2008 Ducati Superbike 848 on 2040-motos

Moto blog

The Diavel rocks!

The Diavel is my new bike of the year. Not being a huge Ducati fan, when I was thrown the keys of this monster at Silverstone on Tuesday I was expecting an ill handling, weighty beast that would run out of revs and scare me to death. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong as I had an absolute blast.

Rainy BSB tests are nothing new

THE combination of bad weather in the UK and a European testing ban means that most BSB teams will now start the season with very little track time. This sounds like a disaster for the top teams but history has proved this isn’t necessarily true and it sometimes doesn’t matter how much pre season preparation has taken place.  Back in 2002 Sean Emmett won on the IFC Ducati at the opening Silverstone round after first riding it in unofficial practice the same weekend. Steve Hislop took the other win on Pauls Bird’s well sorted Ducati. More recently in 2009, Leon Camier took an untested new model R1 Yamaha to victory at the Brands Hatch opener after GSE took delivery of the bike just the week before. Sylvain Guintoli won the other race on a well developed, well tested Crescent Suzuki. You could argue if no one has had testing then it is a level playing field but you have to feel for riders moving up to the superbike class in the world’s toughest national series.  Tyco Suzuki’s PJ Jacobson is one such rider but having spent some time with him over the past few weeks he seems to be taking it all in his stride. It may be the confidence of youth or maybe the fact he has won in every other class he has entered in his short BSB career, but I suspect he fancies at least standing on the Superbike podium at Brands (He also does a bit of ice racing which is not dissimilar to the this year’s UK testing).  The testing ban was implemented with all the best cost cutting intentions and if it had been any other year in the past decade all would be well. The teams may be feeling frustrated but the fans should be excited. With so many unknowns, the 2013 BSB opener at Brands Hatch could be the best ever!

Top 10 EICMA Show Bikes You May Have Missed

Interesting motorcycles you probably didn't see1 of 11Next Last There’s no cave deep, mountain high or rock heavy enough to have thwarted news of Ducati’s 1199 Panigale superbike launch at the 2012 EICMA show in Milan, Italy. And a few models such as Honda’s NC700S and X, Kawasaki’s Versys 1000 and CRP’s Energica were unveiled without heavy prior fanfare, but gasps of surprise weren’t heard when the wraps were taken off Triumph’s Tiger 1200 Explorer, Husqvarna’s Nuda or MV Augusta’s F3 675 among others, whose existences were revealed months in advance of the show. What we’ve comprised below is our list Top 10 Bikes unveiled at EICMA that didn’t receive top billing but are certainly worthy of your attention.