BDN has reported the death of leading British Norton specialist and former Norton, Triumph and Suzuki dealer Mick Hemmings at the age of 77. "Hemmings built up a reputation second to none in the Norton world. Among his many claims to fame, the late Norton works rider Peter Williams chose Hemmings to build the engines and gearboxes for his limited run of five £70,000 replicas of the 1973 Norton John Player monocoque racer, starting in 2014. Apart from two years, Hemmings spent his 62-year working life in the motorcycle trade and didn't close his Hemmings Motorcycles business until 2015.
April 10th and 11th saw some 25,000 bikers in France and Belgium protesting the EU decision to finally mandate standardised technical monitoring standards for motorcycles across the region. Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands have already rejected the introduction of the Periodic Technical Inspection (PTI). The present testing regime in EU nations is variable, with some countries not requiring such checks at all. The EU claims a causal link between motorcycle technical standards and accident rates - something that is hotly contested by riders and some researchers alike.
Responding to the inflationary pressures from freight and materials issues, tyre maker Mitas has become the first manufacturer in Europe to publicly confirm that "unprecedented raw material and logistic cost increases" has led it to announce price increases of between 4.5% and 7.5% on its two wheel and specialty tyres. Production plants of Mitas tyres are located in Prague, Zlín and Otrokovice in the Czech Republic, in Serbia, Slovenia, and in the USA at Charles City in Iowa.
Ducati Sporting Director Paolo Ciabatti has confirmed that they are currently in negotiations with both VR46 and Gresini Racing to replace Avintia Esponsorama as its second independent team in 2022. Valentino Rossi's VR46 concern already holds 50% of the Avintia Esponsorama garage after securing a deal late in 2020 in order to confirm a seat on the premier class grid for Luca Marini. However, with Gresini Racing's split from Aprilia and their intention to continue in 2022 confirmed, they are now also in talks with Ducati over replacing the Andorran squad.
Vespa, Moto Guzzi and Aprilia owner Piaggio's Boston based 'Fast Forward' (PFF - "a leader in smart following technology") has entered into a proof-of-concept collaboration with NASDAQ listed Trimble (Sunnyvale, California) to enable robots and machines to follow humans and other machines in industrial applications. The companies have integrated a patent-pending PFFtag smart following module prototype developed by PFF onto a Boston Dynamics' 'Spot' robot platform controlled by Trimble's advanced positioning technology.
German accessory manufacturer SW-Motech (Rauschenberg, central Germany) has postponed its planned Open-House from mid-June 2021 to September 17th to 19th.
Walking back prior (2019) remarks by CEO Claudio Domenicali, Ducati's VP of Global Sales and Board Member Francesca Milicia appears to be suggesting that its membership of the Volkswagen Audi Group (VAG) might give Ducati an opportunity to prioritise exploring synthetic gasoline rather than electric power as its initial pathway to reduced emissions. "Will we produce an electric Ducati soon? No. We are also looking carefully at other solutions for zero or minimal emissions, such as synthetic fuel. Other brands in our group such as Porsche are looking at it and it's something we are looking at in the medium term." In fact, Ducati parent company AUDI (along with Bosch) is known to have been investing heavily in prototype synthetic pump gas scale production research since 2017.
The H-D Pan America 1250 has garnered its first award - the Best Bike award at the Bangkok International Motor Show 2021.
Sources: AMD, IDN, FT, Reuters, PSB, MPN, BDN, MCN, AP, Bloomberg, MSNW, Electrek, electricmotorcycles.news, RideApart.com, Motor1.com, Cycle World, motorbikewriter.com
