but the riders cannot let it get to them. There is too much at stake to be overawed by the occasion.
Still, Mugello 2014 is a very big race indeed. It is Valentino Rossi’s 300th Grand Prix, and a chance for him to return to the podium on merit again, and not just because the crowds were calling his name.
It is the best hope of a Jorge Lorenzo revival, the Yamaha man having won the last three races in a row at the spectacular Tuscan track. It is the best hope for Ducati, the Italian factory having run well here in the past.
And it is the first realistic chance for Marc Marquez to fail, the Spaniard has never found the track an easy one, though it did not stop him winning there.
The Honda Super Cub is a rolling definition of an iconic motorcycle. The centerpiece to the famous “You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda” ad from the 1960’s, the Super Cub has gone on to be the best selling motorcycle in the world, with Honda recording its 60 millionth sale back in 2008…just three years after it notched its 50 millionth sale to the company’s corporate sales belt.
Perhaps getting the recognition it finally deserves, the Honda Super Cub is the first vehicle to receive a three-dimensional trademark in its home country of Japan. Three-dimensional trademarks are an uncommon thing in the intellectual property realm, and are virtually unheard of in the consumer product space, making the news that much more special for the Super Cub.
Honda’s RCV1000R production racer is due to get some upgrades after all, but those upgrades are not set to come until 2015, according to reports on GPOne.com.
The performance of the RCV1000R has been a source of some disappointment for the teams who stumped up the roughly 1 million euros a season in bike costs, as well as for the riders who have been hired to race the bike. After reports that a Honda test rider had lapped with 0.3 seconds of the factory RC213V machine, expectations of the bike were very high indeed.
On the track, the RCV1000R has not got anywhere near the times expected of it. Comparing the fastest race lap of the fastest RCV1000R rider against the slowest RC213V rider shows an average difference of 0.730 seconds over the first five races of the season, four tenths more than Honda had managed with a test rider.
Teams have complained, riders have been open in criticizing the lack of power, and the current teams have been eyeing the Open class Yamahas fielded by the NGM Forward team with some interest.