MotorCycles - Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:13 - 0 Comments

BMW S 1000 RR race bike

Let the speculation end! BMW has officially pulled the covers off of its S 1000 RR race bike, which will sprout a production model next year. General Director of BMW Motorrad Hendrik von Kuenheim says that the company is committed to building 1,000 units of the new model next year. Featuring a 1000cc inline-four transversely mounted between the frame rails and an upside-down front fork, the RR is rather conventional by BMW standards. This has allowed the Motorrad to keep the bike as compact as possible, which can be attested to by the fact that it has been spotted lapping tracks in Yamaha R6 bodywork. So far, no specifications have been given regarding power levels, but we fully expect it to be competitive with the Superbike front-runners. Traction control is also reportedly put to good use. Judging from the extensive use of (bare) carbon fiber, we’d expect the weight to be on par with the competition, as well. There’s an entire speech pasted after the break, so be sure to check it out.
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MotorCycles - Friday, March 7, 2008 6:18 - 0 Comments

American motorcycle manufacturer ATK branching out onto the street

Despite the fact that America is a huge market for motorcycles, there are relatively few American brands in most segments of the industry. Sure, Harley-Davidson and the many custom-bike companies are big both here in the States and abroad, but there is a distinct lack of American brands available to sportbike and dirtbike enthusiasts, and the choices that are available are often not competitive with machines from other countries. ATK has long been offering an American option to dirtbike riders, but has rarely fielded a truly comparable product, or comparable prices, to the dirtbike market mostly owned by the Japanese and KTM.

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MotorCycles - Tuesday, February 19, 2008 8:49 - 0 Comments

Will the motorcycle replace the car for performance-minded drivers?

We ran across an interesting question posed by Paul Crowe over at The Kneeslider and decided to see what our readers thought: Are motorcycles the future of performance? This question seemingly has some merit due to the tighter CAFE requirements that the government is forcing upon automakers. General Motors cannot afford to sell hundreds of thousands of Camaros at great prices, no matter how many consumers want them. Instead, it seems that the highest-performing Camaro could be a hybrid, which would undoubtedly cost more than an SS with a V8 engine. Rumors are circulating that the Corvette ZR1 will be the last one powered by a larger-displacement V8 engine.

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MotorCycles - Tuesday, February 19, 2008 8:44 - 0 Comments

Monster Motorbike For Motor Show

The Australian monster will be on show at the Melbourne Motor Show which runs from 29 February. What’s the Australian monster, you might ask? Is it a mutant kangaroo? No. Is it perhaps a pet Tazmanian devil? Wrong again. It’s a 13 ton/ 28 660 pound two-wheeler devised by Ray Baumann, a man who used to make a living out of trying to stop his own living. He was a stunt driver who has also driven trains, among other lifestyle activities.

Powered by a Detroit Diesel truck engine, mated to a 6-speed Allison automatic, this thing stands almost 9 metres/ 29.5ft long and more than 3 metres/ 9.8ft high. In fact, as seen in these pics, a full grown man doesn’t even stand up to one of the Monster Motorbike’s wheels. Caterpillar provided these wheels straight from their front-end loader, a beast on its own, used to terrorizing the earth in all manner of sorts.

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