by Naoko Funayama from https://www.wmur.com The 98th Annual Laconia Motorcycle Week kicked off on Saturday with big crowds, nice weather and COVID-19 vaccinations. A National Guard Tent was set up at the rally headquarters to distribute the vaccine. “We’re just appreciative of the opportunity to serve the state of New Hampshire. This is the highest level that we can do as Guardsmen for our state is to serve us in a public need,” said Staff Sgt. Dante Davis Jr. of the Army National Guard. “It’s just the sincere appreciation of not only our state but just Americans all around the world. Event organizers also set up hand sanitizer stations to make hand sanitizer readily available. COVID-19 guidelines weren’t the only safety guidelines event organizers emphasized this year. Organizers have asked Granite Staters to be cautious of traffic and speed, and ask that people try to maintain a safe distance from bikes when driving.

Twisted Road offers choice of classic motorcycles from popular brands
by Nick Marietta from www.twistedroad.com

Vintage motorcycles that have stood the test of time. While the mechanics of motorcycles have changed through the years, riders’ love of the open road has not — and you can rent one of these classic beauties on Twisted Road now to go explore.

These two-wheeled collector items never go out of style and, for that, we are grateful. There are more of these timeless beauties to be found on Twisted Road so take a trip down memory lane (literally, rent a bike and take a road trip) with these ever classic motorcycles — rent them while you can.

Click here to read this Photo Feature Article on Bikernet.

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by Emila Smith

It is hard to think about silver linings amidst a devastating pandemic. However, despite the crumbling health systems and faltering businesses, many people have found ways to keep their heads up. They are taking this as an opportunity to enjoy a COVID-triggered breath of fresh air.

The pandemic has kick-started a global motorcycle boom. More people are turning to their two-wheelers to break away from the stress and fears, enjoy the outdoors, and ease movement.

According to a Bloomberg report, motorcycle industry leaders are optimistic. Eric Pritchard of the Motorcycle Industry Council looked forward to the best run since 2016. Like tech-based companies, motorcycle companies look forward to explosive growth during this COVID-19 season.

But what are the reasons behind this motorcycle boom?

As the experts at McKinsey would say, “The pandemic reshaped what consumers buy and how they go about getting it.” Previously, motorcycle sales were low because people considered it a risky affair. Bike riders had a disproportionately high number of accidents, and people were grey concerning handling injury and claims. But it looks like the tide is turning. The pandemic has somehow caused a shift in how people perceive motorcycling. It is no longer a stressful, hair-raising activity, but one pursued its health benefits.

Read on and learn how wellness-craving buyers are causing a motorcycle boom.

A COVID-Triggered Breath of Life
Before the pandemic, dark clouds were hanging over the motorcycle industry in the US. There were not enough new buyers to replace those who were giving up their two-wheelers. According to  Statista.com, sales peaked in 2015 when industry sales stood at about 500,000 units. But the figures plummeted in subsequent years. Motorcycle companies like Harley Davidson were on the deathbed for a long time.

But then COVID-19 happened. Lockdowns, social distancing, and other containment measures meant stress. Mental and physical wellness were the words that would inject new hope into the struggling industry, and the global sales figures show it.

In Asia and Europe, motorcycle companies in countries like China, Germany, and the Netherlands surpassed their year-on-year growth projections. Overall, global industry leaders anticipate that the two-wheeler market will grow from about $74billion (a rate of 5.3%). There are economic reasons behind this growth as well as social motivations.

Growth in Supporting Businesses
The COVID-driven growth of e-commerce is primarily due to the shift to working from home. As people stay at home, the demand for courier services is surging.

Whether it is Uber eats or Deliveroo, motorcycles are the preferred transport solution for courier services. During the pandemic, industry leaders like Uber eats have reported exceptional growth, triggering an increase in the number of riders. The same was the case for Deliveroo in London. They added 15,000 new riders.

But it’s not only economic reasons that are driving the motorcycle boom. Riding a motorcycle can improve a person’s well-being. We think this takes the chunk of why the pandemic kick-started the motorcycle boom, and here is how.

Motorcycles are An Affordable Escape from COVID-19 Worries
Lockdowns and the demand to stay at home or work from home cause fatigue and tension. People need ways to blow off the steam, and motorcycles provide an excellent route to achieve relief.

Biking is an affordable way to escape the tumults of urban lifestyles and get lost in the open spaces of the countryside. The release and joy of riding is an excellent remedy for stress and tension.

According to the Bloomberg report, dealers in “open space states” like California, some regions in Florida, and Kentucky have experienced exponential sales in the last couple of months. Industry leaders have particularly noted an increase in demand for outdoor and adventure models.

Enthusiasm to Explore
As the pandemic continues to devastate lives and communities, people are turning to new ways to cope. More people are channeling their dreams and pains through their two-wheeled companions.

Many Americans have turned to their two-wheeled companions for stress relief and to build a sense of community. Founders of women’s biking movements, Kelly Yazdi and Porsche Taylor, told cntraveler.com how they saw this as an opportunity to inspire women to ride across the country and help ‘sisters’ cope. And it is driving the average number of riders up.

An Excellent Way to Commute
Travelling within cities and other urban spaces is often marred by traffic jams. Many people detest the downtime and opt to use public transport. However, COVID-19 rendered public transport a not-very-safe way to travel.

Many people who opted not to stay confined in cars chose motorcycles, driving the numbers up. Two-wheelers became a natural choice for urban dwellers who wanted to get to their destinations fast without compromising social distance or other COVID containment measures.

Riding is not only safer but also a faster way to get to your destination. Although lane splitting is not legal in many parts of the US, there is no doubt that it is easier to weave through traffic gridlocks when on a motorcycle. Every month motorcycle riders in London save an average of seven hours and about 140 (about $198) on their commute. Saving time and money has a tremendous positive impact on mental wellness. It is a good reason why the motorcycle figures are staying up.

Makes Environmental Sense
Beating traffic feels awesome; doing it while you are going green also boosts your mental wellness.

The carbon footprint of manufacturing and operating a motorcycle is a fraction of that of a motor vehicle. Manufacturing and running an electric bike leaves an even smaller carbon footprint. Environmentally sensitive buyers are aware of this, and they are saying they want more bikes through their wallets.

The pandemic inspired a 145% growth in electric bike sales in the US. They get to their destination faster, boosting their mood, and they feel good about the environment.

Bottom Line
Behind the pandemic-driven boom is the need for overall wellness. People have realized that biking is not the high-risk activity they perceived it to be. But by observing the safety guidelines and learning a thing or two about handling injury and compensation, riding a motorcycle can turn into a mentally rewarding pastime.

The wellness rewards of riding have kick-started the motorcycle boom.

Editor’s Note: Here’s an interesting article about emissions and the Classic Car Industry. The topics discussed here will ultimately impact Choppers and classic motorcycles. But what if these regulations are misguided? Check out the report at the end of the Hagerty piece. –Bandit

Curtailing tailpipe emissions is a centerpiece of the Biden administration’s clean-air strategy, and some lawmakers have pushed for a phase-out of gasoline and diesel vehicles within the next couple decades.

It’s nearly impossible to find industry experts or environmentalists who think such a ban would spell the end for classic cars but, growing sentiment against the internal combustion engine could cause collectors headaches in years to come.

An Environmental Protection Agency official told Hagerty Insider that the current wave of legislation and rule-making is aimed at mandating standards for new cars. “The public policy focus is on the future fleet, and what it will look like, especially on the pace of electrification,” this official said.

Biden has announced plans to consider toughening emissions standards, subsidizing car-charging infrastructure and creating “alternative-fuel corridors.” But Biden, the son of a car salesman and a collector himself, hasn’t shown an appetite to slap new rules at his fellow enthusiasts.

While federal decision makers focus on the future, local lawmakers and politicians do have the power to mess with history. Among the buzziest examples is London’s designation of a low-emissions zone. Zero-emissions zones are either in the works or in discussion in Berkeley, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, with officials looking at outright bans to forcing delivery services to only use battery-electric vehicles. Internationally, there are plans for experimentation with zero-emissions zones in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Milan, Seoul, Oslo, and Auckland. It’s worth noting the U.K.’s green-car regulations generally have exceptions for classic cars, but opponents say such exemptions might not extend to newer classics.

“These things have a way of spreading,” Malcolm McKay, an automotive writer working in leadership of the newly formed Historic & Classic Vehicles Alliance in the U.K., said. Many of the tools regulators use to clean up roads, including smog tests, could someday discourage those wanting to begin collecting.

McKay noted there are a lot of new mandates emerging that impose hefty fees on classic car owners and seriously cripple the jobs and income that the hobby supports. Some currently may affect a particular class of vehicles, such as diesel vans, trucks or small busses, but “the danger is that this sort of rulemaking starts expanding. It’s something we have to monitor all the time.”

And let’s not ignore the elephant in the room: Classics do pollute. The average vehicle sold in U.S. dealerships (car or truck) achieves roughly 25 miles per gallon, traveling about twice as far on the same amount of fuel as a car built when the EPA first started tracking corporate average fuel economy in the early 1970s. A host of technological advances and new components, meanwhile, has caused the grams of carbon dioxide per gallon to plummet over the past 30 years.

“Emissions of classics are terrible compared to a modern vehicle,” David Cooke, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said.

Shelie Miller, a professor who directs the University of Michigan’s Program in the Environment, recently studied the emissions created during Detroit’s annual Woodward Dream Cruise, a gathering of tens of thousands of motorists driving classics down the Motor City’s main drag. Her conclusion: The event has a carbon footprint of roughly 400 metric tons of C02, nearly equivalent to the annual footprint of eight U.S. households.

The annual Woodward Dream Cruise is one of the Detroit area’s most beloved classic-car events. Matt Lewis Miller, however, notes these types of gatherings are not representative of a typical classic-car utilization, or contribution to climate change. While transportation is estimated to be responsible for one-third of all global warming, she said, that label encompasses all the ways people get from Point A to Point Z—ranging from scooters and semis to planes and trains. Classics contribute a miniscule share.

“Generally, they’re not your daily driver and the mileage is going to be limited,” Cooke said. The Federal Highway Administration estimates a Class 8 truck is driven more than 60,000 miles annually, meaning a semi clocks more mileage in two weeks than a classic car travels in the typical year. (The average classic vehicle insured with Hagerty gets driven 2212 miles a year.)

Also working in classic cars’ favor is that they’re relatively rare. As we’ve reported before, the natural attrition of older cars means the vast majority of the older “guzzlers” have already left the road.

That said, newer cars are more durable—a concern from a climate standpoint, Cooke said. Today’s vehicles last longer but corporate average fuel economy improvements have barely budged over the past decade. That means that the “long tail” of vehicle emissions isn’t getting meaningfully shorter with each new model year.

Number crunchers are hard at work trying to estimate the ideal lifespan for a vehicle, Miller said. Recycle a car too soon, and a lot of the energy used to make that car will be wasted; wait too long, and its poor emissions performance will outweigh the value of keeping it alive.

Reliable older cars benefit lower-income Americans needing reliable transportation, which is good for the economy but arguably bad for the environment. This can lead to a tricky balancing act for those trying to weigh a collector’s interests against environmental goals.

In 2004, for instance, then-California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (who, like President Biden, counts a car salesman for a father and claims classic-car enthusiast status) drew criticism from collectors—including Jay Leno—for coming up with the idea to expand smog checks to progressively older vehicles over time. The rule had been cars 29 years and under had to be checked, but her proposal locked in the grandfather clause only for cars built before 1975.

As the years have gone on, the cars eligible for smog checks have gotten older and older. This, along with the state’s older-vehicle recycling incentives, help cut off faster the “long tail” of emissions Cooke referenced.

Nevada Assemblyman Howard Watts, representing residents of Las Vegas and surrounding cities, said legislators need to be careful not to punish collectors when trying to take old cars off the road, or force repairs to maintain healthy emissions levels. His recent bill, aimed at reducing the amount of Nevadans registering classic-car plates, has been signed into law.

About a decade ago, Nevada started allowing owners of vehicles 20 years or older to obtain these plates. The number of such plates has ballooned, from 5000 to 6000 cars in 2011 to about 30,000 now. Why? A classic plate exempts you from a smog check as long as you commit to driving less than 5000 miles annually.

“Over the years, word got around that the world’s worst kept secret is the DMV has no way of enforcing the 5000-mile limit,” Watts said.

“So you find there are low-income folks running a small landscaping company out of someone’s house and using a beat-up F-150 with a classic plate on it. Or someone is driving a 1990-something Toyota Camry and there is nothing classic about it but it’s got a classic plate … we had to close the loophole (and) keep the integrity of the classic plate.”

The solution is to require anyone with a classic plate to carry classic-car insurance, a move that most serious hobbyists have already made, he said. To help lower-income drivers make repairs or replace cars after failing an emissions test, legislators approved a small smog-check fee that will soon go into place. McKay, with the U.K.’s Historic & Classic Vehicles Alliance, said protecting enthusiasts from rules perceived to unfairly target classic cars can be as much about fighting well-meaning but misguided lawmakers as it is about fighting public opinion.

Recently, as London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s aggressive stance against internal-combustion-engine vehicles has gained traction, classic-car owners have seen a shift in sentiment. “Some have really noticed a difference,” he said. “Instead of being stopped in a parking lot and told ‘what a lovely car,’ now it’s a question. They say ‘that is a really polluting car, isn’t it?’”

The other side of the coin:

Vision Zero doesn’t work and is against human nature and the elements of a free society. It’s also an excuse for overreaching control.

Instead of being against fossil fuel cars, we desperately need to be pro-fossil fuel travel and energy.

Evidence:

•It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments.

•The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees.

•Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.

–Patrict Moore

http://ecosense.me/ecosense-wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/CO2-Emissions.pdf

by Andy Hershberger from https://www.wmur.com

LACONIA, N.H. — Laconia’s Motorcycle Week will have a very different look and feel than it did in 2020

The declining COVID-19 numbers are making a big difference this year as Laconia gets ready for the 98th annual Motorcycle Week.

“It means we’re getting back on to life and back on to what we all do best in the hospitality industry, so we were grateful to have it last year, but this year is especially important,” said Cynthia Makris, Motorcycle Week president.

There was a rally last year, but it was a completely different event. It was held in August instead of June, crowds were down and the normal carnival atmosphere suffered.

One difference this year will be the vendor tents. Last year, just four nonprofits were allowed to set up shop in Laconia. This year, there will be more than 200 tents selling everything from T-shirts to leather goods.

Officials said that alone will be a big draw for the event.

“It’s huge this year, especially after all our businesses have gone through in the last 12 to 15 months,” said Scott Myers, Laconia city manager. “And this really kicks off the summer season. It gives it a jump start because schools aren’t quite out yet and it’s not really family vacation time.”

Officials say safety measures will be in the form of awareness, hoping visitors are mindful of where the state and the country are at in terms of the pandemic.

“We’re encouraging everyone to still remain socially distant when possible,” said Jennifer Anderson, of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association. “We’re going to have handwashing stations and sanitizer stations available.”

Officials said the best way to be socially distant is for people to get on their bikes and ride.

 

by Bill Roberson from https://www.forbes.com

Harley-Davidson’s Pan America ADV Bike Is Big News, But What Does It Mean For The MoCo’s Future?

The positive reviews and preorders are beginning to pile up for what is definitely this years most… unexpectedly good new motorcycle model: Harley-Davidson’s freshly minted adventure (or “ADV”) bike, the Pan America. In a typical motorcycle model year (the last of which was 2019), riders would usually see numerous new, updated and expected adventure machines from multiple marques, but in 2021, the Pan America stands out not just for being a Harley, but also for how it may signal changes within the storied American brand.

First off, the Pan America is a long shot: A completely new, fresh-from-the-wheels-up, whodathunkit offering far, far outside the typical realms Harley-Davidson plays in. There isn’t a speck of chrome on the Pan America, no cooling fins on the engine, no shoulder-height handlebars, no leather tassels. The Pan America’s all-new Revolution Max liquid-cooled engine makes 150 horsepower, which dwarfs the output of any other bike in the inventory. It is loaded to the gills with tech, including a big touch screen, sophisticated suspension, adjustable everything and innovative options like auto-lowering ride height, trick spoke wheels and headlights that look through corners. The look is unusual but it’s driven more by design than style.

But what is also so striking is how the Pan America is all business, focused on its ADV mission, and very unlike anything the company has attempted – or built – in its nearly 120-year history. Kitted up with aluminum panniers and other goodies, it looks ready to take the long way ‘round any continent with confidence, not just lazily cruise down to the local rider meetup. And those reviews? They range from warm to glowing at the PA’s capabilities, technical sophistication and innovation. It is a most un-Harley Harley. So how did this mystery machine come to be?

Following the reveal of the Pan America, I talked at length with Harley-Davidson Senior Public Relations Manager Paul James. We all know what PR and “marketing people” do: Put the best positive spin on the product as possible, even if that means applying some lipstick to the hog as it were. But Paul is a bit different. He’s a hard-core rider and rose through the ranks at H-D over nearly a quarter century. He has also worked on Harley’s product development team. He’s watched as Harley-Davidson rose from near-death in the 1980s to rule the cruiser market in the 1990s to the slow slide over the last few years.

James has been involved in numerous major product launches – including the electric LiveWire bike – and product cancellations, including the V-Rod cruisers and Buell sportbike efforts. He’s been there as CEOs have come and gone, and he’s watched as the motorcycle market has changed and evolved. He has the long lens of recent Harley and motorcycle market history in his pocket, and it was interesting to talk with him about the Pan America as seen through that lens.

James said that the decision to take on the Pan America project didn’t come from an executive edict or a focus group, it came from research, and a recognition of “the markets we were not in. Adventure touring is a big market, a global market, and a growing market in the United States,” he told Forbes.com, and when the company was re-evaluating their middleweight offerings, it became clear that adventure bikes were popular not just with the general riding public, but with Harley owners as well, who often had an ADV bike parked next to their Milwaukee iron.

Would they be interested in a capable, competitive ADV bike from The Motor Company? According to Harley riders James and his team talked to, they would. But James said that really wasn’t who Harley is truly going after with the Pan America. “Really, we were aiming at customers who had never set foot in a Harley-Davidson dealership before – and saw no reason to. This is a motorcycle aimed at them. Something that they see themselves on, and will give us a shot. Because it is an outstanding motorcycle and very competitive in the space.”

And while it might seem like common sense for any motorcycle maker to jump into a growing category like adventure riding, it’s a trickier wicket for a company like Harley-Davidson, which has a dedicated, hyper-loyal and vocal user base that expects certain things, and can also reject products that don’t meet expectations, no matter how good they may be. By many accounts, this was a factor that worked against the success of the liquid-cooled, higher-tech VRSC/V-Rod machines.

V-Rod bikes were more modern, faster, better handling and more powerful than the traditional air-cooled bikes, yet they met resistance from the Harley faithful and even some dealers. Confronting what would likely be blowback from both the Harley fans, industry pundits and the skeptical ADV rider sphere made getting the Pan America right even more of a challenge. Let’s face it: Harleys have a rebel, tough-guy (and gal) reputation. It is, to an extent, baggage you get with a Harley that you don’t get with a Honda. James said that issue was a factor they certainly considered. When the bikes were revealed, it was interesting to see photos of the Pan America show that branding was… minimal, with a large but fairly abstract logo and no glaring Harley-Davidson badges on the tank as per usual on the cruisers. A recent announcement that Harley’s new electric bicycle business will be branded Serial 1 was followed by another revelation that the electric motorcycle’s namesake, LiveWire, would be the umbrella over future electric models. Reduced baggage all around.

James also said that in their research talking with Harley owners and riders, they were open to Harley moving out into other as-yet unexplored spaces as it were, which was perhaps epitomized by the launch of the LiveWire electric bike. It’s clear that with the separation provided by the Serial 1 and LiveWire branding, they hope to attract new riders to The Motor Company, but perhaps through a side door as it were. James said that the LiveWire, Pan America and upcoming new models (details TBA of course) are part of that larger effort. “It’s our intent to attract riders who haven’t been in our showrooms before,” he said.

On the dealership side of the equation, more changes: a large effort has been made to educate staff about the Pan America riding experience and the people who will come through the dealership doors for the first time to ask about it. Many dealership staff members were put through off-road riding school on Pan America models in order to be able to understand the questions this specific – and non-traditional – Harley rider might ask, including about how the bike stacks up to competitors from BMW, KTM, Honda and others. It sounds like a far cry from the V-Rod days. Public demo ride events are also part of the outreach, but if current estimates are on the mark, it appears Harley has a hit on their hands with the Pan America as bikes are being bought as soon as they’re hitting dealerships.

And what about new bikes based around the potent Revolution Max engine? James said that while Harley has talked about possible future products in the recent past (the Bronx streetfighter to name perhaps the most high-profile example), they’re pulling back on promising anything specific for now while future plans are sussed out. But James did say that successfully venturing into the ADV space with new hardware “opens doors for us” into other markets, while not, of course, being too specific. But with an engine like this, it seems unlikely Harley-Davidson would pass on bulking up their offerings with new – and more un-Harley-like – models. Stay tuned.

RACER TRAVIS WYMAN JOINS HARLEY-DAVIDSON SCREAMIN’ EAGLE FACTORY TEAM FOR KING OF THE BAGGERS SERIES

Brothers Travis and Kyle Wyman to Race Factory Road Glide Special Bikes at Road America

MILWAUKEE (June 10, 2021) – The Harley-Davidson® Screamin’ Eagle® factory racing team will field multi-talented racer Travis Wyman as a second entry in its MotoAmerica King of the Baggers road racing series. Travis Wyman will race a factory-prepared Harley-Davidson Road Glide® Special powered by a modified Screamin’ Eagle® Milwaukee-Eight 131 Performance Crate Engine. He joins his brother, Kyle Wyman, on the two-rider team for the King of the Baggers race June 11-13 at Road America near Elkhart Lake, Wis.

In addition to its factory team effort, Harley-Davidson is offering a nearly $30,000 cash contingency program for qualified Harley-Davidson® racers competing in the King of the Baggers series.

“We are ready to turn up the heat in MotoAmerica at our home track of Road America by adding Travis to the Screamin’ Eagle factory team,” said Jochen Zeitz, chairman, president, and CEO Harley-Davidson. “The King of the Baggers series is bringing big excitement for fans and we’re pleased to add to the show by expanding our team to two top riders representing Harley-Davidson and Screamin’ Eagle.”

The three-round MotoAmerica King of the Baggers series is for race-prepared, American V-Twin touring motorcycles equipped with a fairing and saddlebags. In the series debut on May 2 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, Kyle Wyman placed second on the Harley-Davidson Screamin’ Eagle factory Road Glide Special motorcycle.

Travis Wyman is the owner of Travis Wyman Racing, based in Las Vegas. He is currently also competing in MotoAmerica Stock 1000, Honos Superbike and Superbike Cup. The 29-year-old racer finished the 2020 MotoAmerica season in second place in the Superbike Cup and third in the Stock 1000 championship. Travis Wyman also competed in the MotoAmerica King of the Baggers invitational race last October at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, scoring a fourth-place finish aboard a Harley-Davidson Road Glide. Kyle and Travis Wyman are the sons of Kim Wyman, owner of Harv’s Harley-Davidson in Macedon, N.Y.

Round two of the King of the Baggers series is June 11-13 at Road America near Elkhart Lake, Wis. The series continues July 9-11 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Calif.

About the Screamin’ Eagle® Milwaukee-Eight 131 Performance Crate Engine: The Screamin’ Eagle® Milwaukee-Eight 131 is the most-powerful street-compliant performance engine offered by Harley-Davidson. Built from the bottom up in Milwaukee, this 131-cubic-inch (2147cc) Screamin’ Eagle® crate engine delivers 131 ft-lb of torque to the rear wheel, and may be installed in 2017-later Harley-Davidson Touring models.

Stefano Mesa and Pirelli Take Two with Track Records at Summit Point Raceway and Nelson Ledges Road Course

Mesa’s Ninja® ZX™-10R is Unstoppable with the New DIABLO Superbike SCX Rear

ROME, Ga. (June 10, 2021) – Pirelli Tire North America captured the brand’s third and fourth absolute motorcycle track record of the 2021 racing season as Stefano Mesa put in an impressive performance at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia and then backed it up with an inspiring ride at Nelson Ledges Road Course in Garrettsville, Ohio. The new lap records were set aboard a 2021 Kawasaki Ninja® ZX™-10R motorcycle-equipped with Pirelli DIABLO Superbike slicks.

“The feeling of achievement in setting a lap record just never gets old,” said Mesa. “Each year these things become harder and harder to accomplish but having Pirelli and the new products that they continue to develop certainly make a world of difference. They continue to develop incredible products and in return that allows me to be faster. The new 125/70 and 200/65 sizing are just insane, and when combined with this SCX rear compound, it’s a phenomenal package.”

Mesa’s new lap record of 1:10.551 in the Championship Cup Series at Summit Point Raceway was set in the Unlimited GP class, topping his own previous lap record of 1:10.728. A DIABLO Superbike SC2 in 125/70-17 was used on the front of his ZX-10R motorcycle, while a DIABLO Superbike SCX in 200/65-17 sizing was used on the rear. Just one week later, Mesa carried his momentum into Nelson Ledges Road Course by setting a new lap record of 1:03.926 in the WERA Series’ A Superstock class. A DIABLO Superbike SC1 front in 125/70-17 sizing and DIABLO Superbike SCX rear in 200/65-17 sizing were used to outpace the previous record of 1:04.192.

“We’ve seen the new SCX rear tire start to drop lap times across the nation, so these records are no surprise,” said Oscar Solis, Senior Racing Manager, Pirelli. “Stefano [Mesa] has a new weapon of choice with the SCX and we’re glad that he continues to put his trust in the Pirelli brand. He always manages to make this look easy, but we know it’s not. Congrats Stefano!”

Mesa is now the third different Pirelli rider to earn an absolute motorcycle track record in 2021 and the first to do so twice. Pirelli continues to remain the motorcycle tire of choice for North American riders looking to reach the top step of the podium and log fast laps at events and series that do not have a spec tire rule. Reward prizes are offered to riders who set a new motorcycle track record while using Pirelli race compound tires.

For more information about the complete line of Pirelli motorcycle tires, please visit Pirelli.com

Life is Nuts, So Let’s Party

We are about to publish a story about the motorcycle boom during the Covid era. It’s interesting how our industry flourished when the world was shut down.

I’m about to finish a Life and Times piece about our move to the Badlands. I’m hoping it will help others, who are grappling with similar decisions. It was a stressful challenge but well worth every box of crap we hauled out here.

I’m working on a Cantina Episode, a few bike features, and a girls of bikernet feature.

In the meantime, ride free forever!

–Bandit

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