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Up-Close with the 2017 Yamaha YZF-R6

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The 2017 Yamaha YZF-R6 is more than just “bold new plastics” as one A&R commenter said, with traction control, ABS, new suspension, and R1-esque bodywork being added to the supersport machine – among other changes.

Still very much “evolution” rather than “revolution” for the Japanese manufacturer, the Yamaha R6 however is a very striking machine, visually, and that’s what we wanted to share with you today.

Yamaha isn’t shy that the R6 gets its look from its older sibling, the YZF-R1, with both bikes sharing a number of visual elements: MotoGP-inspired air intake, koi fish headlights on the fairing, vented tail section, and sinister LED marker lights – just to name a few.

The effect though is perhaps the most dramatic change to the venerable supersport, as it takes the 12-year-old design for the YZF-R6 and gives it a modern look and feel.

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Bikes

Italian Volt Lacama Electric Motorcycle Brings Some Style

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Italian Volt’s debut model, the Lacama, isn’t the most beautiful motorcycle that we have ever seen, but the Italian brand certainly has done a good job making a stylish machine for motorcycle enthusiasts.

Capable of hiding up to 15 kWh of batteries in its brick-like case, the Italian Volt Lacama does a good job of tackling one of the biggest design problems that motorcycle manufacturers face with electrics: styling the massive battery packs that these machines require.

Taking things a step further though, Italian Volt will offer the Lacama in several different form-factors, with owners able to choose from options that include café racer, scrambler, and roadster designs.

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Bikes

Vyrus 986 M2 Street Bike Is Finally Ready

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Every time I hear about how the Japanese brands are abandoning the 600cc sport bike market, I have a little chuckle with myself. Honda et al will tell you that the issue is that motorcyclists don’t want to ride supersports anymore.

However, I am a firm believer that the real issue is that motorcyclists don’t want to ride the same old supersports that the OEMs keep cookie-cuttering out of their factories every year. In my mind, the Vyrus 986 M2 proves this point.

I can think of no other machine that has generated a bigger response on Asphalt & Rubber than this 600cc Italian exotic. The sweet irony too is that it’s powered by a Honda CBR600RR engine.

The motorcycle industry keeps trying to sell supersports, pitches them as watered-down superbikes, and then acts surprised when the bikes don’t sell.

Instead, they should take a note from, Vyrus, which has managed to create an inline-four 600cc speed machine that you want so bad, that you would sell a kidney from your middle-child for it.

Carbon fiber fairings, hub-center steering, edgy design…this bike screams unique and special…and no one cares that it’s not a 1,000cc 200hp monster. 

In other news, the street bike version of the Vyrus 986 M2 is finally available for order. You can order one completed, or in kit form.

As with all things from the Italian factory, each bike is built bespoke to its owner’s wishes, though last we heard the Vyrus 986 M2 was fetching a reasonable €25,000 price tag. Strike that, Vyrus just sent us an updated price list: €37,940 for the Vyrus 986 M2, and €27,930 for the street bike kit.

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Bikes

The Honda Africa Twin Gets Rally Raid Ready

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When it comes to adventure-tourers that can actually go off-road, the Honda Africa Twin easily rises to the top of the list. Couple that to Honda’s pursuits in the Dakar Rally and other rally raid events, and its easy to see where the Honda Africa Twin Rally could be born.

A special model being built by Italy’s Honda importer that was unveiled at this year’s Motodays show, the Africa Twin Rally won’t be hitting other markets any time soon (read: never), though it shows a machine that many ADV riders have been clamoring for, since the first shots of the Honda CRF450 Rally hit the internet.

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WSBK

WorldSBK Photos from Phillip Island by Anant Deboor

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Season-openers of long championships are always interesting times, with so many new variables to consider. Phillip Island with the grass, the rolling slopes, and the blue Bass Straits is a photographer’s dream.

Vibrant colour, varying light, flowing lines, textures and patterns – combined with new bike liveries – offer myriad possibilities for composition and detail.

To add to all the new variables, as a photographer, the weather decided to go from wet to cold and windy to beautifully sunny to harsh sunshine and light haze that played havoc with reflections and highlights.

While the Kawasakis and Ducatis stayed with the green and red, Yamaha offered stronger contrast with the shocking pink and orange for their respective riders. Honda though with the Red Bull sponsorship, was a transformed livery.

This year, I worked to a slightly different self-defined brief, to try and capture more of the aggression, with an almost more violent and darker mood. I also tried getting more experimental with compositions, and less tied to conventions such as sharpness and detail. I hope the images speak for themselves.

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Bikes

The 2017 Aprilia RS-GP MotoGP Race Bike Debuts

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The final factory MotoGP to debut its 2017 MotoGP Championship race bike, Aprilia has finally debuted the 2017 Aprilia RS-GP that Aleix Espargaro and Sam Lowes will campaign this year.

The Italian outfit continues to make quiet strides in its development with the RS-GP, though the efforts from Suzuki and KTM tend to dominate the headlines. For the 2017 season, Aprilia looks ready to take another step forward, especially with Aleix Espargaro at the helm.

The biggest task for the 2017 will be to bring more horsepower to the Aprilia RS-GP. The machine reportedly handles quite well, though that is often an item of praise that changes as the power increases.

Still, the elder Espargaro brother has shown an impressive pace on the Aprilia RS-GP during the pre-season tests, while his teammate Sam Lowes continues to simply learn and adapt his riding style to suit the more powerful machinery found in the MotoGP Championship.

Noticeably absent from the team’s livery launch photos are the new aerodynamic fairings that the Noale factory was testing in Phillip Island.

This might be due to Aprilia not wanting high-resolution photos of its aero work circulating on the internet, or it is simply nod to the fact that the aerodynamics for the 2017 season are still under development.

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Bikes

Yard Built Yamaha XSR700 “Double-Style” by Rough Crafts

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Yamaha is continuing with its “Yard Built” custom motorcycle efforts for 2017, and the first bike of the year is actually two machines in one, from Tawaineese custom house Rough Crafts – the same builder of the very tasty MV Agusta “Ballistic Trident”.

Shown above is the road going “Corsa Scorcher” model, which takes the XSR700 heritage street bike model from Yamaha and turns it into a café racer.

Winston Yeh of Rough Crafts also has a “Soil Scorpion” scrambler model based off the XSR700, which can be created from the cafe racer by transforming the bike with swappable parts, in about an hour’s worth of time.

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News

New MV Agusta Brutale 800 Finally Coming to the USA

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It’s been over a year since MV Agusta introduced us to its revised and updated Brutale 800 – the three-cylinder sport bike getting the Euro4 treatment, a mild facelift, and a bevy of subtle technical changes.

The new MV Agusta Brutale 800 is a no excuses bike from the Italian manufacturer, and while moto-journalists like to joke that each new bike from MV Agusta is the “the best motorcycle yet” from the Italian brand, the new Brutale earns the title legitimately in our eyes.

Now, the machine is finally coming to US soil in the coming weeks, as a 2017 model, which means that American riders in the market for middleweight street bike will have a new brand to consider when mulling over their choice (the new Brutale 800 RR should be available later this summer t00).

Pricing on the 2017 MV Agusta Brutale 800 will be set at an expensive but reachable $13,498 MSRP.

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Bikes

Here’s the CCM Spitfire in the Flesh

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When renders of the CCM Spitfire roadster hit the internet, it cause quite the stir. The British brand was clearly onto something with its 600cc four-stroke thumper.

A bespoke machine priced around £7,995 – the CCM is not only an intriguing design, but remarkably affordable. It shouldn’t surprise us then to hear that the Spitfire has sold out.

Hopefully the folks at Clews Competition Machines realize that they hit an interesting niche squarely on the head, and produce more basic and affordable machines like this.

It looks even better in real life as it does in the computer renders. See for yourself, after the jump.

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Bikes

Moody Photos of the KTM Moto2 Race Bike

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If you couldn’t get enough moody goodness from KTM’s photoshoot with their MotoGP race bike, the KTM RC16, here is a look at the Austrian brand’s Moto2 machine that Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira will race in the 2017 season.

KTM will continue to use its steel-tube chassis design in Moto2, with of course a mildly tuned Honda CBR600RR engine powering the race bike, per class rules.

KTM CEO Stefan Pierer had some choice words for Honda at the bike’s debut, chastising the Japanese brand for its time penalties in the Dakar Rally (for an illegal fuel stop) and for the manufacturer’s alleged cheating in the Moto3 race class, where its competes heavily with KTM’s own offerings.

Pierer is said to be much happier with Moto2’s switch to a Triumph supplied power plant, which will begin with the 2019 season and be based off the three-cylinder engine found in the new Triumph Street Triple 765.

With a Moto2 now in place, KTM has a pathway for GP talent, all the way from Moto3 to Moto2 and into MotoGP. With a strong partnership in place with Red Bull as well, KTM is well-positioned to take on HRC’s racing dominance, and the powerhouse that is Repsol Honda. We smell a good rivalry heating up.

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Bikes

XXX: 2017 KTM RC16 MotoGP Race Bike

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KTM is the new kid on the block, for the 2017 MotoGP season – and it is clear from the test times at Phillip Island that the Austrian brand has some work left to do on its V4-powered race bike.

The 2017 KTM RC16 is notably slower than its competitors, though shows a great deal of promise – especially as just a newcomer to the series.

KTM’s riders, Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro, will be looking to tame KTM’s monstrously powerful engine into something that can put the power to the tarmac, and they will also be looking to refine the steel-tube chassis into a proper scalpel on two wheels.

In other words, the 2017 season will be a development season.

Though a rookie season it will be, KTM’s partnership with Red Bull means that the squad is no stranger when it comes to marketing and presentation.

So we should not be surprised that with the team’s official livery unveiling today, that we also get a bevy of artsy high-quality (and high-resolution) photos of the team and the RC16.

Of course, no pixel was spared to bring you these gorgeous photos. We hope your bandwidth is up to the task.

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