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This video of Rennie Scaysbrook (resident fast man at Cycle News) racing at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is insane and must be watched, as his Aprilia Tuono V4 1100 Factory summits in a time of 9:44.963.

This video showcases what it takes to set a new Heavyweight motorcycle record and the fastest time ever for a motorcycle at the iconic Race to the Clouds.

Be sure to watch all the way to the end though, because Rennie’s elation at finishing the race in record time is easily worth the price of admission.

Shot on location in the Pacific Northwest, we finally get to see the Ducati Streetfighter V4 in its natural element: rippin’ and tearin’ on the asphalt.

At the helm is Pikes Peak racer Carlin Dunne, who aims to take the Streetfighter V4 to the summit of Pikes Peak faster than any motorcyclist has ever gone before. That means a time of 9:45.624 or faster.

There are 156 turns between Carlin and this goal though, along with thousands of feet in elevation change. As the Santa Barbara native once told me, you don’t race your fellow competitors at the Pikes Peak – you race the mountain.

It started with a social media post from the Italian motorcycle maker, with a naked female model posed provocatively on the new MV Agusta Superveloce 800

The photo was a classic playing of an old motorcycle industry trope, where a sexy girl is draped over a motorcycle, like lavish window dressing at a fancy department store, hoping to get your attention…and then later your hard-earned money.

In that regard, MV Agusta’s ad campaign is nothing new for the motorcycle industry. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

This is business as usual in the two-wheeled world, and while even though the video campaign that came after the social media blitz was even more bizarre (and pornographic) in its story (or lack there of), we doubt few in Varese saw issue with the choice of messaging. 

Sexy bike + sexy girl + quick edits = bikes sell. That is the basic formula that the monkeys in the motorcycle marketing departments have been using for the past 50 years. So why change it now?

Mini-bikes racing is heating up in the United States, thanks in part to the hilariously fun (and cheap) Honda Grom offerings, as well as the sophisticate and potent machines like what’s coming from Ohvale.

If the sport is to continue, then there needs to be pathway for young racers, and mini-motos is one of the keys to solidying our two-wheeled future. For bonus points, they provide a super-fun and relatively pain-free way for adults to race and crash on the weekend.

The interesting part though is that even if you are a nine-time world champion like Valentino Rossi, the value of a day on a mini-moto is certainly there, as we can see above The Doctor spinning some laps on the machine with his VR|46 cohorts.

What? You’re still riding around on your adventure bike with only one-wheel drive…like a sucker??! Well, the good folks at Christini have a solution for you, if you’re riding on one of those orange ADV machines.

Releasing their acclaimed two-wheel drive system for motorcycle for the KTM Adventure lineup, Christini is once again shaking up the off-road world.

Did you feel that? The company that made the four-strokes the standard in motorcycle engine design just moved the earth a little bit further, releasing today the Honda CR Electric prototype.

The electric motorcycle is a 250cc equivalent dirt bike from Big Red, and broke cover at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show in Japan.

Not too many details are known at this time, beyond what we can see…but there is certainly a lot to digest when looking at this machine. 

It was 12 years ago that Ruben Xaus became internet-famous for a photo that depicted him sliding a Ducati Hypermotard 1100 into a turn, thumb up in the air triumphantly…like a boss. It was an unbelievable sight, both figuratively and literally.

Back in the day, I would often see comments on the photo that speculated what the next shot looked like. Bike tumbling through the gravel, a yard sale of parts? The rider in a stretcher on the way to the hospital, after it all went horribly wrong?

Harley-Davidson continues to push its new electric agenda, releasing this week two videos that show its electric scooter and electric moped models in action, just ahead of the X-Games in Aspen, Colorado.

The videos are interesting for two very important reasons. First, they show the two concepts running, just a few weeks after we saw the concepts in actual photos, not sketches.

Not exactly exciting two-wheeled video porn, nevertheless it shows that Harley-Davidson is hard at work bringing these bikes to market…though they do seem pretty rough and in the early stages of development.

“Make Motorcycles Great Again” – that should be the battle cry for the American motorcycle industry for 2019 and onward.

We have talked at great length about the various ways that the motorcycle industry in the United States can revamp itself for life in the 21st century, and while there isn’t a single silver bullet to fix motorcycling in the USA, there are several pillars that such a plan can rest upon.

One of those pillars is getting young riders involved on two-wheels, and on the race track there is no better way to do that than with mini-moto racing. It is cheap and approachable…and most importantly, it is fun.

Getting onto a local cart track with a motorcycle can be done for a fraction of the cost of big bikes on proper road race circuits, and your budget is really only constrained by how good you are at hunting for deals on Craigslist.

Though if you really want to go all out, we present to you the Ohvale GP-0. The pinnacle of the sport, the Daytona 190 model from Ohvale will set you back a solid $6,900 MSRP. Other models from Ohvale are also available, with the 110cc version starting at $4,500 MSRP.

This video is a bit of marketing piece (a bit might be putting it lightly), but we can’t help but drool over the exhaust that Akrapovič made for the Ducati Panigale V4 R superbike.

Mixed with a race ECU, the serpentine twists of the Akrapovič pipes help coax 231hp from what used to be a 217hp machine in its stock form.

That is a proper WorldSBK level power figure…all from a street bike. It might be a $40,000 street bike sure, but it still runs on pump gas and comes with a two-year warranty and 7,500-mile service intervals.