For Christopher Nolan?s last installment of his Batman trilogy: The Dark Knight Rises, Hollywood hottie Anne Hathaway will don the leather bodysuit (no word yet on the leather whip) of Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman. Exactly where in Catwoman?s tumultuous relationship with Batman will Hathaway?s character stem from is uncertain, but it looks like her feminine wiles managed to get her Batman?s motorcycle, the Batpod. Filming is currently going on in Pittsburgh, and confirmed from this photo, Pennsylvania is a no-helmet state. If this feels like a shameless attempt to get photos of Anne Hathaway dressed in leather on the pages of Asphalt & Rubber, then you?d be right.
After launching its electric equivalent of a 250cc four-stroke supermotard, A&R spent a little quality time with the BRD RedShift SM at its future production facility in San Francisco. That?s right, not only is BRD hoping to tackle gas bikes head-on (we hear they only want to race in gas events), but the company, thanks to some clever design work, will be producing its electric motorcycles in the otherwise expensive SF/Bay Area. Instead of using a chassis architecture that would require hand or machine welds (the latter being far more expensive to setup for small production), BRD is using a combination of a casting and milling build process to create a motorcycle frame that is dependent more on machine operation, than worker labor. This means labor costs will be low, and production is limited only by how many milling machines the small startup can keep running at anyone one point in time.
With the now infamous quote from Burgess that the GP10 could be sorted out in about 20 seconds still resonating in the MotoGP paddock, we stand now well over half of the way through the current MotoGP season, and it?s apparent that the Desmoproblema requires more than a quick-fix. The solution to fixing the Ducati Desmosedici can be broken down into three camps, and depending whose opinion you solicit, you?ll get one of the following causes for Ducati?s uncompetitive season: the motor, the chassis, or the rider. Walking us through that analysis is our good friend David Emmett, who may not be the most astute automatic transmission driver we?ve ever seen, but when it comes to comprehensive MotoGP analysis, the man is second to none.
After we brought you Barry Munsterteiger?s ?Escapism? short, we got an email from Jay LoRossa at Lossa Engineering, sharing with us his company?s ?Solus? film, which also takes us back to the original question as to why we ride motorcycles, and begs an answer to our postulation as to why OEM promotional videos are not this well done. Featuring Lossa Engineering?s Yamaha SR500 Caf� Racer, ?Solus? is a movie about a man who finds the only moments of solitude in the busy city occur at night.
It didn?t take long for a ?spy photo? of the 2012 Ducati Streetfighter 848 to emerge from Bologna, and it looks like Ducati wants to tease out the yellow paint job it plans to bring to the smaller displacement Streetfighter. The five-bolt arrangement on the rear-wheel hub is a give away to the fact that an 848 motor lurks in the Streetfighter shown, as the current Streetfighter 1098 uses a six-bolt pattern because of the more powerful 155hp motor. With the Ducati Superbike 848 EVO motor making 140hp (and also sporting a five-bolt rear hub pattern), we can expect that the Ducati Streetfighter 848 to lose 10-15 ponies from its superbike compatriot.
Castrol Honda boss, Ronald ten Kate, may have just outed Honda?s latest iteration of its street-going superbikes, as the Dutch manager was quoted on his aniticipation of the new model, and what it would mean for his relatively uncompetitive World Superbike team. Stating that the Ten Kate Honda squad was looking forward to the arrival of the 2012 Honda CBR1000RR, it would appear that ten Kate himself has let slip that Honda would be bringing out a a whole new machine for next year, and in conjunction with that statement, a new Honda CBR1000RR would also have to be in the pipe.
Cleverly deciphering Ducati?s secret model numbering scheme, more educated publications latched onto the more likely Superbike 1199 verbiage. There was over course precedent for this +1 trend, after watching the Superbike 998 become the 999. Knowing that Ducati would be releasing a ridiculously over-square v-twin motor with the new Superbike, we also learned early on that the new power plant would be known as the Superquadrata, which sounds far more clever in Italian than its translated English. With all these different names being banded about for the same machine, we wanted to definitely put the business card wars to bed, and say conclusively that the new flagship from Bologna will be called the Ducati Superbike 1199 Superquadrata.
The happy merger between camping and motorcyles, virtually every OEM has some sort of offering that can be wedged into this ambiguous market, which means an option for every flavor of ADVrider. With an predisposition for ?needing? stuff that rivals a woman?s desire for another pair of shoes (or purses for that matter), hiking/camping and motorcycles are certainly gear oriented pastimes. With that long-winded intro, A&R presents to you the purpose-built motorcycle tent for adventure motorcyclists by Redverz.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America has published a study titled ?Aeroacoustic Sources of Motorcycle Helmet Noise? in which the various frequencies and decibel levels of helmet-generated noise were measured and tested, I became very interested in the study?s findings. Conducted by the University of Bath and Bath Spa University in England, the researchers performed a very intuitive test where they placed a mannequin?s head in a wind tunnel, turned on the wind, and recorded the sound volume and frequency at various points in and around the helmet. The conclusion was that at even normal legal riding speeds, deafening levels of sound were reaching the eardrum, primarily due to the chin bar on the helmet.
If I didn?t already know that this video was made by some guys in their spare time, I could have sworn that this short film was one of the better efforts by Ducati or Dainese (or anyone in motorcycling for that matter) at some cool videography. The brainchild of Barry Munsterteiger, this short video is the work product of several A/V industry professionals who just wanted to mess around with some cameras, a bike, and the open road on their days off from working for the man. Shot around the San Francisco Bay Area, astute eyes will see scenes from San Francisco, Altamont Pass, the Pacific Coast Highway, and other Nor Cal staples.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AsphaltandRubber/~3/F_9wrn-vNzU/
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