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Stage 6 of the Dakar Rally Cancelled

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The world’s top adventure riders have been down in South America the past week, competing in the 33rd running of the Dakar Rally. Racing through South America since 2009, the 2012 Dakar will be taking competitors through some of the toughest terrain available in Argentina, Chile, and Peru, as The Dakar continues to live up to its name as one of the toughest races in motorsport, and this year’s rally has tragically already claimed its first life, as motorcyclist Jorge Martinez Boero of Argentina died from a cardiac arrest, after crashing during the rally’s first stage.

For Stage 6 (Fiambala-Copiapo), the weather and terrain were apparently too inhospitable, even by Dakar standards. Set to cross the Andes Mountain Range for the seventh time in the rally’s history, snow and rain at the 15,420 foot Paso de San Francisco pass was too inclement for Chilean authorities to keep the crossing open. Accordingly, today’s stage will be a convoy of all the Dakar Rally vehicles, with the rally’s itinerary changed after the border crossing in Chile from Argentina.

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News

The Eleven of 2011 – A Year in Review

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Well, 2011 as a year is finally over, and for the motorcycling community it was quite a year. As we begin 2012, we here at Asphalt & Rubber are of course not immune to the desire to summarize and highlight the passing of 2011. So we accordingly assembled 11 of the most important events that shaped motorcycling this past year and changed the way the sport, the industry, and the community will grow in the years to come.

Picking only eleven moments in a single year is no easy feat, though some of the events in our selection are obvious choices because of their magnitude. However, some of the less obvious picks (and we are sure there will be suggestions for alternatives in the comments), stem from the theory that 2011 saw moments whose importance has yet to be fully appreciated at this point in time. Enjoy and a Happy New Year to our loyal A&R readers.

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Banter

XXX: MotoCzysz Bike Porn – The Under-the-Tank Edition

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Hopefully you have done the laundry since our absolutely raunchy post that showed the 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale without its clothes on, because we have got some more hardcore and explicit photos for you on this Friday afternoon. A reminder that everything new and exciting has probably been done before by someone else, we can see that Ducati could easily have had some inspiration with the Panigale’s design if they looked at the MotoCzysz C1 990, circa 2006 (and the Britten V1000, circa 1991, etc.). After all, it’s said that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Housing a VR4 motor instead of the 1199’s Superquadro v-twin, Czysz & Co. employed a similar design that incorporates the frame, airbox, and headstock into a single component. While the MotoCzysz C1 uses a carbon fiber monocoque chassis design (as does the company’s electric superbike: the MotoCzysz E1pc), Ducati has of course made a more practical choice with its use of an aluminum frame (how long will it take for an aftermarket carbon fiber solution to hit the streets?).

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Racing

Nicky Hayden Breaks Shoulder & Ribs in Training Accident

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Nicky Hayden’s 2012 is going to get off on the wrong foot, as the American MotoGP racer has reportedly broken his left scapula and fractured two ribs, while training near his home in Owensboro, Kentucky. The news is a bad break for Hayden (no pun intended), as the incident occurred while the Ducati Corse rider was training at a private indoor flat track facility, and was the first time Hayden had been on a motorcycle since breaking his scaphoid at the Valencian GP on November 6th.

Undergoing x-rays, CAT scans, and an MRI, doctors have ruled out the need for surgery at this time for Hayden, though his injuries will be assessed next week by Dr. Arthur Ting out here in sunny Fremont, California. Based on his rate of healing the next few weeks, Hayden may or may not be fit for MotoGP’s first 2012 winter testing session, which is slotted for January 31st. Knowing the Kentucky Kid though, he’ll likely just grit his teeth and git-r-done when the time comes.

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Bikes

KTM RC4 690R Supermono by Mototech

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A two-wheeled speeding ticket made in Austria, I’m still bitter that the 2012 KTM 690 Duke isn’t coming to American soil. With all the dressings of a bare-knuckled hooligan machine for the street, the new Duke will surely live up to its heritage of angering elderly women, but a German company has thought up a more refined role for the big-displacement thumper. Adopting the bike into a more superbike trim, German suspension tuners Mototech have created what they call the KTM RC4 690R…and I like it.

We’ve seen KTM Supermono’s before, with perhaps one of the best examples coming from some KTM engineers who built a SuperDuke 690 sport bike on their own time. Don’t let those words discourage you from Mototech’s work though, as the team’s RC4 690R looks like it rolled out of the KTM factory floor this morning. You’ll either love or hate the dual-projector headlight setup, while the tail section remains very true to the lines of the original Duke 690. Everyone will be a fan of the 125kg (275 lbs) quoted weight figure

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News

XXX: Ducati 1199 Panigale Naked

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The 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale represents a huge step in motorcycle design, mostly due to its frameless chassis or monocoque design. Using the engine as an integral component to the Panigale’s chassis, Ducati’s hallmark achievement was building an integrated headstock/airbox off the front cylinder. With the seat and subframe built off the rear cylinder, and the swingarm bolting directly to the motor, the Ducati 1199 Panigale was able to not only shed 22 lbs of its predecessor’s design, but also continues the Italian company’s new design trend of having components that take on multiple functional roles.

Being sure to keep the fairings on the Ducati 1199 Panigale fastened at all times, we have very little insight as to what Ducati’s new chassis looks like underneath its clothing, and after hounding Bologna for the past few weeks over the issue, these four renders of the Panigale’s frame are the best we can muster for our readers. The black background makes the black frame components hard to see, but the CAD drawings do provide at least some insight as to how the 1199 comes together. If the Panigale goes as well on the track as it does on the spec sheet, you very well could be looking at the future of production motorcycle chassis design.

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Opinion/Editorial

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

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Talking to a colleague the other day, we came to a frank discussion about how the European motorcycle brands weathered the recession better when compared to their Japanese counterparts.

While there are many factors at play in this statement, there is at least a component of truth to the idea that strong brand integration helped spur the Europeans into setting record months, quarters, and years during a global economic downturn, while companies like Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha saw their businesses virtually collapse.

It is not that the Japanese manufacturers don’t have strong brands, it is just that their brands stand for something fundamentally different from those being forged by the Europeans.

While companies like Ducati, KTM, and Triumph are building entire communities and lifestyles around their motorcycles (hat tip to Harley-Davidson for showing them how), the Japanese continue to hang their hats on the attributes of their products.

Well-engineered, bulletproof, and relatively cheap, Japanese motorcycles tick all the right boxes when one is objectively measuring a motorcycle, but they are sufficiently lacking when it comes to creating lasting ties to their owners.

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News

Benelli Due Release Clarified – End of 2012 & Worldwide

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After the news that the Benelli Due 756 would finally be produced and released came out last week, the Italian brand has released a clarification in response to the news that hit the interwebs. Confirming that the Due would indeed become a production model (after making the rounds at motorcycle shows for the better part of the last five years), the Chinese owned Benelli Q.J. released a statement saying that the release date would not be the end of 2011 as some sites had reported, but instead at the end of 2012 (seemingly making this a 2013 model year motorcycle).

Benelli has not outright denied that the news that the Due will hit the Chinese market before it makes its way to Europe, though the Chinese company was quick to say in its statement that “the current version of the Due will be produced in Italy and exported to China and the emerging global markets (without neglecting the European market).” Cryptically we gather that means that the Due we’ve seen will be a world model, while an updated version is slated to hit the European market at some point in the future (2018 perhaps?).

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Bikes

Lazareth Wazuma V8F – The World’s Most Expensive Quad

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We’ve covered the Lazareth Wazuma before, in its E85 drinking BMW V12 semi-bio-friendly form. Of course when you’ve already built a 500hp supercharged slede that makes mothers lock up their daughters, there isn’t much stopping you from pushing the limits even further, as is the case with Lazareth’s latest iteration of the Wazuma platform. Now powered by a Ferrari V8 motor, the Lazareth Wazuma V8F boasts other fun items like its BMW M3 gearbox, with push-to-shift controls embedded into the four-wheeler’s handlebars.

Despite its four wheels, the Lazareth Wazuma V8F is more like a trike than a quad, and has been made so the rear-wheels are close together like road-going trike, and make one virtual über-wheel-of-death that has a contact patch larger than the hole Richard Nixon left in the American psyche after he stepped down from office. Catering to the “I’m not a crook” crowd, Lazareth has posted this monster of a machine on JamesList, the Craigslist of the 1%, and is asking for a mere €200,000 in exchange for ownership of the French-made machine.

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Racing

Watch Jonathan Rea’s Record WSBK Superpole at Portimao from a Mechanic’s Point of View

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Taking the pole position at the final World Superbike round at Portimao, Jonathan Rea not only put his Castrol Honda on the front of the grid, but also broke set the fastest lap ever for a motorcycle at the Portuguese track. Fortuitously, the factory Honda WSBK team fitted one of its mechanics with a GoPro camera to capture the Superpole from the team’s point-of-view. At 6’10” tall (2.1 meters), the view provided by Daniel Postmus is not only one that few get to witness in side the team garage, but also comes from an altitude slightly higher than many are accustomed.

Lagging all season, the Castrol Honda team found some momentum in the latter races of the season, more specifically when the team was allowed to outfit its WSBK-spec Honda CBR1000RR with ride-by-wire throttle control. Hopefully the team can keep that momentum going forward, as it will have to contend with another season on an only mildly updated racing platform, the 2012 Honda CBR1000RR. Video after the jump.

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Racing

Joe Kopp & The Fastest Triumph at Pikes Peak

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As 2011 winds down, I’ve been going through some of my folders of old material that I wanted to publish earlier this year, but for some reason or another the article didn’t grace the front page of Asphalt & Rubber. One such story was the fastest Triumph ever to run at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), which in 2011 was a Triumph Speed Triple raced by professional flat track star Joe Kopp.

If I were to say politics were at play with Kopp campaigning the Team Latus Triumph Speed Triple in the exhibition class of the PPIHC (along with Chip Yate’s electric superbike), then surely the metaphor would extend to the redrawing of the district lines at Pikes Peak, and may or may not have had something to do with the Ducati-dominated 1200cc class, where surely the Triumph properly belonged.

Read in between the lines as you will with that explanation of events, but at the end of the 2011 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Kopp, on his Triumph, was the overall second-fastest rider up The Mountain, winning the exhibition class in the process. Meanwhile Ducati, the official motorcycle of PPIHC, maintained its 1-3 double podium in the 1200cc class, which was lead by rookie rider, and A&R hetero-life partner Carlin Dunne.

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