#sportbike

Kawasaki is acquiring a stake in Bimota, breathing new life into the Italian brand best known for its hub-steering motorcycle designs. Once the deal is completed and passes regulatory approval, Kawasaki Motors Europe, through its subsidiary Italian Motorcycle Investment, will purchase a 49.9% share in Bimota, with the controlling 50.1% being retained by its current owners (formerly Bimota S.A. but officially renamed B and Motion S.A.).

How do you make a sportbike go faster? Just add another R to it’s name.

The history book (or Wikipedia page, if that’s your thing) on electric motorcycles is rather slim, especially compared to its internal combustion counterparts, but what you’ll find is a myriad of ideas and concepts. Such is the beauty of a technology in its infancy. The section on electric racing motorcycles is even thinner. If you discount the inaugural MotoE championship running alongside MotoGP this year, the biggest stage for electric racing motorcycles has been the Isle of Man TT Zero race, wherein each entry tries to complete one full lap around the 37-mile course as fast as possible. Well, it was until the event was put on hold for at least two years. The machines you would have found at the TT Zero are full of ideas and concepts to win the race, but the one constant is the fact the batteries dominate the vehicle’s overall design. It’s understandable, considering you need a lot of battery to travel nearly 40 miles at 150-plus miles per hour.

While the new supercharged Z H2 and retro-styled W800 grabbed the spotlight in western markets, Kawasaki quietly dropped a bombshell for its Asian customers, announcing a new four-cylinder Ninja ZX-25R at the Tokyo Motor Show.

Kawasaki announced some changes to the 2020 Ninja 650, including new LED headlights and a TFT color display plus new bodywork that brings its styling more in line with the company’s Ninja sportbike lineup.

It’s an interesting time in sportbike land, as displacement limits have gone up, technologies are ever-improving, and in general, motorcycles are getting better and better. But one fact of life no manufacturer can escape is the looming Euro5 emission regulations. The toughest standards to date, Euro5 rules are said to be significantly more stringent than the Euro4 rules that preceded it. To meet the new standards, some OEMs have simply added displacement to engines to offset the increase in the number (or size) of catalyzers.

Talk about staying power. Ten years on and the Aprilia RSV4 platform is still the cream of the crop. With the RSV4 1100 Factory, however, the newest member of the RSV4 family is simply stunning. The way Aprilia has achieved this, though, is a little deceiving. Yes, the 1078cc V4 (sorta) shared with the Tuono 1100 sees some improvements the Tuono doesn’t get, but Aprilia found a way to integrate the increased power into the same magic chassis without upsetting its balance – a task which can’t be overstated. Riding the RSV4 1100, you can tell there’s more punch than before, but it doesn’t blow your socks off like the Ducati Panigale V4 S does. The senses have more time (although, not a lot more time) to process the incoming speed, and the chassis works its usual magic in placing you exactly where you want to be without any drama. The experience isn’t too far removed from the 1000cc RSV4, until you look down at the stopwatch and realize how much faster you were than before.

Watching the sunset from the British Racing Drivers’ Clubhouse aside the Silverstone circuit was one I won’t soon forget. Of course, I wasn’t there to enjoy the sunset and hors d’oeuvres. Motorcycle.com had the North American exclusive coverage of the media launch of the new Triumph Daytona Moto2 765 ahead of the MotoGP weekend at the British circuit. 

The reality is that the first thing many people do when they buy a sportbike is to change the exhaust. While it’s getting harder and harder to do this legally (many exhausts will say “For off-road use only”) that hasn’t stopped folks from pulling off the stock, quiet pipes and replacing them with lighter, louder pieces. From a performance standpoint, replacing an exhaust makes sense; lighter is better when it comes to sportbikes, and who doesn’t like a little improvement in power?

Yamaha announced new updates to the YZF-R1 and YZF-R1M for 2020, tweaking the engine, upgrading the suspension, adding new electronic features and redesigning the bodywork to improve aerodynamics.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to grace the 2018 EICMA show floor last November was Aprilia’s RS 660 concept. In a market where middleweight sportbikes seem to be on the wane, Aprilia bucked the trend with the concept and its 660cc parallel-Twin engine derived from the 1100cc RSV4 and Tuono V-4.

In this internet age, we understand everyone’s attention spans are very short. So we get (even if we’re a little saddened) if you didn’t get to read all the way through my First Ride review of the 2019 Aprilia RSV4 1100 Factory. It’s a couple thousand words long, and though I thought it made for a good read, inevitably some of you didn’t get all the way through it. Thankfully YouTube exists, and while at the glorious Mugello Circuit in Italy, I recorded my thoughts and impressions of the RSV4 for the video you can view below. It’s complete with a short overview of the bike and some action footage, including a blast down the 1.1km Mugello straight where the 1100’s speedo flashed 307 kph at one point! Later, my GoPro GPS revealed my top speed to be only 180 mph, but it was still a rush all the same.

Indian Motorcycle has been on a bit of a trademarking spree of late, registering a number of potential new model names since December. The latest trademark, filed last week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office, is for the name “Indian Challenger.”

Lightning Motorcycles has finally taken the wraps off its eagerly-awaited Strike, and if the specs – and the price – are anything to go off of, Lightning’s latest creation promises to be hugely impressive.

Blah, blah, blah, we say it all the time – the Aprilia RSV4 is one of our favorite bikes ever. But seriously, it really is special. So how, then, does one improve upon a fan favorite? Give it more power, of course. That’s exactly what we have with the new 2019 Aprilia RSV4 1100 Factory. On the surface, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong in saying Aprilia telegraphed this move long ago – four years ago in 2015, actually – with the Tuono 1100, even though doing so would make the RSV4 illegal for basically every racing class out there.