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Welcome to this week's News Cycles, Common Tread’s roundup of what’s happening on our servers and everywhere else. Every Friday, look for a collection of news, stories, and all things moto from around the web. This week: A limited-edition Ducati, a New Year's resolution fail on the Fourth of July and a death in the family.
Ducati celebrates an anniversary with a limited-edition Monster
Back in 1993, when sport bikes were really heating up and many people considered standard motorcycles boring, Ducati introduced the Monster: A street bike lacking the racer replica riding position and full fairing, but retaining sporty performance. It was a time when British bikers on a budget were ripping the fairings off of crashed sport bikes, bolting on a simple headlight and calling them streetfighters. The Monster was first to capitalize on the look in an offering straight from the factory (Triumph's Speed Triple was right behind).
Ducati has since sold more than 325,000 Monsters and the model was often Ducati's best seller. To mark the occasion, Ducati is producing a 25th Anniversario Monster 1200 with a tricolore paint scheme and lots of special bits. That's MotoGP ace Andrea Dovizioso fondling one in the top photo. The 147-horsepower special edition has Ducati's extensive suite of electronic aids, including cornering ABS, in addition to Öhlins suspension, Marchesini wheels and a number of appearance parts in carbon fiber and aluminum.
Hall of Famer Gavin Trippe: 1940-2018
Many motorcyclists today won't know the name Gavin Trippe, but he did a lot to make other motorcyclists — mainly racers — well known names in the sport.
Trippe, who died in a car crash this week, was a publisher and promoter who was instrumental in bringing motocross to the United States. Today, with U.S. riders filling most of the positions in Supercross, it's easy to forget that motocross was once a European sport that few people in the United States knew about.
Trippe also was there at the birth of Superbike roadracing and he invented the Superbikers show that appeared on the ABC Wide World of Sports in the 1970s, bringing motorcycle racing to a mainstream audience. You can read more about Trippe's career in his Motorcycle Hall of Fame bio.
Suzuki's new factory comes on line soon. Does this mean new models?
Suzuki's been awfully quiet in recent years, but they're pulling all their manufacturing into a brand new plant in Hamamatsu. With some high-interest models on the horizon (next Hayabusa, that turbo middleweight they keep hinting at, maybe a new Katana), things might get very busy soon on the Suzuki factory floor. I hope.
Spurgeon the ADV evangelist
There's lots of talk about attracting new riders to motorcycling and Common Tread's own Spurgeon has been one of those urging riders to spread and share our enthusiasm. But when he won a free trip to an adventure rally, he had another idea. Instead of bringing in a new rider, what if he introduced an existing motorcyclist to a new kind of riding? Wouldn't that also be a good way to grow motorcycling?
Here's how it went:
Why Travis Pastrana is recreating Evel Knievel's jumps
Travis Pastrana can trace his career back to Evel Knievel's televised stunts. Those jumps were one of the influences that got Pastrana's father and uncles into motorcycles. Which led to him riding and opened up the possibility of a stunt-riding career. Now, he hopes he can pass on some of that same interest to another generation.
July, 1985: "Hang-On," the first motorcycle arcade game
Incredibly innovative for its time, "Hang-On" is a 16-bit motorcycle racing game designed by the legendary Yu Suzuki. The game's best feature, its sit-in "race bike" controller, kinda looks like every 1980s endurance machine melted together. (At least in its coolest form. Simpler upright cabinets were also produced.) If you've ever seen a leaning motorcycle arcade game, "Hang-On" is where it all started.
New Year's resolution failure
If anyone remembers, one of my New Year's resolutions was to get my Honda S90 on the road in time for the local Fourth of July parade. Readers, I let you down by spending most of my Honda budget on the ex-Spurgeon DRZ250, and I don't regret it. I spent the parade in the back of a friend's 1972 M35A2 instead, but at least an S90 part made the trip. Better luck next year.
Thanks for reading; that's all for this week! If you've got feedback or moto news you'd like to share, shoot an e-mail to commontread@revzilla.com. Check back for more News Cycles every Friday.
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