Whether its by design or just a case of trivial coincidence, there seems to be a growing trend towards the development of new and powerful trikes these days. Sure, this is how the auto industry works; concepts come and go frequently. But in the case of trikes, there appears to be renewed interest in the segment, one that has spurned manufacturers to come out with their new models.
We already saw what Scorpion Motorsport did with the P6, and now we have a concept trike model coming straight from the Land Down Under.
This is the Trike Strike by Design+Industry, a concept design that illustrates just how much potential there is in the trike segment. It’s far from being green-lighted into production, but it does give us an idea of the future that lies in front of us, one that could very well be defined by a multitude of high-powered trikes running around our streets in the future.
The Honda CB450 Cafe Racer "Bonita Applebum" started its life as a 1971 Honda CB450 bought from eBay, and believe it or not, the bike was built in a small apartment. After buying all the items needed from eBay, Pepe Luque - the guy who now owns the bike - started to clean, paint, and spit polish every piece before installing them on the frame.
Besides some minor fine-tuning, Luque worked on this project all by himself, including upsizing the main jets to compensate for the airflow in and out of the motor and replacing the Pirelli tires for some Firestones. As for the exterior paint, it was inspired by a CB450 Armadillo, while the handgrips and seat color was suggested by his flatmate. Why is the fact that he built the whole thing by himself so noteworthy? Well, Pepe Luque is colorblind.
When explaining how he came about picking the colors and getting everything just right for the bike to work, he said: "The main section I really struggled with was the wiring of the bike. As you could imagine, being color blind did not help with the colors of the wires. I was very fortunate that my girl and my brother’s wife helped with labelling the wires. For instance, yellow with a white trace, I labelled FLB (front left blinker) and so on. It took me by surprise that I nailed the wiring on first go."
Using a little girl as an eerie voiceover for a scary flick is not something new, however, using the same eerie little girl as voiceover for the new Kawasaki Z1000 ad, now that’s new!
You’ve got to give props to the guys behind this ad campaign for thinking out of the box. Who would’ve thought a 1000cc Jap bike, and a child, and some neat sound effects would create such a captivating advert? One thing is for sure – it makes, even us, want to get on one of these and wreak havoc during after dark escapades involving “bending” the law and disturbing the peace. Just looking at it after watching the video awakens the sinister side inside you – and it should. Priced at a reasonable $13 199, you get all the evil you can handle in the form of a 4-cylinder that summons 128BHP from the bowels of hell, belching it through a 4 –into-2 lightweight exhaust. Not-so-dark features include fully adjustable front forks and instrument binnacle and an equally dexterous windscreen. Making sure the nightmare comes to a halt when absolutely necessary are 300mm ventilated discs with 4-pot calipers. Long live the darkness!
After a day riding the jet sky on the local lake, there’s nothing like a good buddy coming to help you load up the thing and get going home. But for everything to go well, make sure the guy in cause isn’t an absolute idiot that will have you drowned. Obviously, this is the case here. The driver of this Ford Econoline gets the rear end in the water and the wheels lose traction right when the jet sky rider is in the back struggling for a breath of air in the water-filled van. Thanks to God, he made it out alive.
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Simply put, this is a spectacular video resuming the 2010 edition of the Tourist Trophy, a memorable year for the five victories of Ian Hutchinson. That’s a first in the 103 years of racing on Isle of Man.
High-speed curves, jumps and even saves – not to mention the crazy moves of those copilots in the sidecars – don’t recommend this video to the faith hearted.
Mulholland a.k.a. The Snake seems to have a bad relation with motorcycles in general and GSX-Rs in particular as the highway’s often challenging curves happen to throw off the seats even the most experienced riders. We’re not sure if that’s the case with the next two examples that we came across, but they’re enough to make a point. The first rider lowsides and the second highsides, both while riding a Suzuki GSX-R on the same section of The Snake. Hit the jump to see the videos.
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Like always before, this year’s World Ducati Week turned into a veritable party and the fun factor was increased by an organized sexy bike wash. The happy Ducatis were an 1198 and a Multistrada 1100, but you’ll see in the fairly short video after the jump that soon everybody was washing everybody. Troy Bayliss was also at Misano for a piece of the action, so you couldn’t get any better than this. Make sure you see the video as it is well worth it.
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Two police cars pursue this guy first on a field and then he takes it on the street, where he eventually approaches a curve too fast, goes out in the ditch and then all across the road to the other side. Why? He probably thought it was fun and he’ll never get caught as long as he twists the throttle only towards him. But reality is cruel and so is the law with these guys, so don’t be doing this.
Uwe Wachtendorf of Cycle Canada rides the Harley-Davidson Forty-Eight on the roller girls track in the quest for the ideal cover shot for their next month’s issue. The joining is a stretch and they admit it in the video, but my opinion is that, considering the way some of those women look, they should have used the FAT Boy model.
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Bikers from all over the world, especially the United States are now involved in motorcycle safety programs and very often we see their safety ads on TV. Some are based on inspiration and some not, so you check out the one belonging to the Alaskan ABATE program and see in which category it fits.
