BMW has made its all-new S 1000 RR superbike official at last! Going through the performance data – 193 horsepower at 13,000 RPM, 82.5 lb-ft of torque at 9,750 RPM, 455.3 lbs. wet weight – we can’t help being amazed by what the German engineers could deliver; not that we ever underestimated them, but this is the best power-to-weight ratio of all literbikes so far and this is just a promising debut.
The bike will feature ABS and an extremely advanced traction control system as standard equipment while an HP Gearshift Assistant stands for full-power clutchless upshifts so we’re expecting it to break one track record after another.
Easy to distinguish due to the asymmetrical headlights and uniquely shaped fairing, the Beemer will lead to the development of racing bikes that will be piloted by Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus during the 2010 WSBK Championship. Starting from a street legal bike is the main condition for racing so expect it to go on sale in U.S at the beginning of 2010.
During the Nürburgring race of the 1999 Superbike World Champion Season, a leaking Kawasaki goes out of competition, leaving the track filled with oil precisely on a braking area of the track. Marshals don’t stop the race to clean up the mess and racers fall one after the other during the folowing eight laps.
Colin Edwars goes mad of anger and starts throughing debris back on the track as well as giving organizors the finger.
The Two Stroke Shop name says everything about their object of activity, but what it forgets to mention is the fact that the Tropical North Queensland, Australia located shop may have shut the mouth of Japanese manufacturers that are so proud about the performance of their liter bikes.
By retaining the Japanese chassis and replacing the four-stroke engine with an in-house made two-stroke one developing 250 bhp and 160 ft lbs of torque, the company’s owner, Stephen Rothwell and partner as well as two-stroke engine designer for GP race teams, Wayne Wright, have raised the stake to an unimaginable level of performance, but of which they are totally aware.
Rothwell declared to motorcycledaily.com: "What the world needed was an answer to the current litre bikes, which we find anemic," "If a bike can’t hoist the wheel in 4th gear off the throttle then it’s not a superbike."
In a perfect world, that would have been minimum requirement…
The guys at Solo Moto have recently presented a strange photo session of the BMW S 1000 RR in which cheetah were “mastered” by a beautiful model right next to the bike. Wait, does this mean that the BMW will be the fastest superbike out there, just as the cheetah is the fastest cat out there? > More
We certainly know that the 2009 BMW S 1000 RR will make its debut at the World Superbike race on May 29th at Miller Motorsports Park, but we’ve long been wondering and digging for information regarding the all-new bike’s price and couldn’t find any clue whatsoever. But now we’ve just heard that the two-wheeled Beemer will not only be close to Japanese bikes in matters of performance, but in what concerns the price too.
Pieter de Waal, Vice President of BMW Motorrad USA said: "We intend to take the four Japanese head-on. We did not intend to build a motorcycle like Ducati does or KTM does. We wanted to build a mainstream motorcycle,"
Expected to be priced within 10% of the Japanese liter bikes, the 2009 BMW S 1000 RR will be one hell of a German bang for the buck. That translates into approximately $15,000, the price which will help show the market’s preferences between Japanese and European as we’ve been long hearing that if these lasts wouldn’t have been so expensive then people would have bought them in a much greater number.
Ever since the 2008 launch of their all-new Superbike, a premiere for the Austrian brand, KTM has worked to develop the now notorious RC8 model into a more powerful, slightly lighter and sharper cornering motorcycle, improving so both the times around the track and the appreciation among street riders. So while carrying on producing the Standard RC8 as a 2009 model year, KTM also puts on sale the RC8 R model, a nightmare for all competitors out there, be them Japanese or European. > More
The RSV4 is being launched this week so Aprilia releases the promotional video of their all-new superbike just so that they have some track action to play on and on again at the world launch.
The Austrian manufacturer KTM announced that their Venom project has been put on hold for as long as it takes to make a success out of the RC8 superbike. A naked superbike, the Venom was first unveiled at the 2005 EICMA Show in Milan and was supposed to go into production as a 2009 model year. Thomas Kuttruf, Public Relations Manager at KTM, told MCN why this won’t happen so soon:
“The bike is standing in Kiska’s (Gerald Kiska, the man behind the design company responsible for the look of all KTMs) office, but is currently a no-go for production.
With the Venom project we had the idea to make a naked superbike, we still think this idea is worth following and the project is not stopped, but it is a bit on hold.
“The clear priority for us at the moment and the clear idea from the Stefan Pierer was to say ‘guys, before we have a naked superbike, we must have a successful real superbike.’
Piaggio Group USA President and CEO Paolo Timoni told Hell for Leather how the Aprilia RSV4 will eventually be sold in the United States during the final quarter of 2009. Although first revealed last September, Aprilia’s 180bhp, 85lb/ft, 179 kg (dry) superbike barely makes it for the 2009 introduction and mostly because of SBK homologation requirements. Accordingly to these, a returning manufacturer must build at least 250 units for initial homologation and 1000 units by June of the first year in racing and that’s precisely the scenario we’re witnessing.
Independently of their motives for introducing the Factory version of the RSV4 till the end of the year, we’re extremely happy to find a potent European contender going against the dominating Japanese crowd.
Aprilia has just presented the final graphic version of their RSV4 superbike that will debut in the World Superbike Championship this weekend. As seen, Aprilia makes an entry on the WSBK scene without the help of a main sponsor so the fairing displays the traditional colors of the Italian company, the most visible logos being RSV4 and Aprilia.
Recent test have shown that the new Italian V4 is capable of great performances and with the help of Shinya Nakano and Max Biaggi, the Noale house aims towards as much presences on the podium as possible.
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