Wednesday Morning Moto News from Around the Industry

We are back to Wednesday now - just a few more days left this year - and there is some news. One thing to keep in mind is that many people consider this the end of the first decade of the 21st century. They are wrong, unless the first decade is only 9 years long, as there was no year 0. That means that 2001 was the true beginning of the 21st century and the end of this decade will be midnight, 31 December 2010. It's simply absolute fact.

So, in that spirit, we have a list of the most important motorcycles of the first 9 years of the 21st century. On this list are bikes which you may or may not agree with, but the author believes that this is the list. I have to say that there are at least five bikes there which could easily be replaced with other models. Anyway, go and take a look and see if you agree.

http://tinyurl.com/yfe34v6

Now, a lawsuit has been settled which Harley-Davidson (a very litigious manufacturer) brought against family-owned Ridley Motorcycles. It seems that the lawyers up at H-D considered the 'Auto-Glide' transmission on the Ridley bikes to be too close to Harley's own 'Glide' series. So, now the David in our story has been slain by Goliath and Ridley will no longer use the name. Ridley will also no longer be making motorcycles - at least it appears that way since they have now filed for bankruptcy protection and have some serious debt (much of it coming from the fight with H-D; thank you so much H-D for ridding the world of another manufacturer, bastards!)

http://tinyurl.com/ykvrbb5

http://tinyurl.com/ye822uy

Also, Hiroshi Aoyama will be running the number 7 in MotoGP next season. He already lost his 4 due to Dovizioso already having it in the series, so he changed to 7 now that Vermeulen has left. He is doing it to honor Daijiro Kato, the Japanese MotoGP rider who died in a horrific crash at Suzuka in 2003.

http://tinyurl.com/yfqsh9a

And, it is now possible that Malaysia's Sepang Circuit could loose the MotoGP event at that track. The contract with the MotoGP management runs out next year and negotiations are under way now. This could also limit Malaysian racers' chances of getting into the series as full-time participants, so this has some far-reaching effects. I sure hope they get things nailed down before the 2010 Malaysian GP!

http://tinyurl.com/yjea86g