With a year to go before the 13th AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building is staged at INTERMOT ‘Customized’ in October 2018, advance entries have already broken through the 40 mark, with competitors signed up from some nine different countries already.
Royce Rath, one of the people injured when a race-modified Indian motorcycle that was being ridden on stage by Roland Sands at the Buffalo Chip (Sturgis Rally in 2016), has filed suit against Sands, Indian Motorcycle owner Polaris Industries and Buffalo Chip Campground LLC, having suffered permanent disability, medical expenses and the loss of wages and earning capacity.
Bosch claims that V-2-V technology has the potential to prevent one-third of motorcycle accidents – incidents where the car driver didn’t see the motorcycle or vice versa.
A unique offering will take place in Las Vegas on January 27, 2018. The iconic Excelsior-Henderson brand and all its intellectual property will be auctioned at the 27th annual Mecum Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction at the South Point Hotel and Casino. Included in this purchase are the ownership of the Excelsior-Henderson brand name, 10 federally registered trademarks, web domains, previous motorcycle frame and engine designs, as well as 18 expired patents that can only be effectively exploited by the owner of Excelsior-Henderson.
In motorcycle terms, registrations of motorcycles in the EU reached 520,846 units during Q2 2017 (-4.9% compared to Q2 2016). Italy is currently the largest motorcycle market in Europe with 124,913 units registered in Q2 2017 (+6.6% compared to the same quarter of the previous year). Motorcycle registrations also increased in France (91,494 units, +2.6%), but decreased in Germany (88,322 units, -12.3%), Spain (67,373 vehicles, -8.1%) and the UK (53,549 units, -13.4%).
Royal Enfield, which proudly claims to be the world’s oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production, has opened a third factory in India. Citing increasing demand for its mid-sized bikes and no doubt eying its entry into the 750cc class, it takes the company’s combined production capacity to 825,000 units a year. Royal Enfield is reported to have made over 667,000 motorcycles in its 2016/2017 financial year. The Indian firm’s U.S. operation is headed up at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin headquarters by ex-Harley man Rod Copes.