2009 Honda Rebel Motorcycle on 2040-motos

Moto blog

2014 MotoGP Qatar in Pictures

The opening round of the 2014 MotoGP season is complete, and if the Grand Prix of Qatar is any indication, it looks like it’ll be an interesting season. If you haven’t yet, read up on the recap for the Qatar MotoGP race for the details on what transpired at Losail International Circuit in Doha. Here then are some of the (mostly spoiler-free) photographs from the Grand Prix of Qatar, including images from the MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3 classes.

Bahrain track days

A few months ago, expat (and ex racer) John Beddall made contact to ask if I fancied doing some track day instruction out in Bahrain.  After thinking about it for two seconds, flights were booked and a plan was put in place to look after around forty riders for a day at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).  Young Taylor Mac was also recruited to look after any tasty riders that I couldn’t deal with   The Brits out there love their bikes, however, quite a few locals also turned up plus a few others from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  Most were on high end Superbikes, like S1000s, Panigales and RSV4s but there was also a healthy number R6s and new 675Rs.   Although this fabulous Hermann Tilke designed circuit is around ten years old incredibly it has never hosted a bike race.  The highlight of the year there is F1 but being owned by the Bahrainian Royal family, there is no desperate need for the circuit to operate as a profitable business.  The track reminded me of Qatar but much more interesting as some great undulations have been built into its desert location. We shared the track with Supercars on the day (20mins on/20mins off) and as you might imagine it was betty swollocks for seven hours in the 30 plus temperatures.  As usual there was a few offs with poor old RS1000 Aprilia mounted Andy breaking his femur early in the day.  Two other buddies appeared to swap bikes mid air in another incident but fortunately escaped unhurt.In the evening everyone stayed for an al fresco dinner in the paddock with the craic going on for hours as the Fosters kept flowing.   All in all it was a brilliant trip and it has left me thinking there could be cost effective ways of getting Brits out there for track days next winter.  I'll keep you posted.Cape Town next to make my racing comeback at the Killarney 8 hour on a CBR150 Honda.  Hopefully I can manage the beast, I'll post a full report next week.

Nissin ABS Modulator Recall Explained in NHTSA Documents

Earlier this month, we published news about an issue with certain Nissin anti-lock brake system modulators that have been connected to recalls in Canada and Japan from Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki, with the possibility of it expanding to further models and manufacturers using the same component. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has now released documents from American Honda’s recall of ABS-equipped CTX700 and CTX700N that shed some more light into the issue. According to the documentation, a manufacturing error may have resulted in Nissin ABS modulators being contaminated with aluminum chips.