Motorcycle news

When Curtiss Motorcycles launched the “Warhawk”, they were yet to depart from their vision of making full-blown exquisite electric-powered motorcycles. This was their final chapter in America’s darling configuration, the V-Twin that was used during the days when the company was called “Confederate Motors”.

Last year they were re-branded as “Curtiss Motorcycle Co.” and will be switching to electric powertrain supplied by Zero Motorcycles. And the fruit of this partnership has just been showcased at the 2018 Quail Motorcycle Gathering – the 2020 Curtiss Motorcycles’ “Zeus”. Yes, it is still in its concept stages and is sure shares all the designs of a post-apocalyptic machine.

With what started out as a custom weekend project for Hollywood’s Keanu Reeves, Arch Motorcycles has come a long way ever since it set up shop back in 2007. Joined by a self-taught engineer Gard Hollinger, the company started making production models soon and has to date made three models.

With two models in their existing lineup, Arch Motorcycles expanded their dream project with the brand new flagship model showcased at the EICMA 2017. Called the Arch Method 143, it is a power cruiser that boasts of a powerful V-Twin engine underneath its hood and surrounded by a carbon fiber mono-cell chassis and exquisite materials all around.

Back in 2014, Harley-Davdison teased the world with something that many of us considered to be an unlikely creation for the U.S. motorcycle icon; an all-electric sportbike in the form of the LiveWire. Some things have changed since then. Victory Motorcycles has gone tits-up-and-taking-on-water, ending its Brammo-based ’Empulse TT’ program, at least for the moment until Polaris shifts development/production to its other U.S. manufacturer, Indian Motorcycle. That’s a delay that gives H-D a much-needed buffer on the electric front as it struggles to compensate for its dwindling traditional buyer base, and it looks as though the factory is about ready to capitalize on its competitor’s misfortune and the current void in the U.S. electric streetbike market.

Continue reading for the upcoming Livewire release.

Fresh new patents filed by Suzuki that the new forced induction model from the Japanese brand will be a supercharged one rather than a turbo-charged machine like we all thought until now. The brand showcased the Recursion concept back in 2013 that resembles the ‘Katana’ design cues and its bodyworks seen in 2017.

This mid-weight machine will be Suzuki’s entry into the world of forced induction and might as well carry the ‘Katana’ brand with it. Currently, the industry calls it the GSX-700T, with the ‘T’ playing us deceptive with “turbo-charged”. But these patent images tell us a rather supercharged story.

Hero Electric entered the electric world after 12 years of extensive research in the EV segment and currently provides eco-friendly and cost-effective mode of personalized transportation to the masses. The company is a multi-product and a multi-location enterprise with interests in Electric Vehicles, Bicycles and Healthcare. With the newfound interest in electric powertrains, Hero Electric has made strides in this direction and are betting big on the technology.

It has been launching electric two-wheelers for some time now and has sold to over 100,000 customers. They, however, were not market spec vehicles like the Tork T6X or Ather S340 available in the country and were very underpowered. Now, they have tied up with the German Technology giant, Bosch, to get things around for them.

Uber is the world’s largest cab aggregator which has invested heavily into running their service in multiple countries in the world. To get a stronger foothold, the firm had launched uberMOTO in few cities of India and Thailand on a pilot basis. “uberMOTO enables riders to tap a button and get a motorbike ride in minutes. It’s a great way for people to save time and money on short trips and provides last mile connectivity at the most affordable price”.

Now, they are working to strike a chord with the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer, Hero MotoCorp, and start a full-fledged bike-taxis in three metro cities in their home country, India. With prices starting at just ₹20 for the first 3 kilometers (that is just 30 cents for the first 1.86 miles), they are more affordable than public transports.

Breaking motorcycle stunt records is nothing new for the Border Security Force (BSF) of the Indian army. Apart from being the country’s first line of defense, they also indulge in some motorcycle trick riding that started way back in 1990. BSF’s ’Janbaz’ was created in 1990, and they are famous for displaying their gravity-defying stunts and breaking their own previous records.

In the month of April 2018 alone, the Janbaz troop set four motorcycle stunt records, all of which were performed on their darling 350 CC Royal Enfield motorcycles-the face of stunt riding for the BSF. The stunts include longest riding on a ladder/pole, longest riding backward, longest riding while standing and carrying troops.

Based out of Southend-on-Sea near London, the Auto Fabrica workshop is set up to design, prototype, manufacture a build from concept to final product. Their latest project is the “TYPE 11” breed of machines that has built two bespoke models for two different riding preferences, underpinned by Yamaha’s XSR 900.

This scent was picked up by the folks at Yamaha Yard Build, guys who ask "talented customizers to provide inspirational ideas on how to transform modern Yamaha models into ’Yard Build’ specials." The TYPE 11 gets the “Prototype One” track only machine and a “Prototype Two” road going version.

Yamaha had showcased its mid-weight adventure concept last year and called it the ‘T7 concept’. It was then we knew that the Japanese guys are coming up with a winner in the adventure class for the next year. Then, the brand showcased the ’Yamaha Ténéré 700 World Raid’ at last year’s EICMA, but for all our dismay, was still a prototype since they had yet to turn a few knobs more.

Fast forward to today, we have confirmation from the beautiful city of Milan that the 700 Tenere will hit showrooms soon. Heavily camouflaged or rather disguised in full black body panels, the test mule is a million miles away from home to taste the readiness of the bike in the Italian terrains.

Sarah ‘Lezito’ Vignot. A girl who has been gifted with a bank of talent to dance around with a machine on two-wheels. And she is here to teach us mortals how to makes rear-wheel steering look like child’s play, and also keep our hands and legs intact. Her guide on how to learn to drift on your motorcycle:

When the flagship Super Duke was released in 2014, it blew us away and reigned supreme in the super naked market. It received major updates for 2017 showcasing no plans to be dethroned as the brand that gives us outright thrill seeking motorcycles along with being competitive.

Now, KTM is looking out to make use of the same formula on their long-distance V-twin rocket, the 1290 SUPER DUKE GT. The Austrian firm has been caught busy testing their next generation of the touring flagship underpinned by the mechanicals of the new Super Duke that is said to run on Euro V compliant mill. Not only is it a whole different story on the inside, but the exterior is also set to get a chiseled bodywork cued by its naked sibling.

Time and again it has been proved that electric/hybrid vehicles have an overwhelming advantage especially to ride within the town and this evolution has been a gradual process for some – and an exciting start for others like Campagna.

Canadian three-wheel ‘autocycle’ manufacturer, Campagna, has showcased its latest venture into a new breed of machine. Unveiled at the recently concluded Montreal Electric Vehicle Show, the Electric T-Rex prototype will be the world’s first three-wheeled production autocycle.

Harley-Davidson seems to be slowly shifting gears post its struggle to register any success stories due to its current downward trend in the market off-late. It has become a worldwide brand now after aggressive expansion that took place in the past decade, and to keep things from drifting away, the HR folks are busy setting up the stage for the brand and its social media presence.

Harley-Davidson USA in a bid to attract the millennials into motorcycling is giving a few guys an opportunity to intern with them to gain hands-on experience in integrated marketing communications. It will pay you to work with them for a period of 12 weeks, 40 hours a week, to ride its bikes and write about them on social media.

A British Suzuki Motorcycle dealer from Swindon has commissioned a special GSX-R1000 Pepsi GP Edition. It pays homage to GP legend, Kevin Schwantz and his 1988 Pepsi-sponsored RGV500 that went on to win his 500GP title. The limited run motorcycle celebrates the 25th anniversary of this feat and the 30th anniversary of the Pepsi scheme on motorcycles.

Only 25 units of this special edition will be ever made, and each bike is numbered and bears the signature of the man himself along with the iconic number 34. Each one of them will come with a price tag of £13,999 ($19,500), $4,500 dearer than the GSX-R1000 ABS edition the bike it is originally based on.

The world from today is going to change because Aprilia just gave us the world’s first production superbike with aerodynamic winglets. Underpinned by the legendary RSV4 architecture, the new machine will be a limited edition affair of just 125 units, and all of them are heading to North America.

Called as the Aprilia RSV4 RF LE (RF Limited Edition), the carbon fiber winglets on this will change the way future superbikes will look like. It was launched at the GP of Americas in Austin, Texas and will come with a price tag of $24,499, a $1,000 premium over the highly acclaimed Aprilia RSV4 RF.

Honda had plans of sacking the original Z50 monkey bike last year with its completion of serving millions of customers for a good whole 50 years. But keeping that honor alive, the Japanese brand surprised all of us at the 45th International Tokyo Show when it rebooted the model albeit with a 125cc horizontal, single-cylinder engine that replaces the 4.5 hp 50cc mill.

Keeping up with the trend, the new Monkey 125 adopts features like the LED lights and digital instrumentation in a hope to keep the appeal alive and fresh. After what we thought of the-would be final-limited run of Monkey 50th Anniversary Special white and red model, this news of the 2018 model kindles all kinds of emotions attached to this iconic motorcycle.

The brainchild of a Swedish Stefan Ytterborn, Cake intends “to speed up the journey towards a zero-emission society, while enhancing excitement and fun.” And their very first step is this Kalk electric off-roader that blurs the line between mountain bikes and motorcycles.

Further developing their product strategies, Cake entered into a partnership with Swedish all-green electricity provider Utellus to create solar charging environment specifically to charge their range of electric motorcycles.

The Aprilia RSV4 has been a well-accomplished name in the circuits of SBK championship, where the motorcycle has already recorded seven world titles in a span of six years. It is this testimony of the RSV4, which has made it quite unshakable when it comes to consistency in the liter class supersport segment.

For 2018, Aprilia North America is bringing a limited edition of the RSV4 to be launched on 22 April at the GP of Americas in Austin, Texas. It’s called the RSV4 RF LE and will be the world’s first road-legal production superbike that will come equipped with aerodynamic winglets.

Launched at the 2017 Tokyo International Motor show, the Japanese brand set the pace with this stunning three-wheeled machine called the Niken. It is a three-wheeled motorcycle based on the hugely popular MT-09 platform that gets double the grip on the front and heightened ride stability for carving corners with minimal effort. Basically, Yamaha has stepped up their game with this.

Being the most talked about bike ever since its launch, the Niken showcases a crazy new innovation called the Leaning Multi-Wheeler (LMW), and now, the Japanese Blue Team has released a new technical video showcasing fresh new information that lets us understand its ’ultimate corner carving experience’.

The Aprilia RSV4 has been a well-accomplished name in the circuits of SBK championship, where the motorcycle has already recorded seven world titles in a span of six years. It is this testimony of the RSV4, which has made it quite unshakable when it comes to consistency in the liter class supersport segment.

Now, the same V four soul has made its way into another Italian body to go win races. The Italian we are talking about here is not another two-wheeled dreamer but is a Formula X single seater race car called the Wolf GB08 Thunder. Running on the 65 degree V4 machine for the first time, the race car will run at the Italian Sport Prototype Championship 2018.

In a bid to make motorcycling safe, manufacturers are foraying deep into embedding technology and innovation into their products to help riders stay safe on their bikes. Motorcycle accidents are close to 30 times more than those of cars, and Ducati is in an effort to minimize that as much as possible.

According to Ducati’s “2025 Safety Road Map” plan, future motorcycles will have the technology to determine the range, angle, or velocity of other road users in real time via front and rear radar. This will allow the vehicles to be aware of each other on the road and avoid untoward incidents that may involve human error.

Live supercar show “Top Marques Monaco” is moving this year with a sensational line-up of vehicles confirmed for its 15th-anniversary edition including brand-new supercars, rare classic cars, and an exceedingly rare million-dollar motorbike.

Yes, a motorcycle that has six zeros’ on its price tag. This is an extremely Limited Edition bike that’s called the "T12 MASSIMO" that was the final brainchild of Massimo Tamburini, also known as the ’Michelangelo of Motos’. Only 12 of these samples will be ever made, each for a million bucks.