Ducati Test Rider Alessandro Valia Talks Us Through Developing A New Bike

We sometimes get asked how a motorcycle is developed from start to finish. Usually, we answer with a very generic answer: designers draw it up, engineers make it work, and test riders refine it into something you’d actually want to buy. But there’s more to it than that, of course. What exactly are the test riders looking for, and who are these test riders anyway? If you’re one of those who have wondered this very thing, Ducati is here to help.

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2018 KTM 790 Duke Spy Shots

The mid-displacement sportbike category is hotting up, with recent introductions of Triumph’s all-new Street Triple and Yamaha’s updated FZ-09. And then there’s the 800cc Brutale from MV Agusta, too.

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Spy Shots: Triumph's Liquid-Cooled Engine in a Bobber Prototype

Since these spy shots from BMH Images will be the third set of Triumph Bonneville-based photos we’ve published this year, we had to pause for a short discussion about whether we were being gamed by Triumph into actually paying to do PR work for them. However, the bike in question is so cool that we decided our readers need to see it. Other than the styling cues (which we’ll get to next), the photos confirm what we already know, don’t answer the questions we already have, and open up a host of new things to ponder. Such is the nature of crystal ball-gazing…

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Whatever! - What Seems to Be Our Problem?

When I backed into the motojournalism biz all those years ago, I pretty much just wanted to tear around on motorcycles without giving much thought to the hows and whys. Now that I’ve matured, and have had the amazingly good fortune to spend time with the brilliant people who design and build the things (and read a lot of Kevin Cameron columns), the really fascinating part is how organizations of people come together to produce (or not) such complex assemblages. It really does take a village.

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