EICMA 2012
The latest from EICMA
EICMA 2012: Elements Of Style Motorcycles now have room for a box lunch in the fridge.
Milan—By 1953, the motorcycle had reached the basic form it has today: telescopic fork, swingarm rear suspension, hydraulic damping and brakes on both wheels. True, things like water-cooling, disc brakes and six-speed gearboxes have been added since then, but the basics remain. Yet because we no longer need motorcycles as basic transportation, our reasons for [...]
EICMA 2012 – Where Are The Cutaway Engines? Did anyone else miss seeing the cams, gears, pistons, rods and valves?
Milan—In the past, I have looked forward to the certain presence at motorcycle shows of many cutaway engines. I like engines, and I like to look at the details of their parts. Are there surprises in the way their connecting rods are proportioned? How do their intake ports bring the airflow to the valve seats [...]
EICMA 2012: BMW R-32 Ninety years of boxer-Twins. Well, almost.
Milan—As part of BMW’s run-up to next year’s 90th anniversary of the company’s “boxer” engine concept, Stephan Schaller, president of BMW Motorrad, had one of the original 1923 R-32s, excellently restored, ridden onto the gleaming white pavilion from which he was speaking at EICMA. At the time of this engine’s introduction, its full enclosure of [...]
EICMA 2012 – Wrenchmonkees Monkeefist No, it’s not a big knot tied to the end of a heaving line, it’s an XJR1300 commissioned by Yamaha.
Why build a bike like Monkeefist from a bunch of tired old parts, when you can start with a brand-new Yamaha XJR1300? That’s the big naked bike Yamaha never imported to the U.S. According to the guys at Wrenchmonkees, in Copenhagen, Yamaha approached them to transform an XJR into something interesting for EICMA, but not [...]
2013 BMW F800GT – First Look Middleweight twin-cylinder sport-tourer unveiled in Italy.
Milan—The dramatic evolution of the immortal boxer-Twin wasn’t the only novelty BMW had up its sleeve this year. At EICMA, BMW unveiled a full-dress version of the F series parallel-Twin that will replace the F800ST. A sporty yet protective fairing is the major styling addition to the F800GT, which retains the ST’s other body components, [...]
EICMA 2012 – Moto Guzzi California 1400 More details emerge about Guzzi’s big Twin.
Milan—The new California 1400 represents a significant effort from Moto Guzzi to restore its fading image. The cam-in-head, four-valve V-Twin has been enlarged to 1380cc by pushing the bore to 104mm, while keeping the same 81.2mm stroke of the present 1200cc engine. Compression ratio is 10.5:1, a good value for an air/oil-cooled engine. The induction [...]
2013 Triumph Daytona 675 and 675R – First Look Titanium valves and a 14,400-rpm Triple should wipe that stiff upper lip off your face.
In an effort to keep up with the middleweight Joneses or maybe stay a step ahead, Triumph has completely overhauled its Daytona 675 and 675R, with an all-new higher-revving engine in a new frame, and a raft of improvements. Triumph says power is up by just 2 horses, to 126, and peaks earlier, at 12,600 [...]
