Obviously trying, a bit desperately, to appeal to the ‘yoof” generation KTM has a new video up of its soon to be released 125cc bike, The KTM 125 Duke.
Despite the video’s apparent target market this looks to be an efficient sporty looking machine, and hopefully will encourage more young people to take up riding in the face of drastically falling numbers of new bikers.
Disney has released concept art for some of cinema’s most famous motorcycles, the Lightcycles from TRON. These images are from the sequel TRON : LEGACY due to be released in December 2010 in 3D. One of the earliest stories featured on Ride The Wild Wind was the unveiling of full size mock ups of the bikes at Comic-Con last year, see here.
The Lightcycle has been an inspiration for custom bike builders since it first appeared in the original 1982 movie with designs such as the iCare shown below.
Looking forward to seeing Lightcycles in action again this Xmas.. click for bigger images..
TRON for those who don’t know is a 1982 science fiction action film by Walt Disney Pictures. It starred Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn (and his program counterpart inside the electronic world, Clu), Bruce Boxleitner as Tron and his User Alan Bradley, Cindy Morgan as Yori and Dr. Lora Baines, and Dan Shor as Ram. David Warner plays all three main antagonists: the program Sark, his User Ed Dillinger, and the voice of the Master Control Program. It was written and directed by Steven Lisberger. Back in 1982 TRON was the film to see with the most startling special effects showing the early computer graphics that would become the biggest thing in movies.
In the sequel TRON : LEGACY Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund), a rebellious 27-year-old, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father Kevin Flynn (Bridges), a man once known as the world’s leading video-game developer. When Sam investigates a strange signal sent from the old Flynn’s Arcade — a signal that could only come from his father– he finds himself pulled into a digital world where Kevin has been trapped for 20 years. With the help of the fearless warrior Quorra (Wilde), father and son embark on a life-or-death journey across a cyber universe — a universe created by Kevin himself that has become far more advanced with vehicles, weapons, landscapes and a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape.
Sharp sighted web surfers caught photos of the new 2011 Triumph Speed Triple in the accessories section of the company’s web site, for the brief amount of time they appeared. The bike is due to be revealed next week but web site preparations have blown that carefully set up PR exercise.
Earlier reports of technical tweaks and little else weren’t totally accurate as it’s clear there’s new lights and styling cues to the highly successful naked. Head over to MCN for a couple of more shots.
Somebody in Triumph’s IT department will be hiding under their desk..
Triumph has revealed some new accessories for its new Tiger adventure bikes. A set of rugged looking panniers for touring, and a high touring screen are set to grace the bike as optional add-ons when they launch.
Triumph obviously realize that one of the great things about class leading adventure bikes, like the BMW GS range, is the vast array of bolt on bits and pieces, and are going for broke with their entry to the market.
With a 1200 GS killer spotted testing recently, Triumph intend an unprecedented assault for the hearts and minds of adventurers everywhere.
MCN has more pictures in it’s September 29th issue.
Suzuki has released a sketch of its on the horizon GSR750, due in 2011.
The middle weight naked should have a competitive price around the £6500 mark and feature a detuned GSX750 engine. RTWW can’t help but feel though that a lot of these bikes are starting to look very similar, nice and all, but there are definately signs of a potential homogenized blandness creeping in around sharp plastic and angular headlights. Have a look at the bikes below and see if you agree;
The Yamaha FZ8
The Kawasaki Z750R
The Aprilla Shiver
Ducati stands out with curvier styling however…
BMW has added more content about its upcoming 6-cylinder touring machines, The K1600 GT and K1600 GTL, to it’s Motorad website. As usual BMW impresses with a dazzling array of technology features on these bikes and they should make a big splash when they debut, hopefully at the Milan show in November.
Check out the web site here – The BMW 6-Cylinder Legend
Editor Nick here. Had to post this, I’m sorry but I just had to. It’s a querk of mine to post a Friday Happy Dance on Twitter and Facebook every week and my good friends over at @ottawagoodtime sent me a Biker Friday Happy Dance.
On looking on YouTube it would appear there’s a whole subculture of dancing bikers posting videos of them suited and booted busting some moves. Have you done this? Send us a link in the comments below. One of the videos you’ll have to watch on YouTube as embedding has been disabled but it’s worth it. Enjoy and Happy Friday! 🙂
Kawasaki’s new Z750R, due to arrive in 2011, has a lot of good things going for it. The ‘R’ version has some design tweaks and new fully adjustable forks, a new revised rear shock bolted to an aluminium swing arm, a blah blah blah. You don’t need to know any of this to start saving your $/£/€, all you need is the video, and damn kawasaki make good videos!
Kawasaki says of the bike “The Z750R is an impressive package. It has been designed to take the handling, braking and overall specification of the hugely popular Z750 to a totally new level, justifying the exclusive R status of our new mid-weight naked contender for the coming year,” and in case you do want some more information the spec for the new Z750R includes;
Electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo has struck a production deal with international company Flextronics, who also build for Microsoft among many other big names, to build components and assemble their bikes such as the famed Empulse.
This is huge news for e-bikes and for Brammo as electric enthusiasts finally get an excellent bike with speed and range on the verge of mass production. It’s a bold move for Brammo and a great first step to world domination. Below is their official press release;
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PRESS RELEASE
BRAMMO SELECTS FLEXTRONICS AS ITS GLOBAL MANUFACTURING PARTNER FOR ELECTRIC MOTORCYLES
Ashland, OR, and Singapore, September 15, 2010–Brammo, Inc. a global leader in the electric motorcycle business and Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX), a leading global Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider today announced that Brammo has selected Flextronics as its global manufacturing partner for the production of plug-in electric motorcycles and components. This strategic partnership enables Brammo to rapidly scale its manufacturing production in order to meet growing international demand for its products. This partnership is a continuing expansion of Flextronics’ Automotive segment and augments services to include new clean tech technologies and electronic systems for electric vehicles.
“As Brammo pursues its international growth strategy it is critical to our success that we continue to build our strong reputation for quality, reliability and serviceability,” stated Craig Bramscher, CEO and founder of Brammo, Inc. “Flextronics is focused on providing a high quality end-to-end solutions approach to leading global companies, including automotive, and this is why we have selected them as our strategic manufacturing partner. We can now scale globally with the demand and the rapid evolution of this growth industry.”
“Brammo offers one of the most innovative, electric two-wheeled vehicle product lines in the marketplace and we are delighted that they have selected Flextronics as their exclusive partner for the manufacture of state-of-the-art electric motorcycles. This strategic partnership allows us to further expand our portfolio for battery powered vehicles and complements our strong expertise in high voltage and energy recuperation applications for the automotive market,” said Herbert Schoeffmann, president of Flextronics Automotive. “We look forward to this very exciting partnership, where we will provide Brammo with our world-class global resources, strong vertical integration capability and supply chain logistics enabling Brammo to achieve its ambitious growth plan.”
About Flextronics
Headquartered in Singapore (Singapore Reg. No. 199002645H), Flextronics is a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider focused on delivering complete design, engineering and manufacturing services to automotive, computing, consumer, industrial, infrastructure, medical and mobile OEMs. Flextronics helps customers design, build, ship, and service electronics products through a network of facilities in 30 countries on four continents. This global presence provides design and engineering solutions that are combined with core electronics manufacturing and logistics services, and vertically integrated with components technologies, to optimize customer operations by lowering costs and reducing time to market. For more information, please visit http://www.flextronics.com.
About Brammo
Brammo Inc is a leading electric vehicle technology company headquartered in North America. Brammo designs and develops electric vehicles including the award winning Brammo Enertia motorcycle and the recently announced Empulse. Brammo is an OEM supplier of its innovative Brammo Digital Drivetrain™ systems including the Brammo Power™ battery pack and Brammo Power™ vehicle management system. Brammo has vehicle distribution and marketing operations in North America, Europe and Asia.
For more information visit www.brammo.com. and Brammo on Twitter at BrammoSays and on Facebook at Brammo Powercycles. See the Brammo Empulse in action: http://tiny.cc/brammo-empulse.
While Harley Davidson lurches from crisis to crisis, its former employee/partner Erik Buell’s company Erik Buell Racing is on the rise.
Erik’s race bikes have been award winners on the American circuits and the time spent drawing up plans for new road bikes while under HD’s wing will not be in vain it would seem. Coming soon will be a road ready version of EBR’s successful race bike, the 1190RR.
A teaser video of some form will be appearing on Erik Buell’s music label Rat Pack Records website today, September 14th, which will be a music video that will somehow feature a first look at the new road ready 1190RS. Also on the site is merchandise marked with the EBR 1190RS logo. The website states;
The 1190RS will be the new street bike from Erik Buell Racing! The design is currently in the pre-production / testing stage and is not yet available for public sale. Show your support and be the very first to get your new 1190RS and new EBR logo merchandise! Check back here Tuesday, September 14th for the 1190RS “teaser” video featuring music from Wratchet Head the new project from Michael Wilton of Queensryche!
While it doesn’t sound like we’ll be getting much in the way of technical specs during a brief music video, it’s a good way to start getting the word out that the company is ready to tackle the market despite the poor economy. Surely someone is kicking themselves at HD for their overly hasty decision to dispose of Buell and his team.
Check out Rat Pack Records for the music video
Visit Erik Buell Racing for details of their current sports bikes
Some of the merchandise available for the 1190RS-
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