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How Do You Get Halfway Through The Dakar?

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The Dakar Rally might be one of the most grueling things you can do on two wheels, and for motorcyclists, it embodies the ultimate expression of adventure motorcycling. As if traversing thousands of miles while going full-tilt wasn’t hard enough, a proper Dakar Rally bid requires an enormous amount of resources to undertake. Crossing the halfway point this week, Marc Coma’s team released a nice infographic explaining the various resources the team has used in getting only half of the way through the rally.

With three more days of hard riding, Coma currently sits two minutes and twenty-two seconds behind his rival and fellow KTM rider Cyril Despres (the Frenchman explains his riding style in a video found after the jump). The KTM duo is now in the home-strech of the rally, and will be battling down to the wire for each rider’s fourth Dakar victory. Speaking after today’s stage, Coma is not optimistic about his abilities to catch Despres, but wisely warns that anything can happen during The Dakar.

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Banter

Video: A Different Kind of Race in Dakar

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With the Dakar Rally a little over halfway through its 32nd running, the historic race has yet to show a decisive winner between the Despres/Coma grudge match. Shifting from its African namesake in 2009 because of safety concerns, the rally now takes place in South America instead. Some fans of The Dakar lament this change, citing various reasons for their desire to see the race continue on African soil, but beyond sentimental reasons, I would wager this year’s venues of Argentina, Chile, and Peru provide just as stunning and challenging of a course as the old Paris to Dakar route ever did.

I have done my fair share of traveling through this job and my previous lives, but for some reason I have yet to step foot onto the African soil, which is something I hope to change this year. Thinking about the landscapes I grew up watching during the “original” Dakar, Africa seems every bit the National Geographic adventure I believe it to be, and of course the Boy Scout in me would cherish a night under the African savanna’s sky.

Continuing a vein we have been exploring this week though, the motorcycle culture in Africa is something entirely different to our Americanized perspective on motorcycling. Often the more reliable means of transportation between cities and villages, I have partially gotten to know motorcycles in Africa through my experience with the folks from Riders for Health, but the cultural element to this is something I have yet to truly understand. Maybe this music video for Parachute Youth gets us all a little bit closer to that understanding, and in the process brings us back to where we ourselves started on two wheels as well. Thanks for the tip Q$-Bling!

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Banter

Video: Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City

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Fresh off the awesome truck, this time-lapse video seems apropos to our earlier discussion regarding motorcycling in Southeast Asia. A short film featuring tens of thousands of photographic stills, photographer Rob Whitworth has not only managed to capture the dense urban nature of Ho Chi Minh City but has also found a way to translate it into a very eye-catching depiction. It’s part chaos, it’s part art. It’s all Vietnam. Video & 18 stills after the jump, while a more detail Q&A on the project can be found at WORD HCMC.

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Opinion/Editorial

Lawless Jakarta & Some Thoughts About Southeast Asia

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Here’s a random factoid delivered in the form of a question for you: when looking at the metrics for the , which city do you think is responsible for the most readers? We are an American-based website after all, so your top picks might be New York, Los Angeles, or maybe San Francisco, right? Nope. Half our traffic does come from abroad though, so maybe London? Paris? Rome? Barcelona? Wrong again dear readers, because when it comes to a single city consuming the moto-goodness that we publish on a daily basis, none of them have anything on Jakarta, Indonesia (yes, the title of article gave that one away, huh?).

I recently talked about this phenomenon with another online motojournalist, who was experiencing the same trend, and he concluded that it must be employees using proxy servers so they can read blog while at work. I disagreed however, and when looking at where the industry as a whole is currently headed, I think there is something much more basic at play here. Developing countries are the future of motorcycling, and right now Southeast Asia is a hot bed of growth for motorcycle sales. With a less developed infrastructure, and still a need to get from Point A to Point B, motorcycles provide a cheap and effective means of transportation in countries like Indonesia, and for many, motorcycles have become a way of life.

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Racing

MotoGP: Ducati Corse Will Have “Totally New” Bike for 2012

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Ducati Corse’s winter break is finally over, as the Italian MotoGP squad has assembled in Madonna di Campiglio for Wrooom 2012, the team’s season kick-off party jointly held with Ferrari’s F1 contingency. Traditionally the ski-filled week-long media event involves interviews with the riders, an unveiling of the Ducati race bike, and a technical briefing, but this year is a little different.

With nary a Ducati Desmosedici GP12 to be found, today’s interviews, with both Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden, explained the current state of Ducati Corse, and set the expectations for the 2012 MotoGP season. Announcing that a new Ducati race bike had been designed (apparently existing only in the computers of the Italian company), the team is optimistic about its chances, but also cautious about it’s likely results, especially early on in the season.

Hopping to make forward-progress on Honda and Yamaha at the Sepang test later this month, Ducati’s focus is to make logical steps on its competition, and hopes that its new GP12 (we’re not even going to hazard a guess at it’s internal designation), provides the answers on track that the team struggled to find last season.

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Banter

Good Morning.

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After a long slumber sitting in a a collector’s garage, this Honda CR 750 M3 Factory Racer recently revved back to life near Dubai one early morning. Like anything that has been asleep for so long, it takes come coaxing and motivation to move past the slumber that lingers, and begin the day anew — firing on all cylinders if you will pardon the pun.

Documenting the awakening of this very special Honda CR 750 M3 race bike, Crank & Piston has a nice break down of the event, with some photos and an account of the storied Honda’s history. We just like that this short clip catches the waking beast, as we too are not morning people. Your Monday stars after the jump.

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Video: Making the Radical Ducati RAD02 Imola

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One of the great A&R travesties of 2011 was my inability to swing by the Radical Ducati shop in Madrid, Spain as I was traveling to the Valencian GP. Truly a fan of their pieced-together two-wheeled works of art, my fragile heart surely would not withstood having to leave Radical Ducati’s workshop, had I been able to get out of the Madrid-Barajas Airport and down to the city center before my connecting flight departed. Ni modo, así es la vida.

Who knows what 2012 has in store for my travel itinerary, so until I can make good on that visit, we all will have to tide ourselves over with the photos and videos that these creative Spaniards produce, and at the top of the drool-worthy list is the Radical Ducati RAD02 Imola café racer. A tribute to the bike that carried Paul Smart and Bruno Spaggiari to victory in the 200-mile race at Imola in 1972, the RAD02 Imola is one of best examples of the quality work that this small Spanish outfit produces on a regular basis.

Releasing an artsy build/assembly video of the Radical Ducati RAD02 Imola, we already feel the custom motorcycle tugging again at our heartstrings, and I can’t help but wonder what other projects Pepo, Reyes, and the rest of the Radical Ducati crew have for 2012. Enjoy the video after the jump, and be sure to bring a towel to mop up the mess.

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Banter

SX Riding Tips, Slow-Mo Footage, & James “Bubba” Stewart

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We should probably just go ahead change our name to Dirt & Rubber already, as A&R is on an off-road kick today. We’ve shown our fair share of slow-motion MotoGP videos from our friends at Red Bull, and today the brand that gives you wings has a treat for you dirt bike enthusiasts. Incorporating some great dirt track shots with James “Bubba” Stewart talking about the basic theories of motorcross racing, Red Bull has a nice little promo video here for Bubba and the Yamaha squad. Learning patented tips like “turn the bike like no other and get it done,” and “the Bubba scrub” we expect our street-leaning selves to be riding at JS7‘s level in no time at all. Video goodness after the jump, and be sure to note the slow-mo exhaust puffs at the 1:50 time marker.

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News

The Ducati Superquadro Motor in 3D

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We seem to be on a kick lately with 3D renders of the underpinning parts of the Ducati 1199 Panigale. While we’ve already seen the Panigale’s “frameless” chassis detailed in computer renders, today we have a video Ducati’s Superquadro motor. Starting from an exploded point-of-view, the 195hp / 98 lbs•ft of torque v-twin motor re-assembles itself, showing how the most powerful engine from Ducati comes together for its final form.

With a hybrid chain/gear-driven camshaft, titanium valves, a wet slipper clutch, ride-by-wire throttle actuation, rider-selectable “riding mode” system, and 15,000 mile major service intervals, the Superquadro is a major step for Ducati with its Superbike motor design. Add in the first full-LED headlight on a produciton motorcycle, the first electronically-adjustable suspension on a sport bike, the first motorcycle engine braking control system, as well as the first GPS-assisted data acquisition system for a production motorcycle, and ABS brakes as a standard equipment, and you’ve got one potent two-wheeled machine.

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Racing

Hayden & Bostrom Test at Homestead-Miami Speedway

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The start 2012 AMA Pro Road Racing series is almost upon us, and the folks at Michael Jordan Motorsports are rapidly gearing up for the new season. Traveling down to the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida, MJM riders Ben Bostrom and Roger Lee Hayden took their Suzuki GSX-R1000 race bikes around newly added track for the first time. While Bostrom and Hayden won’t have to race at Homestead-Miami until September 23rd, the season-opener at Daytona, Florida is rapidly approaching and only two and half months away.

Shooting the Homestead-Miami Speedway test with some on-board cameras, the Michael Jordan Motorsports team has put together a great three minute clip that stars Bostrom’s boot, among other things. Joking aside, the video is well-put together (a rarity in the AMA paddock), and has some great shots of Bostrom’s shifting and knee-slidding around the Floridian track. Look for #23 on the Jordan Suzuki, while Roger Lee will again represent the men and women of the Army National Guard on the #54 bike.

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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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