Displaying Items By Tag: Gem

Italian sportbike builder MV Agusta has teamed up with Alpine to create a special edition of the Superveloce 800 inspired by the Alpine A110 sports car. It's distinguished by styling changes and its very limited production numbers.

The base bike is relatively unchanged. It's the Superveloce 800 with its inline-three making 144 horsepower and 65 pound-feet of torque, connected to a six-speed gearbox. The bike also features a retro fairing and lights that are a natural complement to the similarly retro Alpine A110 sports car.

Kawasaki hinted its future range of motorcycles will include a hybrid model. It's busily developing one of the industry's first gasoline-electric two-wheelers, and it released a video to explain how the technology works.

Pay no attention to the sci-fi three-wheeler leaning into a turn at the beginning of the film; the hybrid bike won't look anything like it, for better or worse. We haven't seen its full design yet, but the firm explained it's being developed to switch among gasoline, electric and hybrid power. It relies on an armada of sensors to identify the type of road it's traveling on and adjust its powertrain accordingly. For example, the software charges the battery pack while the bike is traveling on the highway, shuts off the gasoline engine when it rides through a city core, and leverages both power sources on a twisty road. Hybrid cars have been doing this for years.

Honda released a bigger, more powerful version of the Rebel 500 that offers riders more than twice the engine displacement. Called Rebel 1100, it diverges from the commonly-accepted definition of a cruiser in several ways.

The 487-pound Rebel 1100 is not the archetypal cruiser because it's not festooned with chrome trim. It's offered in Metallic Black and Bordeaux Red Metallic, and Honda painted the frame, the suspension parts, the visible mechanical components (including the chain), the exhaust system, and the handlebars in black. Riders face an all-in-one digital instrument cluster that wouldn't look entirely out of place in a member of the Mini range.

Car companies have glorified turbocharging as the ideal way to reduce an engine's fuel consumption and exhaust emissions without compromising its power, and motorcycle manufacturers are beginning to adopt this solution. Yamaha is reportedly developing a range of turbo engines that will power several bikes in the coming years.

Yamaha engineers began developing turbocharging technology in 2017, according to Motorcycle News. The company experimented with two layouts: One put the turbo inside the exhaust, which is an unusual configuration, and the other put it close to the exhaust manifold, which is the arrangement commonly seen in the automotive industry. It sounds like Yamaha chose the second, more conventional solution for cost and packaging reasons.

Kawasaki confirmed its upcoming entry into the blossoming electric motorcycle segment will offer a manual transmission. Called Endeavor, the model is being developed with track use in mind, so engagement is key.

The Japanese company is in the process of teasing the battery-powered model on its official YouTube channel. The latest installment in the 10-episode series shows a prototype bike whirring away on a race track as the rider uses the foot-operated lever to go through the gears. "The manual transmission not only allows a greater speed range, it also allows the rider to have greater input when operating the bike," the company said.

In addition to major car shows being cancelled or postponed, the Osaka and Tokyo Motorcycle Shows have also been disrupted. That isn't stopping Honda from showing its wares, such as this Honda CB-F concept bike. The company decided to reveal it solely online, rather than at a show with people.

According to Honda, it's a tribute to the CB750F and CB900F motorcycles of the late 1970s and early 1980s. And the styling certainly reveals that. At a glance, the gas tank and bodywork look incredibly similar to those bikes, with boxy lines and and angular tail. But looking closer shows that the tank and bodywork blend together better, and the taillight has been shaped to fit the angle of the tail. The front mudguard is shortened and simplified, and there are no visible turn signals. It does still have dual horns visible on the front fork, though, and the paint scheme is a throwback with light metallic colors and accent stripes.