The King of Hard Enduro Graham Jarvis straps on a GoPro and shows us a flying lap around the awesome Hell's Gate Hard Enduro in Italy
jeudi 20 février 2014
Marquez to miss second Sepang test after breaking leg / Márquez forfait pour Sepang suite à une fracture du péroné
World Champion Marc Marquez will be unable to ride at next week’s second 2014 MotoGP™ test session at Sepang, having broken his right fibula during a dirt track training session in Spain on Wednesday afternoon.
The accident occurred in Lleida, west of Barcelona and close to Marquez’s home town of Cervera. The rookie premier class title winner of 2013, who on Monday had celebrated his 21st birthday, was immediately taken to the Quiron Dexeus University Hospital in Barcelona where he was treated by Dr. Xavier Mir for a spiral fracture of the distal third of his right fibula (bone between knee and ankle).
After carrying out a CT scan and x-ray, Dr. Mir explained:
"The results showed no ligament damage or dislocation and no need to proceed with surgery. I expect he will need three to four weeks to fully recover."
"The results showed no ligament damage or dislocation and no need to proceed with surgery. I expect he will need three to four weeks to fully recover."
Marquez has already started rehabilitation with magnetic therapy. He will remain non-weight bearing for two weeks, meaning he will certainly miss next week’s Sepang test and possibly the following week in Phillip Island, Australia. Full recovery is expected for the season-opening Qatar MotoGP™ race on 23 March.
"It was a really unfortunate accident that could happen to anyone at anytime," Marquez commented on Thursday. "I was rushed to hospital and Dr. Mir treated me; thankfully there was no ligament damage and it seems like a clean break."
More information on Marquez’s recovery will be released in due course.
Le Champion du Monde MotoGP™ Marc Márquez ne pourra pas participer au second Test Officiel de la pré-saison MotoGP™ la semaine prochaine en Australie après s’être fracturé le péroné mercredi au cours d’un entraînement en dirt track.
L’accident a eu lieu à Lleida, non loin de Cervera, d’où vient et réside Marc Márquez. Le Champion du Monde MotoGP™ 2013, qui avait fêté ses 21 ans lundi dernier, a immédiatement été conduit à l’Institut Universitari Quirón Dexeux de Barcelone, où il a été pris en charge par le Dr Xavier Mir pour une fracture en spirale du péroné de la jambe droite.
Suite aux premiers examens, le Dr Mir a expliqué : « Les résultats ne montrent pas de dommage au niveau des ligaments et pas de luxation non plus. Il n’est donc pas nécessaire d’opérer. Je pense qu’il aura besoin de trois ou quatre semaines pour complètement récupérer. »
Márquez a déjà entamé son programme de rééducation avec une séance de thérapie magnétique et rester deux semaines sans mettre le moindre poids sur sa jambe droite. Le pilote du team Repsol Honda manquera donc le deuxième Test Officiel à Sepang, où il avait largement dominé les premiers essais de l’année, et possiblement celui qui aura lieu la semaine suivante en Australie. Il devrait néanmoins être remis sur pied pour la première course de la saison MotoGP™ 2014, qui aura lieu au Qatar le 23 mars.
« C’était un accident malheureux qui pouvait arriver à n’importe qui, n’importe quand, » commentait Márquez le jour suivant. « On m’a vite emmené à l’hôpital et le Dr Mir s’est occupé de moi. Il n’y heureusement pas de dommage pour les ligaments et la fracture semble nette. »
The ‘I Heart Honda’ Charade
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away was a Daihatsu Charade.” That’s how Alex Parisi started off his mail to me when I asked him to tell me about his little time attack project. With a opening line like that, I knew I was in for an interesting story and despite this being only a little spotlight, I’ll do my best to let you know how it all came to be. The idea was always to create something that would surprise people, a little Daihatsu that would be capable of going really fast and getting itself noticed in the process. Back when it was still a street car it was running a turbocharged HD series motor, good for 350hp at the wheels. Decent enough power, except for the fact that it would constantly make the upgraded gear sets in the gearbox destroy themselves.
Looking at the car now, you can imagine the amount of work that went into making it look so functional – what was required to change a little compact Japanese hatch into a dedicated time attacker. Before the car even looked like this, Alex attempted to enter it in the 2012 WTAC, but missed out as all entry spots were literally taken up in 15 minutes. Not to worry, 2013 came around and that’s when he decided to go for it. “What the hell” as he put it. Never having even been to Sydney Motorsports Park, he wasn’t going to take any chances – he knew the high speeds that could be reached on the main straight and the importance of aero. Turning the little brick that was the Charade into something that would actually generate downforce proved to be a fun challenge that Alex tackled head-on. He created a one piece pre-preg carbon, nomex-cored flat floor and rear diffuser.
Here’s a better look at that massive rear diffuser which is there to balance out the downforce that the front end treatment with a big protruding splitter and carbon canards generates. Fender flaring followed; Alex needed to bump the front and rear tracks of the Charade so it would wear the widest wheels possible, settling on 10Js, allowing him to run 275 section A050s at each corner. Looking at the picture above, you may have noticed the big cut outs on the hatch lid.
Well those are there because what used to be the Charade’s trunk is now occupied by the radiator, mounted at an angle and armed with a pair of big extractor fans and fed by two massive tubes that fish air from the side windows. The reason the cooling has been moved to the rear of the car is because following the continuous gearbox failures, Alex decided to do things a bit differently up front…
He knew that an all-new engine and gearbox combo was the only way to move forward, and despite considering Honda’s K-series, the power that guys in the US were getting out of boosted B18s made his decision an easy one. Honda’s unmistakable, red-topped four-cylinder now resides in the Charade’s modified engine bay – you can see the stiffening bars welded onto the suspension turrets.
500hp at the wheels was not too difficult to obtain thanks to a fully built B18 courtesy of AMP Racing, mated with 25psi of boost supplied by the Garrett 3076 turbo which sits on a pretty awesome-looking manifold. And hence the need to move the radiator to the back, because with the blower sitting where it is, there’s just enough space to fit and clear the big front-mounted intercooler.
The cabin is built around functionality: fully stripped out, including the stock dash which has been replaced with a simple carbon panel.
Much work went into fitting the Charade with Motec M800 engine management, guaranteeing the custom-built motor gives its best under the hardest of use. Alex and his team weren’t particularly lucky at last year’s WTAC with small problems hindering their chances at setting a decent lap time in the Pro Am Class the car was entered in. 2014 will be spent sorting out the little issues, as well as perfecting the suspension geometry and shedding even more weight. It might not have been the fastest car out there, but it’s builds like these that continue to grab our attention. Thinking outside the box goes a long way!
Dino Dalle Carbonare
Volkswagen Amarok Sets New Off Road Record
Over 60 Days and Almost 10,000 miles through the Russian Outback
Volkswagen has just broken a huge off-road record for the longest off-road trek in a single country using three custom Volkswagen Amaroks to cross almost 10,000 miles from Moscow to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky o help promote the 2014 Winter Olypics. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is one of the worlds largest cities and it sits on the Bering Sea but getting there is no walk in the park and since there are no roads leading to it, Volkswagen's record breaking run was not for the weak.
The almost 10,000 mile trek began in the Russian capitol Moscow where three Volkswagen Amoroks pickups equipped with huge lifts and giant tires departed on an over 60 day journey to reach the Bering Sea. Of course having giant tires is practically a requirement if you don't want to get stuck in the freezing deep Russian snow. The team traveled across Lake Baikal which was frozen over abput three feet thick. Luckily the Amoroks made it through without incident but the same could not be said when they reached Lultin Pass, where the crew managed to get stuck in the deep Russian snow. Although getting stuck did set them back, the team was able to work together to recover the stuck vehicles and push in toward the ultimate goal.
You would think that spinning tires that large would be a huge undertaking especially when it's well below 40 degrees below-zero for most of the day but it turned out to be nothing the 2.0-liter Turbo diesel Volkswagen Amorok engines couldn't handle.
We're not sure we'd be as willing to brave the elements while crossing nearly two thirds of the frozen Russian backcountry in the dead of winter but if we had to, we wouldn't hesitate to do it in one of these beefed up Volkswagen Amorok trucks. After all, Amarok is Inuit for 'Arctic Wolf' and this was one wolf pack that couldn't be stopped by thick snow and icy conditions.
CAFE RACER CUSTOMS
Hunkered in a workshop in the industrial estate behind London’s legendary Ace Cafe, Cafe Racer Customs in many ways hark back to the cafe racer tradition of Paul Dunstall, the Rickman brothers and Colin Seely, who would build custom performance bikes to the highest standards of engineering and design prowess in the 60s and 70s.
Not that there’s anything old fashioned or retro about Cafe Racer Customs. Their ethos and practice is very much routed in the 21st Century, but carries the torch for the uncompromising engineering benchmarks of their cafe racer forefathers.
A team of two, Will and Simon do almost everything in-house, including engine building and modification, fabrication and machining, tube manipulation, vapour blasting, and of course design. Their skillsets combine to cover all of stages manufacturing and production. Their uncompromising attention to detail is beyond obsessive, and it is no more evident than in their CRC6 CBX1000.
The most extraordinary air-cooled motorcycle engine ever produced finally finds the home it deserves in CRC’s astonishing, hand built tribute to the Great British Cafe Racer. The engine was stripped, vapour blasted, rebuilt and housed in a powder-coated custom T45 tube and bronze welded frame. A bespoke matching swingarm was added with Ohlins shocks. The Ohlins forks and custom billet brackets brace the Brembo calipers and twin 320mm floating discs.
The yokes, instrument mounts and rear sets were all customed out of billet, and the tank, seat unit and front mudguard were alloy constructed in-house. The six Keihin flat-slide carbs had a full dyno set up. The exhaust system is a bespoke Racefit titanium 6 into 2. A custom loom powers a Dyna ignition and coils. The creamy paint finish is by Khameleon Customs and the upholstery courtesy of the mercurial Stan Leathers.
The spec list runs to several pages, but what is immediately clear is that this bike is as every bit beautiful as is it engineered. In the metal, it’s simply breathtaking. The result of hundreds of hours of dedicated craftsmanship, the CRC6 is a perfectly balanced hybrid of the contemporary and the classic, that stays true to the spirt of the legendary A40 cafe racer.
Will and Simon are currently splitting their time between customer commissions and projects of their own, including the equally outstanding soon to be featured Suzuki GSX1100 powered Magnum. See more from Cafe Racer Customs on their website and here on The Bike Shed.
Classic Driver Motor Show 1964: The most important cars of the year
Nineteen sixty-four. In the year of Beatlemania and Mary Poppins, some seriously significant cars were launched to the world. We’ve cherry-picked the most important from Geneva, New York, Paris and Turin to star at the hypothetical Classic Driver Motor Show ’64…
Spring awakening in Geneva
The automotive year kicked off in Geneva with a flurry of activity from the Italian manufacturers, all keen to make an impression. Lamborghini debuted its first ever production car, the Touring-bodied 350GT, in a bid to beat Ferrari at its own game. Naturally, Ferrari retaliated, showing its new 330 GT 2+2 and the perhaps contradictory track-honed 250 GT Lusso Competizione. Meanwhile, over on the Pininfarina stand, motor show-goers were treated to a glimpse of the super-exclusive 500 Superfast. One of just 36 produced, not only was (and still is) the Superfast one of the rarest Ferraris ever built, at £10,932 it was also one of the most expensive. Our favourite from the Geneva Salon, though, was the stunning Fiat 2300 S ‘Lausanne’: a distinctly styled special-edition coupé built by the Pininfarina brothers in homage to Switzerland – how appropriate.
Two Ford legends in New York
Although not strictly a motor show, the 1964 New York World’s Fair played host to one of the most popular and influential cars ever made: the Ford Mustang. Within 12 months of the car being introduced at the fair (by Henry Ford II, no less), a staggering 400,000 cars had been produced, over three times what had originally been forecast. Also presented at the World’s Fair was the futuristic Chrysler Turbine Car. The Ghia-penned coupé was designed to do away with the traditional piston engine and could run on pretty much anything: diesel, vegetable oil, even Chanel No.5 if you so desired. The New York Auto Show was held shortly before the fair, where the very first Ford GT prototype was shown to the world.
Porsche, Pininfarina's Pagoda and a special Ferrari in Paris
Later in the year, Paris and Turin were equally eventful; and again, the European manufacturers took centre stage. Renault launched its more powerful 8 Gordini, available exclusively in ‘bleu de France’, while Mercedes-Benz debuted its latest collaboration with Pininfarina, the 230 SL Coupé. Sadly, it wasn’t convincing enough to make production and the tin-topped Pagoda remained a one-off. Porsche had a successful show, too, displaying the production-ready 901 alongside the new 904 Carrera GTS. Soon after Paris, however, Peugeot complained that the model name 901 infringed its copyright and the name was promptly changed… to 911. Ferrari also chose Paris to display its latest car, the 275 GTB, alongside its convertible sister, the GTS. One of the truly great GT designs, the 275 embraced Ferrari’s competition pedigree, encompassing technology pioneered on the racetrack.
Turin visionaries
Come Turin it was, perhaps appropriately, Alfa Romeo’s turn to grab the headlines. The sleek Bertone-designed Canguro (Italian for kangaroo) was a showstopper, while the beautiful 2600 Sprint Zagato was equally well received. Compatriot De Tomaso also tested the Turinese waters with the Vallelunga concept. As we’re sure you’ll agree, our 1964 motor show would be quite a sensation; and judging by the value of many of these cars today, 1964 was a true highlight in automotive history.
Classic cars from 1964 can be found in the Classic Driver Market.
MOTO SUMISURA INGE
From the land of passion and style it’s no surprise that Italian Franco ” Frank” Augello has customers queuing up to order his take on the ever popular 2-valve BMW. Having worked in the fashion & TV business for over a decade Frank was unable to contain his enthusiasm for custom Beemers and started collecting two wheeled wrecks to restore in his spare time. In 2013 his heart won over his head and Moto SuMisura was born. (su misura translates as custom-made).
From their base in Milan, Frank and his team (Inge, Fabrizio and Maurizio) follow a mantra of combining travel, fashion and art, aiming to produce customer bikes of the best quality with a design style they hope will be recognisable as their brand. The Milanese custom bike ‘tifosi’ have not run them out of town yet so Moto SuMisura must be doing something right.
The 1980 R65 you see here was the result of many hours of hand waving, postulating and arguing between Frank and the team’s Technical Director, Inge. Creative and technical minds are often opposed but Frank also had the challenge of converting his mate and collegue from Harleys to BMWs. Once a common theme was agreed 400 hrs of blood, sweat and pranzi lunghi followed.
The old Airhead engine was stripped, inspected and parts replaced where necessary before being mated to in-house made stubby, and loud looking, exhausts. Meshed velocity stacks feed the 32mm Bing carbs and keep the largest debris from undoing Frank’s handywork. The front mudguard has been relocated back to front and attached vertically to the front of the crank case. The engine will be saved from flying stones whilst Inge is protected by a forcefield of style.
Keeping things local, Borani rims were laced to a drilled and ducted drum brake at the front whilst the rear is a standard drum unit from an earlier model, all wrapped in matching sized vintage Avons.
Up top, a 1960 R27 tank was modded to fit and given a lovely two-tone paint job, leading the passer-by to question their ability to date the donor bike. A bespoke cross stitched leather solo saddle sorts out the comfort whilst keeping the tail neat. Handle bars from an R75 sidecar with end-pivot levers and brass clamp nuts give a pre-war look, and a machined ally throttle cable splitter is a reminder that this bike is bang up to date. Refurbished and modified R51 front and rear suspension work their magic in the mountains and hopefully the infamous tram tracks that criss cross Milano.
Moto SuMisura clearly have a passion for BMWs, mixing eras with craftsmanship to give a well poised and balanced looking bike. If you’re passing why not pop in, Frank has enthusiasm on tap, not to mention a fine looking selection of salami hanging from the workshop rafters.
See more from Moto Sumisura on The Bike Shed and on their Facebook Page.
‘A Contemporary Edge’: Bonhams breaks the barriers between art and design
Paintings, sculptures, photography and modern design – the art world has long since abandoned such specific categorical terms. Now, British auction house Bonhams has announced a new auction series that sees artwork from the likes of Hirst and Banksy offered alongside 20th Century furniture…
A particular highlight of the 4 March auction at Bonhams' Bond Street headquarters is a piece by Damien Hirst, estimated to fetch £60-80,000 and enthusiastically titled ‘Beautiful Intergalactic Fantasmagoria in a Rainbow Big Bang Explosion, Let's Have More Intercourse’. Along with works by other renowned artists such as Banksy, Sam Francis and José Guerrero, the sale also includes some stylistically matching pieces of furniture.
Further information and a lotlist for the 'A Contemporary Edge' auction can be found at bonhams.com.
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